YA books

So I've been a YA kick lately, wondering why books like the ones I'm reading now didn't exist while I was a teenager? It's interesting that while I was in that age bracket I was reading fiction and now that I'm older I want to go back and relive the teenage years (and I never liked high school...go figure)

I was talking about it with a friend the other day and came to the conclusion that what I enjoy must be the heightened emotion of it all. I'm sure we can all go back in our memories and recall how do-or-die everything seemed at the time. When you're in high school that's all that exists, the bubble of the school and friends around you. In a way that's what I like about reading YA, the emotions and drama is all heightened in that special teenager way and then on top of that most YA books now have some paranormal element going on - so add that to the already drama-filled plot and you usually have a really exciting read!

Conveniently for me - or maybe not considering my spending lately - there is currently a sale going on at Chapters and I'm debating between the following books:

The Truth about Forever, by Sarah Dessen

Sixteen-year-old Macy Queen is looking forward to a long, boring summer. Her boyfriend is going away. She's stuck with a dull-as-dishwater job at the library. And she'll spend all of her free time studying for the SATs or grieving silently with her mother over her father's recent unexpected death. But everything changes when Macy is corralled into helping out at one of her mother's open house events, and she meets the chaotic Wish Catering crew. Before long, Macy joins the Wish team. She loves everything about the work and the people. But the best thing about Wish is Wes—artistic, insightful, and understanding Wes—who gets Macy to look at life in a whole new way and really start living it

  

It's not Summer Without You, by Jenny Han

Can summer be truly summer without Cousins Beach? It used to be that Belly counted the days until summer, until she was back at Cousins Beach with Conrad and Jeremiah. But not this year. Not after Susannah got sick again and Conrad stopped caring. Everything that was right and good has fallen apart, leaving Belly wishing summer would never come.
But when Jeremiah calls saying Conrad has disappeared, Belly knows what she must do to make things right again. And it can only happen back at the beach house, the three of them together, the way things used to be. If this summer really and truly is the last summer, it should end the way it started--at Cousins Beach.

 The Summoning, by Kelley Armstrong

After years of frequent moves following her mother’s death, Chloe Saunders’s life is finally settling down. She is attending art school, pursuing her dreams of becoming a director, making friends, meeting boys. Her biggest concern is that she’s not developing as fast as her friends are. But when puberty does hit, it brings more than hormone surges. Chloe starts seeing ghosts–everywhere, demanding her attention. After she suffers a breakdown, her devoted aunt Lauren gets her into a highly recommended group home.

At first, Lyle House seems a pretty okay place, except for Chloe’s small problem of fearing she might be facing a lifetime of mental illness. But as she gradually gets to know the other kids at the home–charming Simon and his ominous, unsmiling brother Derek, obnoxious Tori, and Rae, who has a “thing” for fire–Chloe begins to realize that there is something that binds them all together, and it isn’t your usual “problem kid” behaviour. And together they discover that Lyle House is not your usual group home either…

                                     Haven, by Kristi Cook

One month into her junior year, sixteen-year-old Violet McKenna transfers to the Winterhaven School in New York’s Hudson Valley, inexplicably drawn to the boarding school with high hopes. Leaving Atlanta behind, she’s looking forward to a fresh start--a new school, and new classmates who will not know her deepest, darkest secret, the one she’s tried to hide all her life: strange, foreboding visions of the future.

But Winterhaven has secrets of its own, secrets that run far deeper than Violet’s. Everyone there--every student, every teacher--has psychic abilities, 'gifts and talents,' they like to call them. Once the initial shock of discovery wears off, Violet realizes that the school is a safe haven for people like her. Soon, Violet has a new circle of friends, a new life, and maybe even a boyfriend--Aidan Gray, perhaps the smartest, hottest guy at Winterhaven.

Only there’s more to Aidan than meets the eye--much, much more. And once she learns the horrible truth, there’s no turning back from her destiny. Their destiny. Together, Violet and Aidan must face a common enemy--if only they can do so without destroying each other first.

I've read **and reviewed** the first in Jenny Han's Summer trilogy, and only gave it 3.5 stars, but the story has stuck with me since I closed the page and as I said in my review I was intrigued by the characters (whether I liked them or not) and I want to know what happens next for Belly, Jeremiah and Conrad. 

I've read Bitten, the first in Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Underworld series, which is an adult horror series, and my friend picked up her Darkest Powers trilogy, The Summoning being the first in the series. I wasn't sure I wanted to read it, but after reading Bitten and hearing how intrigued my friend was by the prologue I now have it on my list!

I've only read one other novel by Sarah Dessen, who writes about average teen girls facing the ups and downs of life. Her voice is clear and concise and I appreciate that she doesn't tip-toe around things like teen drinking, drug use and sex. These books are geared towards older teen readers for sure, but they depict real teen issues and well developed characters. 

Finally Haven is a book I came across in the bookstore the other day and the premise is right up my alley.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.