Kardashian, K., Kardashian, K. and Kardashian, K. (2011). Dollhouse. NY: William Morrow. While this novel doesn’t technically qualify as a work of young adult literature, its likely YA readership, combined with its “privileged YA” plot, makes it a reasonable addition to this blog. Also, when I saw the Kardashian sisters’ novel on the “new books”…
Balog, Cyn (2011). Starstruck. NY: Delacorte. 244 pages. What started out as a not-too-body-hating fat-girl romance takes a sudden and unexpected turn into the fantastic in Balog’s Starstruck. Then again, the novel is set at the Jersey Shore, and we all know that anything can happen there. When, after four years away, sixteen-year-old Gwendolyn “Dough”…
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds (2011). Incredibly Alice. NY: Atheneum. 278 pages. I had always enjoyed Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s series of books about Alice McKinley, the seemingly average Maryland girl living with her widower father and her older brother. The first novels cast Alice and her family in Quimby-esque terms: the McKinleys were neither rich nor poor…
Dashner, James (2010). The Scorch Trials. NY: Delacorte. 368 pages. I had been waiting for a while to read the second book in James Dashner’s “Maze Runner” Trilogy (the first novel, The Maze Runner, was released in 2009), and was only a little disappointed. When my husband and I used to watch LOST, we sometimes…
Precious and Williams, KaShamba (2006). Runaway. Precioustymes Entertainment. 112 pages. This is the third book in Williams’ “Platinum Teen” series, and features the three teen heroines introduced in the first novel, Dymond in the Rough. This installment of the series stars Kera, one of Dymond’s good friends, and is told from her perspective. After she…
Shiraz, Yasmin (2008). Retaliation. Rolling Hills Press. 264 pages. Author of two motivational books for teen girls of color (Blueprint for My Girls, Blueprint for My Girls in Love, and The Blueprint Guide to Motivation and Success), Yasmin Shiraz has also written two fictional and street-lit inspired novels for adults. Retaliation is her first novel…
von Ziegesar, Cecily (2010). Cum Laude. NY: Hyperion. 272 pages. So I had heard that “Gossip Girl” creator von Ziegesar was coming out with a book about privileged college kids and I was pretty psyched to read it. Enter Cum Laude and, apres le read, I’m a little let down. Focusing initially on Shipley, a…
Conrad, Lauren (2010). Sugar and Spice. NY: HarperCollins. That’s right: I’ve read all three of the books in Lauren Conrad’s “L.A. Candy” series and I’m not in the least bit ashamed. In fact, I rather liked this little trilogy of stories supposedly penned (with a “collaborator”) by the star of Laguna Beach and The Hills.…
Wells, Dan (2010). Mr. Monster. NY: Tor. 288 pages. Oh, man, this sequel to Wells’ 2010 I Am Not a Serial Killer is much more hardcore than the first novel. Following the death of the supernatural serial killer who had plagued his small town of Clayton, fifteen-year-old John Wayne Cleaver continues to struggle with his…
Kerbel, Deborah (2009). Girl on the Other Side. Toronto: Dundurn Press. 151 pages. This short novel by British ex-pat and Canadian Kerbel is a lighter, more Northern Define Normal (Peters, 2003) with a definite anti-bullying message. Told in alternating chapters from the perspectives of the wealthy and popular Tabby and the nerdy and unpopular Lora,…