Review: Buzz Books 2015: Young Adult FALL/WINTER by Publishers Lunch

SUMMARY FROM NETGALLEY.COM:

This edition of Buzz Books: Young Adult provides substantial pre-publication excerpts from 20 forthcoming young adult and middle grade books. Now everyone can share the same access to the newest YA voices the publishing industry is broadcasting for the fall/winter season. Extensive publishing information, including promotion plans and publicity contacts, are included in this NetGalley version. At the end of most excerpts, you will find a link to the full galley on NetGalley!
Excerpts include new work from established leaders in the field (James Dashner, Jennifer Donnelly, Patrick Ness, and Lauren Oliver), authors best-known for their adult books (Eleanor Herman and Cammie McGovern), and newsmaking titles such as the highly graphic History of Glitter and Blood, Illuminae, and The Thing About Jellyfish.
You will find a full range of YA titles previewed here —dystopian, romance, fantasy, sci-fi, humor, literary and more — and you will find some works for tweens and middle-grade readers. As always, many are sure to make bestseller and “best of” lists.
Four of our titles will be featured at this year’s Book Expo America convention on their own YA or Middle Grade Editors Buzz panels: Everything Everything, Nightfall, This Raging Light, and The Thing About Jellyfish. Plus, half of our 20 Buzz Books: Young Adult authors will be in attendance at BEA.

MY TAKE:
I'm always on the lookout for new books to read so I requested this sampler to see if there were any new books that I should be looking forward to.

While I didn't love every book here, there were certainly a couple or so that I liked enough to request, and a few others that piqued my interest and which I will look into again in the future, when the reviews for them start coming in.

Based on what I read from this sampler, my must-read books are: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, and This is Where it Ends by .

I usually love books that make use almost exclusively of transcripts, documents, etc. to tell the story. If done right, you get an all-encompassing view of the story without being burdened by the thoughts and feelings of the narrators towards certain characters. Illuminae was definitely a shining example of this type of narration, and I look forward to reading the whole thing, if I get approved.

As for This is Where it Ends, I don't think it's for everybody because the topic of school shootings is quite sensitive. I like that it shifts focus between four characters, though, and I'm curious to see more of the character dynamics at play.

Other titles that caught my attention and which I'm looking forward to are: These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly, Legacy of Kings by Eleanor Herman, The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness, and Curiousity House: The Shrunken Head by Lauren Oliver.

RATING: