Tag: Rachel Vail

Amazing Audiobooks (#AA2025) Featured Review: Bad Best Friend by Rachel Vail

Niki is excited for 8th grade, but she is stunned when her best friend, Ava, dumps her for the popular crowd. Niki tries to reconcile with her, but Ava says Niki is a bad best friend. Meanwhile, life at home is also in turmoil, with her younger brother, Danny, acting out more while their mother’s need for everything to look perfect is delaying him getting the help he needs. But things start to look up for Niki when she reconnects with an old friend named Holly and starts to spend time with her friends. As she learns what real friendship looks and feels like, Niki starts to gain the confidence to speak up for her new friends, her brother and herself. 

Rachel Vail is a preeminent author of middle school fiction and her fans will enjoy this title as much as her others. Readers will connect with Niki’s struggles and heartbreaks while she navigates these challenging situations. Mara Wilson plays each character with authenticity and kindness, making each voice unique and engaging.

Fans of Rachel Vail’s other books, especially Unfriended, will enjoy this book as well. Readers who liked Bright by Brigit Young (also read by Mara Wilson) will also be engaged by this story and its narration. Friendship dynamics are also reflected in Keep it Together, Keiko Carter by Debbi Michiko Florence.

-Lynda Salem Poling

Other Nominated Titles

The Selected Lists teams read throughout the year in search of the best titles published in their respective categories. Once a book is suggested (either internally or through the title suggestion form), it must pass through a review process to be designated an official nomination.

Each week, the teams feature a review of one of the officially nominated titles. Additional titles to receive this designation are listed as well. At year’s end, the team will curate a final list from all nominated titles and select a Top Ten.

Booklist: Surviving Middle School

Middle school is the time of greatest change for teens. It is when you go from from 11 to 12-years-old to becoming an actual teenager. It is a time changing friendships and changing bodies, becoming more aware of yourself and of others. It is a time when identity is being explored, but also a time of growing empathy and sense of social justice. Books about the middle school experience are tricky to categorize, some speak to the younger side and some to the older, and choosing books for middle schoolers can be difficult because they are reading everything.

Continue reading Booklist: Surviving Middle School

Coming of Age Online: Social Media in YA Literature

Teens today are coming of age in an environment saturated with social media, so it’s no surprise it’s featured prominently in the plots of many young adult novels. When I started noticing a trend of books that explore the impact that social media has on the lives of teens, I decided it would be interesting to compile a list showcasing the various ways that teens’ use of Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and other social media are depicted in young adult literature.

social media in ya lit the hub

Lauren Myracle’s Internet Girls series is inventive in structure and form, but the story of girls chatting online and communicating in a virtual space is also groundbreaking in the way it examines the social lives of teens. TTYL was a 2005 Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, and the fourth installment in the series, YOLO, is due out this year. Two other recent publications also explore internet culture. Guy in Real Life by Steve Brezenoff explores the social aspects of online role-playing games, and the main character in Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, is more at home in the online world of the fandom of her favorite book than in the real world where she’s freshman in college. These novels explore teen identity through the juxtaposition of online identity and “real life” personas. Continue reading Coming of Age Online: Social Media in YA Literature