Shelf-involved Podcast

We’re thrilled to be back for another episode in our Book Club series. This time we’ll be discussing All American Boys by Brendan Kiely and Jason Reynolds, which we think should be required reading.

This week we’re talking about books with survival narratives––characters in life-threatening situations who have to use survival skills. We’re fascinated with this type of book and get into why this is appealing for so many readers and how it contributed to the widespread popularity of dystopian fiction.

We’re back and ready to kick off a new year of reading and celebrate 100 episodes of Shelf-Involved! Thank you for listening in and making this so enjoyable for us. We both want to be more intentional about diversifying our reading lists this year, so we came up with this challenge. Head to our website or our Instagram for a graphic of the 2020 reading challenge. 

It’s our favorite time of year! The time where we manage (sort of) to narrow down our ten favorite YA books published this year. If you’re overwhelmed by the volume of buzzy great YA that’s getting published each year, this list is a great starting point. Also we’re sorry (but also not) for how much we sigh with love and say “so good” in this episode. We really love these books.

This week we’re talking about how toxic masculinity is represented in YA. We had to work a little hard because YA is full of soft, soft boys (which we’re obviously here for) but we really love these stories and the journey of these characters as they wade through problematic socialization and pressures to present their masculinity in a specific and harmful way.

This week we’re talking about winter books, the type of book you want to curl up under a blanket and read, but they’re also books that are not Christmas books. You know we love those too, but we wanted to offer some variety in your cozy season of reading.

This week we are so excited to talk about one of our favorite tropes, chosen ones. We tried to keep our book list short because there are so many series and books that have dealt with this and we predictably had a lot of thoughts. 

It’s another week in our Book Club series, and we’re super excited to talk about the newly released YA thriller from Jennifer Donaldson, I Know You Remember. For the full schedule of our upcoming Book Club picks, be sure to check out our website shelfinvolvedcast.com

This week we're talking about third culture kids in YA. These are stories about children of immigrants who don't fully fit into their parents' culture or the American one they grew up in. We find it all really fascinating to see different stories and backgrounds represented in these books, and we hope you do too. 

This week we're talking about platonic friendships in YA. We focus on books where the friendship relationship is central to the plot and also books that make you think the characters are going to fall in love, but really they're just the best of friends. Friendship love is real love too, and we're here for it. 

This week we're catching up with the first in a classic fantasy series, The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. This was a brand new book for both of us, and while we enjoyed it overall, we both were regretting not reading it as actual children. 

This week we’re talking about books set in Portland. It’s where we live, and it’s fun to read books about your city. But more than that, we’re interested in specific settings in books and what it means to read a book about a place you know well.  

This week we’re talking about graphic novels with a super exciting guest, 2020 debut graphic novelist, Breena Bard! Breena is a friend of ours and we’re super excited to have her on the show as our graphic novel authority. We talk about a lot of books in this one, so check out our show notes on our website (shelfinvolvedcast.com) for an extensive list. 

This week we’re talking about bad boys with hearts of gold and why this trope remains so prevalent in YA. We talk about why we like it, why we don’t, and why we’re excited to see this trope flipped on its head more in the genre. 

It’s spooky season, readers! So we’re here to talk to you about the YA horror that we love. And if horror isn’t your thing, we’ve still got some books on this list that we consider “horror-lite” and we think you’ll still totally enjoy.  

This week we’re talking about internet culture in YA, mainly focusing on our weird era of social media and fame being much more widely accessible than it has been for previous generations. And we're agreed, fame is bad for children. We accidentally talk about Harry Styles a tiny bit. We're not actually sorry though. 

This week is our first discussion in our new Book Club series! We are excited to be talking about a book we loved that came out earlier this year, Hope and Other Punchlines by Julie Buxbaum. Spoilers ahead! For the full schedule of our Book Club picks, check out our website. 

This week we're talking about Sci Fi in YA. We're not experts in this subgenre, but we are excited to talk about space adventures and aliens, and we held back and included only one joke about Zenon Girl of the 21st Century. As always, please send us your top YA Sci Fi recommendations. 

We are super excited to talk about sex positivity in YA. We are less than excited to apologize for the weird audio quality on this week's episode. We had a technological mishap that affected two recordings. I know, we're bummed about it too. Regardless, we loved talking about this topic. 

This week we're talking about bottle episodes, or rather "the spirit of the bottle episode" and the way this plot device that we love gets translated to novel form.