{"id":7619,"date":"2012-01-03T22:43:45","date_gmt":"2012-01-04T02:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=7619"},"modified":"2012-01-03T23:05:24","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T03:05:24","slug":"2011-sonderbooks-standouts-fiction-for-teens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=7619","title":{"rendered":"2011 Sonderbooks Standouts: Fiction for Teens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young Adult Fiction tends to be my favorite category, particularly the Fantasy books. This year was no different, except that there were some outstanding fantasy books I loved in both the Adult and Children’s categories. I’m glad I’ve set a precedent of separating the categories so I don’t have to rank them against each other! It’s hard enough ranking these. The top three Fantasy novels were books I thoroughly loved. In the end, The Scorpio \"\"<\/a>Races<\/em> won out for my favorite because it channeled so much little-girl Black Stallion<\/em> nostalgia. An awesome book!<\/p>\n

The most bizarre, most distinctive, most, well sonder<\/em>,<\/a> was definitely The Order of Odd-Fish,<\/em> by James Kennedy, and its translation, Der Orden der Seltsamer Sonderlinge<\/em>. But where to rank it? I’m tempted to put it in a category of its own, which it will actually get when I start blogging about reading the German translation (which I intend to do after I get all the Standouts posted, honest).<\/p>\n

As with Adult Fiction<\/a>, I split the books into two categories: Fantasy and Everything Else. Now, a few of these walk close to the line of fantasy, so I went with gutlevel thinking to decide which book goes where.<\/p>\n

I really cut down the list of books I wanted to include. Please remember that books I gave a starred review to are books I think are excellent! And ranking my favorites was difficult, and might change on a different day. Remember that this is extremely subjective, and just a measure of how much I personally enjoyed them. All of these are outstanding, memorable, excellent books:<\/p>\n

Fantasy for Teens:
\n1. The Scorpio Races<\/a><\/em>, by Maggie Stiefvater
\n2. Daughter of Smoke and Bone<\/a><\/em>, by Laini Taylor
\n3. Chime<\/a><\/em>, by Franny Billingsley
\n4. Red Glove<\/a><\/em>, by Holly Black
\n5. The Trouble With Kings<\/em>, by Sherwood Smith
\n6. The Ring of Solomon<\/a><\/em>, by Jonathan Stroud
\n7. The Order of Odd-Fish<\/em>, by James Kennedy<\/p>\n

Other Teen Fiction:<\/p>\n

1. Revolution<\/a><\/em>, by Jennifer Donnelly
\n2. Shipbreaker<\/em>, by Paolo Bacigalupi
\n3. Page by Paige<\/em>, by Laura Lee Gulledge
\n4. Beauty Queens<\/a><\/em>, by Libba Bray
\n5. Lost and Found<\/em>, by Shaun Tan<\/p>\n

I promise I will get the remaining reviews posted as soon as I possibly can!<\/p>\n

Happy Reading!<\/p>\n

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