Best modern YA fiction?

I actually liked Kami Garcia's UNBREAKABLE series. Good for a fast read if you like teen versions of the Supernatural crew.

I third Ratsy and Juliana on the RECKONERS series. Very good fun!
 
Oooh. I have the first UNBREAKABLE out of the library too!

(re the Grishas -- I thought the first book was by far the best. I read the second but didn't bother buying the third, which might be a mistake because I know the middle book of a trilogy is often the weakest).

I know I always go on about HEXWOOD, and I know it doesn't really count as modern, but it is a brilliant example of YA.
 
Hex said:
Oooh. I have the first UNBREAKABLE out of the library too!

(re the Grishas -- I thought the first book was by far the best. I read the second but didn't bother buying the third, which might be a mistake because I know the middle book of a trilogy is often the weakest).

I know I always go on about HEXWOOD, and I know it doesn't really count as modern, but it is a brilliant example of YA.
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UNBREAKABLE's good and the second book in the series, UNMARKED, is even better. Garcia really ramps up the tension and adventure.

I really need to pull together a shortlist of DWJ's YA books to read...
 
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They're pretty much all surprisingly good. Let me know if you'd like some suggestions :)
 
ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD was great, though there was a scene that gave me nightmares.

Talking of which, the cleverest, most nightmare-worthy YA I have read for years was UNWIND by Neal Shusterman. It was brilliant and shocking and a really clever and persuasive dystopia. Can't recommend it highly enough (although there was a scene I had to skim-read and it still gave me waking nightmares for months).

Gentler, though still pretty raw, was SKINNED by Robin Wasserman.

And here's a thread on Diana Wynne Jones recommendations.
 
On the older side of YA you could try The Daughter of Smoke and Bone series by Laini Taylor
 
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Is that really good, @Stevious ? I started it but then there was the looking-at-herself-in-reflective-surface-as-excuse-for-description and I gave up. Which was unfair. I've heard lots of good things about her as a writer.
 
The Eclipse of the Century by Jan Mark

The 3 Garth Nix fantasies - Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen (there are a couple of follow up short stories, haven't read those)
 
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I loved Sabriel -- it's a great book. The bells were genius, and the cat. I thought by Abhorsen, it was all slipping a little, writing-wise.

I've read the short story collection Across the Wall, and it was up to the standards of Sabriel, I thought.

I liked Garth Nix's Mr Monday books as well (although again the earliest were the best), though they might be MG rather than YA, now I think about it.

Shade's Children (also by him) was very dark. Very good, though.
 
Funnily enough, I thought Shade's Children was awful and thought 'oh no, I've bought 3 more by this bloke'. But then I read Sabriel and it was all OK.

If I hadn't already bought those, I'd have been totally put off by Shade's Children and never read the Abhorsen books!
 
Ah... I read them the other way round, so I liked him before I read Shade's Children (which horrified me, but not -- as far as I remember -- in a bad way). I don't think I have the mental strength to read it again to check, though :s
 
Jo Zebedee said:
Peadar O'Guilin's The Call is exceptional.
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That is something I can confirm, thanks to a recommendation from Jo (Thanks, Jo!). It's a tightly-written book - I ploughed through it, resenting every moment I had to put it down. Great story, too.

Looking forward to Heart Blade, as I know how well Juliana can write. @Hex put me on to Holly Black - The Coldest Girl in Coldtown took a little while for me to warm to it (pun intended?), but kept me hooked to the end. Another thanks to her Hexness.

Others? Just getting into Otherbound, by Corinne Duyvis. Really enjoyed Pantomime and Shadowplay by Laura Lam; eagerly awaiting Masquerade. And, perhaps at the upper end of YA, but Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor is really good science fiction: deserving of its awards.
 
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