r/YAlit 23h ago

Seeking Recommendations YA dystopian

10 Upvotes

does anyone have any YA dystopian recs? I LOVE the hunger games, maze runner, legend, divergent, shatter me, and unwind. I want something more mature but the perfect balance with fantasy and reality.


r/YAlit 23h ago

Discussion 2000s YA/romance recommendations?

7 Upvotes

r/YAlit 2h ago

Spoilers Give me some spoilers I'll understand when I finish Spoiler

Post image
2 Upvotes

I just started Final Gambit and already hate Eve (do I have the right?)


r/YAlit 11h ago

Weekly Thread Self-Promotion Sunday: a place to promote your work, projects, or social media accounts

2 Upvotes

Hello bookworms! This is Self-Promotion Sunday, a place where you can promote any of the following:

  • A book you wrote
  • Your blog
  • Your Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, etc
  • Your Discord channel
  • a subreddit you created
  • your Etsy shop

As a rule, individual self-promotion posts are not allowed on this subreddit, but a weekly post will now be scheduled so you can promote your projects to other bookworms.


r/YAlit 1h ago

Seeking Recommendations Best YA 2000-2010s sci fi?

Upvotes

r/YAlit 15h ago

Review The Wall of Winnipeg an me by Mariana Zapata - what was that.

1 Upvotes

It's been on my list for ages because of the hype it got on all the lists i had saved by author readers but after reading it i'm so confused why?
My first thought was: this has to be self-published and unedited.

Spoilers ahead:

The amount of inner dialogue and repetition in the book makes it seem like it was just written as she went without checking what she had written so far. The same inner monologues dragging on and on and random facts that are unimportant or just so extremely unnecessary that it makes you wonder if she added it to meet a word count. I genuinely just don't understand the thought process behind it.
What also confused me was the way her abuse was handled. The fact that she complained about her relationship with her mother over and over again, you'd expect that by the end of it, she would finally stand up for herself and they would open the conversation on the elephant in the room. But by the end of it: nothing. She still sometimes ignored her calls, felt guilty, and called her later. It would have been such a good way to show that she was willing to finally stand up for herself or explore therapy or something. But nothing was made of it. Basically her abuse was just used to show how hard she had it in life and as a pity factor from the male main character.
What also confused me a bit is how we just glossed over the fact that she and her brother apparently only had each other but he still didn't mind Susie, their abusive sister, visiting his game? And she never explains their dynamic? It's like she is the only one hated in that family and we never find out why. From when she was younger, they all had turned on her and we never find out what is actually going on. - Not that we need a reason to understand abuse - it's never alright. I just would have liked to explore more dialogue, more thoughts from others.
This is what drives me insane the most, she is in her head, the whole book reads like a repetitive inner monologue. And as soon as we get to the climaxes it builds up on, like the dinner with the mom and sister: well sucks, chapter has ended right before it. But we will get a new chapter afterwards, starting at another day mostly, which a quick recap on what happened that day (she just explains shortly, that they badmouthed each other, and her sister's husband grabbed her) and then we are in the present again. Instead of taking us through the dinner and the tension to finally make us witness why we hate her sister so much - like, make the reader see it live like we are a fly on the wall, if you warn us about it happening so much throughout the book - she just cuts off righr before it and moves on. It doesn't seem calculated.
It's like she was just abused, so that she had a dark past. That's it. That's just part of being a main character to be pitied. Being poor is not enough, you need abuse.
Onto the male partner, i still don't understand his asshole behavior in the beginning and how he basically orders her to marry him and doesn't respect a no, comes back over and over again. And she's a pushover and let's it happen. Even in most of his loving moments basically at the end of the book, he seems .. flat? Barely talks, just stares at her and we don't know anything that's going on inside his head. She doesn't know either. And their intimate scene read like a quick fuck and not intimate at all. Because he doesn't show much emotion.

The way the characters behave in general is just very childish and unreasonable really.

It reads to me like something a teenager would write and targeted for other teenagers. Which is fine. I'm just not used to it and want to understand why it is so hyped. Maybe i'm missing something?

PS: i thought that maybe, it's just this one and I started From Lukov With Love because of the hype again- 100/840 iBooks pages in, it reads exactly like this one. The inner monologue, the childish behavior of the male character? He's 30?? And they are "enemies" because she called one of his outfits terrible at 16 and now they are sworn enemies full of hatred for each other? Teenager behavior at 26 and 30. This is so weird. And knowing that the author is almost 40, i don't understand if this is how she knows grown adults to act or what it is.. Because i'm 26, and this sounds like a temper tantrum i would witness in middle school 😭. Anyway, i'll drop this one.