Celebrating Love with YA Romance Novels: Curated Book Reviews
- unabridgedpod
- 2 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Curated by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books)
Since we traditionally celebrate love in February, I'm sharing some reviews of YA romances that we've loved. Some of these are mixed with other genres, but all of them include romance as a prominent component, and each of them offers a unique take on romance:
Jennifer E. Smith's THE STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT - An Unabridged Buddy (Jen's review):
"Jennifer E. Smith's The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) is a love story about all kinds of love. It's about romantic love, about the love between parents and their children. It's about love that focuses on words and love that focuses on actions more than words.
"And I loved this love story.
"It begins in an airport, where Hadley Sullivan misses her flight by minutes. She's already conflicted—she's flying to London for her father's marriage to a woman she's never met—and her mindset is not the most positive . . . especially when it comes to thinking about love." Click to read the full review.
"In Elise Bryant's Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm), we meet Delilah and Reggie, two teenagers who first run into each other on a random encounter on New Year's Eve and whose paths continue to cross on holidays until they decide to start getting together on purpose and seek out holidays to help make that happen.
"At the beginning of the book, Reggie meets Delilah as she's experiencing a migraine right after giving a phenomenal first performance as the lead singer of a punk rock band. Because he's so wowed by her (and because he unintentionally wore a super nerdy t-shirt), he pretends to have a lot more confidence than he actually feels, and he leans into the Black nerd vibe that he usually tries to hide from other people." Click to read the full review.
"I've been on a YA mystery kick for a while now, which kicked off with Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious series (Bookshop.org; Libro.fm - book 1), continued with Holly Jackson's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (Bookshop.org; Libro.fm) (I'm waiting for a VERY long library hold on the third book in that trilogy), and has been capped off by Jennifer Lynn Barnes's The Inheritance Games.
One warning: while I definitely recommend that you read Barnes's trilogy, don't make the mistake I did. Please wait until book three comes out (in August) before starting. I am so, so sad to have to wait until book three. [Edit: are you ever in luck!?! Start today!]" Click to read the full review.
"Ashley Schumacher’s The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm), her third novel, centers on the story of Madeline Hathaway. Maddy’s life is just a bit unusual: since she was born, she’s traveled with her parents on the Renaissance Faire circuit. She’s never attended in-person school. Instead, her mother home schooled her for a while, and then she shifted over to online school.
As the book opens, Maddy and her father are approaching the one-year mark since her mother’s death from cancer. Maddy has plans for how she’ll honor her loss: they’re returning to her mother’s favorite faire where Maddy plans to document what has changed and what has stayed just as her mother loved it." Click to read the full review.
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