I rounded up my yearly reading here, but decided I should go back and pretend not to be lazy and collect my favorite YA books read in 2008. These weren’t all published in 2008; unfortunately, I scrounge to eat and buy a few books rather than just buying books and starving (ilu broken economy), so there’s a good mix. They’re all special to me and I will hug them close in a metaphorical squeeze forever and ever. If only I could have written the previous sentence with glitter pens and finished it off with a sparkly unicorn sticker.

10. Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan It took me some time to warm up to this novel because in the beginning both the main characters are whiny bitches. It’s easy to want to put the book down, because damn, I lived through 18 and 19 once already. I was a whiny bitch that entire time and sometimes I wonder if I want to revisit that part of myself in characters who really have no self-awareness that they’re totally off-putting (as opposed to knowing you’re off-putting, which I have learned and embraced and never looked back). However, I think this is worth sticking with. Sure, it’s the story of a girl loving a gay boy who won’t love her back by having hot sex with her, but the lesson applies to all sorts of relationships. The idea that a best friend in childhood had to continue on to be the only friend, the only thing that matters? Cohn and Levithan did a great job of convincing me these spoiled babies learned something at the end of the book.

Also, it didn’t hurt that there were boys kissing (omg boys kissing).

9. The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson I fucking loved this book, okay, except for the pastede on epilogue which should be viciously ignored because I said so. It didn’t enrage me quite as much as the Harry Potter 7 epilogue enraged me, but it was close. Stop me before I say something I can’t take back!

8. Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer KJ disagrees with me (I think? Was it you, KJ? Or someone else?) about the end of this book and my fervent belief Pfeffer pulled some kind of Anne Frank’s Diary on us with her god machine wrap-up to the whole moon crisis, but I swear she did it. Swear. Actually, I should e-mail her and ask because she might know! Or it might be a spoiler for Possible Book Three which I have so far managed to avoid spoilers for while reading her blog. I love a good character-dystopia and the mother in this is the best, best, best example of conflicted, gray-hat character I have met in my YA readings so far. Also, I still wonder how the things I had an issue with in the book were meant to be taken, two of which were Miranda’s mental health and lack of Tree-Cutting for Chicks. That doesn’t detract from a kick-ass The World is Fucked Get In The Car Oh Wait There’s No Gas read.

7. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson All right, I’m going to show my big nerdy history-loving roots but I used to spend time in my university archives reading random things just to read things in this style. Damn, but this language is beautiful and smart and rich and everything all my words aren’t but I wish they could be. Dear M.T. Anderson can our brains make out a little? The story hurts, living Octavian’s story with him hurts, but the language in which he tells it! Oh, what it means that he tells it in the language he does, period. I cannot convince anyone to read this story! It’s too Victorian, it’s too sad, it’s boring and long and blah blah blah. I command someone to go out and get this book from the library and read it and then come sob with me.

6. Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson If you read this and don’t sibling-ship Scarlett and Spencer just a little, there’s something wrong. No, really. That said, why were the parents such nonentities! WHY.

5. Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher Okay, so I can’t say that writing strong, healthy and happy female characters is on the top of Crutcher’s list, but this is more of a general criticism than a specific one about this book. I had no clue how he got me to care about a swim team that didn’t even have a proper pool. The reason I read this in the first place is because my YA librarian suggested it to me and I don’t say no to him. One, he’s a pretty big guy and two, I would like for him to keep buying books I suggest to him when I bring him a list of the Cybils nominations I’m interested in reading. I was half in love with T.J. about ten pages into this novel. Such a smart ass! I wanted to put him in my pocket and keep him around for whenever I needed a witty comeback. Also, I’m not going to complain about a intelligent, talented minority character, either. Just saying.

4. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Read it. The end.

3. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart I wish more people were reading this! It’s so good. There’s so much to heart and rage about and so much potential for hella awesome fanfiction. I’m not going to be able to resist. At some point I am going to cross Frankie with Colin from An Abundance of Katherines and the galaxy is going to explode from so much awesome. It’s not that I think Frankie is a perfect character, at all, nor that I think the book is perfect—far from it. It’s just this great little introduction to feminism without it being over the top, arranged in a story that I think is supposed to make you go, “NO, FRANKIE, NO!” Seeing how she learns from her mistakes is just so compelling.

2. Paper Towns by John Green I have found I fail at saying anything about this book without spoiling the hell out of it. What I said before stands: where getting the girl does not mean what you think it means. Absolutely worth it, especially for literature students to flail through in glee.

1. Just Listen by Sarah Dessen Wait, they’re all saying. That’s not John Green’s name in the number one spot. RENAY, WHAT IS HAPPENING, they demand, pulling out pitchforks. We predicted he would be in the number one slot! How dare you ruin our betting pool! I’ll admit I was surprised, too. I ordered them this way without even thinking about it. It was never even a question. I don’t know what it is about Just Listen that compels me so. Perhaps the subtle commentary Dessen is making about female sexuality and trust and how just because someone else has a vagina just like yours does not guarantee a thing. I love unreliable narrators and mysteries that are so subtle the reader doesn’t even realize they’re there. All they can do is sense something off, skewed to the side, like a table with one leg just a few millimeters too short so the rocking is almost undetectable until a glass too close to edge crashes to the floor. I’ll end this paragraph with that beaten, abused metaphor.

I read 90+ YA books last year! I wonder if I can top that and still keep up with bribing KJ to read Frankie by finishing all G.R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. If I vanish, it’s because I was crushed from the weight of carrying all four books in my arms.