Happy July, Hub readers – Happy Independence Day to our American readers, and Happy belated Canada Day to our northern readers.
Last month, we asked about your preferences re: summer romance tropes, and the overwhelming majority of you (58%) say you love romances where the protagonists dislike each other first; bring on the banter! Star-crossed lovers were next, with 19% of the vote, followed by love triangles where both love interests tickled your (er, the protagonists’) fancy (12%). 9% of you don’t care for any kind of romantic trope when you’re stacking up your summer reads, and 3% of you prefer a love triangle with a clear *right* choice.
Our poll this month nods to the American Revolution by focusing on YA historical fiction set in 18th century North America. In compiling this list, it came to my attention that this is a) a decidedly untrendy topic lately for YA (only one of the titles I found was published in the past 5 years!), and b) also one that seems ripe for some further conversation around perspective, authentic voice, representation, and other issues surrounding how history is told, who gets to tell it, and what counts as “history” anyway. If this poll inspires you to dust off your historical fiction reader’s cap, this website proved super-useful. Let us know your thoughts, other titles you love that we missed, and your favorite resources for finding historical fiction in the comments!
[poll id=”218″]
-Carly Pansulla, currently listening to The Diviners by Libba Bray, narrated by January LaVoy (yes, I loved The Lair of Dreams audiobook so much, I’m now listening to the first book in the series, since I read it previously).
I went through an Ann Rinaldi phase in middle school/high school <3