It's been awhile since I posted a list of books on here and NPR has apparently decided this needs to be rectified. Or they made their own list independent of my little blog and in fact don't acknowledge my existence at all. Jerks. Whatever the case, NPR asked people to vote for their Top 100 Best-Even Teen Novels. Now I'm not a YA fan but I scanned the first few titles and said "Oh hai, I know those" so I figured why not post the list and see which ones I've read and haven't. Also this gives me more time to procrastinate on getting reviews written. However, I am only listing the top 50 because after that I hardly even recognize the titles that come after that and don't feel like spending my time NOT highlighting or italicizing stuff. Priorities, I haz them. So bolded titles are ones I've read entirely, italics are ones I read part of, since they include series as a single number and I want credit for The Lord of the Rings.
1. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
2. The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
3. To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
4. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
5. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein - not yet but coming soon (maybe)
6. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
7. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein
8. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - this counts as YA lit? what now?
9. Looking for Alaska by John Green
10. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
11. The Giver series by Lois Lowry
12. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams
13. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton - I also own the movie. On VHS.
14. Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery
15. His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman
16. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
17. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
18. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
19. Divergent series by Veronica Roth
20. Paper Towns by John Green
21. The Mortal Instrument series by Cassandra Clare
22. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
23. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
24. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
25. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
26. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
27. Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer - stop judging me!
28. Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld
29. The Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare
30. Tuck Everlasting by Nathalie Babbitt
31. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
32. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Bashares
33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
34. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
35. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous - but isn't not really by anonymous but actually by someone pretending it was a true diary to convince people that drugs are bad? (or so says Snopes)
36. Howl's Moving Castle by Diane Wynne Jones
37. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli - the hell? This but not Maniac McGee? Something's afoul here. Because MM - "explores racism & homelessness" and SG is apparently about a manic pixie dream girl (so says NPR so don't yell at me)
38. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
39. Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
40. Abhorson trilogy by Garth Nix
41. Dune by Frank Herbert
42. Discworld/Tiffany Aching series by Terry Pratchett
43. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Piccoult
44. The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper
45. Graceling series by Kristin Cashore
46. Forever... by Judy Blume
47. Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin
48. The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini
49. The Princess Diary series by Meg Cabot
50. Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce
Out of the top 50 I've read 18, if I include those where I at least read one in the series. And I include that. This number of read stays exactly the same, even if I include the next 50. So yup. What we need on this list is more YA lit written before the new millennium. Then I'd have way more read. Maybe. Some more at least.
