Karen Healey was born in Whangarei, New Zealand, and has lived in lots of places since, including Oamaru, Christchurch, Tokyo, Fuchu, and Melbourne. She is the author of the award-winning young adult urban fantasy, “Guardian of the Dead”, “The Shattering”, and the forthcoming “When We Wake.” She likes baking, “World of Warcraft”, and tripartite sentences. She used to want to be a dinosaur-hunting cowgirl, but being an author is sufficient compensation in its combination of excitement and terror.
I read some great YA novels last year, but also a few less than impressive ones. In my reviews, I explained my reservations about the novels I didn’t like in some detail. At one point, I started to wonder whether I was being too hard on them, because, after all, those books are aimed at a younger audience. Is it fair to set the same expectations for YA as for books aimed at mature readers? Looking back, I even mentioned in some reviews that I clearly wasn’t the target demographic for these novels and that someone who is closer to the YA age range would probably enjoy them more.
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Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
this sounds like a fun one