Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Texas Library Association announces their picks for best YA books of the year!

It's December, so it's time for everyone and their brother, sister, mother, cousin, uncle, and/or neighbor to make their Best Of lists for the year! Below are the Top Ten best YA novels of the year according to the Texas Library Association.  For the full TAYSHAS list click this link. Want to know what's the best of the bestest in graphic novels? Check out TLA's Maverick list here.

 All the Truth That's in Me by Julie Berry YP FIC BERRY
Four years ago, Judith and her best friend disappeared from their small town of Roswell Station. Two years ago, only Judith returned, permanently mutilated, reviled and ignored by those who were once her friends and family. Unable to speak, Judith lives like a ghost in her own home. But when Roswell Station is attacked, long-buried secrets come to light, and Judith is forced to choose: continue to live in silence, or recover her voice, even if it means changing her world, and the lives around her, forever.


You can find it in our catalog here.


The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black YP FIC BLACK
Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret.  Tana enters a race against the clock to save them by going straight to the wicked heart of Coldtown itself.



You can find it in our catalog here.


The Wicked and the Just by Jillian Anderson Coats YP FIC COATS
In medieval Wales, follows Cecily whose family is lured by cheap land and the duty of all Englishman to help keep down the "vicious" Welshmen, and Gwenhwyfar, a Welsh girl who must wait hand and foot on her new English mistress.







You can find it in our catalog here.


 
Ask the Passengers: A Novel by A.S. King YP FIC KING 
Astrid Jones desperately wants to confide in someone, but her mother's pushiness and her father's lack of interest tell her they're the last people she can trust. Instead, Astrid spends hours lying on the backyard picnic table watching airplanes fly overhead. She doesn't know the passengers inside, but they're the only people who won't judge her when she asks them her most personal questions . . . like what it means that she's falling in love with a girl.




You can find it in our catalog here.


 
Reality Boy by A.S. King YP FIC KING
Gerald Faust started feeling angry even before his mother invited a reality TV crew into his five-year-old life. Twelve years later, he's still haunted by his rage-filled youth--which the entire world got to watch from every imaginable angle. No one cares that Gerald has tried to learn to control himself; they're all just waiting for him to snap. And he's starting to feel dangerously close to doing just that...
 



You can find it in our catalog here.
  


Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg YP FIC KONIGSBE
Tired of being known as "the gay kid", Rafe Goldberg decides to assume a new persona when he comes east and enters an elite Massachusetts prep school--but trying to deny his identity has both complications and unexpected consequences.







You can find it in our catalog here.

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth LaBan  YP FIC LABAN
The story of Tim Macbeth, a seventeen-year-old albino and a recent transfer to the prestigious Irving School, where the motto is "Enter here to be and find a friend." A friend is the last thing Tim expects or wants. Yet, despite his efforts to blend into the background, he finds himself falling for the quintessential "It" girl, Vanessa Sheller, girlfriend of Irving's most popular boy. To Tim's surprise, Vanessa is into him, too, but she can kiss her social status goodbye if anyone ever finds out.
  

You can find it in our catalog here


Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell YP FIC ROWELL
Set over the course of one school year in 1986;this is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love—and just how hard it pulled you under.

 



You can read my glowing review of it here. You can find it in our catalog here


 Winger by Andrew Smith YP FIC SMITH
Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old junior at a boarding school for rich kids. He's living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers, and rooming with the biggest bully on the rugby team. And he's madly in love with his best friend Annie, who thinks of him as a little boy. Against the odds, Ryan Dean manages to survive life's complications and even find some happiness along the way. But when the unthinkable happens, he has to figure out how to hold on to what's important, even when everything has falls apart. 

You can read me raving about it here. You can find it in our catalog here

 
 
Are You Experienced by Jordan Sonnenblick YP FIC SONNENBL
On the 45th anniversary of his uncle Michael's death, Rich Barber, an overprotected 15-year-old, travels back in time to Woodstock. There, he meets Michael for the first time-and gets to know his strict father as an enthusiastic teen. Rich also runs into rock star legends , inadvertently ingests psychedelic mushrooms with his father, and learns about the pressures Michael is under, including trying to protect his brother from their terrible parents.



You can find it in our catalog here.

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