If last week’s Top YA Fiction Series for Teachers to Read before school starts didn’t give you enough books to put on your “to read” list, then this week’s follow-up is for you! As I shared in that post, reading popular YA Fiction books is a great way for teachers to connect with students. Those six series were my top recommendations because they all related to books currently releasing. This week’s list is a variation on that theme. All of these books have been among the “top read” books on Amazon and Goodreads. Some were published years ago and are still popular, while others are relatively new and haven’t yet gained a huge following.
FYI, to see the widgets with the books and series after each entry, view this post on your computer!
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Popular YA Fiction: Newer Series
Curse of the Gods Series by Jaymin Eve and Jane Washington
I picked up the first book in the series because it kept showing up at the top of my Goodreads “popular” list and I’m glad I did. I can see why it’s popular. This book is different from other YA Fiction Series I’ve read because the author’s inner monologue is hilarious. She’s very sarcastic and says the things everyone thinks but knows are not appropriate to say. The heroine is also very accident prone, which is quite amusing. That being said, though I enjoyed the series and was entertained, the plot isn’t very complicated and much of what happens in each story revolves around what becomes her romantic-like (to explain “romantic-like” would spoil the book) obsession with 5 brothers. This doesn’t dominate the first book, but by the second book I started feeling like the love-triangle-hexagon-whatever-you-want-to-call-it was starting to get repetitive.
That being said, a lot of teens are reading it right now. Even I am interested in the third book because I like the characters and find the heroine laugh-out-loud.
Popular YA Fiction Series: Still Reading
Divergent Series by Veronica Roth
This series has been very popular for years and all three books were even made into movies. Divergent was one of the few books I have ever given 5 stars. I loved Tris and Four and wanted to understand their world. In the second book, Insurgent, I started to see a change in the characters I loved and didn’t rate it as highly. I ultimately decided I would not read the last book (long story actually). Nevertheless, the books are still popular and the characters and vocabulary of this world have become a part of the modern lexicon. I would definitely recommend at least reading Divergent.
The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
I resisted this series for awhile because it just sounded weird to me. Cinder (the overall main character) is a cyborg living in New Beijing and her basic story is a Cinderella story (yes…I know, the name gave it away). Each story is a re-envisioned fairy-tale which revolves around the same group of characters. However, each book focuses on a different main character. I’m glad I gave in. I loved the characters and their adventures. They were so different from the typical dystopian I had been reading. Though I don’t believe these books are on the same level as any of Sarah Maas’s books (see this post), they are a whole lot cleaner, which makes them more appropriate for younger readers.
The Selection by Kiera Cass
I was obsessed by this series…obsessed. In fact, I shared my obsession with one of my students. After she read it, her mom got into it too and they both became obsessed along with me! This series came out years ago but there are still a lot of people reading them and talking about them. The Selection is like The Bachelor only in a country with a caste system and if you win, you become the next Queen. I loved it. I can’t guarantee everyone will love it but it’s definitely one to try!
The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
This is another YA Fiction dystopian series that was made into a series of movies. Everyone I know gave it a 4 or 5 star rating and a LOT of my friends have read it. Teens are still reading it. My favorite is the first book and honestly, I hated the ending of the last book. That being said, if you haven’t read it, you should. It’s another one of those series that has become part of popular culture.
Graceling (and Graceling Realm Books) by Kristin Cashore
This was one of my earliest loves in YA Fiction post-teen years. A friend recommended it to me and I ended up reading most of the book WHILE still at her house! Ha! (I know…what a great guest, right?!) Written before the Throne of Glass series (discussed here), this was my first good taste of a deadly female lead whose character is more complicated that just “killer.” The Graceling realm books are a little strange because they aren’t like a typical series. The characters from Graceling show up again in Bitterblue, but not in a real continuing story, which was disappointing. I enjoyed Bitterblue (and Fire), but I wished it was more of a traditional continuing story because I loved Katsa and Po and you basically don’t see much of them after Graceling.
Graceling still features among the most read for teens on its own, though the other two books haven’t shown up as much in the “top reads.”
I have read more YA Fiction books but these are the last of my recommendations for YA fiction books that are popular right now.
Have you read any of these? What did you think of them? Let me know in the comments below!
Also, if there’s a series you’ve heard about that you think I should add to my list, let me know!
Thanks friends! I hope your summer is wrapping up well!
-Virginia
Linking up with: Style Elixir
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