It's October—Hello, Everyone!
I am Noelle Howey, deputy editor at Real Simple, where I work on everything from our Life Lessons essays to the larger features about women's lives to the food content (which explains why I'm hungry so often).
I'm happy to be leading this month's book club—though it won't be for long, since the winning book, Rebecca Stead's award-winning young adult novel When You Reach Me, is a pretty quick read: about 200 pages total. (And from what I've heard from my husband, who has already read it, it will be a challenge NOT to devour it all in one sitting.) I'm thrilled that this book won; it occurred to me recently that a pretty high percentage of the books I've connected with the most emotionally over the years have been, in fact, young adult novels (Deenie, by Judy Blume; S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders; The Pigman, by Paul Zindel, just to name a few). And so I've been trying to read more of them lately. (I also have to admit, as a working mom with two young children, a short YA book is a lot easier to sneak in than, say, the new Jonathan Franzen. Though I do want to read that too.) I'd love to know: Which YA books are among your favorites—whether you read them recently or back in your teens?
And while you cogitate on that, here is the upcoming schedule, short and sweet:
Part one: Pages 1 to 99 (Things You Keep in a Box through The Third Note)
Part two: Pages 100 to 199 (Things That Make No Sense through Parting Gifts)
Read part one for our first discussion, on Friday, October 8.
And one last goodie before you start reading: Check out this audio excerpt from the book, narrated by Cynthia Holloway:
—Noelle
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