For True Love!

 Ok, maybe not true love, but definitely for love. This week I am looking at Young Adult (YA) romance novels. I wasn't sure what to expect in tackling this topic for this week, since YA wasn't a genre when I was in high school leaving us only adult romance books, but our assigned readings this week tackled to topic beautifully for teens in a very approachable way. Many of the books that I found in the YA section of the library tackled teen romance appropriately for teens along with some real life issues thrown in. I am also going to post my assignment for this week's assigned book under a different blog post, so watch for it!

Cinderella Closet - story & art by Wakana Yanai

Since Graphic Novels and Manga are such a popular genre right now, I wanted to include some in this week's selection. I was also careful with my choices as manga can portray women in very unrealistic ways, so I wanted to be sure these were fun and healthy. Cinderella Closet is a series, and book 1 is not exactly a faithful recreation of a Cinderella story, but the same idea. Hiraku likes her coworker, and she feels plain so befriends a stylish young woman to help her with a makeover. But there's a twist! You need to read it to find out!

While this sounds superficial on the surface it tackles older teen behavior and does include scenes with drinking and the main crush smokes (which I didn't love), but it's only seen in 2 frames in the entire book. It is noted that the main characters are college students, so the drinking at parties makes a little more sense. Recommended grade level: Upper High School

Rainbow! by Sunny & Gloom

Rainbow is a new graphic novel series, starring main character Boo, who has an active imagination and works in a coffee shop. Boo meets new student Mimi and starts wondering who the real "her" is. This book explores the complicated relationships in her life, the relationship with herself, her new feelings for Mimi, and her relationship with her mother. I also loved how the authors handled body image in this graphic novel. Boo has a very realistic figure and I appreciate the representation of all body types showing up in Young Adult books.

Trigger warning: her mother deals with substance abuse and is rather absent leaving Boo on her own most of the time. Her mother also can be verbally abusive.

Recommended grade level: High School

 Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi

On a lighter note, I couldn't talk about manga and graphic novels without including Sailor Moon. Categorized as a romance, this is a fun read about Usagi, our guardian princess Sailor Moon, and her cat Luna. This book series is one of my daughter's favorite and the content is typical teenage crush, so it is appropriate for upper elementary to high school.

Listen to Your Heart by Kasie West

I felt like so many of the YA romance books tackled a lot of big teen issues, and while that is fine and seeing themselves in books in real life scenarios is what teens need, sometimes we all need a good, cozy romance. Listen to Your Heart by Kasie West is just that, a nice cozy beach read. In this book we meet Katie, an introvert, who is asked to help out on her friend's podcast. She soon finds out she is supposed to host it! She ends up being an advice line for others, when she finds herself having to give out romance advice and getting involved. 

Author Kasie West had a couple of other books on my library's shelves that all looked great. If you fall in love with this author, there is more where Listen to Your Heart came from!

*All books were available at my local library. All the recommended books are also available on Amazon Kindlge.

**Book cover photos courtesy of Amazon.