Welcome to the CA Library Holiday Gift Guide!
Hundreds (perhaps thousands) of incredible books have been published this year, and some of them might make a great gift for someone on your holiday gift list (or perhaps you’d like to add some to your own wish list!) So this week, the CA Library Blog will be featuring some of the best books published this year in several categories: Adult Fiction, Adult Nonfiction, Teen Fiction and Children’s Books.
Today’s list features the best in Teen Fiction (titles already in the CA Library collection are marked with an asterisk*):
* Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys — In 1941, fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother, and brother are pulled from their Lithuanian home by Soviet guards and sent to Siberia, where her father is sentenced to death in a prison camp while she fights for her life, vowing to honor her family and the thousands like hers by burying her story in a jar on Lithuanian soil. Based on the author’s family, includes a historical note.
* City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments Series #4) by Cassandra Clare — As mysterious murders threaten the new peace between Shadowhunters and Downworlders, only Simon, the Daylighter vampire, can help bring both groups together.
Crossed (Matched Trilogy Series #2) by Ally Condie — Cassia, having arrived in the Outer Provinces in search of Ky, learns he has escaped from the Society and follows a series of clues he left, which result in rebellion, betrayal, and a surprise visit from Xander.
* The Dead (Enemy Series #2) by Charlie Higson — Ed, Jack, Bam, and the other students at Rowhurst Academy must run for their lives when a mutant disease attacks the adults and turns them into flesh-eating monsters.
* The Death Cure (Maze Runner Series #3) by James Dashner — In a final effort to complete the blueprint for the cure, Thomas must rely on the Gladers, with full memories restored, but Thomas does not trust Wicked and he remembers much more than they realize.
* Delirium by Lauren Oliver — Lena looks forward to receiving the government-mandated cure that prevents the delirium of love and leads to a safe, predictable, and happy life, until ninety-five days before her eighteenth birthday and her treatment, when she falls in love.
* Divergent by Veronica Roth — In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomoly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.
* Exposed by Kimberly Marcus — High school senior Liz, a gifted photographer, can no longer see things clearly after her best friend accuses Liz’s older brother of a terrible crime.
The Future of Us by Jay Asher — Emma gets her first computer and an America Online CD-ROM in 1996, and when her best friend Josh visits and they log on, they discover themselves on Facebook fifteen years in the future.
* Human.4 by Mike A. Lancaster — Twenty-first century fourteen-year-old Kyle was hypnotized when humanity was upgraded to 1.0 and he, incompatible with the new technology, exposes its terrifying impact in a tape-recording found by the superhumans of the future.
* I Am J by Cris Beam — J, who feels that he is a boy who was mistakenly born a girl, hides who he is from his family and the world, but after he loses his best friend, J decides to stop hiding, whatever the cost.
* Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs — Sixteen-year-old Jacob, having traveled to a remote island after a family tragedy, discovers an abandoned orphanage, and, after some investigating, he learns the children who lived there may have been dangerous and quarantined and may also still be alive.
* The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen — When a school bus accident leaves sixteen-year-old Jessica an amputee, she returns to school with a prosthetic limb and her track team finds a wonderful way to help rekindle her dream of running again.
* Tiger’s Curse (Tiger’s Curse Series #1) by Colleen Houck — Seventeen-year-old Oregon teenager Kelsey forms a bond with a circus tiger who is actually one of two brothers, Indian princes Ren and Kishan, who were cursed to live as tigers for eternity, and she travels with him to India where the tiger’s curse may be broken once and for all.
* What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen — Seventeen-year-old Mclean begins to lose sight of who she really is after she tries to reinvent herself at each school she attends after her parents’ divorce and her father moves her from town to town.
* Where She Went by Gayle Forman – In this sequel to Forman’s If I Stay, Adam, now a rising rock star, and Mia, a successful cellist studying at Juilliard, are reunited in New York City and reconnect for the first time since Mia’s near-fatal car accident three years earlier drove them apart.