This list was pretty hard to trim down. I felt guilty every time I cut a book! As usual, I tried to stick to young adult titles. Most are fairly recent but a couple go all the way back to the 1980s! ***gasp*** SO old!!! 😉 **Not really in any specific order. I tried and failed so I gave up!**
1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling I don’t know that you can beat this debut! Look at what it did for children’s/young adult literature!
2. Looking for Alaska by John Green When your debut novel wins the Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature you’re probably doing something right! DFTBA!
3. The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan This book made me crush on a demon and not care. #impressive Also, as I gushed in this vlog her writing is beautiful!!
4. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher I put off reading Chris Crutcher because I thought he wrote “sports books.” I did myself a disservice. While his books have sports in them the stories are about more than just playing the game.
5. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare This is one of those books that I want to reread every time I talk about it with someone.
6. Graceling by Kristen Cashore Graceling came out the same day as The Hunger Games. I bought them together and read them within weeks of each other. I immediately began raving about them both. They were my two favorites of the year!
7. Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick This is one of my “go to” books when students don’t know what to read. It has it all, including Renee Albert… who is the hottest girl in eighth grade!
8. Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce The book that started it all! Twenty some odd years later she’s still setting books in Alanna’s world and they’re still fresh and amazing!
9. Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr This is one of the books that really got me reading YA lit again. Such a great start to an amazing series. Also, Seth = hotness.
10. Tithe by Holly Black I may have mentioned once or twice (or fifty times!) that I love Holly Black and her books. Tithe introduced me to a whole different type of fae and I LOVED it!
~*~Jessica~*~
Great choices…especially Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie! 🙂
Annette
Yes, good ones on here. Drums, Girls…, can you believe that’s a debut? Also Tithe, Looking for Alaska, yes, yes!
Erin
Wow, I’ve only read 1 of those! I’m bookmarking this for when I need something to read in the future!
Daisy
Yay for Alanna! I hadn’t realised that was her debut, I love that book!
Andrea
Great list! I had totally forgotten that Tithe was a debut. I loved that novel.
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Anne Bennett
You have some really great YA titles on your list, a few that I included on mine, too. Looking for Alaska is the gold standard of YA as far as I’m concerned.
_Anne
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