2011 YA Reading Challenge...Sigh.

Once upon a time, I decided to jump into blogging. And it fizzled. Quickly.


I'd planned to review all the lovely YA books I was reading - along with others - helping to keep track and to give me a wonderful sense of accomplishment. HAH! I fool myself this way quite often, it seems! :) 


However, as with many in January, I'm hoping to ease my way back into things, and so I'm starting the new year by looking back at how I did with the 2011 YA Reading Challenge. 


Knowing me, I probably intended to go all out and read 50+ YA books this past year. Nope, didn't happen. I was, however, only one shy of the next level: I read 39 YA books in 2011, which is two more than in 2010!


Of those 39, I gave six titles five out of five stars. My fav teen books this year were:

• My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger.  Completely charming, funny and sweet, this was the second time I'd read this coming-of-age story. This year I read it for my library book club and was a teeny bit heartbroken that they didn't love it like I do. : (
• Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John.  A snarky, deaf senior offers to manage a her classmates' rock band, and they all learn a bit about music, jerks and falling in love. This. Was. AWESOME.
• Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 1 by Kiiro Yumi.  I completely adored this story of a young woman, inspired to protect the rights of readers to free information by a handsome young soldier. Librarians, armed and dangerous? Sold!!!
• Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry.  I love Maberry's adult Joe Ledger series, so when I heard he was writing a teen book about zombies, well I had no doubts I'd love it. And I did. Intense, scary and dark, just as an apocalyptic story involving zombies should be.
• Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. This is one of those books I'd heard people gushing about, but as I tend to read a lot of zombie/supernatural/bad-ass-chicks books, a sweet contemporary teen romance simply wasn't high on my list. I was stupid. Now I recommend this one to people all the time. READ IT.
• Ashes by Ilsa Bick. Yes, it has zombie-like people in it. Yes, there's a bit of an apocalypse. Yes, you should absolutely read it because Bick brings an intensity to this story that had me biting my nails, worrying that Alex, a seventeen-year-old dying from her brain tumor, might not survive, or that Tom might die, or that the little girl...I'm not sure I can wait for the sequel!!

What were your favorites?