Friday Top 5: Young Adult Fiction

Our children's department (located in what used to be the shop next door to Chaucer's) has its own dedicated staff: Lana, Blanca, Rose, and sometimes Jordan and Summers.

When you spend so much time around books for young people, you can't help but become a bit of an expert...

This week, Lana, our teen & young adult literature expert, has listed the very best of the new teen fiction for us.

The Reformed Vampire Support Group
by Catherine Jinks

Think vampires are romantic, sexy, and powerful? Vampires are dead. And unless they want to end up staked, they must stop fanging people, admit their addiction, and join a support group.

A refreshing, funny antidote to the guilty pleasure of intense, doomed romance-y, vampire-themed bestsellers.

If I Stay,
by Gayle Forman

A poignant story about a girl who, after an accident puts her into a coma, spends the down-time reliving the past few days in light of her difficult relationships with her parents and little brother. Soon, the important question becomes clear: will she stay and fight to recover her will to live, or should she let go and slip away?
"Pulls your heart-strings," says Lana.

The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins

We get a lot of people asking us what they should read when they're finished with the Twilight Saga... The Hunger Games is absolutely the right book

Suzanne Collins says the idea for this book is based on the Greek myth of the Minotaur, and the children who were shut inside the labyrinth to feed the monster each year.

Katniss Everdeen is forced to compete against a group of teenagers in a nationally-televised reality show with a twist. In the Hunger Games, contestants aren't voted off the show—they have to fight to win, and only one of them will survive the competition.

Stephenie Meyer (author of Twilight) couldn't put this book down, and neither could we. We get a lot of people asking us what they should read when they've finished the Twilight Saga—they want another addictive, compelling novel to get lost in. Well, if that sounds like you, then The Hunger Games is absolutely the right book for you.

Suzanne Collins hasn't written for teens before The Hunger Games, but her Underland Series is a favorite of the chapter-book set. First book in that series: Gregor the Overlander.

We should also mention—possibly because we've been taking turns staying up far too late to finish the advance reader copy, but we'll deny it if asked—that the sequel to The Hunger Games is due out in September. It's called Catching Fire, and it's every bit as good as the first book.

Hero
by Perry Moore

Life as a superhero is not always easy, especially when you're gay, your father's a has-been, and you haven't even found out what your super-strength is yet.
Lana chose this book, in part, because of its focus on father-son issues.

Killer Pizza,
by Greg Taylor

Mystic Pizza + Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
Maybe, but Lana says this is a great book for teen boys (and we know it can be difficult to find just the right book for young men, especially if they're neither Lord of the Rings types nor into gritty modern novels), so we're ignoring the amusing title.