Monday Meme Spotlight: YALSA 2014

     We all like to be winners. But sometimes, that's just not possible. There is one organization, though, that chooses the best of the best in young adult literature every year. This is YALSA, the Young Adult Librarian Services Association. Every year, they pick books that represent the best in YA for all sorts of awards and recognition. Here are just a few sterling picks from last year.

1. All the Truth That's In Me- Julie Berry: I love this book. Love it. It's set in a different type of world, a sort of Salem-meets-Amish town where people are old-fashioned and no one is safe from the insanity of one man. It's the story of a girl who was abducted and kept prisoner for years, a girl who's had her tongue cut out. It's a story of redemption, of moving on, of finding a way to live when it seems impossible and when everyone seems to be against you. Easily one of the best books I've evr read, I see why Berry's novel was chosen by YALSA. You can get your copy by clicking on this link.

2.The Naturals- Jennifer Barnes: Mystery abounds in this novel about gifted teens chosen to work in a special FBI profiling program to solve cold cases. But everything gets more dangerous, as you might expect, when secrets about the program are revealed to the teens involved. Although I haven't read this one, it did get put on a best fiction list, and kwatanabe loves this series, and that's a good enough recommendation for me!

3. Scarlet-Marissa Meyer: This is the second book of the Lunar Chronicles series, which is one of my favorites of all time, and of that series, Scarlet is my favorite right now. It was when I really started to understand how very well sculpted and thought out the storyline for the series was, and I love the characters in Meyer's futuristic France. And Wolf, too, who is simply awesome, a triumph of creation. You'll have to read it to find out who he is! You can find the whole series by clicking right here. (The order is Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Fairest- and coming this fall is Winter)

4. Fangirl- Rainbow Rowell: I related pretty well to this book. It's about a girl in college who's stuck in a fictional world- she's more concerned with her fanfiction than she is with her real life. This is the story of how her friends pull her into the real world, and how she finds out that real life can be better than fiction. Honestly, Rowell's writing is fantastic. Everyone knows about Eleanor & Park, but I found Fangirl to be better (but of course, that's just me). If you'd like to see what I'm excited about, click this link.

     So these are just a few of YALSA's best fiction for 2014. They have several years worth of results and recommendations, though, so you can find the website and the 'best fiction' section by clicking here. It can look a little overwhelming at first, but it gets easier to navigate the more you explore. So while not everyone's a winner, you can find some who are.