A List: Best YA and MG of 2012

Here’s a nice list. Of course I’m sure there’re many many such lists around, but I do like this one.

What I like about this list:

The categories. Best Prose, Best Non-Dystopian Novel, Most Lyrical, Best For Highly Literate Children, Best Page-Turner, Best Slow Read — among other categories. I like the way these categories let me pay more attention to the types of books which would appeal to me (Most Lyrical) and gloss over the ones that probably wouldn’t (Best Book About Mean Girls).

This list is not especially for SFF, but there are a lot of SFF titles. Besides, every now and then I do read a contemporary YA story — usually because Ana at The Book Smugglers recommends them highly and so I make an exception. (So far I’ve always been happy I did.) So I’m more inclined than I might have been a few years ago to pick up one or two of the contemporary titles that made ths list.

Anyway, I’ve heard of a lot of the recommended titles, but I’ve read exactly . . . wait for it . . . one of them. Just one.

And I didn’t even like it all that much (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children).

I have one other book from this list on my TBR pile (The Raven Boys). Just one. I feel so behind on my reading now!

I have quite a few of these titles on my Amazon wishlist — which I use as a supplementary memory so I don’t forget about them — and this list includes several others that I’m interested in and ought to either buy or add to my wishlist. For example, Bitterblue by Cashore — I heard such different things about it, and I think it might really appeal to me, though actually I’m one of the few who wasn’t so terribly blown away by Graceling. I haven’t even read the second one in the series, what was it called, Fire?

I have heard all these fabulous things about Seraphina , which is a debut by Rachel Hartman, and even more fabulous things about Code Name Verity, which is by Elizabeth Wein, who I already know is an amazing writer. They’re both on my must-read list, but I haven’t actually got them yet. I just read a review of Under The Never Sky (at Bunbury in the Stacks) that makes me want to read that one. I’ve heard of For Darkness Shows the Stars, by Diana Peterfreund — it’s supposed to be a retelling of Jane Austin’s Persuasion. Doesn’t that sound like a must-try?

And there’s yet another mention of Frances Hardinge here, whom I’ve never read, but evidently I really must. She’s MG, which normally I’m not too inclined to try, but she’s starting to sound like another DWJ, the way people rave about her.

So many books, so little time!

And to add a note of urgency, I believe nominations for the Hugo close in mid-March. I wonder if this gives me enough of an excuse to go ahead and pick up at least a couple of the SFF titles?