#ya books for adults

[rockislandadultreads]

Fantastical Book Covers & Asian-Inspired Fantasies

A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin

I used to look at my hands with pride. Now all I can think is, "These are the hands that buried my mother." For Ning, the only thing worse than losing her mother is knowing that it's her own fault. She was the one who unknowingly brewed the poison tea that killed her—the poison tea that now threatens to also take her sister, Shu. When Ning hears of a competition to find the kingdom's greatest shennong-shi—masters of the ancient and magical art of tea-making—she travels to the imperial city to compete. The winner will receive a favor from the princess, which may be Ning's only chance to save her sister's life. But between the backstabbing competitors, bloody court politics, and a mysterious (and handsome) boy with a shocking secret, Ning might actually be the one in more danger.

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan, Kuri Huang (Illustrator)

A captivating debut fantasy inspired by the legend of Chang'e, the Chinese moon goddess, in which a young woman’s quest to free her mother pits her against the most powerful immortal in the realm. Growing up on the moon, Xingyin is accustomed to solitude, unaware that she is being hidden from the feared Celestial Emperor who exiled her mother for stealing his elixir of immortality. But when Xingyin’s magic flares and her existence is discovered, she is forced to flee her home, leaving her mother behind. Alone, powerless, and afraid, she makes her way to the Celestial Kingdom, a land of wonder and secrets. Disguising her identity, she seizes an opportunity to learn alongside the emperor's son, mastering archery and magic, even as passion flames between her and the prince. To save her mother, Xingyin embarks on a perilous quest, confronting legendary creatures and vicious enemies across the earth and skies. But when treachery looms and forbidden magic threatens the kingdom, she must challenge the ruthless Celestial Emperor for her dream—striking a dangerous bargain in which she is torn between losing all she loves or plunging the realm into chaos.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh, Kuri Huang (Illustrator)

Deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland for generations. Floods sweep away entire villages, while bloody wars are waged over the few remaining resources. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curses them with death and despair. In an attempt to appease him, each year a beautiful maiden is thrown into the sea to serve as the Sea God’s bride, in the hopes that one day the “true bride” will be chosen and end the suffering. Many believe that Shim Cheong, the most beautiful girl in the village—and the beloved of Mina’s older brother Joon—may be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is to be sacrificed, Joon follows Cheong out to sea, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong’s stead. Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina seeks out the Sea God, only to find him caught in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man named Shin—as well as a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits—Mina sets out to wake the Sea God and bring an end to the killer storms once and for all. But she doesn’t have much time: A human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking…

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

“I was born on the full moon under an auspicious constellation, the holiest of positions — much good it did me.” So begins Kaikeyi’s story. The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, she is raised on tales about the might and benevolence of the gods: how they churned the vast ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality, how they vanquish evil and ensure the land of Bharat prospers, and how they offer powerful boons to the devout and the wise. Yet she watches as her father unceremoniously banishes her mother, listens as her own worth is reduced to how great a marriage alliance she can secure. And when she calls upon the gods for help, they never seem to hear. Desperate for some measure of independence, she turns to the texts she once read with her mother and discovers a magic that is hers alone. With this power, Kaikeyi transforms herself from an overlooked princess into a warrior, diplomat, and most favored queen, determined to carve a better world for herself and the women around her. But as the evil from her childhood stories threatens the cosmic order, the path she has forged clashes with the destiny the gods have chosen for her family. And Kaikeyi must decide if resistance is worth the destruction it will wreak — and what legacy she intends to leave behind.

#Fantasy #young adult #young adult books #Ya books for adults #YA #to read #tbr #library books #book covers #high fantasy #historical #historical fiction #booklr #book blog #book tumblr #booktok #Highly Rated #highly recommend

[septemberkisses]

the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.

#was rereading the hunger games series when this thought hit me like a truck #it beautiful #its haunting #its heartbreaking #its melancholic #quotes #dark academia #books and reading #books & libraries #books #young adult #ya books #young adult books #movies #coming of age #the hunger games #the divergent series #the maze runner #the fault in our stars #musings #midnight musings #thoughts #mine

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

this was a good read

#honestly this is also why i can't stand the ya only crowd. i read SO much fucked up 80s and 90s YA as a kid #like YA can in fact be good (though it's still directed at teens) #but the sanitized versions goodreads adults are demanding aren't really fun for anyone #also i read both ya and adult books as a teen. i think you need to.

[obsob]

happy and proud!!

✷(print shop)✷

#mine #original #sm how managed 2 miss pride month....but its pride month every month in this house hold #ive read two bad YA books so far this month as a break from th 2nd farseer book but now.....i am back.........i am reading th 3rd one #its gna make my brain explode i can feel it #n then idk what i will read. maybe th hands of th emperor #could i read smth other than 800 page epic fantasy pls #the YA books werent too bad for YA but they hve that YA cringe 2 it. idk how u people read it constantly #if i hve 2 read th word 'heck' one more time #also theres always like. disney channel vibes. like i read gay YA romance n its so sanitised n vanilla. its so superficial #like i get this is for 16 year olds but were is the longing. the yearing. these guys are fanfic tropes stuck 2gether 2 glue. #also. what is with nearly every mlm romance / fantasy being YA not adult fiction. whats up w that #anyway hve a good evenin im gna do knitting!!!!!!!!!!!!

[headspace-hotel]

There is a type of plot that is prevalent in YA books and starting to get into general lit that I do not like. It is a similar trope to the MacGuffin, but instead of the plot being driven by an object, it is driven by the characters being in some sort of situation with formally fixed stakes.

Just as a MacGuffin is an object with no specific properties that affect its importance to the story, the identifying characteristic of this plot is that exact nature of the situation is irrelevant or at least not very important.

A very common example is when characters are involved in some sort of game or competition—for example, the first Throne of Glass book involves the protagonist competing to become the king's assassin, but the plot of the book would need to change very little if the competition was a beauty pageant.

"Gamified" plot lines like this often also include MacGuffins (to drive the "game"), confirming the tropes' similarity in my head.

The other common example is the "magic/superhero/assassin school" plot. The "school" is often just a device that brings the characters together and keeps them on a predetermined track, but there's nothing about what the characters are learning or even the school's specific identity as an educational institution that affects the plot.

#tropes #fantasy #books #writing #ya books #young adult books #young adult tropes #fantasy tropes

[crow-caller]

Tiktok sensation LightLark is the final boss of bad fantasy YA— a failure built on aesthetic boards and tropes, unable to pretend it has a heart

Tiktok sensation LightLark is the final boss of bad fantasy YA— a failure built on aesthetic boards and tropes, unable to pretend it has a heart

View On WordPress (Includes audio version)

A full summary with spoilers, analysis, quotes- and so much more on the subject of a book you should never read. This is a long piece. Like ‘Youtube Video Essay’ long.

Lightlark is joyless, a husk beyond parody, a checklist of every Island of Blood and Bone and Glass and Hearts that has come out in the last five years, built and sold on tropes and aesthetic boards. This is a book written by an author who is not a writer. It would fit in on the dregs of an amateur writing site with eerie perfection.

But Lightlark is more than that. You see, Lightlark is… a TikTok book.

EDIT:

Thanks :')

There's now a video version. I heard Tumblr likes video essay long watches on obscure very specific content... may I introduce you to:

I'm not making a dime on this, I have no horses, only like 70 hours of work looking at this mess of a book and I just want to make sure everyone knows how bad it is. Let's be bitter at this multimillionaires flop together.

#Alex aster #Book drama #Book Review #booktok #fantasy #fiction #Lightlark #Review #romance #writing #YA #YA books #YA fiction #young adult #Youtube

[animentality]

#twitter #writing #ya #young adult #books

[charliesopus]

This was a labor of love and the most complex piece I’ve ever made.

7096 stitches, 98 hours. 2-strand on 18ct.

I was just so in love with this book cover, I couldn’t not.

The book is Crush, the second installment in the Crave series by Tracy Wolff :)

#cross stitch #crave series #crave saga #tracy wolff #fanart #crush book #crave crush #book cover #cross stitching #cross stitcher #cross stich pattern #crossstitching #crossstichlove #cross stitchers of tumblr #young adult literature #ya lit #vampire #dragon #witch #werewolf #gargoyle #fandom #crafts #crafter #crafting #craftblr #art and craft #art and literature

[kumerish]

Oli from The Gulf

#the gulf #comics #comic #graphic novel #ya #young adult #ya books #ya comics #ya graphic novels #cartoon #cartoonist

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I was in a library where in order to get from the YA section to the rest of the library you had to pull yourself up through a hole in the ceiling.

#dream #libraries #library #ya #young adult #books

[rockislandadultreads]

Magical Forests: A reading list

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet’s word is law, Immanuelle Moore’s very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement. But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood. Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood. The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her. But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads. When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes. Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past—both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart.

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: her mother is stolen away-by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set. Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.” Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began―and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong.

#Fantasy #YA #Magic #Ya books for adults #adult fiction #to read #tbr #booklr #booktok #themed reading #reading list #book list #Book Recommendations #reading recommendations #library books #book tumblr #to be read #book recs

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Something I never hear anyone talk about in the 'why are Young Adults (late teens to early 30s) reading so much Young Adult (teens) fiction These Days' discussion is how surprisingly difficult it can be to transition from kids books to adult fiction.

And I don't mean in terms of content. Forget themes, characters, plots, etc. I'm talking pure practicality.

As a kid, most of the books you read are calibrated to you exactly. Your local library likely has a 'children's' section, and that section is likely split into smaller sub-sections based on age group. 0-5, 5-8, 8-12, teen. A lot of your interests and experiences are pretty easy to guess at based on average developmental stages (eg. most 16-18 year olds will relate to Coming Of Age stories), so it's probably pretty easy for you to walk into a bookshop or library and find a book aimed at you specifically.

But get to 18 (or younger) and start straying into the 'adult' section, and suddenly nothing is calibrated anymore. When people complain that all 'grownup fiction' is about white middle class heterosexual couples going through angsty divorces in their mid-forties, this is what they're complaining about. They can't find books they can personally relate to, or that are about topics that they are interested in.

And yeah, sure, books shouldn't have to be relatable to be good or enjoyable. But there's also nothing wrong with wanting to read a book about young people, when you're young. Or queer people, if you're queer. Or people from your particular culture, religion, or ethnicity.

Even if we ignore the relatability aspect entirely, there's also nothing wrong with wanting to read a fantasy book that isn't just 'Tolkien but drearier' or a sci-fi that wasn't written by some guy in the 1960s who thought that women were just another kind of alien.

The problem is, fundamentally, that finding the books you like amid the haystack is a skill that most people are not being taught.

As a result, when they get past YA and try using the old tricks of just picking up whatever is on the bestseller list at the moment, or whatever their local library is currently touting as their 'book of the week', they frequently end up with something that isn't suited to their tastes.

And maybe they love it and it opens up a whole new genre that they'd never considered, but more often they hate it but feel obliged to slog through because this is a 'grownup book' and they have decided they want to be a 'grownup reader'.

A few times being burned like this, and they come to the conclusion that all adult fiction is boring, and that the people who read it are all either mature geniuses of the type they could only hope to be, or slogging through like they were and only pretending to like it.

Thus they run back to the familiarity of YA—which is fine, to be clear, there's nothing actually wrong with reading YA as an adult— but there's every chance that somewhere on the bookshelves is a potential favourite author of theirs that they will now never know because they were never taught how to find them.

#fiction #ya books #ya fiction #adult fiction #reading #ya discourse #genuinely i am 22 and i STILL struggle to find books i like #in ways that i never did when i was a teenager #i'm getting better at it

[halcyon-and-elysian]

boy who teaches you how to dance x girl who teaches you how to fight

#THE ONLY SUPERIOR SHIP #I NEED MORE OF THIS #fiction #romance #tropes #shipping #i don't know how to tag #enola holmes #enola holmes 2 #tewksbury #holmesbury #viscount tewksbury #books and libraries #ships #my ships #young adult #ya fiction #please i'm begging you #young adult fiction #crying over fictional characters #fictional crushes #fictional couples #women #fictional characters #fictional men #someone said #cardan and jude #and i fully agree #same dynamic #my babies

[alex-iltempo]

Nothing is happening...just me... lost for several hours...in the gorgeous...and a little filthy jurdan fanart 😍🤭🫣🥴🫠

Saved the best for later 😏🤫

#jurdan #jude and cardan #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #jude x cardan #tfota #fota #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #folk of the air #the folk of the air #holly black #fanrat #tfota fanart #jurdan fanart #bookish #books #ya books #young adult #the stolen heir #how the king of elfhame learned to hate stories #ya fantasy #the prisoner's throne

[caihosreads]

Some quick Jude and Cardan character drawings for funnies in between paintings.

I found that listening to audiobooks is the best way to keep my mind from wandering when painting and The Folk of the Air series was such a treat to revisit. I’ve yet to read Oak’s story, I’m debating waiting for the last book and then devouring them all in one go rather than piece by piece 🤔

#caihosreads #folk of the air #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #jude x cardan #prince cardan #cardan fanart #the cruel prince #queen of nothing #young adult #ya books

[soranatus]

I just wanted to make a post showcasing some of my favorite illustrations by Keith Thompson for the Leviathan Trilogy.

The art went so hard in these books, it’s crazy. The plot is basically an alternate universe WW1 about the major two powers, the Darwinists, and the Clankers. The Darwinists genetically engineered animals to fight for them creating huge flying whale battleships, while the Clankers made huge robot mechs and powerful guns. A few historical people and places show up in these books, like Nikola Tesla.

But my favorite parts of the books were the art, truly breathtaking, it was beautifully grotesque at times. But that’s not unexpected, after all Keith Thompson helped create the design of Moder from The Ritual!

#art #illustration #illustrations #illustrated book #fantasy #scifi #steampunk #YA #Young Adult #keith thompson #Scott westerfeld #Leviathan #Leviathan Trilogy #Leviathan Series #Behemoth #Goliath #deryn sharp #Dylan sharp #Prince Alek #aleksander of hohenburg #historical fiction #tw body horror