Friday, August 18, 2017

Fourteen sophomore YA novels even better the authors' first

At the BN Teen Blog Dahlia Adler tagged books by "fourteen authors whose second novels have made it clear they’re only getting better as they go," including:
Some Girls Are, by Courtney Summers

The thing about Summers’ debut, Cracked Up to Be, is that it’s the book that really got me into YA. Until I met Parker Fadley, I had no idea how brutally hilarious and hilariously brutal girls in YA could be, how dangerously clever and cleverly dangerous. So you can imagine how rocked I was by Some Girls Are, about a dangerous girl pitted against her former clique. In its opening, main character Regina is sexually attacked by her best friend’s boyfriend at a party, but when she tells a mutual friend (and fellow Head Clique member) what happened, the girl spins it to make Regina seem responsible for a betrayal, one she’ll pay dearly for. Left with no friends, Regina is on her own in fighting back against her former partners in crime. But there might just be one person left who can put her previous bad behavior behind him, becoming the only guy in school who’s got her back.
Read about another entry on the list.

Some Girls Are is among seven of the best morally complex YA novels, Jenny Kawecki's top six YA novels that "take your stereotypical mean girl and give her agency, motives, an inner life" and Dahlia Adler's top five dark YA novels for Heathers fans and top five YA books told from the bully’s perspective.

The Page 69 Test: Some Girls Are.

--Marshal Zeringue