YA book recs

[psocoptera]

I just wrote this in Scott Westerfeld's blog but thought that maybe someone over here might be interested too.

Comments

[frogster_15]

Don't forget Airborn by Kenneth Oppel and its sequels. Airships, pirates, and a commoner/rich person pairing, except here Kate de Vries is the rich girl and Matt Cruse is the common boy (who's really a boy) serving on an airship. Alternate science/species is central to the plot as well.

[readingredhead]

Going to second this rec, especially because I'm fascinated with the alternate science going on in this series: it's the part of the world that Oppel has obviously rigorously "rethought" in this alternate universe approach.

Though I didn't get a Deryn/Alek vibe off of Matt/Kate; don't get me wrong, I do love them both as individuals, but to me Kate reads more like a young Dr. Barlow with potentially less supportive parents. And I think that Westerfeld is more interested in Deryn's role in the story than Oppel is in Kate's...in general I would say Leviathan-verse emerges with a more nuanced treatment of female characters (one of the things for which I love it oh so dearly).

Still: these are compelling, and for me they were very fast reads...went through all three of them in ~3 days! :)

[mightyinkas]

I third this rec! I didn't really buy into Starclimber, but it was still fun.

[psocoptera]

Ooh, cool, I'd never heard of these. Will add to my (long) reading list!

[fairest1]

Given our icons, I say Girl Genius. Airships, romance, mad science.

And an anti-rec, because I checked it out thinking it would be like Leviathan: All Men of Genius. The concept seems comfortably familiar -- awesome teenage girl in a steampunk world wants to do the things she's qualified to do but only boys are permitted to try, and disguises herself as a male to pull it off. In this case, Violet disguises herself as her brother in order to enter a mad science school.

She blushes every 30 seconds, is blackmailed repeatedly because she keeps slipping up, says she misses wearing dresses -- not just to dress up on occasion, but for working in the lab -- and hates to swear. Despite the fact that she's 17, she ends up in a romance with the 30-year-old headmaster who stole her work without credit and didn't actually realize she was female until the end.

I managed to avoid throwing it against the wall by picturing Deryn showing up and smacking her upside the head.

[psocoptera]

::sad face:: I had All Men of Genius on my reading list but this does *not* sound promising.

Also, heh, Girl Genius, good call. I sometimes forget that it's suitable to rec to YA audiences because I've, er, read a *lot* of Phil Foglio.(And actually, *non*-YA books that Leviathan readers might like would be another interesting thread...)

[fairest1]

Very much sadface. Also very much not YA, as one of the side characters invents and markets a steampunk vibrator. And the mad science actually crosses a line to become implausible for mad science -- in their first class on animal experimentation, they're pointed to a cage of rats and a pile of snakeskin and told to do a skin transplant. Every single student manages to pull this off within the class period, but then all the rats die because they're frightened to death on waking from the sedative and realizing that they are surrounded by a snake they can't escape from.

Girl Genius . . . I think it's safe. The Foglios have started letting their kids read it. But then those are Foglio kids and not your average audience for YA.

OOH! Just remembered a good one -- Hollow Fields. It's a manga about a girl who gets sent to a mad science school by accident, where she quickly adjusts and begins to enjoy herself, except for the part where the worst student each week gets sent to 'Detention', a punishment from which none has ever returned.

[readingredhead]

Going to second the Tamora Pierce rec if you're interested in young girls with agency going out and being awesome. The Alanna books are the first that come to mind, but I also enjoyed books centered around Keladry (the first is Protector of the Small): she's also a female knight but a generation-ish younger than Alanna, when she doesn't have to cross-dress in order to fight but there is still a heaping helping of institutional prejudice against her. Also going to second the Graceling rec, I absolutely LOVED Katsa!

Another really cool alternate history YA-ish novel with strong female characters and aloof/aristocratic male lead that I read recently was Kate Elliott's Cold Magic. She has described the novel as an "Afro-Celtic post-Roman icepunk regency novel with airships, Phoenician spies, and the intelligent descendents of troodons (which were a small, intelligent, and agile species of dinosaur)"! She's another one with an incredibly detailed backstory to how the universe she's writing in is different from the one we presently live in

[mightyinkas]

I read Ship Breaker, and I didn't really care for it. That may have been a matter of personal taste, though, since I can't remember any specific thing that turned me off of it.

[mightyinkas]

The Beka Cooper series by Tamora Pierce. READ THIS. It's cops and robbers and magic (and a very familiar cat) in Tortall circa 100 years before the Alanna series. These are big fat books with lots of great, detailed characters. Beka herself is awesome and one tough chick. And there are no sodding love triangles! (If there's one YA trend I cannot STAND, it's love triangles

[friggeng]

God, I really, really hated Across the Universe. It seemed so cool, too.

[mightyinkas]

I'm more "ehhhh" about it. Maybe that's because I went into it with pretty low expectations.

(If something is billed as "sci-fi for people who don't like sci-fi" it means "THIS IS NOT SCI-FI".)

What'd you hate about it, precisely?

[friggeng]

The point of view was a hot mess, I didn't like any of the characters, and... I thought the whole reveal and plot was just poorly done? I didn't enjoy it, which was a shame, as I was hoping it'd be a little like Chaos Walking. (Absolutely fantastic series, by the way.)

[friggeng]

Ooh, I love this post already

[psocoptera]

Flygirl - insta-add to reading list! Sounds excellent!