1. Ghostgirl

Ghostgirl, Tonya Hurley (2008)

I picked this up at Midwinter at the YALSA booth. My friend Jenine, a teen librarian, handed it to me and said it was or was probably going to be a quick pick title. It was loud in there and I might be misremembering what I misheard. I totally can't resist free advance copies of teen lit, so I was happy to have it.

The book is about an unhappily unpopular girl named Charlotte Usher, who starts the new school year with a plan to become more popular and get the attention of Damien, the boy she adores. Of course, shenanigans ensue, and Charlotte chokes to death on a gummy bear right after managing to get partnered with Damien in physics class. The story follows Charlotte as she tries to adjust to her new afterlife in Dead Ed, the school for dead teenagers. At the same time, Charlotte isn't ready to move on from Damien and we get to see how she plots to get close to him.

It's really cute with all the allusions to literature and music, usually with a gothic flavor. Each chapter begins with a quote from somebody like Emily Dickinson, Martin L. Gore, or The Cure. It's clever without being obnoxious. When this comes out in August, I recommend checking it out. There's a website (and a MySpace, of course) for the book, too.

40. The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl (Barry Lyga, 2006)

Fanboy is a fifteen year old kid with one friend to his name, who's unhappily living with his pregnant mother and stepfather following his parents' divorce, is alternately bullied and ignored at school, and is obsessed with/writing comic books. Excuse me--graphic novels. Goth Girl is the fellow outcast who befriends him. The teenage alienation rings really true here. Nothing's exaggerated and the characters seem three-dimensional. It wasn't predictable and kept me interested the whole way through. So many YA titles seem to fall apart at the end. So I liked it.

The only problem I had with the book is that I kept comparing it to Hard Love, which features an angsty kid dealing with divorced parents, who has only one friend, and meets a cool and mysterious girl, and is obsessed with/writing zines. And as Hard Love is one of my all-time favorite books EVER, Fanboy and Goth Girl suffer from my comparison.

21. Vampire Kisses

Vampire Kisses (Ellen Schreiber, 2003)

The first of two vampire-themed young adult books I read this weekend, Vampire kisses is an engaging teen romance. Raven, the only goth kid in "Dullsville," is obsessed with the mysterious boy who recently moved into the creepy mansion on the hill. While the love interest himself isn't that interesting, I like Raven a lot and really enjoyed her relationships with her family and the other kids at school. The secondary characters are really interesting, and I found myself wanting to learn more about Ruby, Becky, and even little brother Billy (aka Nerd Boy).

During my YA materials class in library school, some YA librarians gave us each a few review copies of books that were reviewed but not selected for YALSA awards. This was one of mine, but I only just got around to reading it. Since I picked this up in 2004, Schreiber has written three sequels, but I'm a little leery of its series potential. I rather liked the unresolved ending of this book, so I might leave it at that.