Ten (plus four) Great YA Books I Read This Year

Ten + Four Great YA Books I've Read This Year (Because how do I cut four books from this list?)

Part 3 of my Blogoversary Week Posts

These are the YA books I gave five stars to during my first year of blogging, arranged alphabetically.  Please note these are not necessarily books RELEASED in this time period, just books I happened to read for the first time during the past twelve months.

• Ball Don't Lie by Matt de la Peña
• Boy 21 by Matthew Quick
• Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
• The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
• Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans by Don Brown
• Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

Simon is being all weird and won't participate in the collage.  See, I still have more to learn!

• How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon
• I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios
• Made You Up by Francesca Zappia
• The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
• Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
• Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
• The Truth Commission by Susan Juby
• Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler, illustrated by Maira Kalman

And no, I cannot pick a favorite from that list. Made You Up has my favorite cover, for what that's worth.

After writing about diversity in books earlier this week, I notice that I have only three books by non-white authors on this list.  On a more satisfying note, I also notice that six books feature major characters who are not white, five books feature mental or physical differences, and one has GLBQT themes.