Apologies frothy ones, been off the grid lately reading a ton of YA stuff, despite my advanced years. Spiral maybe be the wrong word- implying it’s a bad thing. Totally enjoyed it, regret nothing. It all started with seeing the Divergent movie, after which I had to read the book by Veronica Roth, and then the rest of the trilogy (Insurgent and Allegiant). They were very enjoyable and stand up well to obvious Hunger Games comparisons, being slightly more grown up. The ‘faction’ system of the new society is an overly simplistic concept with the personality types, but the plot’s nicely character driven and the new world is strongly built.

I was then pointed at the works of Rainbow Rowell by one of my favourite gossip bloggers, and devoured a couple of those too! Fangirl is about a troubled identical twin finding her way at college while losing herself in writing fan-fiction about a Harry Potter-type series of books. It probably falls into the New Adult genre rather than YA, adults would enjoy it too if you’re interested.

I then went on to Eleanor & Park, which is now being made into a movie- this one is definite YA territory, being about two 16 year old misfits. It’s both heartbreaking and heartwarming, Eleanor has such a wretched home life it’s kind of awful to see things improve for her when you know it’s probably going to get ripped away. The author cleverly avoids one of my pet peeves; although she’s in her forties she writes younger characters well. It probably helps that the latter book is set in the eighties, a whole difference world away from today’s teens.