Favourites Friday – YA Contemporary Books

Hello Everyone!

Today I am back with another favourites Friday post. I haven’t done one of these in a while, so I thought it was time to do another one and this time I am telling you all about my top 5 favourite YA Contemporary Books! I have always like contemporary, but I have always been more of a fantasy kind of girl, but I have really gotten into the genre this summer, so I wanted to tell you about some of the ones I have loved the most. So let’s just get into it:

Normal Series by Holly Bourne

My best friend recommended I read ‘Am I Normal Yet?’ about 3 years ago because she had really loved it. I took her advice and picked it up and I instantly fell in love! The characters are so amazing and it discusses so many important topics. What I really love though is the feminist themes of the books as well as the friendship between the 3 main characters. It isn’t often that I get to read about such strong female friendships, so when I do find them, I savour them. Once I had read the first one I obviously had to get my hands on the other two and that is exactly what I did. Each book is told from a different girls perspective, but the main themes stay the same. It has been a while since I have read them though, so I think I might be due a re-read pretty soon.

Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda and Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

Pretty much everyone in the book community has heard of Becky Albertalli and the SimonVerse by now, especially after the film came out (which I still haven’t seen, but I really need to). I, like so many other people, instantly fell in love with Simon and his friends. The representation in these books is phenomenal (gay, bisexual, jewish, black, fat positivity and so much more) and I found that is really made the books come to life more and seem way more realistic than the standard whitewashed fiction I am used to reading. This duology is truly phenomenal and I think it really accurately represents what it is like to be a teenager figuring everything out.

Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman

This is quite a recent read for me, but one that I enjoyed very much. I think the thing that captured me the most was the fact that the main character was an artist. I myself am an artists, photographer and a writer, so all my interests are very creative based, but I don’t often get to read about characters that share those similar interests. The main characters best friend is also a photographer, so I really got to see a lot of my interest represented in this book, which meant a lot and really inspired me to start creating. I also loved the representation for anxiety. The main character suffers quite badly from anxiety and I related to her experiences and feelings a lot, which made me feel really understood. I also felt like I learnt quite a lot from this book because the main character is half Japanese and half American and she struggles throughout the book with the racism she receives and figuring out her identity. I don’t personally have that struggle, so reading about it really allowed me to understand some of the problems other people face. I am going to put a trigger warning on this book for emotional and sexual abuse as well as suicide. They are quite big topics throughout the whole book, so if you are triggered by any of these, then I recommend staying away from this book.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl is another popular book and I, like many other people, love it! I am a writer just like Cath and also have anxiety like her, so I can relate on a very personal level to her experiences. I am several years younger than Cath, but I have always been very mature, so that doesn’t really bother me and I find I can still relate to the college environment she is in even though I am still in secondary school for the moment.

Looking for Alaska by John Green

I am sure everyone has heard of Looking for Alaska by now even if you haven’t read it. I have read all of John Green’s book’s (apart from ‘Turtles all the way down’ because I am waiting for it to come out in paperback) and I have loved them all. The Fault in Our Stars is one of two books I have ever cried at and all of them really hit a chord with me. His writing style is very unique and his characters are very quirky and in some ways a bit unrealistic, but I think it is funny and it is really nice to see some teenage characters that I a little to smart or in the know for their own good. I too am quite intelligent for my age (I’m not trying to show off here. It is just a fact. I am smart) and it is sometimes quite frustrating talking to people or reading about characters who don’t have the same intelligence level to me because to me the things they don’t know the answer to are simple. Looking for Alaska is my favourite because of Alaska. I like that the book ends in uncertainty. The characters don’t know what happened and so therefore neither do you and even now, about 4 years later, I still periodically think of this book and wonder what happened to Alaska.

Those were my top 5 YA Contemporary books! The first one is technically a trilogy, so I suppose there are actually 7 books, but we are just going to count the 3 as one book to make my life easier. What are your favourite contemporary books? Do you agree or disagree with me? I’d love to know!

Goodbye for now!

Over and Out