Here's where I am with YALSA's Best of the Best Reading Challenge. Since my last check-in, I have read:
Beauty Queens
by Libba Bray
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Jaina Rating: B+
Contestants in the Teen Dream beauty contest go down in a plane crash on a deserted island. While some fight for food and shelter, others focus on maintaining their pageant skills in hopes of a dramatic rescue. From a librarian standpoint, I can say that this is a good, well-written book with strong female protagonists and good lessons for teenage girls. However, I personally found the writing style to be a bit annoying. Every page had a footnote with a snarky rant, which I enjoyed at first, but it started to take away from the story for me about halfway through the book. Others might enjoy this a lot, which is why this opinion is entirely subjective. I urge you to read it yourself to form your own thoughts. Also, this is definitely a book for 14+.
Divergent
by Veronica Roth
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Jaina Rating: A-
In a future Chicago, society is broken up into five factions, each dedicated to a particular virtue. At age sixteen, teenagers are put through a violent simulation in order to determine their reactions and place them in a faction. When Beatrice's test results are inconclusive, she discovers she is Divergent, a status she must hide from the government. It took me awhile to get into this book, but once I got my bearings, I was obsessed. This book is nonstop action and has a unique story. Plus, it's a dystopia, which I love. My only complaint is that there are a lot of characters to keep track of, which I found confusing at times. Or maybe I'm just a bad reader.
9 down, 16 more to go!