04/14/2014
A former writer for television, Paige makes her YA debut with this edgy update of Baum's classic series. When Kansas teenager Amy Gumm is carried away by a tornado, she arrives in a nightmarish version of Oz. The Scarecrow is a mad scientist, the Tin Woodman a sadistic military commander, the Cowardly Lion a ravenous beast, and Dorothy a vainglorious tyrant obsessed with stealing the land's magic and enslaving its people. After being thrown in prison for breaking the rules, Amy is rescued by the witches of the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked, who train her in magic and combat, and charge her with a singular mission: kill Dorothy—a near-suicidal task requiring her to go undercover in the Emerald City. While Oz purists may howl with outrage over the subversion of a childhood favorite—with some characters meeting gruesome ends—Paige delivers a solid, intense, and strange narrative that draws deeply on its source material. However, the lengthy buildup and abrupt ending make this installment feel like setup for the planned subsequent novels. A Full Fathom Five property. Ages 14–up. (Apr.)
This month’s most exciting teen books include a psychological thriller We Were Liars fans will love, fantasy sequels we’ve been waiting for, and a dystopian debut that takes readers to the moon. Here are the YA reads everyone will be talking about in March:
The ebook prequel is one of those ever-growing trends in YA publishing that I absolutely love, dishing out short stories and/or novellas that give a little more insight into fictional worlds I’ve already started to explore. For the most part, these ebook exclusives tend to be incredibly affordable, priced out from $1 to $3—and sometimes they’re even free! I’ve […]
These fairytale updates are not your mama’s classics. With twists and turns—plus kickass heroines and swoonworthy romances—these eight modern takes breathe new life into old stories.
This summer’s Openly YA tour, starring author David Levithan, Bill Konigsberg, Adam Silvera, and Will Walton, is chock full of amazing. So much so that it got us thinking about other inspired lineups we’d love to see! Too good to be true? Of course! But a girl can dream, can’t she?
What do you get when you toss together a bunch of the most brilliant, talented, and creeptastic authors of YA and put them in a single volume of short stories that begs to be read with the lights on? The answer is this summer’s hottest anthology, Slasher Girls & Monster Boys, which features stories by […]