What YA book are you reading RIGHT NOW?

Cassandra Claire's Clockwork Prince. To think, I used to read her Harry Potter fan fiction and now she's a sensation!

I'm still reading The Hunger Games series. I say "still" because I seriously started the first one in, like, July. I'm 3/4 of the way through Mockingjay. Maybe I'll finish it one day.

pixydust said:

Read Angelfall by Susan Ee yesterday. In five hours. That's one hookable book!

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I'm reading that right now, in smaller chunks. I'm into dark, dark stuff, and I don't love it as much as I love Feed or the Chaos Walking trilogy, but I like it quite a bit. The main dude kind of has a Han Solo sardonic voice, and inappropriate as that may seem for an angel, I'm totally into it.

I also like how Ee has a sense of place and tells us how various Bay Area landmarks have fared postapocalypse. And how she gives her heroine a background in martial arts rather than just making her kickass 'cause she's the heroine. (One of my pet peeves in action movies is untrained people who suddenly fight like black belts.) Style-wise, it reads a lot like The Hunger Games (strong heroine with family orientation and clear mission, first person present tense, fast pace), but the dark territory it's getting into is very different, and I'm not sure where it's going.

My main reaction, though, is: Why self-publish this book? It seems incredibly marketable, but that may show how little I understand the market. The last time I read an angel-themed YA book was in the '80s. (That was The Darkangel, in which the "angel" was actually a hot bad-boy vampire who lived on the moon. Meredith Ann Pierce was ahead of her time.)

Anyway, I wonder if Ee bothered to try the traditional route, or chose self-pub on its own merits.

Fuchsia Groan said:

The last time I read an angel-themed YA book was in the '80s.

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You missed a big angel trend several years ago. Perhaps that's why the author chose to self-publish, once the trend passed, agents started rejecting angel books. Just a theory.

I've started DARK PARTIES by Sara Grant, which is a YA dystopia about a girl living in a society covered by a Protectosphere (think giant energy button) who starts to rebel when she realises that people are disappearing. It's got quite a literary feel to it and it's reminding me a little of PRETTIES by Scott Westerfield but the heroine (so far) isn't a ninny, which is encouraging.

MM

Just finished The Adoration of Jenna Fox. It was a good concept and I liked the style, but it didn't really feel like a story. There wasn't much of an ending. Or a plot, for that matter.

Now I'm 100 pages into The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. I was really excited to read this, but it feels so...amateur. Especially the romance.

Jellicoe Road. I'm reading it because YOU GUYS said it was so good. (Okay, not "you guys", but, yanno, a lot of people). So far, I'm having to push myself to keep going. What is it??? There better be a great payoff LOL

I'm currently reading Kiera's Quest: Awakening by Kristy Brown. It's pretty good so far!

Chrissy said:

Jellicoe Road. I'm reading it because YOU GUYS said it was so good. (Okay, not "you guys", but, yanno, a lot of people). So far, I'm having to push myself to keep going. What is it??? There better be a great payoff LOL

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There is. Just keep reading.

Chrissy said:

Jellicoe Road. I'm reading it because YOU GUYS said it was so good. (Okay, not "you guys", but, yanno, a lot of people). So far, I'm having to push myself to keep going. What is it??? There better be a great payoff LOL

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It's a hard book to get into, I think. But once you do, it's definitely worth it.

Getting ready to start Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker.

Chrissy said:

Jellicoe Road. I'm reading it because YOU GUYS said it was so good. (Okay, not "you guys", but, yanno, a lot of people). So far, I'm having to push myself to keep going. What is it??? There better be a great payoff LOL

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It's definitely worth it!

My teen daughter finished reading Impossible by Nancy Werlin last night. Usually she doesn't talk much about what she reads, and if I ask questions she'll just say a book was "good." This morning, though, she was chatting away about Impossible, and I ended up pulling out Simon and Garfunkel's greatest hits so that we could listen to Scarborough Fair, which inspired the novel. : )

I recently finished Sing Me to Sleep by Angela Morrison--a very sweet contemporary romance/tear-jerker. I enjoyed it much more than a couple of popular, heavily-promoted titles I've read recently.

Smish said:

It's a hard book to get into, I think. But once you do, it's definitely worth it.

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Absolutely. The first time I tried to read it I got through about 2 pages and put it down. Then I tried again and LOVED it. It's still my favourite book (apart from HP) and makes me cry every time I read it.

Finally got my copy of The Fault in Our Stars.

Finished Destiny's Fire and now onto Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma.

CROSSED by Ally Condie

I hate to say this because I really loved MATCHED, but... wow is this ever slow.

Someone please tell me it gets better in the second half.

3verneath.

I was so looking forward to this book because of the idea of an updated version of Hades/Persephone and Orpheus/Eurydice, but it just wasn't what I expected. The mythology cobbling between Greek and Egyptian wasn't smooth, and honestly all I could think was it reminded me of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I finished it, and the book's strong point is definitely in the ending (wrenching, if somewhat obvious) but the time skips that made up the main portion of the story just didn't work for me.

I have a few coming in via Amazon... I'm going for the harsh stuff. I want to see how far author are willing to go in writing about abuse since I'm working on a story with abuse.

I have Impulse by Ellen Hopkins, Target by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson. Then I have softer reads such as Harry Potter #2 and in my to-read list I have a variety... which I shall not began to list!

Just finished The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab...pretty good!

Loved The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson!!!

I'm reading ASHFALL by Mike Mullin. I'm really loving it. I know I'll read the next in the series. I believe it's called ASH WINTER. It's just a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Lydia Sharp said:

CROSSED by Ally Condie

I hate to say this because I really loved MATCHED, but... wow is this ever slow. I'm just a tad more than half-way through and it's been 90% backstory/10% forward moving plot. The world building has been given more importance than the story. It feels like the characters are in the situations they are in just to explain to the reader how the dystopian society came into existence.

I'm almost at the point of DNF, but that would mean giving up on the whole series, too, so I'm sticking it out.

Someone please tell me it gets better in the second half.

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I liked it. Can't wait for the third book.

See, I wasn't too much of a fan of MATCHED. Much preferred Delirium by Lauren Oliver. Very excited for Pandemonium.

Finished Imaginary Girls and really enjoyed it. Onto Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick. Don't judge me - I actually enjoy the series!

breaking_burgundy said:

Now I'm 100 pages into The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. I was really excited to read this, but it feels so...amateur. Especially the romance.

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I just started this, love the first few chapters - very compelling.

I'm nibbling/gobbling my way through my list of 2011 Debuts. I just finished Clarity by Kim Harrington (page turner, paranormal mystery, very nicely done!) and am now moving on to Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton. I just barely started it so now I mostly just know that the protagonist has a hair color that others find odd.

My favorite debut of 2011 is still Veronica Roth's Divergent. Loved, loved, loved it. I am a sucker for dystopian, and she just did such a great job with it.

Story Siren's List of 2011 Debuts: http://www.thestorysiren.com/2010/11/2011-debut-author-challenge.html

There's one for 2012 too =)

breaking_burgundy said:

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Now I'm 100 pages into The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. I was really excited to read this, but it feels so...amateur. Especially the romance.

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Kats said:

I just started this, love the first few chapters - very compelling.

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I'm also reading it right now and I'm honestly a bit meh about it. Only a quarter or so in and I'm enjoying it, but the plot feels fairly predictable at this point. The romance is actually the least of my problems. Other than that the author seems to fell compelled to consistently point out the LI's British accent...