FanFare

Hello! Welcome to the chat post for the YA and Middle Grade October book club. The extended post includes an update to our reading schedule for this month. [more inside]
posted by CMcG on Oct 15, 2024 - 3 comments

The second book for the September Middle Grade/YA fanfare book club is a twisty mystery from Holly Jackson. [more inside]
posted by CMcG on Oct 1, 2024 - 4 comments

Here’s our place to chat about all things reading and life! [more inside]
posted by CMcG on Oct 1, 2024 - 0 comments

Here's our space to chat like one would at an IRL bookclub. [more inside]
posted by CMcG on Sep 13, 2024 - 3 comments

I am launching a middle grade and YA bookclub on Fanfare and Fantalk. You can see the full schedule here. This month we will be reading: [more inside]
posted by CMcG on Aug 31, 2024 - 0 comments

After the death of his father, a boy growing up on a lunar mining colony takes a trip to explore a legendary crater, along with his four best friends, prior to being permanently relocated to another planet. [more inside]
posted by 2N2222 on Sep 18, 2023 - 5 comments

Bright, talented Julie Ann Meyers, making a promising start in high school, finds herself a victim of epilepsy and feels herself suddenly detached from friends and family and her life changed [more inside]
posted by miss-lapin on Aug 5, 2023 - 0 comments

Murder most fowl? In this sardonic and campy YA thriller, an anxious, introverted nonbinary teen birder somehow finds themself solving a murder mystery with their neighbor/fellow anime lover, all while falling for a cute girl from their birding group . . . and trying not to get murdered. [more inside]
posted by johnofjack on Jul 23, 2023 - 1 comment

Author Tiffany D. Jackson ramps up the horror and tackles America’s history and legacy of racism in this YA novel following a biracial teenager as her Georgia high school hosts its first integrated prom. [more inside]
posted by johnofjack on Jul 16, 2023 - 2 comments

Little Ash, a lesser son of the famed demon king Ashmedai, studies Talmud all day with his counterpart, a forgetful angel, in the synagogue of a tiny Jewish town in the Pale of Settlement. But Little Ash wants to see more than their unnamed shtetl: He convinces the angel to go to America, ostensibly to find out what happened to Essie, the baker’s daughter who hasn’t written since she left Warsaw. Steeped in Ashkenazi lore, custom, and faith, this beautifully written story deftly tackles questions of identity, good and evil, obligation, and the many forms love can take. Queerness and gender fluidity thread through both the human and supernatural characters, clearly depicted without feeling anachronistic.
posted by latkes on Jun 19, 2023 - 5 comments

There is an epidemic of ghosts in Britain. Their touch brings death, and only children have the power to fight them. Lucy Carlyle, a young psychic investigator, joins London's smallest agency, run by the charismatic Anthony Lockwood and his ever-hungry assistant George Cubbins. Together the trio must investigate some of the spookiest and deadliest spectral hauntings in the city, armed only with the tools of the ghost-hunting trade (magnesium flares, iron filings, chains and salt bombs), their courage and a thermos of tea. Ghosts and ghouls beware! [more inside]
posted by EllaEm on Apr 19, 2023 - 6 comments

16-year-old Henry has been regularly abducted by aliens since he was 13. But now they've given him a job. The earth will be destroyed in 144 days unless Henry pushes a button to stop it. It seems like an easy choice, but Henry hasn't been digging life lately. His boyfriend committed suicide last year, his best friend dropped out of his life too, his dad left years ago without saying goodbye, and his mom is an alcoholic chain smoker trying to get by on a waitress' income. His brother is a sadistic bully who just dropped out of college and moved back home because his girlfriend is pregnant. School is no better. Henry is doing poorly and is a target for the bullies there too, including the popular "straight" kid who he is secretly hooking up with on occasion. Henry isn't seeing any reason that the world should continue on in 144 days. He might be doing the world a favor by putting everybody out of their misery. Will he find a reason to push the button? The book gets into big issues of depression, mental health, self-worth, friendship, relationships, and bullying as Henry navigates the 144 days of his life before the world lives or dies on his command.
posted by COD on Apr 6, 2023 - 1 comment

Moth is a teen grieving the loss of her parents and brother in a car accident that only she survived. She feels unseen at school and home. Sani is the new kid in town stuck with a stepdad that has no use for a Navajo stepson. Moth grew up schooled in Hoodoo traditions by her grandfather. Sani is schooled in Navajo customs by his Medicine Man father. Together they decide to ditch their Virginia suburban town and head west on an epic road trip of self-discovery and healing. This outstanding YA debut novel is written in free verse and touches on grief, depression, family, self-identity, and first love; while weaving Hoodo and Navajo mythology throughout the story. The ending will make you want to go back to the first page and re-read it immediately. The book was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for young people's literature.
posted by COD on Apr 5, 2023 - 0 comments

Struggling to survive with her father after the collapse of Earth's ecosystem, 13-year-old Vesper must use her wits, strength and bio-hacking abilities to fight for the future.
posted by porpoise on Feb 19, 2023 - 4 comments

Based on Jonathan Stroud's young-adult book series of the same name, Lockwood & Co is set after "The Problem" unleashed all sorts of night-time ghosts and hauntings, leading to the establishment of Agencies that employ supernatural-sensitive children to remove unwanted entities for a fee. The story follows a renegade trio of talented young agents with their own unlicensed psychic detective agency as they try to make a living in a very depressed London, while also trying to figure out the cause of the problem. All episodes are currently streaming on Netflix.
posted by autopilot on Jan 31, 2023 - 30 comments

Best friends Sophie and Agatha find themselves on opposing sides of an epic battle when they're swept away into an enchanted school where aspiring heroes and villains are trained to protect the balance between Good and Evil.
posted by restless_nomad on Oct 24, 2022 - 8 comments

Honor's sole focus is getting into Harvard. Willing to do whatever it takes, Honor concocts a plan to take down her top three competitors, until things take a turn when she unexpectedly falls for her biggest competition. [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer on Oct 22, 2022 - 1 comment

In Lena Dunham's movie adaptation of the YA book: "A 14 year old girl in medieval England navigates through life and avoiding potential suitors her father has in mind." Perhaps taking cues from Marie Antoinette and The Favourite, Birdy explores coming of age in 13th century Stonebridge Manor, interrogates women's place in society there and then (and here and now), and rebels against its social strictures with irreverent wit and verve as she experiences heartbreak and loss -- but also glee and delight -- with friends and family along the way to a (somewhat) unconventional comedic conclusion.
posted by kliuless on Oct 7, 2022 - 7 comments

A YA love story set in 19th-century Scotland, where a willful female surgeon in training and a resurrection man (who sells bodies for a living) uncover buried secrets together. [more inside]
posted by gemmy on Feb 19, 2022 - 3 comments

A YA medieval fantasy featuring an unusual and transformative friendship between a whip smart and deeply religious young girl and a local witch. Super weird, transporting, beautiful.
posted by latkes on May 4, 2021 - 7 comments

First in a planned series of YA Space Fantasy novels about Tina Mains (secretly a clone of an alien space-hero), her crew of teen smarty pals, and their adventures aboard an intergalactic spaceship in their battle against evil. Swashbuckling space battles, romance, evil space fascists, and friendship above all!
posted by latkes on May 1, 2021 - 3 comments

High School senior and bookworm Clara got to school early on the first day of her senior year because she volunteers in the library. She discovers that over the summer the tony private school she attends has banned 50 books, including her very favorite book by her favorite author, which she has just stayed up all night reading before getting zero sleep and coming to school. So Clara does the only logical thing, she starts an underground library loaning those books from her locker. [more inside]
posted by COD on Jan 23, 2021 - 1 comment

Opposites attract at Christmas as cynical Dash and sunny Lily trade messages and dares in a red notebook they pass back and forth around New York City. (Netflix, YA book adaptation) [more inside]
posted by oh yeah! on Nov 12, 2020 - 11 comments

Blade never asked for a life of the rich and famous. In fact, he’d give anything not to be the son of Rutherford Morrison, a washed-up rock star and drug addict with delusions of a comeback. Or to no longer be part of a family known most for lost potential, failure, and tragedy, including the loss of his mother. The one true light is his girlfriend, Chapel, but her parents have forbidden their relationship, assuming Blade will become just like his father. In reality,... [more inside]
posted by COD on Feb 23, 2020 - 0 comments

A family in need of a fresh start. A mysterious old manor. With the turn of a key, they'll open doors to a magical--and dangerous--new world. (Netflix, IDW comics adaptation) [more inside]
posted by oh yeah! on Feb 8, 2020 - 19 comments

After the Lockes move into Keyhouse, Bode makes a new acquaintance--and a startling discovery. Tyler and Kinsey try to start over at a new high school. (Netflix original, IDW comic book adaptation) [more inside]
posted by oh yeah! on Feb 7, 2020 - 7 comments

The AI from Kritzer's Hugo Award-winning short story "Cat Pictures, Please" is back at novel length -- along with "a group of teenagers who have found friendship and community online, never realizing that one of their online friends is actually an artificial intelligence." The author describes it as a "technothriller YA (young adult) novel about friendship, online community, AIs (artificial intelligences), robots, hacking, sex ed, and road trips". (I'd add: queerness, monstrous humans, art, dealing with cops, and being embarrassed by your parents.) Here's an excerpt (the second chapter of the book).
posted by brainwane on Nov 30, 2019 - 3 comments

17 year old Australian Che Taylor just got relocated to NYC (by way of Asia) by his hippie pacifist parents. He’s a boxer that isn’t allowed to spar, a 17-year old boy desperately in need of a girlfriend, and he’d really rather be back home in Sydney. But all of that pares in comparison to his real problem. He is pretty sure his 10 year old sister Rosa is a psychopath that will kill somebody sooner rather than later. The parents are totally disconnected, or so he thinks, so he takes it on himself to try to protect the world from his sister, while at the same time trying to lead a normal 17-year old’s life. That is the set up for the totally engrossing novel. It’s a suspenseful, downright creepy psychological thriller that manages to address the nature of psychopathic behavior (nature vs. nurture), parenting, teenage relationships, religion, gender identity, and class differences, all within the framework of a totally entertaining novel that will keep you up late trying to finish the book.
posted by COD on Aug 26, 2019 - 1 comment

Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me. MONSTER. FADE IN: INTERIOR COURT. A guard sits at a desk behind Steve. Kathy O'Brien, Steve's lawyer, is all business as she talks to Steve. O'BRIEN: Let me make sure you understand what's going on. Both you and this king character are on trial for felony murder.... [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura on Jul 8, 2019 - 1 comment

Beneath the Sugar Sky, the third book in McGuire's Wayward Children series, returns to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children in a standalone contemporary fantasy for fans of all ages. When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.) If she can't find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests... A tale of friendship, baking, and derring-do. [more inside]
posted by dinty_moore on Jul 8, 2019 - 11 comments

This is the first book to be discussed by the Nostalgic YA Book Club! Catherine, a spirited and inquisitive young woman of good family, narrates in diary form the story of her fourteenth year—the year 1290. A Newbery Honor Book.
posted by ChuraChura on Jun 20, 2019 - 6 comments

I think maybe one book every week (two weeks?) is reasonable? New books on Thursdays? [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura on Jun 13, 2019 - 19 comments

Award-winning Rachel Hartman's newest YA is a tour de force and an exquisite fantasy for the #metoo movement. "Tess of the Road is astonishing and perfect. It's the most compassionate book I've read since George Eliot's Middlemarch." --NPR In the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons can be whomever they choose. Tess is none of these things.
posted by snerson on Nov 30, 2018 - 2 comments

Would anyone in the Potter reread club be interested in adding in Rainbow Rowell's Carry On once the series re-read is completed? It's so directly a meta-commentary on the Potter storyline that I'd be curious to see what people think, and I know from threads on the blue that at least a few of the mefite Potter fans have read it. [more inside]
posted by Wretch729 on Mar 7, 2016 - 3 comments

Bubble Shock is a new drink that is taking the world by storm. It's strangely addictive and everyone's drinking it. Sarah Jane is so fascinated by the phenomenon that she is almost oblivious to the arrival of her new neighbour, 13-year-old Maria Jackson, a young girl starting a new life with her father.
posted by zarq on Jun 13, 2014 - 2 comments