#BlackYAMatters
Tag: Young Adult Fiction
My Top 10 Most Anticipated YA Books (2020)
Well, isn’t this perfect timing. It’s summer, I’m out of school (for good! 🥳), and suddenly, all the big YA books are trickling out. The following list is only ten of the many that I’m excited to get my hands on. Mostly contemporary, that being my favorite genre, and some fantasy here and there. I went ahead and included stars to rate my personal excitement, as well as every book’s release date — so mark your calendars! Here we go! Continue reading “My Top 10 Most Anticipated YA Books (2020)”
Mini Review: When Dimple Met Rishi
I had the pleasure of seeing the lovely Sandhya Menon at a panel for the Texas Book Festival, where I first heard of her and her book When Dimple Met Rishi. She was such a delight in person that I made note to read her work. I’d remind myself to get on that every time I saw the book in store or advertised online, but I just never came around to it. Fast-forward to two years later, in quarantine, and needing a good, cheerful read to take my mind off things. This was definitely that. A good, cheerful time with two Indian-American teens navigating love for the first time. Continue reading “Mini Review: When Dimple Met Rishi”
Novel writing anxieties.
Cause of today’s anxiety: My master’s thesis (aka, the YA novel I’ve been trying to write since 2016, aka, the apple of my eye, aka, the bane of my existence) being due in one week.
Naming characters. *changing name for the tenth time* Should I go for a unique name or an average name? Something with significance or something I choose randomly from a baby names list? Continue reading “Novel writing anxieties.”
Mini Review: Opposite of Always
I love Groundhog Day. I love About Time. And oh man, I love the Supernatural episode “Mystery Spot.” (🎵 Heeeeat of the moment 🎵) So I was bound to love the time-travelling trope thrown into a swoony YA romance. I’d seen the pretty cover of Justin A. Reynolds’s Opposite of Always floating all over the place, and I finally found the time to read it. Or hear it, I guess, since I experienced the story with Audible. The voice actor brought protagonist Jack’s charm to life, making it so easy to fall into this world. And phew, I fell running. Continue reading “Mini Review: Opposite of Always”
Double Feature: The Start of Me and You & The Map from Here to There
Somehow, in the black hole that is the YA Fiction community, I missed the name Emery Lord. She made her debut in 2014 with contemporary novel Open Road Summer and pounded out four more novels after that. It was the 2017 romance When We Collided that finally got her on my radar. Funny, heartwarming, and achingly raw, WWC takes first love and intertwines it with themes of grief and mental health — themes very much needed in the YA genre. Continue reading “Double Feature: The Start of Me and You & The Map from Here to There”
Double Feature: The Hate U Give & On the Come Up
To say that this review is long overdue is an understatement. Author Angie Thomas skyrocketed to YA superstardom back in 2017 when her debut novel The Hate U Give was released. The novel was then adapted into a movie starring Amandla Stenberg in 2018 (which, spoiler alert, was freaking great). Even now, in 2019, the book is still relevant because it is comfortably placed in the #1 spot of The New York Times YA bestsellers list. Continue reading “Double Feature: The Hate U Give & On the Come Up”
Sara Bechtol 