Tag: young adult | Amy C. Shaw

My Top 10 Book Covers that Scream Summer

May 2, 2017 • 9 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Cover Theme Freebie. I always anticipate summer, though sadly my vacation this year has been delayed until fall (curse you winter sickness!), but nonetheless, there are many summer-esque covers with which to celebrate the upcoming season. Here’s my list of my favorite covers that scream summer, in no particular order.

1. Lucky in Love by Kasie West

I don’t know why the fair makes me think of summer, especially since around here it’s usually more of a fall affair, but I’m gonna roll with it anyway.

2. The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord (hardcover or paperback)

I super love this book and the hardback cover (which I own), but the paperback definitely has a fun summer vibe to it (which isn’t as fitting for the story but I still like it).

3. Wanderlost by Jen Malone

Summer traveling, yes please.

4. Love & Gelato by Jenni Evans Welch

I’ve loved this cover since I first saw it online, but just saw it in person recently and loved it even more. Seriously, just look at the cuteness of the gelato!

5. Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett

String lights + movies + pool = sounds like a great summer to me!

6. It Started With Goodbye by Christina June

More string light love!

7. The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood

I think the only thing that really makes this feel summery other than the name is the bright, saturated colors, but I’ve always been drawn to this cover.

8. The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson also has a fun summer cover featuring ice cream (I’m sensing a theme), but I do like this one more.

9. The Secret of a Heart Note by Stacey Lee

All these flowers just make me think of spring and summer!

10. Even in Paradise by Chelsey Philpot

Dancing on the beach feels pretty quintessential summer to me.

Which of these summer covers are your favorite?

Discussion: “Light” Contemporary YA

April 24, 2017 • 3 Comments

Lately I’ve been on the hunt for more fun, clean contemporary YA, in part because my next story idea I want to get serious writing about falls into this category. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find much in this category outside of Kasie West, though I did recently finish Love & Gelato by Jenni Evans Welch that met the criteria and was an enjoyable read.

As you may have noticed, I have yet to use the word “fluffy” like many would, and that’s because I still want my fun contemporary YA to have substance, and I believe several of them do. The question is, how to insert it without suddenly making your book all about an issue? How do you achieve meaningful character growth when you want to avoid the death of a family member or some other catastrophe that feels more dramatic than what you are really going for? Yes, something needs to happen to make the character grow, but I don’t think it has to be BIG AND DRAMATIC.

I was thinking recently of how Jane Austen’s books were contemporary for her time. She was writing about people in her place and time, and yet her stories have endured. Maybe it’s because the romances felt more original than what we read now (since many rehash hers), I don’t really know. Perhaps it’s a tall order, but I want to figure out how to write a contemporary YA that is fairly light in nature (not an issue book like Thirteen Reasons Why, which has obviously seen enormous success for about a decade now) but can stand out and endure. I’m not expecting it to last hundreds of years necessarily, but I would hate to see anything I might publish one day basically blink out of oblivion within a year or two.

As I think of my adoration of The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord, what comes to mind is how much I love the characters Paige and Max, and love how they come together. To me, it’s just perfect. And that’s the sort of story I strive to write – with characters so lovable that you root for them hardcore and are happy when it all works out in the end, and that in the end it feels like more than just a romance.

What are your thoughts? What are your favorite light YA contemporary reads, and what makes a great one in your opinion? (Please share recs too!)

Book Review: Nora & Kettle

June 20, 2016 • 2 Comments

I had seen some blogging friends express interest in Nora & Kettle, but when the e-book was on sale and I contemplated buying it, I checked Goodreads and noticed none of them had actually read it. The reviews from others on GR really piqued my interest though, so I bought it and read it not too long after. And I’m glad I did.

The pacing of the story is very slow, but the writing is beautiful. It also weaves in some elements from Peter Pan, though it is definitely not a retelling or an adaptation.

In the beginning we meet Nora, a girl who, to the outside world, seems to have a good life, but she’s harboring the secret of her father’s abuse. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to mention the inciting incident, as it happens so quickly, but her mother dies in a freak accident, and suddenly Nora is even more terrified because this means she has to endure her father and shield her sister from him alone.

Meanwhile, Kettle is a poor homeless boy doing his best to take care of other poor homeless kids alongside his friend and “brother” Kin. He takes his life in stride but is haunted by the past he barely remembers – the family who might not have wanted him, his childhood in internment camps, his mysterious mixed heritage. And he deals with the overwhelming burden of trying to provide for himself and others at the young age of 17 and no place to call home.

For more than half of the novel, we go back and forth between these two’s individual lives, with them skimming each others’ paths, but not properly meeting for a while. It’s very drawn-out and not a lot happens, and yet I was invested in these characters. I cared for them and wanted to know what would happen to them and how they would finally meet up.

When Nora and Kettle are finally involved in each others’ lives, it’s interesting to see how they compare and contrast to one another. I will say, however, that this portion of the story was more rushed and didn’t feel fully developed. Nora and Kettle grow interested in each other quickly, which is fine, but it felt more vague than sure, and then suddenly towards the end it seems to get very serious very quickly. However, the climax was really compelling and I think it played out perfectly. I just wanted maybe one more chapter afterwards for more of a final resolution.

Overall, it’s a beautiful story, and I would love to read more about these characters. I know so little about the Japanese internment camps and while this didn’t teach me much more, it did humanize those events for me through Kettle and Kin.

Rating: 4 stars

Trigger warning: domestic violence/abuse

Content advisory: Domestic violence described but not too graphically, some language.

Have you read Nora & Kettle? What did you think?

Mini Reviews: Sci-Fi Edition

March 3, 2016 • 2 Comments

Loop by Karen Akins

Loop is a fun story set in a future where some are known as Shifters, people who are genetically capable of time traveling to the past. Something that really struck me about the book was the rules of shifting (it’s impossible to change the past, you can’t go to the future, etc), the animosity between Shifters and non-Shifters, and the world in general. Even though the genetic ability to time travel part felt impossible, how things unfolded with it being possible felt realistic, and I felt like the technology was a realistic progression.

There are SO many things going on in the story; I don’t know how Akins kept up with all the plot threads! I think everything tied together pretty well in the end, though there are still some unanswered questions that will clearly be dealt with in the next book.

While I really enjoyed the book overall and was impressed with the story, I never LOVED the characters. I do like them, but they’re not new favorites for me or anything.

The end left me ready to read the sequel, Twist, very soon, and looking forward to more Karen Akins projects in the future!

Rating: 4 stars

Stars Above by Marissa Meyer

Of course, any addition to The Lunar Chronicles is a must in my book (and now there are going to be graphic novels what what!). I had always meant to get around to reading some of the stories in this collection before, like Glitches, The Queen’s Army, and The Little Android, but never did, so I was happy for them to be all together in print format! I enjoyed most of the stories, but was still feeling a little underwhelmed until we got to the wedding story.

I think part of this was because the stories were isolated incidents of each character’s life (except I noticed poor Jacin was the only one of the major 8 who didn’t get his own story) and I really prefer it when they are all together. Also, The Little Android, late in the collection, really brought me down. I don’t know how to explain why, but it really put a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t think it’s poorly written, and even though the ending is sad I understand its purpose, but I just couldn’t come to care for it.

And then we had Something Borrowed. I won’t spoil any of the details but it was nice to see everyone come together again. I was enjoying but not loving the story though, but then in the last few pages the feels were strong. For me personally, the culmination of the entire series I had been waiting for actually came down to these last few pages of this short story for me. I know not everyone will agree with this sentiment, just because we are all looking for different things, but I enjoyed it more than the end of Winter, honestly.

Rating: 4 stars

Have you read either of these? What are your thoughts?

Mini Review Roundup

January 17, 2016 • 9 Comments

It’s been ages since I’ve written a real book review (November to be exact), so I thought I was overdue to share a few thoughts on some of my reads from December and my first read of the new year.

Killer Instinct (The Naturals #2) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Contemporary/Thriller YA

I read The Naturals more than a year ago and I was slightly worried about remembering enough about Cassie and company after so much time away (yay book amnesia), but I had no problems getting back into the swing of things! I enjoyed this one even more than the first; I thought the pacing was spot-on and I was engaged the whole time. I hated the love triangle in the first book and I thought I had read in a review that it was even more pronounced in this one, but it actually bothered me less this time. She does choose someone at the end, but since there are at least two more books I’m a little curious if this is her final choice or not. I don’t have a strong preference between the guys but I’d hate for her to go back and forth. Overall though, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the next one!

4 stars/Content advisory: some violence

My True Love Gave to Me, edited by Stephanie Perkins

Holiday Young Adult – Some Contemporary, Some Magical Realism

I finally got to read this anthology this past holiday season and it was definitely a mixed bag for me. You can see my Goodreads review where I broke down my thoughts on each individual story, but I did not finish two of the stories, while a couple of others really stood out to me. My favorite overall turned out to be Stephanie Perkins’ story, which felt appropriate since it’s her anthology, and I was excited to find out that in her upcoming summer anthology, Summer Days and Summer Nights, we’ll get follow-up with the same characters!

3 stars overall/Content varies by story

In Between (Katie Parker Productions #1) by Jenny B. Jones

Contemporary Christian YA

I had gotten the e-book of this one for cheap or free a while ago and let it sit in my Nook for a long time. I had read one previous book by Jenny B. Jones and liked it but didn’t love it. I was also nervous because I feel that most Christian books are either not as well edited or they’re a little on the cheesy side, but I always want to find good Christian literature so I pick up something from the genre every now and then. I wouldn’t really recommend this book to people who are not familiar with church or Christian culture, even though Katie herself is not familiar with many of the terms used by others in the story either, however, I didn’t think it was cheesy at all.

The main character, Katie, has a great voice, and she made me laugh quite a few times! There were several great, quirky characters who felt natural and made the story fun, even with some serious elements thrown in. There was no romance for Katie in this book, which I missed a little but was OK with under the circumstances, but it looks like there will be in future books. There are three more books in the series and I definitely intend to continue!

4 stars

Quidditch Through the Ages (Hogwarts Library) by Kennilworthy Whisp (J.K. Rowling)

I love quidditch, but learning about it wasn’t quite as fun as I hoped it would be. There were some interesting tidbits though, and it was a fast read.

3 stars

The Archived (The Archived #1) by Victoria Schwab

Young Adult

This was my first Schwab book! And it was very different from what I was expecting. I knew this book wasn’t a typical fantasy, but I thought it was going to be more fantasy rather than the contemporary/urban fantasy?/magical realism?/I have no idea what the heck to call this genre it was. That wasn’t bad though, just very unexpected. I had a hard time really grasping the idea of the Archived and Keepers and all that. I mean, it was explained well enough, but I never felt like I really understood why everything existed and why everything was the way it was. Maybe – probably – I was just supposed to accept it as it was, but it didn’t make sense to me.

I liked Mackenzie well enough but she also drove me crazy with how she would never tell anyone anything. The whole thing with Owen was kind of creepy and I did not like it. I did really like Wes though, and he’s pretty much the main reason I want to read the next book.

4 stars/Content advisory: Some language, violence

Have you read any of these books? What are your thoughts?

Tag Archives: young adult

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