Favourite YA Books of 2015

The list

(in no particular order)

Jennifer Niven – All The Bright Places
Gayle Forman – I Was Here
Becky Albertalli – Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda
Moira Fowley-Doyle – The Accident Season
Courtney Summers – All The Rage
Jandy Nelson – I’ll Give You The Sun
Sarah Crossan – One
Lisa Williamson – The Art of Being Normal
Sophie Kinsella – Finding Audrey
James Dawson – All of the Above
Louise O’Neill – Asking For It
Holly Bourne – Am I Normal Yet?

The breakdown

Magical realism elements: 2
Contemporary/realistic: 10 (+2)
Novels-in-verse: 1
Dual narrators: 4
Focus on feminism, gender and/or sexuality: 8
Focus on mental health issues: 4
American/Canadian: 5
British/Irish: 7
Authors I’d read before: 6
Authors new to me: 6

Trends

All of the issues! All of the feminism! This has been a terrific year for contemporary YA – it feels like there’s just been an incredible number of extraordinary books out in that field, and ones that deal with tricky subjects: being transgender, having mental health issues, rape culture. And ones that handle it really well, rather than just being All About The One ‘Problem’.
Lots of brilliant stuff coming from British and Irish writers – YA exists beyond North America, hurray! Really pleasing to see.
So many of these books are gorgeously written – there’s not only the actual poetry in Sarah Crossan’s verse novel, but beautiful poetic prose from writers like Jandy Nelson or Moira Fowley-Doyle. YA is often praised for its subject matter or its fast pacing, but rarely for being stylish, and sometimes it really needs to be.

Bonus mentions

(read in, but not published in, 2015)

David Levithan – Two Boys Kissing
Jenny Hubbard – And We Stay

Past years:

Favourite YA books of 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010.