008: 24 going on 14
The YA edit ft. enemies-to-lovers, French-American boarding schools, and precocious teens
Happy New Year! This holiday season felt strange and delightful, and I’m really looking forward to—at least—the next month. This week, I’m doing something special: we have our very first guest post and it’s for the girlies who watched Let It Snow more than once. My friend Sonja, who has the most infectious and earnest personality ever, is a bit of a YA expert. When we met IRL for the first time last summer, we spent many minutes reminiscing over our favourite YA novels from our teen years and she reminded what a great emotional boost YA can be! She’s put together a *chef’s kiss* list of YA novels you should read now—everyone MUST read Anna and the French Kiss no matter your age, those are the rules! I’ll leave her to it!
What’s the status party people! I’m feeling very honoured that Akosua has asked me to write this YA-themed Consumption Report dispatch partially because I like to think of myself as the unofficial president of the Akosua fanclub, but also because YAs are, in my opinion, the Unbeatable Art. Also this is being written as I’m recovering slowly from a delirious and blitzed New Year’s Eve, which was followed by 24 hours sardined between some friends on a mattress watching all five Twilight films, meaning maybe I’m the single source of truth? Ha ha ha.
The general (read: loose and messy) structure of this episode will consist of what I’ve read, what I’m reading and what I want to read. I have to be honest that I am not even sure if all the books about to be listed are officially considered a YA or if I was just a YA when I read some of them. Frankly I think YA is more of a feeling than it is a genre. It’s a sinking into the indulgence and uh… how do they say… feeling infinite.
I’m not really feeling a huge urge to look up the classification of each book because most of my research for this wonky little list was looking at my childhood bedroom’s bookshelves and responding to what moved me (choosing the tarot cards of this little newsletter spread?).
Anyways, onwards and upwards.
GOLD STANDARD THE BEST OF THE BEST GOOD LUCK LOVING ANYTHING MORE AFTER READING THIS
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend, which is about a very woeful British tween in the early 80s. Adrian is hard not to love even though he’s totally the worst, mostly because of his misreading of what seems like every situation in his life, paired with his confidence that he’s never in the wrong. Ain’t it us all! There’s romance with a chain-smoking middle schooler named Pandora, there’s poetry, there’s intrigue and affairs! Like most people on Instagram these days, he’s a little too obsessed with the state of his dog. Best of all, he loves to have enemies, one of which is Margaret Thatcher. He loves the word “majestic” just like all us intellectuals. No cons, perfect book, it could bring the government to its knees.
Anna and the French Kiss. Awooga!!!!!! A love story to make your heart grow three sizes grinch-style. Etienne is the ultimate crush and the story is set at a boarding school in Paris so I was obviously a goner the second I read the blurb standing in Indigo a decade ago. One of my favourite parts of this book is that Anna, the protagonist, is basically a self-proclaimed cinephile but seems to only watch American films, even while living in France. No complaints, I genuinely think that’s very girlboss of her.
RECENT READS DURING THIS GOD-FORSAKEN YEAR WHERE THE THEME SEEMS TO BE CLIFFHANGERS
Speaking of schools abroad…… we have Maureen Johnson’s Shades of London series, where our protagonist is sent to boarding school in London and after a near-death choking experience, sees ghosts and is recruited into a rag-tag team trying to solve the mystery of a serial killer mimicking Jack the Ripper. The highlight for me here is the multiple HQ PG-13 romances. The only unfortunate con of this book is that we’ve been left on a cliffhanger in the third book. This may not seem that bad until you hear that it was published in 2015. One of my best friends emails Maureen every year to wish her a Happy Christmas and ask when the next book is coming out, so fingers crossed she publishes the next installment simply out of spite and annoyance! It’s not our fault we’re huge fans.
Over the summer I also read These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong, a common BookTok recommendation, which is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in 1920’s Shanghai and so that means I loved it from jump. I’ve realized, in my time in BookTok black holes, that I’m not a fantasy YA girl but I am definitely a mythical YA girl. There’s flappers and mobsters, enemies to lovers, a monster in a river. The only complaints I have is that I felt a little betrayed that my Escapism Art Form tricked me into reading a book that had a plague in it, while we’re still very much in the middle of the plague IRL. It also ends on a cliffhanger because I didn’t realize it was going to be a series (I bought it impulsively) so if anyone wants to book club the sequel that just came out like a month ago, I may quite literally drop everything.
JOIN THE BOOK CLUB?
On that note, I wanted to take a moment to talk about some of the YAs I’m collecting to read or reread in the near future, and an open invitation for any recommendations which I will graciously and gladly take.
The first is the Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman which I’ve actually already begun. I’m trusting this one to satisfy my sci-fi YA needs this next year since it’s about a girl named Nami who dies literally in the first chapter and then joins a rebellion in the afterworld where they need to defeat an AI entity queen figure who’s trying to take over humanity. I’ve been told it has enemies to lovers so…
The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson seems to be a weirdly underground YA, at least in my circles, as I’ve yet to ever meet anyone else who’s read it. It has a cool-azz chosen family consisting of Viennese professors (ok who hacked into my dreams), a fashionable and glamorous retired theatre personality who goes by the name of La Rondine (ok who hacked into my future plans) and some moody and macabre settings like a crumbling castle and surprise, a boarding school. The cover alone can speak for itself in my opinion!
SOME FINAL FLOATING REMARKS
All the best YAs start with a map.
I’m very excited that YAs are becoming more inclusive though there’s a long way to go.
You know when Business-Speak people say that phrase that goes something like “no one has a monopoly on good ideas?” Well I believe that no one has a monopoly on good YA novel ideas. I honestly think every single person on this planet has a really good YA concept stewing.
I want to leave you with a personal favourite YA-related meme:
Anyways, to end on a cliche, thanks for reading if you got this far, thank you for Akosua for letting me share my faves here and please if you are so compelled, send me yours!!! Happy New Year and here’s to many more YAs in 2022! xoxo