Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2023) Featured Review of The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander

The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander
Little, Brown Young Readers
September 27, 2022
ISBN: 9780316442060

Kofi Offin experiences the joys and difficulties of village life in 1860’s Ghana.  He enjoys the storytelling of his elders and swimming in the nearby river, while maintaining friendships and rivalries with his peers.  When Kofi’s brother  accidentally kills a member of a rival tribe in a wrestling match, the bonds of tradition and family run deep and strong.  Though repeatedly warned not to leave the confines of the village after dark, Kofi goes for a nighttime swim.  Tragically, he is captured into the slave trade, and taken to ‘the door of no return’ where a terrifying trans-Atlantic journey begins.

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Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2023) Featured Review of One True Loves by Elise Bryant

One True Loves by Elise Bryant
Balzer & Bray/Harperteen
Publication Date: January 4, 2022
ISBN: 9780062982865

Lenore (fans will remember her from Bryant’s Happily Ever Afters) is on a European cruise with her siblings and parents the summer after high school. She’s NYU bound in the fall – as long as she can pick a major by the end of the cruise. Also, her brother’s acting weird, and there’s an annoying guy hanging around. As Lenore struggles to make a plan for her future, she realizes maybe she doesn’t need to struggle alone. 

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Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2023) Featured Review of Daughters of a Dead Empire by Carolyn Tara O’Neil

Daughters of a Dead Empire by Carolyn Tara O’Neil
Roaring Brook Press
Publication Date: February 22, 2022
ISBN: 9781250755544

Anastasia Romanov is the sole survivor of the slaughter of Russia’s royal family at the hands of the Bolshevik Red Army. Anastasia knows she must get to safety before the Red Army realizes she is not among the dead and tracks her down to finish the job. Anastasia enlists the reluctant help of a teen Bolshevik villager named Evgenia and, in spite of their differences, the two form an uneasy alliance as the Red Army closes in.

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Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2020) Nominees Round Up, July 19 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.

White Rose by Kip Wilson
Versify / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1328594433

Based on a true story, Sophie Scholl, a young girl growing up in Germany under the Nazi regime during World War II, joins the White Rose, a resistance group that secretly distributes pamphlets opposing Hitler and the Nazi party – until she is caught and arrested by the Gestapo.

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