It Happens: A Guide to Contemporary Realistic Fiction for the YA Reader

by Kelly Jensen

It Happens is a complete guide to match a teen reader with the right book. Part I provides tools to understand YA literature, genres, how to find books, and awards. Part II explores titles in ten subgenres of realistic fiction, complete with plot description, list of appeal factors, and suggested read alikes for each title. Part III provides conversation starters on tough real topics that will challenge readers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Realistic Fiction

269 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Kelly Jensen is a former teen librarian who worked in several public libraries before pursuing a full-time career in writing and editing. Her current position is with Book Riot, the largest independent book website in North America, where she focuses on talking about young adult literature in all of its manifestations. Before becoming a fully-fledged adult-like person, she worked in the swanky Texas Legislative Library entering data into a computer while surrounded by important politicians, scooped gelato for hungry college students, and spent hours reading, annotating, and scanning small-town Texas newspapers into a giant searchable database.

Kelly lives in the Chicago area with her husband, her daughter, her rabbit, and five needy-but-awesome cats. In her free time, she teaches yoga, writes for her personal blog STACKED (stackedbooks.org), drinks a lot of tea, and enjoys disappearing for days reading good books. Her writing has been featured on The Huffington Post, at Rookie Magazine, The Horn Book, BlogHer, and School Library Journal.

Please note: I don't take review requests via Goodreads and I don't respond to comments on reviews that are more than 6 months old.

Reviews

[Kelly]

I'm writing it, so I guess I'm also reading it.

[Hannah]

Kelly Jensen is a jerkface who makes me want to read more books than I will ever have time for.

[Kate (kateexplainslit) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reference for any librarian working with teens. Contemporary Realistic YA Fiction can be hard to promote in certain communities, but they are certainly the most popular types of titles in my library. They speak to real issues that teens are dealing with. They may not always be easy or fun to read, but they are important. Teens need to see themselves, their family, friends in what they read. It can make them feel less alone.

[Sabastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It Happens: A Guide to Contemporary Realistic Fiction for the YA Reader by Kelly Jensen is a guidebook that helps young readers navigate the world of realistic fiction. The book includes advice on analyzing a plot, character development, theme and setting, as well as some tips on how to write your own realistic fiction book.

The plot of this book revolves around a girl named Alice who finds out one day that she has been chosen as a champion of a contest on her planet in order to save it from destruction. Alice is then sent to Earth where she meets new friends and learns more about herself during her journey.

I think this book is very interesting and I believe that the author does a great job of creating a realistic world that teens can relate to. The plot is very interesting and keeps you interested throughout the entire book. The characters are believable and easy to relate to. I also like how the author describes her characters' emotions as they go through their experiences and how they react to different situations. The author uses very good language in this book, which makes it easy for young readers to understand what is happening and why.

I would recommend this book for children ages 10-14 because it deals with issues such as bullying, social media addiction, lying, cheating on tests, etc... All of these things are things that younger children might not understand or might not be able to handle properly yet.

[Kimberly Francisco · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really great resource for anyone who works with teens, especially those gatekeepers (like me) who don't read a ton of realistic contemporary stuff.