NEXT UP: YOUTH GENERAL FICTION

It didn't take long to read all five of the books for the Youth General Fiction Whitney Awards category, though I'll admit two of them seemed like they'd never end. Another two were fantastic books I'm glad I read, though I probably wouldn't have picked them up if I hadn't been trying to read all of the finalists.  The fifth book?  Sort of mediocre, on a par with other books by this author, neither really good nor really bad.  All of the titles are kind of sappy, but the authors can't be blamed for that.  Titles and covers are the brain childs of the authors' publishers and if the publishers go overboard for cutesy that's just the way it goes. So here's the list:

Girls Don't Fly by Kristen Chandler
Miles from Ordinary by Carol Lynch Williams
Pride and Popularity by Jenni James
Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt
With a Name Like Love by Tess Hilmo

Girls Don't Fly is the story of a teenage girl who goes to work at a bird refuge along the shores of the Great Salt Lake and meets someone who teaches her to take responsibility for her own life.

Miles From Ordinary introduces us to a young girl who longs to escape for just a few hours from the pressure of caring for her mentally ill mother.

Pride and Popularity features a high school student who insists she isn't going to fall for the most popular boy in school no matter how much he flirts with her.

Sean Griswold's Head is the story of a girl with problems at home and school who is instructed by the school counselor to find a focus object to concentrate on. She picks the  head of the boy seated in front of her. Soon her focus shifts to much more than his head.

With a Name Like Love takes us away from the typical high school scene to an itinerate preacher's daughter who would like to stay in one place and have a home.  Their usual three day stay and revival meetings are interrupted when the girl befriends a boy whose mother is in jail for killing his father and she learns the whole town has already judged her guilty.

Okay, what do readers think of these books?  I don't read a lot of YA; I didn't read it often when I was a teen even--I went straight from Anne of Green Gables to Exodus, Gone with the Wind, and The Far Pavilions.  Most of the YA novels I've read were read as an adult, so I don't consider myself a qualified judge of young adult fiction. I took a college class on Young Adult fiction and I read many of the books my children read when they were teenagers.  A few of these books were memorable, but most were quite forgettable. So I'm anxious to hear what others think of these five finalists.  You can rank them one to five with one being the best or just comment on the ones you've read.

Remember this is the last week of my contest to give away two copies of my newest book, Heirs of Southbridge. Of course if a winner already has my new book or would just like another book, I have a formidable stack of books from the many books I read for reviews to choose from.  Every comment, unless it is in deplorable taste, counts as an entry.