Fiction | Readers Be Advised

Best of 2023: YA romance

Coming up on young adult literature for the best of lists for 2023 was too hard so I had to create several categories including today’s romance, nonfiction, and fiction (but I’ll also throw in a few bonus titles too). Romance is having a moment and I’m here for it!

There are some names that wouldn’t surprise you to be on the list along with some newcomers. Each spans the categories of magical realism to realistic, features queer and straight characters, and even representation such as in the Deaf community, Judaism, and women in medicine (from way back!) Indulge!

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 20, 2023 in Authors, Cover Love, Fiction, Reflections, Young Adult

Best of 2023: Middle grade

19 Dec

… and today is middle grade, which was probably the hardest top ten to make. As with all of my top ten lists of the year, these are all books published this past year that were read and enjoyed.

The overwhelming statement of these middle grade were *chef’s kiss* one liners, paragraphs, and pages that readers can go back to revisit whether it’s a snarky gecko sidekick like in The Spirit Glass or Maldonado’s emotionally charged reading of Hands. Words have power.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 19, 2023 in Audiobooks, Authors, Fiction, Middle grade, Reflections

Best of 2023: Picture books

18 Dec

It’s that time of year again! I’ll have a week’s worth of posts about best books of 2023, minus books for adults because they’ve had to be secret this year because of the committee work I’m doing.

As always, my books are always based on the publication year. So these are truly my favorites of the year published IN the calendar year, not what I read this year which could include oldies or even galleys of future books.

Tonight I’ll be sharing picture books.

What do they all have in common? A beauty in their storytelling and a powerful message be it nonfiction or imaginary. Either way I could spend my time staring at each page or going back to pour over the words.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 18, 2023 in Childrens, Fiction, Illustrators, Nonfiction, Reflections

Looking for love? Look no further than the library

28 Nov

Wouldn’t it be adorable to meet your significant other in a library? Of course it would but that’s not what I mean. I just mean that today I had fun recommending more romance titles to a student who came back having loved Elise Bryant’s Reggie and Delilah’s Year of Falling that I had recommended to her and was looking for others.

Unfortunately, the other Bryant titles didn’t come in from our new order, but there were others. I recommended Dustin Thao’s You’ve Reached Sam— a student favorite– and because it was also newly-arrived, J.C. Cervantes’ Always Isn’t Forever.

Looking for love? Look no further than the library! There are plenty more where it came from.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on November 28, 2023 in Authors, Cover Love, Fiction, Young Adult

Over this next year

24 Nov

The day before Thanksgiving I turned the page to chapter 40 (a bookish pun I couldn’t resist). Coming up on the day, I thought about the fun little things I could do to make it special because I was excited about moving to another age bracket. So I came up with a list of 40 books that I would reread this year– generally books I own because books I own are books that I had previously read and knew I needed to own.

But I admit that I rarely reread books. It’s either a committee assignment that forces a book reread, an upcoming author visit, or in the case of Saga, a comfort read during the pandemic. It’s still rare. Yet, I wanted to recapture the feelings I had years or decades ago with this retrospective over the course of this upcoming year.

These books have changed my thinking, warmed my soul, or hearken back to another time in my life. I’ll be updating my journey periodically on Instagram. Here were the books I settled on.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on November 24, 2023 in Adult, Authors, Childrens, Comics, Cover Love, Fiction, Graphic novels, Illustrators, Manga, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Poetry, Reflections, Style, Verse, Young Adult

Fueled by audiobooks

20 Nov

Last year I was training for a 15K in the summer which would lead to running my first half marathon in the fall. Eight years ago I would have laughed at you if you told me I was going to be a runner. And seven years ago, I would have laughed (as I did my friends and colleagues) if you told me you listened to audiobooks while running. Because I was decidedly *not* a runner, I could only imagine getting pumped up to run with music.

Fast forward to last year’s training and I couldn’t imagine running WITHOUT an audiobook. I’m sure there were mornings where I ran farther because I didn’t want to stop reading. And even now, now that we’re also dog owners again, the daily walks also include audiobooks if I’m not walking with another family member in addition to any running I do. Here are a few of the memorable audiobook runs and walks.

This was my first ever audiobook run. You can never go wrong with Steve Sheinkin’s nonfiction.

My first Colleen Hoover book was this audiobook while running. Spicy!

Nugent’s Little Cruelties was so complicated, deliciously messy, and screwed up (in all the best ways) that I remember my eyes bugging out a little while I was running. What was I listening to?!?!

Beautiful storytelling and a vivid setting combined to immerse me in a mystery that absolutely took me to another time and place. I definitely ran longer than I had planned to keep reading.

This poetry collection includes nature sounds while the the multiple narrators share the poetry and while you’re actually walking in nature, it was captivating.

When books are memoirs, you need to have an audiobook narrated by the author. This one was not only perfectly executed as an audiobook, but it also spoke to me on a deeper level that I ended up buying the book to own in addition to listening to it a second time.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on November 20, 2023 in Adult, Audiobooks, Authors, Fiction, Miscellaneous, Nonfiction, Young Adult

Romance, romantasy, & cuteness

18 Nov

In a recent professional development, the portmanteau romantasy was dropped and in the last 48 hours I’ve used it and seen it used in publisher emails. With the publication of certain new titles that are making book nerds swoon, it has officially entered the lexicon heavily. Then there are the romance titles which have been heavily requested for the last several years. And happy love stories that lay on the cuteness. Here’s a short list of some favorites in the three categories:

A First Time for Everything by Santat– cuteness
You Bet Your Heart by Parker– romance
Always Never by Lafebre– romance
Julieta and the Romeos by Andreu– romance
Horimiya by Hero– romance
The Princess and the Grilled Cheese by Muniz– cuteness
Ryan and Avery by Levithan– romance
Fangs by Andersen– romantasy
Check & Mate by Hazelwood– romance
Crumbs by Stirling– romantasy

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on November 18, 2023 in Adult, Authors, Comics, Cover Love, Fiction, Graphic novels, Illustrators, Manga, Middle grade, Young Adult

New book smell

17 Nov

Finally the boxes arrived! We had a teaser box come the day before- the final box of the order arriving before the first set of boxes were shipped. Of all of the books in the boxes, I’ve been looking for one in particular– volume three of Fangirl: The Graphic Novel who has had an eager reader asking daily about when it will arrive. So my first free moment today, I started tearing into the nine boxes. Can you guess which box had the book in it? You’re right, the LAST box I opened.

Knowing that we have a set of ninth grade classes coming in tomorrow for their second round of books for independent reading, I wanted to try to get as many stickered as possible so we can lend as many as we can. Simply because nothing beats that new book smell.

Among the newly published, repurchases, and additional copies– some of my favorites that I spied in the boxes include:

Anatomy by Dana Schwartz
Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
The Hate U Give and On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Death Note volumes 1-13 by Tsugumi Ohba
The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson AND Carrie by Stephen King
Always Isn’t Forever by J.C. Cervantes

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on November 17, 2023 in Authors, Fiction, Graphic novels, Manga, Young Adult

Forecasting

16 Nov

I don’t have a crystal ball and I don’t have visions, but I do have my friend and co-presenter Stacey, dozens of books read, and lists to forecast for the upcoming Youth Media Awards.

Last night I spent several hours with librarians, reading teachers, and other specialists talking about the Youth Media Awards and putting together predictions. It included a Kahoot to open, a break for dinner, then a K-12 discussion of books to put on our radars or preliminary thoughts of titles that have been read from the group. It was a good, bookish night that even after a day of work is uplifting and enriching.

We’ll follow up virtually in January to discuss the winners, honors, and losers.

What’s on your list?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on November 16, 2023 in Audiobooks, Authors, Childrens, Events, Fiction, Graphic novels, Illustrators, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Young Adult

Six from Sunday

13 Nov

Sunday is for housework, so there’s always an audiobook playing whether a new one, middle of one, or finishing one up. So first was finishing up the audiobook If You Still Recognize Me by Cynthia So, a YA featuring GLTBQ characters, friendship estrangement, and Cantonese culture.

The second was finishing a short story collection I recently borrowed from the public library called Night of the Living Queers edited by Shelly Page and Alex Brown, a few weeks past spooky season, however it was still a smart read featuring GLBTQ characters and all sorts of creepiness.

Third was finishing a nonfiction title recommended by a colleague in a recent professional development session called Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom Kelley and David Kelley. Inspiring and thought-provoking.

Fourth was Deb Caletti’s newest Plan A which I wanted to get through ahead of professional development session I’m going to be running in the next few days as it’s a timely read on abortion for a teen audience.

In between halves for my son’s indoor soccer team, I threw in a short read, my fifth– a WhoHQ title that was just delivered– What Do We Know About the Winchester House? by Emma Carlson Berne to which I could safely answer before I read it… nothing! But now I know something.

And I started a sixth before bed: Kate Pearsall’s Bittersweet in the Hollow with the gorgeous cover and intimidating quote “beware the forest”.