It’s that time of year again to share AudioFile Magazine’s 2018 Best Young Adult Audiobooks. Click the links to read the reviews. Visit the Audiofile Ezine to check out the rest of AudioFile Magazine’s 2018 Best Audiobooks.
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Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann
Rating: unrated | Swoon Reads | Contemporary New Adult | Release Date: 1/23/2018
Let’s Talk About Love is an upbeat, modern romance-y novel that feels way more like millennial (Gen Z ?) women’s fiction than like a true romance.
Alice loves a pleasing aesthetic, her best friends and herself–asexuality and all. When she meets her new co-worker the sweet, generous and soon-to-be teacher Takumi she finds herself on a journey to balances her smoldering attraction with her identity as asexual.
I think I basically agree with Carrie’s review on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, this book has a lot of drama and angst that comes from characters not talking to each other but I also like following them around as they try to tackle this whole adulting thing.
Alice was recognizable as a young person today, she loves Tumblr, fandom, bingeing tv and making memories with her friends.
I personally had a hard time seeing this book as a romance because Takumi felt–to use a term Kat uses a lot–unknowable to me. Perhaps it’s because I’m used to romances where we get into the other characters but he never felt like a real person to me. He was just a little too perfect.
AudioFile Magazine’s Picks of the Best New Young Adult Audiobooks for Autumn Listening
When it comes to discovering great audiobooks it always helps to turn to the experts! We are super excited to welcome AudioFile Magazine blogger, Aurelia C. Scott, to share some inspiring young adult audiobooks to add to your TBR pile!
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A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
368 pages | Washington Square Press | Contemporary | 07/15/2014
Along with Ikea, The Skarsgard family and fish-shaped candy, Fredrik Backman is the newest Swedish export making money moves in the U.S.
Ove is best described in the novel as “a man with his hands perpetually in his pockets”. He is the human equivalent of the Old Man Yells at Cloud meme. At 59-years old he has a fondness for the way things used to be and fights progress with indignation and a solid hurmph. Ove has a plan for what should come next in his life, a plan that gets turned upside down by the boisterous family that moves in next door, a mangy old cat and a community of unlikely neighbors.
Backman writes with a capricious tone with an infinity for in medias res. This book is translated from Swedish and there were only a few times where I felt like something wasn’t translating
I’m not sure what I expected from this book but it as a lot more fun than I was anticipated. Ove truly becomes an endearing figure, and I really like stories that explore life in all its stages a la The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or Big Fish.
A quaint, heartwarming story that is satisfyingly earnest and has universal appeal for fans of contemporary fiction.
A Gathering of Shadows by V.E Schwab (Shades of Magic #2)
512 pages | 2/23/16 | Shades of Magic #2 | Tor Books | Fantasy
A Gathering of Shadow picks up a few months after ADSOM and our characters are reunited just in time for an international contest that pits magician against magician— and it’s a lot like Goblet of Fire. I legit kept thinking that for the first few chapters of the books. I mean Lilah even “Harry Potters” herself into the competition. You know that thing where an underqualified competitor gets themselves into the competition and The Powers That Be let it slide because. . . Chosen One? (yes, I know Harry doesn’t put his own name in, but still.)
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Smoke Thieves by Sally Green
400 pages | Viking | YA Fantasy | 05/01/2018
YA fantasy isn’t for me
This is something I’ve thought and said for so long now because when it coms to the big YA fantasies e.g. The Belles, Throne of Glass, The Wrath and The Dawn … they just didn’t 100% work for me.
I guess I felt like a YA Fantasy can easily become predictable; there are always love triangles, secret crushes, rebellions, secret gays, captains of the guard . . . FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHY IS THERE ALWAYS A CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD ???
So, Smoke Thieves.
This YA Fantasy totally worked for me and I shocked. I think one of the major reasons is because it has an unconventional structure. The book is told from the POV of five different characters in different parts of the world, which I think bolstered the word building and gave depth to the story. There is a fierce princess oppressed by her patriarchal kingdom, a soldier who turns against his crown (okay, so he is a captain of the guard with a secret crush but like…it’s different okay) a young thief who ventures into demon territories to steal demon smoke, a pompous secret heir on a journey home and a young servant taking revenge on the king who sacrificed his people.
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