Top Books for Young Adults

Our wall of Top Tens got expanded to Top Fifteens a little while ago now, with the exception of our Young Adult list. With our original 20 books for teenagers we had, loosely, 10 for boys and 10 for girls. We’re having a really hard time deciding how many to add, and what books! So even though we haven’t finished deciding what books to add to the twenty we can all agree on is these;

Five Books for Teenager Boys AND Girls

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

(The link above will take you to our other blog, where this review is)

Six Impossible Things by Fiona Wood

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

Dreaming of Amelia by Jaclyn Moriarty  – also on the other blog

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rebecca Cohn and David Levithan

We haven’t blogged about all of these but rest assured someone, often more than one of us, has read them and loved them! Just ask us in store if you’d like to hear more. 3 out of the 5 are also by Australian authors. Go Aussie.

Ten Books Teens Need – Girls

The Fairfield Books staff have been gathering our favourite children’s books, divided into categories according to age with 10 books in each. So far we have blogged about our top 10 books for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, first readers, juniors and tweens. We have finally arrived at the category we found most difficult – teens. With so much great literature out there for the 15+ age groups, reducing the choices down to just 10 sparked heated debates and in the end was just too hard! So we have 20 best books for teens, 10 for girls and 10 for boys. Don’t be limited to one category however, while the books in each might be slightly more boy or girl orientated, all are fantastic reads.

So here are the first 10, our top picks for teenage girls – enjoy!

The Year the Gypsies Came by Linzi Glass

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Emma by Jane Austen

So Much to Tell You by John Marsden

Peeling the Onion by Wendy Orr

Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty

When You Wake and Find Me Gone by Maureen McCarthy

Touch Me by James Moloney

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Dreaming of Amelia

A star of Australian young adult fiction, Jaclyn Moriarty is back with a look into the minds of a group of teenagers as they finish Year 12. The blurb will tell you this is the story of Amelia and Riley. It is told from the perspectives of Emily, Lydia, Toby and Riley and tells their stories as well as Amelia’s, and a few others on the side.

Amelia and Riley are the new scholarship students at Ashbury, a private school in New South Wales. At first they may be the slightly strange truants but then they’re talented, intimidating and mysterious. Just like that, they’re the kids everyone wants to be, or befriend. Emily was the first on the bandwagon, obsessed from their first day, and one of her best friends, Lydia, seems to be the only one immune to their charm.

Interestingly, the book is excerpts from their end-of-year English exam (write a gothic story that talks about first impressions) and a term 3 English assignment (tell the story of Term 2 as a ghost story). With a few blog excerpts thrown in for good measure, this style keeps you guessing whats fact and whats fiction. These are kids are on the brink of adulthood facing ghosts, time travel, romance and lies; it sure is a hard one to put down.  Young adults will enjoy this one, whether year 12 is in the past or the future.

Unputdownable, recommended for young adults age 15 and up.

-Steph.

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