by Emma Shacochis

Hearing that your favorite young adult book is being adapted into a movie is both exciting and scary. You want to see the novel you love realized exactly as you’d imagined onscreen, but you also know not everything can be exactly  as you hoped. TAB’s newest display celebrates our favorite YA books that were adapted to movies – here are a few books you can check out at Reston Regional today!

The Hunger Games (book in 2008, movie in 2012)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (book in 1997, movie in 2001)

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda/Love, Simon (book in 2015, movie in 2018)

The Hate U Give (book in 2017, movie in 2018)

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before (book in 2014, movie in 2018)

Everything, Everything (book in 2015, movie in 2017)

The Fault In Our Stars (book in 2012, movie in 2014)

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (book in 2012, movie in 2015)

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (book in 2001, movie in 2005)

 

Nerve (book in 2012, movie in 2016)

by Steve Kluger

Review by Emma Shacochis

My Most Excellent Year, by Steve Kluger doesn’t feature the typical elements of a coming-of-age story. While there are the typical struggles of fitting into high school, new friendships, and romance, MMEY focuses on the performing arts, Boston baseball, and Mary Poppins.

MMEY is also unique because it features no scenes of strict dialogue – the story is told through journal entries, text messages, letters, and the like. This is one of my favorite storytelling techniques, and the voices of the three main characters – Anthony “T.C.”, Alejandra, and Augie – are distinct no matter how they’re narrating.

The friendship between the three main freshmen is so sweet and wholesome. T.C. and Augie are close as brothers, and refer to one another as such. Their support of each other, especially their equally inexperienced romantic advice, is naturalistic and charming. However, worldly new girl Alejandra steals the book with her sarcasm and longing to participate in musical theatre. 

While knowledge of theatre – especially Mary Poppins, since Julie Andrews is a presence in the plot – or baseball will make reading My Most Excellent Year even more enjoyable, it’s a most excellent novel to read no matter what.

by Emma Shacochis

Going into spring break, you’re definitely looking for a new book to read as you enjoy time off from school. Reston Regional’s Teen Section has you covered! Here are five books released this March that you can place a hold on at Reston Regional today!

All summaries are taken from Goodreads.

1. Field Notes on Love, by Jennifer E. Smith

Having just been dumped by his girlfriend, British-born Hugo is still determined to take his last-hurrah-before-college train trip across the United States. One snag: the companion ticket is already booked under the name of his ex, Margaret Campbell. Nontransferable, no exceptions.

Enter the new Margaret C. (Mae for short), an aspiring filmmaker with big dreams. After finding Hugo’s spare ticket offer online, she’s convinced it’s the perfect opportunity to expand her horizons.

When the two meet, the attraction is undeniable, and both find more than they bargained for. As Mae pushes Hugo to explore his dreams for his future, he’ll encourage her to channel a new, vulnerable side of her art. But when life off the train threatens the bubble they’ve created for themselves, will they manage to keep their love on track?

2. Small Town Hearts, by Lillie Vale

Fresh out of high school, Babe Vogel should be thrilled to have the whole summer at her fingertips. She loves living in her lighthouse home in the sleepy Maine beach town of Oar’s Rest and being a barista at the Busy Bean, but she’s totally freaking out about how her life will change when her two best friends go to college in the fall. And when a reckless kiss causes all three of them to break up, she may lose them a lot sooner. On top of that, her ex-girlfriend is back in town, bringing with her a slew of memories, both good and bad.

And then there’s Levi Keller, the cute artist who’s spending all his free time at the coffee shop where she works. Levi’s from out of town, and even though Babe knows better than to fall for a tourist who will leave when summer ends, she can’t stop herself from wanting to know him. Can Babe keep her distance, or will she break the one rule she’s always had – to never fall for a summer boy?

3. Heroine, by Mindy McGinnis

When a car crash sidelines Mickey just before softball season, she has to find a way to hold on to her spot as the catcher for a team expected to make a historic tournament run. Behind the plate is the only place she’s ever felt comfortable, and the painkillers she’s been prescribed can help her get there. The pills do more than take away pain; they make her feel good.

With a new circle of friends—fellow injured athletes, others with just time to kill—Mickey finds peaceful acceptance, and people with whom words come easily, even if it is just the pills loosening her tongue.

But as the pressure to be Mickey Catalan heightens, her need increases, and it becomes less about pain and more about want, something that could send her spiraling out of control. 

4. Internment, by Samira Ahmed

Set in a horrifying near-future United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim American citizens.

With the help of newly made friends also trapped within the internment camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the internment camp’s Director and his guards.

5. Once & Future, by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy

When Ari crash-lands on Old Earth and pulls a magic sword from its ancient resting place, she is revealed to be the newest reincarnation of King Arthur. Then she meets Merlin, who has aged backward over the centuries into a teenager, and together they must break the curse that keeps Arthur coming back. Their quest? Defeat the cruel, oppressive government and bring peace and equality to all humankind.

No pressure.

by Emma Mills

Review by Emma Shacochis

Foolish Hearts, by Emma Mills, is hands down one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. In all of her young adult novels, including This Adventure Ends andFamous In A Small Town, Mills features a teenage girl with a close-knit group of friends – and a skill for one-liners – trying to fit in in her community. Foolish Hearts follows Claudia, an outsider at her private school, as she accidentally witnesses the breakup of the school’s most popular couple, Paige and Iris. When Claudia and the spiky, reserved Iris are forced to participate in the school play together, they begin a tentative friendship. Claudia attempts to help reconcile Iris with Paige, while trying to stay connected with her growing-distant best friend and developing a crush on the play’s charismatic lead, Gideon.

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, Emma Mills’s books are a treat – Foolish Heart’s cover features tiny stitches and stripes in an assortment of colors. But her writing of teenagers, especially their friend groups, never feels false or melodramatic. It’s rare but delightful when an author can make you want to be friends with all of the characters, not just the main. Claudia and the friends she makes through the play, a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (the book gets its title from the dialogue), have witty, grin-inducing interactions; all of the dialogue is so realistic to how teenagers talk in the twenty-first century, full of sarcasm and poop culture references.

Claudia and Iris’s odd-couple friendship develops into the book’s greatest strength. Despite their differences in personality and social status, the two bond through Iris’s love of a fictional boy band that she shares with Claudia. Scenes where the two listen to the band’s music and midnight and rank their favorite songs help the friendship grow organically – even a single shares interest can make for an investing and entertaining duo.

All of Emma Mills’s books will make you beam, but Foolish Hearts is a fast-paced, touching, and inexpressibly hilarious read that will make your own heart grow.

Here are some books our TAB members have read and loved recently. We’ve included the call number so you can come and get them at Reston Regional Library! All summaries are taken from Novelist unless otherwise noted.

 

Heretics Anonymous, Katie Henry — YFIC HEN

When nonbeliever Michael transfers to a Catholic school in eleventh grade, he quickly connects with a secret support group intent on exposing the school’s hypocrisies one stunt at a time.

 

The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins – FIC HAW

Obsessively watching a breakfasting couple every day to escape the pain of her losses, Rachel witnesses a shocking event that inextricably entangles her in the lives of strangers.

 

The Secrets of the Wild Wood, Tonke Dragt – YFIC DRA

One of the King’s most trusted knights has vanished in the snow, so young Sir Tiuri and his best friend Piak must journey into the shadowy heart of the forest to find him. The Wild Wood is a place of mysteries, rumours and whispered tales. A place of lost cities, ancient curses, robbers, princesses and Men in Green.

 

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley – FIC SHE

Obsessed by creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life by electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear.

 

Hamilton and Peggy, LM Elliott – YFIC ELL

Peggy Schuyler has always felt like she’s existed in the shadows of her beloved sisters: the fiery, intelligent Angelica and beautiful, sweet Eliza. But it’s in the throes of a chaotic war that Peggy finds herself a central figure amid Loyalists and Patriots, spies and traitors, friends and family.

 

The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton – YFIC HIN

Three brothers struggle to stay together after their parents’ death, as they search for an identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society in which they find themselves “outsiders.”

 

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee – FIC LEE

Scout Finch, daughter of the town lawyer, likes to spend her summers building treehouses, swimming, and catching lightning bugs with her big brother Jem. But one summer, when a black man is accused of raping a white woman, Scout’s carefree days come to an end. In the county courtroom, she will join her father in a desperate battle against ignorance and prejudice.

 

The Crucible, Arthur Miller – 812 MILLER

As a wave of anti-communist investigations swept across American society during the 1950s, Miller exposed the horror of such witch-hunts by retelling the story of the infamous Salem witch trials in Massachusetts in 1692.

 

Othello, William Shakespeare – 822.3 T7

The destructive effects of jealousy underlie this tale. Othello, a man of quality and superior intelligence, is brought down by his suspicions of his wife, Desdemona.

 

Richard III, William Shakespeare – 822.3 X5

The deformed Richard weaves a web of intrigue, removing all obstacles that stand between him and the throne of England. An atmosphere of insecurity pervades, no one dare reveal their thoughts and danger lurks in the shadows. Once Richard achieves his goal, will danger turn its gaze on him? – goodreads

 

The Interrogation of Gabriel James, Charlie Price – YFIC PRI

As an eyewitness to two murders, a Montana teenager relates the shocking story behind the crimes in a police interrogation interspersed with flashbacks.

 

Hamlet, William Shakespeare – 822.3 S7

Grieving for the recent death of his beloved father and appalled by his mother’s quick remarriage to his uncle, Hamlet, heir to the Danish throne, struggles with conflicting emotions, particularly after his father’s ghost appeals to him to avenge his death.

 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain – FIC TWA

The classic story of the adventures of a nineteenth-century boy and a runaway slave as they float down the Mississippi River on a raft.

 

The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien – FIC TOL

In the concluding volume of the trilogy, Frodo and Sam make a terrible journey to the heart of the Land of the Shadow in a final reckoning with the power of Sauron.

 

Hitler’s Canary, Sandi Toksvig – JFIC TOK

Ten-year-old Bamse and his Jewish friend Anton participate in the Danish Resistance during World War II.

 

By Kimberly Karalius

Review by Emma Shacochis

Love Fortunes and Other Disasters begins as an anti-romantic comedy. The heroine, Fallon Dupree, is excited to attend high school in the town of Grimbaud, known for Zita’s Love Charms Shop that gives every visitor a love fortune. However, on her first day, Fallon discovers her fortune isn’t very sweet – her love will never be requited. While Fallon is initially disheartened by this fortune, she soon joins forces with a group of fellow scorned romantics. Their plan to prove their fortunes wrong proves equal parts zany, dangerous, and romantic.

The book features a handful of evolving relationships between its characters, even the ones predicted never to fall in love. Fallon develops an unexpected friendship – and, naturally, something more – with her dorm-mate Sebastian; their adventures to find love charms together are heartwarming. Outside of romantic relationships, Fallon is an optimistic and endearing lead, as she helps her friends out with their budding relationships and tries to become someone besides what Zita’s fortune and her family tell her she is. The magical realism aspects of the book were surprising, but the way that charms advanced the plot was incredibly unique.

Whether or not you believe in love, Love Fortunes and Other Disasters is an adventurous and exciting story about find happiness outside of the labels that others give you.

by Angie Thomas

Review by Emma Shacochis

Angie Thomas’s first novel, The Hate U Give, was an excellently written book that has stuck with me long after I read it, and I’m already feeling the someway about her sophomore work, On The Come Up. The novel follows Bri, a young black girl who dreams of becoming a rapper, like her legendary late father. She becomes even more determined to succeed once her family begins to struggle to pay rent and afford food. After an impassioned song of hers, titled “On The Come Up”, goes viral, Bri receives both positive and negative recognition from her community and family. She must try to stay true to who she is as she attempts to make it big in the music industry.

Thomas always has a perfect balance between long-relevant social issues, the emotional struggles of being a teenager, and a healthy dose of humor. Bri’s family and friends are all supportive in their own ways, even if they can be slightly misguided; the love she receives from her mother and brother, in particular, led to several of the book’s most heartfelt scenes. Bri is one of my favorite YA protagonists of late: she is faced with racism from security guards at her school and stereotypes once entering the rap world, on top of trying to help her family make ends meet. Despite Bri’s constant worry about survival, she’s witty and incredibly linguistic – my absolute favorite part of the books are the small rhymes and full freestyles that she composes for rap battles. 

Whether or not you’ve read Angie Thomas’s works, On The Come Up is a grounded, exciting book you won’t be able to put down.