At the New Year I mentioned my kiddos are getting a bit old for MG lit. They're transitioning into YA, which is kind of like thrusting your hand into a can of earthworms.
Contemporary YA stories, across genres, often follow what my daughter calls the "sex sandwich" -- the Main Character, a teen, has sex or very close to it for the first time with someone totally unworthy who dumps them, then spends the rest of the book finding self worth and value through some other activity (insert all kinds of intellectual and / or artistic college/career pursuits here) and miraculously meets the "right" person by the end of the book, generally the same person who helped the MC along the way, with whom they have sex or darn near close to it or resolve to have sex at a later date.
She isn't looking for her life's partner or soul mate at the grand old age of 16 and doesn't enjoy that storyline. I don't particularly enjoy reading it either so ...
I'll be hunting for other types of YA to read but I have no idea what I'm going to find. I'm going to end up reading a LOT I never post about here, because I won't like it or my daughter won't like it and I don't / won't write about books I can't recommend.
RESULT: Reviews in this category will be infrequent, not regular like the MG Books category. Don't count on one a week.
NOTE: NOTHING in this category is to be understood as recommended for a middle school classroom unless I specifically write that it is. If I don't, it isn't. Period. Because I'm not ruling out books with romance, or that deal with violence, or abuse, or war atrocities, or a ton of other conflicts that older children are capable of reading independently and processing on their own but younger students would need significant teacher or parental guidance. My daughter and I have read a few books that were heart-string tuggers and I didn't review before but now I will because I created this YA Books category.
Of course, if you have titles to recommend I'm open to suggestions. But I make no promises to review anything I don't feel I can recommend here.
We hope you enjoy and keep reading, always!
