Parenthetical

Happy New Year! We get a new President in a few weeks, I’m now officially 30, and I just got home from celebrating my nth New Year’s in a row with dear friends in snowy New Hampshire. All else is immaterial.

Except books, of course! The new year is traditionally a time for “best-of” lists, and this blog is no exception. These 5 books have the whole package: believable, endearing characters; stories that keep me turning pages; humor that doesn’t work too hard; real moments of gut-wrenching emotional intensity; sheer can’t-put-it-down-ness. They have solid literary chops and are worth a look even for those of you who think you don’t read YA.

My 5 favorite YA novels I read this year are:

Graceling, by the lovely and talented Kristin Cashore
As Katsa, a young woman Graced with fighting ability, and her new friend Po unravel a mysterious kidnapping, it leads them to the dark secret behind a distant king’s rule. If you love fantasy, adventure, romance (…do I sound like the grandpa in Princess Bride yet?), and especially if you are one of those who shows up at my house and says, “Sam! Feed me good YA!” (you know who you are)… well, consider yourself fed.

An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green
After being dumped by his 19th girlfriend named Katherine, a former child prodigy and his slacker best friend take a road trip in search of adventure, romance, and themselves. Whether you think you like YA or not, read some John Green this year. You can thank me later.

Double Helix, by Nancy Werlin
Eli discovers that his new boss, a famous geneticist, has a mysterious past which is somehow entangled with Eli’s own. Creepy science mystery, with bonus points for familiar Cambridge settings!

The Off-Season, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
DJ Schwenk, the only female football player in Wisconsin, has her life complicated further by a boy, an injury, her family farm’s financial troubles, and a terrible accident (among other things). DJ is one of my favorite characters in YA lit. This is a sequel; read Dairy Queen first. (Ooh, apparently the third DJ book is coming out next fall! Also, Murdock’s sister is Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat Pray Love fame. Who knew?)

Kiki Strike: The Empress’s Tomb, by Kirsten Miller (annoying sound/Flash animation alert!)
The further adventures of Kiki Strike, “butt-kicking girl superspy,” and her band of “delinquent Girl Scouts” as they solve another mystery in the tunnels under New York. This is younger and therefore a tougher sell for adults who don’t already love YA, but if you read a lot of Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden as a kid — or if there’s a badass 10-14-year old girl in your life who needs a present — give Kiki and her Irregulars a whirl.

(I didn’t include any of the Cybils nominees in this list — not because there weren’t a few that would have been in the running, but because they’ve already been whittled down to top-5 lists of their own.)

Thanks for the title, Brian!

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