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Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Nominations Round-Up, Winter

Each quarter, the Selected Lists teams compile the titles that have been officially nominated to date. These books have been suggested by the team or through the title suggestion form, read by multiple members of the team, and received approval to be designated an official nomination. At the end of the year, the final list of nominations and each Selected List’s Top Ten will be chosen from these titles.

Ace of Spades. By Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé. Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends, $18.99 (9781250800817).

Ambitious queen bee Chiamaka and loner scholarship kid Devon are the only Black students at school. That’s all they have in common until an online bully going by the name “Aces” starts spilling all their secrets. Chiamaka and Devon will have to join forces to bring Aces down—or lose everything.

Bad Witch Burning. By Jessica Lewis. Penguin Random House/Delacorte Press, $17.99 (9780593177389).

Katrell’s ability to converse with the dead has been earning her enough money to help her mom pay bills and buy food. When she makes a startling discovery about her abilities around the same time she receives a dire warning to stop using her magic, Katrell is faced with an impossible decision.

Barry Squires, Full Tilt. By Heather Smith. 2020. Penguin Random House Canada/Penguin Teen, $17.99 (9780735267466).

After watching a performance of Irish step dancers, Barry Squires decides he was meant for tap shoes. The trick will be convincing everyone around him to give him a chance.

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Featured Review of Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by Joya Goffney

Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by Joya Goffney
HarperCollins / HarperTeen
Publication Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0063024793

Quinn, a wealthy Black high school senior at a predominantly white private school in Austin, TX, keeps deeply personal lists in her journal, like “If I Could Kiss Anyone,” and “Things That I Would Never Admit Out Loud.” When a mixup with Carter, one of the few other Black students in school, results in Quinn’s journal being held by anonymous blackmailers who threaten to post her most humiliating lists on social media unless she completes her “To Do Before I Graduate” list (including confessing her love to her best friend, admitting she didn’t get into the Ivy League school her parents think she did, and finally visiting her grandma with dementia), Carter offers to help Quinn complete the items on her list and find the blackmailers.

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2021) Nominees Round Up, October 16 Edition

Click here to see all of the current Best Fiction for Young Adults nominees along with more information about the list and past years’ selections.

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers / Hachette
Publication Date: September 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1368052405

When broke teen Avery Grambs suddenly inherits billions from a complete stranger, she’s shocked–and immediately thrust into the world of the incredibly wealthy Hawthorne family. Now Avery has one year to win her new fortune, and one year to contend with furious disinherited heirs (including four hot, angsty grandsons) and a mansion full of games, codes, puzzles, and deadly secrets.

Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers (#QP2021) Nominees Round Up, October 13 Edition

Click here to see all of the current Quick Picks nominees along with more information about the list and past years’ selections.

The Loop by Ben Oliver
Chicken House / Scholastic, Inc.
Publication Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1338589306

Trapped in the Loop—a brutal juvenile prison run by an artificial intelligence known as Happy—for 736 days, 16-year-old Luka Kane is on death row. His only chance of survival is to participate in potentially fatal medical trials in exchange for a delayed execution date. After a medical trial turns half of Luka’s fellow teen inmates into crazed killers, a sudden electrical outage in the Loop gives the frightened survivors a rare shot at escape. But their journey into the war-torn city is fraught with peril as they are hunted by the military forces, deranged citizens, and one another.