Minnesota Reads

Joe R. Lansdale wrote my favorite short story in the Stories: All-New Tales collection, so when I saw a library display featuring a young adult novel by him, I didn’t even read the book jacket before I checked it out. When I was only ten pages into All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky, I [...]

If Lord of the Flies merged with The Hunger Games, and you threw in a dash of The City of Ember, it would look something like James Dashner’s The Maze Runner. The Maze Runner begins with Thomas waking up in an elevator-like contraption, boys taunting him from above. He only remembers his name, but that’s [...]

I don’t read young-adult fiction. It’s just so beneath me. I only read big, important books because I am so intellectual. The Hunger Games? Yeah, I’ve heard of it. A modern gladiator tale about teenagers from a post-apocalyptic America pitted against one another in a fight to the death? Please. How pulpy can you get? [...]

At the mention of their names, we probably all have the same images of Snow White and Cinderella in our heads, and those images come from Disney. In the Disney fairytales, women are either ugly and evil or dainty and in need of rescue by really boring men. With the help of a man, Snow [...]

I have a pack of friends who write books for young-adult and middle-grade readers (all of whom you should read). This is not just because I’m incredibly blessed to know smart, talented people, but also because this is Minnesota and you can’t throw a lutefisk without hitting someone who writes books for people who aren’t [...]

Today is Valentine’s Day so it’s only appropriate that I’m here to talk about John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars the sweetest love story I’ve read since, well probably Steve Brezenoff’s Brooklyn, Burning. I thought it would be a longer period of time between sweet love stories. I was wrong. Again, that’s fitting because [...]

Many people put Divergent by Veronica Roth on their best lists last year, with a lot of them saying it was the new Hunger Games. I really should stop listening to praise like this, claiming something is as awesome as my Hunger Games, because they almost inevitably let me down. Divergent was good, and when [...]

When Ursula Le Guin praises someone’s work, it’s time to take notice. On the cover of Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor, Le Guin is quoted as saying: “There’s more vivid imagination in a page of Nnedi Okorafor’s work than in whole volumes of ordinary fantasy epics.” I’m happy to say that Le Guin didn’t exaggerate. [...]

It’s pretty clear that my current obsession is dystopian fiction, but I recently stopped reading a handful of young adult dystopian novels. How could I read a book where love needs to be cured? Because, apparently, everything bad in our society (hate, war, etc.) is caused by love, so love is enemy number one. Please. [...]

Ilsa J. Bick does not make me want to go camping. Let’s face it, I never want to go camping, but now I have another reason why I don’t want to go – zombie apocalypse. What would I do if I were camping when the zombie apocalypse happened? Alex is a teenager camping in Wisconsin [...]

I’ve listened to the buzz surrounding Marie Lu’s debut young adult novel Legend all year. It just came out at the end of November, but long before it came out the rights were sold for a movie. It’s also been called the new Hunger Games, which I love just a little too much. I think [...]

Necromancy: the ability to communicate with and raise the dead. Sam LaCroix had no idea what necromancy was or that he had this power. Living a boring, fast-food-employee life, Sam could barely make rent, had no girlfriend and no motivation or drive to change anything. He was sarcastically apathetic about his humdrum life. But when [...]

It’s ironic that a book about bullying can be so full of cruel, negative stereotypes that it verges on bullying itself. Lucky Linderman, the teenage protagonist of A.S. King’s young adult novel Everybody Sees the Ants, has been routinely bullied by an asshole named Nader McMillan since he was seven years old. Nader’s antics grow [...]

The world is just so huge, boundary-less, in young adult fiction. It’s malleable. A soft fontenelle. A kid standing at the foot of her parent’s bed and saying: When I grow up I want to be a cheerleader and a fireman and a teacher and a rock star and a robot. Maybe I’ll be the [...]

I need to stop being amazed that authors make me cry, because apparently I?m now a sloppy, sobbing, crying mess when I read. Patrick Ness got me, again. But this wasn?t just a little bit of water in my eyes or a few tears streaming down my cheeks. This time I was blubbering, weeping, practically [...]