Thursday 31 October 2013

Meet Amy - Your Local Bookstore Manager

When the topic arose about 'what books are popular with teenagers' I had no idea where to start. Despite Goodreads and Amazon being widely available I headed to the local bookstore that my best friend manages. 
Amy has won several writing competitions, is the YA team member of the the Book Club team on 4ZZZ Radio, does regular interviews of Australian authors and is passionate about getting people reading.

Amy (pictured left) Original Image


These were some of her recommendations: 
The 'Divergent' series by Veronica Roth is extremely popular at the moment (future dystopia), as is Cassandra Clare's 'Mortal Instrument' books and is about the children of angels and their adventures. It's targeted towards the lower end of YA. 
Lauren Kate, who wrote the 'Fallen' books (angels and forbidden/fated love) also has a new one out called 'Teardrop'. While I haven't read it, I've heard is pretty good.  
Naturally the Hunger Games is still huge with the new movie coming out in less than a month. 

I interviewed a new Australian YA author called Melissa Keil about her book, 'Life in Outer Space', which is a very sweet contemporary geek-meets-girl story set in a Melbourne high school. - guy friendships are a big thing in this one, main character's parents get divorced, lots of movie/pop culture references and is relatable to people in or just out of high school.  
It's a good one for those who love YA books but are over the supernatural themes.

For slightly older teens, and something a bit more serious, there is a new Australian novel called 
The Accident' by Kate Hendrick (another Australian debut author). It's about three young people whose lives are all touched and changed by a car crash. All of them have complex family/internal lives - it's very true and in many places moving and could be a good wake-up call for many young people.  


For straight fantasy, I love Garth Nix's 'Old Kingdom' series: main character is seventeen, there's necromacy and adventure, little dash of romance, and a talking cat (in a world where World War I era clashes with a realm of magic)

Amy is just one of the many human resources that are available to the general public. Librarians, teachers, publishers and retailers are people who work in this area on a daily basis and are eager to help. 

I love it when people come up to me and ask me things! If you didn't want a personal touch you would have bought your books online. Bookstores survive on human questioning and interaction. 

1 comment:

  1. I find it interesting that people still prefer to get advice in person. I know I am the same and will always trust asking a store person's advice over online reviews as I find they often have some sort of bias or blown out of proportion.

    I also agree with your friend on the fact that bookstores survive on human questioning and interaction. I hear all the time from people how the bookstore is disappearing; in some ways they are right. The way I have seen it though is that the massive chain stores are disappearing and the independents are still going based on the experience they offer. Which in my opinion is a very good thing.

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