#Teen Lit

[formulaheart]

There's something so special about the first book of some teen series. The Darkest Minds? It was a found family road trip before the shit hit the fan. One of the most comfortable things I'd ever read as a 14 year old. The Raven Boys? Youthful shenanigans with a side of magical ulterior motives. The Thief? A Good Girls Guide to Murder? Cinder? Percy Jackson? By the time you get to the end of almost any series you're so far in that you forget they were ever kids and that it was ever okay and that anything was ever unimportant. But the magical thing about the first book is that for just a brief moment nothing is deep and very little is complicated and everything hurts less than it will in the future.

[rottensaladtongs]

I wonder if @jimbenton knows the impact he had on young sapphic girls

[esmesqualor-not-esmecullen]

October Book Recommendation

I devoured What Stalks Among Us by Sarah Hollowell. It's a timey-wimey YA horror novel with Annihilation vibes.

Note that when you inevitably stay up way too late to read it, you will start thinking you see things in the dark.

[moonandmustache]

Review: “Jam” by Akwaeke Emezi

OVERVIEW

For this category, I selected Pet by Akwaeke Emezi. Depending on which review you happen to choose this book might be categorized in a couple different ways–horror, magical realism, or fantasy. I think it’s fair to describe it as any of these genres but the first description I saw was “magical realism” and I’d never read a book from that genre and was intrigued. (According to Encyclopedia Britannica, magical realism is “chiefly a Latin-American narrative strategy that is characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction.”) Additionally, this was one of my “diverse perspective” picks as the main character is Black, transgender, and selectively mute. The author, Akwaeke Emezi, is Nigerian.

RELEVANCE

This book is very age-relevant as it focuses on teens and themes very relevant to middle- late-adolescence. The narrative focuses on Jam, a 15-year old trans girl, her best friend, Redemption, and their two families. Teens will find the story relatable as it deals with topics very relevant to them such as establishing independence from parents, asserting agency, finding/defining chosen family, and the challenges of maintaining friendship. It also addresses larger personal and societal issues such as abuse, revenge, morality, and good vs evil as well as the gray areas in between.

In the story, Jam accidentally summons a being from a painting her mother makes by accidentally bleeding on it. The manifested being, a chimera-like entity who calls itself “Pet,” announces that it has been summoned to right a wrong in Jam’s world by hunting a monster (loosely defined as someone corrupted by hatred, bigotry, or fear) and it asks for Jam’s assistance. In Jam’s near-future pseudo utopian town there are supposed to be no more monsters as all of them were rehabilitated long ago in a revolution before she was born but she loves her community dearly and cautiously agrees to help, nonetheless.

DIVERSITY/INCLUSION

As I touched on earlier, this book is highly diverse. The main character, Jam, is Black, trans, and a selectively mute individual who communicates both verbally and with sign language. Jam’s mother is from (I think) Trinidad and her father is from Africa. Throughout the story they speak in a sort of creole English and many scenes incorporate their cultural foods and/or customs. Her best friend Redemption’s parents are a polyamorous thruple, one of which identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. Another peripheral but significant character uses a wheelchair. There is A LOT of diversity in this book but none of it feels forced and most of these facts about the characters are mentioned very casually in ways that feel natural.

DIVERSE BOOKS WITH SIMILAR THEMES

Schrieve, Hal. (2019). Out of Salem. Triangle Square.

Calendar, Kacen. (2022) Moonflower. Scholastic Press.

Ness, Patrick. (2013). A Monster Calls. Candlewick.

White, Andrew Joseph. (2022). Hell Followed with Us. Peachtree Teen.

Badger, Darcie Little. (2020). Elatsoe. Levine Querido.

[honiebeam]

Book cover reveal!

Artwork for “Thomas Creeper and the Purple Corpse” a YA fantasy filled with ghosts, crypts, and all sorts of spooky adventures by the wonderful author J. R. Potter!

👻The Purple Corpse will be published by Black Rose Writing on 6.15.23!

[theteenquotes]

[laurastudarus]

Readers don’t need to look much further than English class standards like The Outsiders and Judy Blume’s one-woman cottage industry of iconic characters for accurate coming-of-age stories. (A fact underscored by Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’s long-awaited film adaptation, which is poised to introduce Blume’s book to a whole new generation.) But for fans of the genre, it’s worth noting: We are amidst another golden age of teen literature.

(via Welcome to the New Golden Age of Teen Literature)

[dorr-township-library]

What is your favorite Young Adult novel? 

[enter-the-phantom]

First review of 2023 is The Luminaries by Susan Dennard!

[splattered-ink]

"It hurts."

"Where?"

"My soul."

[quackquackcey]

the feral wind that lit him ablaze: Chapters 1 & 2 up!

Rated E | Updates Mon, Wed, Fri | 11 chapters total

🔥 moodboard by @triskhellion for @sterekcollabang! 🔥 mass murderer Derek x FBI Stiles 🔥 magical Stiles, banter, murder husbands sterek

Tags: Canon Divergence | Alternate Hale Fire (Teen Wolf) | Evolved Alpha Derek Hale | Magical Stiles Stilinski | FBI Agent Stiles Stilinski | Prisoner Derek Hale | Eichen House | Murder Husbands | Anchors | Mates | Banter | Some Humor | Action & Romance | Stiles Stilinski Has Secrets | Possessive Derek Hale | BAMF | Top Derek Hale/Bottom Stiles Stilinski | Shameless Smut | Knotting | Face-Fucking | Prison Sex | Shower Sex

Summary:

Read here on AO3!!

[fy-perspectives]

“Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”

David Foster Wallace, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

[esti3]

R☆ckstar

[suv-draws-stuff]

troubled old people my beloveds (also omagah its lanyon)

[wnq-writers]

November is not just a month. November is when everything starts to fade; when ghosts are not just costumes, but the shadows around us; when it’s not december yet, not Christmas, fairy lights and snowflakes yet, but it’s not october anymore, not pumpkins, runs through maize fields, bright colored leaves anymore. November is a limbo, not bright enough but not muffled enough. How funny that I was born in the middle of this limbo.

iit

[futuretherapoo]

I'm sorry but I don't think you understand... When I say "love", I'm referring to the "I want to split my soul and give you half of it, not just because it'll let me be close to you forever but also because it's only ever been yours to begin with and will always be." Kind of love.