Review: Buzz Books 2019: Young Adult Spring/Summer: Excerpts from Next Season's Best New Titles by Ian Doescher, Gaby Dunn, David Elliott, Kosoko Jackson, Mary Weber and More

Buzz Books 2019: Young Adult Spring/Summer: Excerpts from Next Season's Best New Titles by Ian Doescher, Gaby Dunn, David Elliott, Kosoko Jackson, Mary Weber and More by Publishers Lunch
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Many thanks to NetGalley and Publishers Lunch for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are 100% my own and independent of receiving an advance copy.


Another edition of Buzz Books. As I have said before, if you want an amazing selection of books for the upcoming season, you must read this first. Not only will you get a list of awesome books where you can see if your favourite author is coming out with something new, you can find great new selections that you might not have otherwise found out about. They also have a selection of excerpts from their list so you can get a real opportunity to see if that book would appeal to you.

The Young Adult genre has grown exponentially over the past few years and now there is so much coming out, it is helpful to have some experts sort through the noise. I would have preferred for them to have broken down their list a little more - there is only fiction and a small selection of nonfiction. For example, if they could have grouped all the books that are in series, or by genre like fantasy, comedy, that would have helped. It was just too many for me to go through. Some I recognized and added to my list, but I just couldn’t get into the others. As I was going through the long, long list, I found that there were so many books that looked exactly the same. I became bored. Yes, I love fantasy and I love a female protagonist, but I just can’t get excited about the same blurb of she has magic, she is in danger, she is all alone, what will happen!!! Some of them are great, but some of them are just mediocre. Everyone is looking for the next big thing, but seem to be copying what the last thing was. It was like when there was a plethora of vampire books because of Twilight. As far as the more contemporary fiction I just found again, a lot of important issues, but really just two issues that would repeat over again. I feel like I have already read so many of already. I think that for people who are in this demographic, they can get much more excited about some of these than I can.

What did stand out to me is there are some real, potentially amazing books that I could use in a classroom. There is a Shakespeare version of Mean Girls. That’s right, Mean Girls written out in iambic pentameter! Well, don’t quote me, I don’t know if it is exactly but Shakespeare-like language. I think this will be a great teaching tool. There is female version of Arthur and The Sword and a few Joan of Arc retellings. One thing that was of great interest to me personally, was a graphic novel about Maria Callas, a famous opera singer. Reading through the excerpts, I noticed that many have chosen alternative styles of writing other than the straightforward line by line. This is always something relatable and important as it allows access to different types of readers.

I think I will wait and see what rises out of the heap, to see if there is anything worth reading this season. As far as getting a Buzz Books list, definitely!

View all my reviews