Thoughts on Hush, Hush...

I mentioned this book briefly, in my rant about YA a few posts back. Several things prompted me to read it myself--curiosity, plain and simple; my bizarre liking for books that make me angry; my previously mentioned and still relevant belief that if you're going to scold the teachings of any book, you better read it first to hold your ground in your arguments; and the existence of real life teenagers who flock to dangerous partners against all sense and reason, no matter how hard the people who love them try to talk sense to them. This last one became all too real to me after spending some quality time in the court house, on account of my new job. I won't go detail, but I will say that it made it easier for me to see why some girls might pick up a book like this and, unlike me, be able to see themselves in it.

( Read on... )

Some examples of good YA fiction:

Scott Westerfield's Midnighters and Uglies series.
Catherine Jinks's Evil Genius
Koushun Takami's Battle Royale
John Connelly's The Book of Lost Things
Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book

And a couple more I haven't read yet, but boy do they look interesting:
Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacement
Rick Yancey's Monstrumologist

(Cross-posted to glitter_n_gore.)