Book Bundles: YA Choices

(2) YA Talented high-school photographer Kat Sanchez is bummed that her Instagram posts consistently flop: "Every single picture is serving a vibe and a color scheme and a mood, and they look good as a whole. That is hard work!" At the same time, she's not shocked: "No one's checking for the life of a fat seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican girl who lives in Bakersfield, California...and who kinda reeks of desperation." Though her circle of smart-alecky guy-friends is supportive and her grandparents (with whom she lives, one street over from her mom and dad; it's complicated) adore her, Kat's self-confidence is at an all-time low. To boost her portfolio, she's been directing shoots of her coworker Becca, and after one fateful, drunken high-school party night, Kat makes a terrible decision: she opens a new IG under a false name, using Becca's likeness. The account takes off, giving Kat her much-craved attention--including that of a cute girl who lives nearby--but internet fame comes at a price. Kat is an effective antihero whose insecurities and validation-seeking are believably laid bare without excusing her behavior (for example, she doesn't get her happily-ever-after with the cute girl). The characters feel lived in, and their big feelings and extreme reactions will be understandable for many readers.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(2) YA Sixteen-year-old María Kamińska has returned home after two and a half years in Rüsselsheim, Germany, as an Ostarbeiter, a "slave worker" at the Opel automobile factory. Both the Nazis and the Soviets invaded Poland in 1939, and now, in August 1944, the Soviets are taking over, while Polish resistance--with the support of the Silent Unseen (elite Polish special-operations agents trained in Britain)--and Ukrainian nationalists continue with their own years-long conflict. María's narrative becomes entwined with that of Kostya, a courier for the military arm of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. Their relationship mirrors the larger complicated machinations of warring parties in a land already devastated by war; at times, the characters seem more like pawns in a complicated chess game than fully realized people. It's a complex narrative bolstered by a useful historical note, a list of military and paramilitary forces, and a two-page list of characters to help readers keep track of everything going on. McCrina (Traitor, rev. 11/20), like Ruta Sepetys (I Must Betray You, rev. 2/22), is adept at finding important stories in places not well known to American readers, and this novel may well find an audience with young World War II history buffs.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider

(2) YA Before he was National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, Jason Reynolds was a twenty-something aspiring poet newly arrived in NYC with his friend Jason Griffin, who was trying to make it in the art world. "A poet. An artist. Black. White. We were college roommates. Now, close friends." This book, first released in 2009, is set up like a journal or scrapbook, presenting words and visuals mostly in stream-of-consciousness conversation that reveals the coauthors' artistic ambitions and day-to-day experiences. Themes such as friendship and allyship; fear and ambivalence; impatience and persistence; and, above all, yearning for creative expression emerge, along with occasional autobiographical details (first apartment, family illness, party-crashing) and dialogue that provide snapshots of a time and place in these young creators' lives. The rest is history, as their latest collaboration, Ain't Burned All the Bright (rev. 3/22), won a 2022 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, among many career-spanning accolades for each. An eye-opening portrait-of-the-artists archive filled with memories, ephemera, and optimism (and appended with a new afterword by Reynolds and Griffin).

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz