What is Amy Reed reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Amy Reed, author of the gritty Young Adult novels Beautiful, Clean, and the recently released Crazy.

Her entry begins:

I just finished reading a little gem of a book, The Children and the Wolves, by Adam Rapp, which was released recently as a Young Adult novel from Candlewick Press. It’s short, raw, terrifying, disturbing, and absolutely magical. Rapp is also the author of one of my all-time favorite Young Adult novels, Punkzilla, which was a 2010 Printz Award honor. Both books are about broken kids who have been orphaned by civilized society and have pretty much gone feral. Rapp’s books are not for everyone—they deal very frankly with drugs, sexuality, and other things that can make parents and school boards nervous--but they’re the kind of books I love. His writing is haunting, lyrical, dark, and very, very true, told by voices I’ve never heard before. He’s brilliant and critics love him, but he’s not widely known, and I sometimes wonder if his work is misplaced in the YA genre, if maybe it is too literary. Maybe it’s just too good.

I know people in the YA community will hate me for just saying that. We have a bit of inferiority complex, which is...[read on]

About Crazy, from the publisher:

He’s falling in love—and she’s falling over the edge of sanity. From the author of Beautiful and Clean, a heartwrenching exploration of a romance marred by mental illness.

Connor knows that Izzy will never fall in love with him the way he’s fallen for her. But somehow he’s been let into her crazy, exhilarating world and become her closest confidante. But the closer they get, the more Connor realizes that Izzy’s highs are too high and her lows are too low. And the frenetic energy that makes her shine is starting to push her into a much darker place.

As Izzy’s behavior gets increasingly erratic and self-destructive, Connor gets increasingly desperate to stop her from plummeting. He knows he can’t save her from her pain...but what if no one else can?

Learn more about the book and author at Amy Reed's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Writers Read: Amy Reed (October 2009).

Writers Read: Amy Reed (August 2011).

Writers Read: Amy Reed.

--Marshal Zeringue