The Chance You Won’t Return (Candlewick, 2014) by Annie Cardi is a hard to put down story.
Alex Winchester’s mother is delusional–she thinks she’s Amelia Earhart. Junior Alex is trying to hold things together at home while her father is at work. She makes sure her younger siblings get up for school, fixes meals, and tries to make sure Mom says in the house. She can’t tell anyone what’s going on. Meanwhile, there’s Jim, who’s helping her get over her fear of driving, and might be her boyfriend. But as Mom worsens and Alex spends more time with Jim, Alex is disappearing from her own friends’ lives. She’s got to watch her mother so she won’t totally disappear just like Amelia Earhart did.
Author Annie Cardi is also a short story writer. Read more about her at her website where she also has an active blog. Annie is represented by agent Taylor Martindale Kean, whom I met this past weekend. I loved seeing Taylor’s enthusiasm for her author’s books.
Category: YA Novels
young adult novels (for 13+ yo)
Ship Breaker
I’m late to the party on this award winning book–it won the 2011 Michael L. Prinz award (go here to see more awards), but perhaps you missed it too. (original hardback cover on the left, paperback cover on the right)
Ship Breaker (Little, Brown and Company, 2010) by Paolo Bacigalupi took me into a believable future world with an age old story of kids doing what they have to to survive. I found it fascinating and, at times, heartrending.
Nailer works on a light crew stripping wires from rusting ship hulks. It’s dirty, dark, and dangerous. When he goes home, he has to be equally cautious depending on the mood of his brutal father. A hurricane in the gulf changes his luck. Or does it?
I want to know more about this world. Fortunately, there’s a companion book, The Drowned Cities, that I can read next. It came out in 2012.
I’m not sure how I missed this author–Mr. Bacigalupi writes adult and YA fiction. Check out his books on his website.
Uprooted
The first book I read in 2016 was appropriately a Christmas gift. It’s not technically a YA, however, the main character is 17, so I’m putting it in that category for my readers.
Uprooted (Del Rey, 2015) by Naomi Novik captured me from the opening sentence: “Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley.” This time Agnieszka and the whole village know that her best friend Kasia will be chosen since she is so special. And Agnieszka hates the wizard for that future action. It doesn’t matter that he protects them from the Wood. Or that this happens every ten years as payment. But Agnieszka is wrong about what will happen.
The book was hard to put down, and had believably scary monsters. This fantasy will stick with me and I’m hoping the author will write a sequel.
Naomi Novik is the author of another series, the Temeraire novels. I’ll have to check them out. Read more about the author and her books at her site.
Not in the Script
Not in the Script (Bloomsbury, 2014) by Amy Finnegan is a fun read from the If Only line.
Emma Taylor is a young actress that knows relationships with her co-actors end badly. Jake Elliott hates modeling, and takes an acting jobs only as a means to get where he wants to go. As a reader we get to see both of their viewpoints and get an insider’s look into Hollywood.
This book is the author’s debut novel.
I also enjoyed reading how author Amy Finnegan’s writing story began here. And her “not in the script blog tour post of most reread books” here. (Great, now I have some new titles to try which I figure will be wins since I like so many she listed!)
All the Bright Places
All the Bright Places (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015) by Jennifer Niven is a difficult story to put down whether you are in Finch’s viewpoint or Violet’s. Is today a good day to die? Theodore Finch asks himself. Then he realizes he’s not alone on the ledge of the school’s six-story bell tower. He saves Violet Markey from falling and lets her save face by taking credit for saving him, the Freak. These two become partners in a school project, then more.
It’s an emotional story of relationship between two unlikely teens. I don’t want to say more and ruin the story for anyone. Let’s just say it’s a very good read. (My concern for younger students reading this is that the sex appears to be unprotected.)
The cover seems over simple, but so fits the story.
The book is going to be made into a movie and I bet will be popular like John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. Read more on the author’s website.
Jennifer Niven has also written historical and nonfiction books as well as YA–she’s got quite the range. See details here. I’m definitely going to check out her Velva Jean books.
I enjoyed the About Jennifer page and think you will too.