YA Fiction Books, Readers, Writers, and Reviewers discussion

I am laughing at myself for realizing the last time I wrote this post I forgot to publish it.........and now I'm doing it again between Super Bowl commercial breaks. LOL
Nuf said, February's BOTM is THE AMATEURS by Sara Shepard so go get your copy and join us :)
Let's see how many people we can get commenting.
Please feel free to post anything related to this book or even this genre! Conversation and opinions are a very good thing!
~LH

Thanks for the reminder! Looking at the book right now :-)
Enjoy the commercials!

I'm a hundred pages in and really enjoying it!

Just finished. I liked it!

This is a straight-up mystery novel. It's YA/new adult, with the characters all either in late high school or early college.

I thought the slow-growing friendship between the leads was well handled and added a lot to the story. The final twist came as a real surprise. I'll definitely read the sequel.

For general discussion: I love mysteries and it seems to me there aren't a lot in YA. Plenty of thrillers and suspense, both contemporary and paranormal, but not many straight-up mysteries. This is surprising to me, as Nancy Drew was such foundational YA lit.

Any thoughts on why YA mysteries are thin on the ground?

I may be a little cynical here but I feel like the trends have become "such a thing" that everyone is trying to go with what's hot or predict the next trend that a lot of the industry has forgotten that books and readers (authors included) have a great love of all books. I also find it funny that for the HUGE popularity of SHERLOCK that there haven't been more books that fit that mold-and the mold of straight up mystery.

I am currently working on a spy/thriller book myself and I will have a lot of mystery in it, but it won't be a straight up mystery. I also just read another book-- Love lies and spies that was a historical mystery, but it was more of a combination of historical/spy/thriller/mystery. Not just a straight mystery.

I am also enjoying this book! I like all of Peggy's observations even though I am not as far in yet.

~LH

I'm afraid that, just a wee bit in, this book is not for me. I don't think that's a comment on its quality: it's just not my cup of tea. For one thing, I'm put off by the formatting, and that is something others may love about it. I know, it seems picky . . . I don't like sushi either, and that's no reflection on sushi!

Jan wrote: "I'm afraid that, just a wee bit in, this book is not for me. I don't think that's a comment on its quality: it's just not my cup of tea. For one thing, I'm put off by the formatting, and that is so..."

Hi, Jan.
Can you share what you don't like about the formatting?
(I'm looking at self-pub & I want to make sure my books are reader-friendly!)

(I don't eat sushi, either!)

I'm not fond of the over-the-top chapter and part headings (enormous size, cartoonish font, etc.). Pretty sure this marks me as a horrid fuddy-duddy, but I think it screams WE WANT TO PANDER TO THE YOUNG AND SCREEN-ADDICTED and honestly, I think that's disrespectful to young (and all) readers. I mean, it's OK if books look like . . . books. But then, I'm hardly a young adult, even though I do love the standouts in the genre.

Jan wrote: "I'm not fond of the over-the-top chapter and part headings (enormous size, cartoonish font, etc.)."

Oh, yeah, I see.
It's an interesting question, how much of what we like/don't like is coming from our adult brains. My brother & his daughter read a book together when she was a young teenager. My niece liked it but my brother said, "It's cliched. It's been done before." My niece said, "Okay, Dad, but I haven't read those books! This is all fresh and new to me."

One thing I thought as I read this book was, Sleuthing techniques got a lot less interesting when things went electronic! It is more fun to see someone try to wheedle information out of the missing girl's babysitting clients than to watch someone guess passwords on a cellphone.

There's that too. And yes, my adult brain is certainly getting in the way on this book. Alas, with so many others languishing on my TBR list, I am moving on.

Hi!! I totally had the same thought about the chapter formatting and headings! It was very off putting. I also agree about the sleuthing. I think that goes back to the an earlier comment about it being so hard to find good mysteries. Technology has made the finer art of people watching an outdated notion. :(

Side note, I need help running this book club, life has been so crazy psycho that I am having issues keeping up. Anyone interested in stepping up to help?
Thanks
LH

Hi folks:

I finished The Amateurs recently. It held my attention all the way through. What I most liked was the aspect of the teens getting to know each other - we saw friendships building with squabbles and surprise and unforeseen conflicts. But instead of relationships breaking down, they grew and people found ways back to each other.
I will say, trying to avoid spoilers, that one thing which appeals to me in mysteries is for them to be fairly clued - I watch to see them unfold, but I expect to be able to look back and say - oh, That's how Sherlock made the deduction. In this book, I thought the author hid some information in a way that meant the book didn't ring as true for me as it could have.
But the book was a lot of fun, and I thought it played out teens working to solve a problem that adults had abandoned in a way that played the teen world as separate from adult choices.

Good insights, Kate! I like those points.

At month's end, we have three readers and one dnf. 75% positive.

For those who love mysteries and want to find more of them, here's Booklist's 100 best childrens & YA mysteries, 2006-2015:

http://www.booklistreader.com/2015/05...