A Very Enthusiastic YA Year in Review from a Genre Expert

OK, I might be slightly exaggerating. It takes a year or two before a book that is bought gets published. Sometimes faster, sometimes longer. Meanwhile, trends change on TikTok faster than I can eat a whole pint of ice cream. (Häagen-Dazs caramel cone. Less than 15 minutes. Ten with brain freeze.)

My point is, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to talk trends in books. But here’s what I HAVE noticed. These past few years, the books coming out in YA are INCREDIBLE in all the most wonderful ways!! And 2021 was no exception!

  From Courtney Summers' nerve-wracking and absolutely disturbing thriller The Project to Malinda Lo’s gorgeous historical fiction Last Night at the Telegraph Club and Margot Wood’s sexy, sexy, funny college freshman coming-of-age story in Fresh, to Namina Forna’s epic feminist fantasy The Gilded Ones, we have a glorious abundance of books of all kinds. Seriously, I think the trend is YA FREAKING ROCKS!!! Also, the middle grade books are sensational, but that will be a post for another day…

GR: What were some of your favorite 2021 books? 

EO: Let me see, is limiting the number of books I can talk about worse or limiting the amount of words I can rhapsodize about them? Although, technically I could write a really long run-on sentence...

And let’s be honest, I can’t use the word favorite because when it comes to books, I have no favorites, just an endless list of books I adore. This is why whenever I am asked in public to recommend books, my brain literally locks up.

I don’t even know where to start! But this is my chance to rave about some more books that I haven’t already talked about previously. So here goes!






GR: Who are some new and exciting authors you discovered in 2021?

EO: OMG so many, how do I pick? Why did I agree to do this again? ARGH! OK, so I most recently read these three authors, and they all blew me away in such different ways!
 






GR: Looking ahead, what predictions do you have for the genre in 2022? And are there any 2022 titles you can’t wait to read?

EO: I predict lots of amazing K-drama-esque books!!! OK, not a prediction because we have The Noh Family by Grace Shim, Once Upon a K-Prom by Kat Cho, and Flip the Script by Lyla Lee all coming out next year, and my inner me is screaming in absolute sheer happiness because I am literally a K-drama fanatic of the most epic magnitude, and if I don’t receive ARCs of these books as soon as they are ready, I am going to be SO PUT OUT.
 
But speaking of other books I literally might commit violence to get my hands on… Let me just list them here and pray someone takes pity on my poor impatient heart.

The Rumor Game by Dhonielle Clayton
Escaping Mr. Rochester by LL McKinney
Reclaim the Stars edited by Zoraida Córdova
All My Rage by Saaba Tahir
Debating Darcy by Sayantani DasGupta
Kiss & Tell by Adib Khorram
And Moonflower by Kacen Callender—I know it’s middle grade, but just reading the synopsis hurts my heart and heals it. I know kids who need this book.
 
GR: And what are some backlist books you think readers should pick up now?

EO: So this is one of those questions that makes my brain completely shut down because I just can’t process the sheer number of all the amazing books that have been published over all these years that I would want people to go and read. It’s both a wonderful question and a truly gut-wrenchingly difficult one. These are the books I finally came up with for this list. But know that if you were to ask me this question every day, I would just keep coming up with a different set of books. Because there are so many glorious books to read and not enough time to talk about all of them.












 
Thanks again for bearing with my torturous descent into book-talking madness! As hard as it is, I will always happily (I am a masochist) share these lists with my fellow book lovers! And, of course, I would love to hear your recommendations! Happy reading!!