There’s a literary genre kicking all other genre’s asses and taking over the literary world and TikTok—and I bet you know what it is.
It’s young adult (also known as YA) literature!
While the genre is looked down upon by adult fiction readers (I once had I guy tell me I was too old to be standing in the YA section of a Barnes and Noble), the stories told and created by young adult authors often tackle adult themes in a more digestible, graceful and lyrical way. Accordingly, as the themes become even more complex and the stories more compelling, more and more readers outside of the target audience are devouring the literature.
For example, Amber McBride’s debut novel, Me (Moth), looks at trauma, love, identity and family dynamics in an intense way while specifically geared towards a younger audience. Free Lunch by Rex Ogle examines his experiences with poverty and provides a space for young adults to feel safe—while giving hope for a chance at a better life.
YA fantasy—and adult fantasy—has also taken over the fantastical stratosphere, and Jordan Ifueko and L. Penelope continue their sagas of powerful empresses and queens in the next installments of their series, Redemptor and Requiem of Silence, respectively.
We also get some fantastic non-YA fiction this week with At Night All Blood Is Black: A Novel by David Diop, which made it onto former President Barack Obama’s 2021 summer reading list. The vigilante-style themes of the novel mixed with fantastical elements are bound to keep to you, well, turning the pages (heh).
Please throw out all of the preconceived notions of YA literature, who is “supposed to” read it and pick up some of these titles from these amazing YA novelists.
At Night All Blood Is Black: A Novel – David Diop (translated by Anna Moschovakis) (Fiction)
Peppered with bullets and black magic.
Alfa Ndiaye is a different type of vigilante. Living within the French army barracks during World War I, Alfa watched his close friend die an agonizing death in “No Man’s Land.” Desperate to gain his friend’s forgiveness in the afterlife, every night Alfa sneaks behind enemy lines and murders a blue-eyed German soldier, and every morning he returns to his base, unharmed and with another’s blood on his hands.
In the beginning, his comrades saw him as a hero, but as his routine continued, he began to be seen as a sorcerer, someone capable or harnessing dark magic—a soul eater. A whirlwind of plans and schemes begins to hatch in front of his face and Alfa must figure out how deep the demon within him really is. At Night All Blood Is Black made it onto Obama’s 2021 Summer Reading List selection as Diop depicts a “dazzling tale of a man’s descent into madness.”
August 17, 2021, Picador
Between Two Seas: A Collection of Short Stories – Cerece Rennie Murphy (Young Adult)
What happens when a fairy with a murderous streak, a stubborn explorer, a younger girl determined to change her fate and remove herself from the ugliness of the world, and a father-son duo who hold the power of life and death in their hands end up in one book? A series of “genre-bending” stories interwoven to create a fantastical fairytale and landscape with rich characters, immaculate world-building and beautiful language. Murphy’s characters journey to discover the truth—no matter how terrible—and force them to see the power of change and the power to grow—that is, if they’re willing to do the work to get from where they are now to who they may turn out to be.
August 17, 2021, Lionsky Publishing
Free Lunch – Rex Ogle (Young Adult Nonfiction)
Rex really wants to be normal. He wants to join the football team, he doesn’t want to think about who to sit with at lunch, he doesn’t want to wear hand-me-down clothes and a handmade Halloween costume—and he certainly doesn’t want to be on the free lunch program at school.
But he is.
Rex is stuck navigating the first semester of sixth grade alone, and during the second semester, he’s forced into low-income subsidized housing within view of the school. Free Lunch, winner of the 2020 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award, is unsparing, unflinching and uplifting, and “illuminates the lived experience of poverty in America,” in the paperback release of Rex Ogle’s 2019 book.
August 17, 2021, Norton Young Readers
Me (Moth) – Amber McBride (Young Adult)
Moth is looking for her roots. After her family dies in a tragic accident, she finds herself living with her aunt and pondering the answers to questions that may forever remain unanswered. Sani is also searching for his roots, hoping that if he knows more of where he came from, he’ll know how to keep moving forward—push his way out of depression. Moth thinks if she can help him stay grounded, she’ll be able to uncover the history from within deep in her bones as the two embark on a road trip full of ghosts and searching for ancestors. Amber McBride’s debut novel, Me (Moth) is a beautiful verse written story of finding oneself, first love and how our memories and histories guide us through our place in the universe.
August 17, 2021, Feiwel & Friends
Redemptor – Jordan Ifueko (Young Adult)
The new Empress Redemptor is determined to survive. At least, that’s what she’s telling herself. Now that Tarisai sits on the throne of Aritsar, she must pull together a council, come into her full power as Raybearer and descend into the Underworld. But as her tumultuous beginnings to the throne began to shake out, child spirits begin to haunt Tarisai, she fears the pressure to rule Aritsar is getting together, and she’s forced to face her fears, or die for them.
Redemptor is the long-awaited sequel to the New York Times bestselling novel Raybearer.
August 17, 2021, Amulet Books
Requiem of Silence – L. Penelope (Fiction)
In the fourth installment of L. Penelope’s Earthsinger Chronicles, Queen Jasminda has made it her mission to continue to build the kingdom and build the unification between Elsira and Lagrimar. The True Father, whom they thought was finished with his tirade, is acting out of malicious intent—and may not be acting alone. The army he built cannot be killed, but can only be stoped by Nethersong and the help of friends and enemies alike. Kyara, a former assassin, will discover she’s not the only Nethersinger, and sisterhood novitiate Zeli will travel to the ends of the Living World to find and uncover a secret that just might save the kingdoms.
August 17, 2021, St. Martin’s Griffin
Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be – Nichole Perkins (Essays)
*Yells in Prince* “Pleaseeeeeeeeeeee…” Nichole Perkins took a good look at pop culture and decided she was going to debunk it. Spanning across twenty years, Perkins shows us the ways in which pop culture has impacted her life, her experiences with mental health, guilty pleasures, music and media, all through the lens of a southern Black woman whose only objective growing up was to get married, settle down and have kids. Her vibrant storytelling, wit and knowledge on the subjects make this collection of essays tackle the issues and rhetoric around misogyny. Using her own life as a “unique vantage point,” Perkins takes all she knows about pop culture and the way it’s shaped us and creates a humorous and powerful roadmap of how to “discard the harmful bits” and open ourselves up to a loving and calm future.
August 16, 2021, Grand Central Publishing
The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You: Stories – Maurice Carlos Ruffin (Fiction)
Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s Those Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You is an intimate exploration of characters whose lives intertwine in unexpected ways. The stories, which are each character-driven, center on history and culture that is deeply rooted in New Orleanian culture. A woman fights against time and gentrification in her hometown of NOLA, an army vet and a runaway teen find a family within each other while sleeping under a bridge, a group of men try to save an elderly gentleman from his home as waters rose during Hurricane Katrina, and a story titled, “Ghetto University” where a couple in financial turmoil falls into a life of crime.
August 17, 2021, One World
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