Trending in YA: HarperTeen

I became a voracious reader of YA at the time when every book was the next Twilight. I stayed around for the dystopia trend, and after that I wasn't active enough on the blogosphere to notice anything, except that NA is extremely popular at this time. I've read a few pieces concerning what publishers are looking for these days. Naturally, being the overly curious person that I am, I started to wonder: What is the current trend in YA? I thought I'd do a comparison of the upcoming releases of some major publishers and make a sort of tally to see if there is a trend at this moment.

I decided to start out with Harper Collins. All the information I have is through HarperTeen.com. I've decided to omit sequels in series, because they can't just change genres halfway through. Or can they? (Well, they shouldn't.)

Looking at the books

This book came out already, but only a few days ago so it's new enough. Undercurrent is a thriller! It has some guy waking up to find his life has completely changed. He's now a jock, his brother is paralyzed, and people are trying to kill him for some reason. Definitely a high action read. 

Asylum is described as horror and thriller. It's supposed to be action packed with photos, a la Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Dan is an outcast at his high school so he takes a summer program. His dorm ends up being located at the site of what used to be an asylum. 

The Beginning of Everything is contemporary. It's said to be witty and heart-wrenching and it's supposed to appeal to fans of John Green. It's about Ezra, a guy that believes that everyone has to deal with one tragedy at some point in their lives, and what happens after his tragedy. 

I think I would consider The Chaos of Stars to be paranormal, since it takes place in our world, although there are a few supernatural twists. The story is about Isadora, daughter of ancient Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris, who is a little tired of her family's craziness, so she jumps at the opportunity to move to California with her bother. 

3:59 is supposed to be a sci-fi horror about Josie, who's life is spinning out of control. One days, when she looks into the mirror, she sees a blonder, prettier version of herself called Jo. The girls are doppelgangers and their universes overlap every twelve hours at 3:59.

The Burning Sky has all the makings of a good fantasy, with lots of action and adventure. Iolanthe Seabourne, an elemental mage, is thought to be the one that's prophesied to save the Realm by defeating the Bane, a tyrant mage. 

Find Me is considered to be a thriller, with action, mystery, and romance. Wick Tate, teen hacker, searches for her murdered classmate's killer after she finds their diary on her front steps. Things get worse when it becomes clear the Wick's sister is the next target. 

The Paradox of Vertical Flight is a total contemporary, once again hoping to appeal to fans of John Green, as well as Chris Crutcher and Jay Asher. It's about a high school senior that's seriously considering suicide when he gets a call from his ex-girlfriend telling him she gave birth to their son. What happens next is a crazy road trip with the baby, his best friend, and his ex-girlfriend. 

Not A Drop To Drink is the first dystopia of this list, something I find a little shocking. It's about a world where water is more valuable than gold and a girl, Lynn who is responsible for protecting her pond no matter what. 

Hideous Love is the story of the girl that wrote Frankenstein, so I think maybe it's best described as a historical novel. It's about how Mary Shelley became one of the better known authors in all of history. 

Blackout is another thriller. There's a virus spreading across America that infects teens with superpowers and they're being rounded up by the government and forced to be part of an army that fights terrorism. It's a story comparable to Legend by Marie Lu.

How to Love is a contemporary about falling in love twice. Reena falls in love with Sawyer and he leaves her when she's pregnant. Years later, Sawyer comes back and although Reena is still angry about the way he left her, she can't help but be drawn to him.

The Brokenhearted is supposed to be a take on the superhero story. Anthem, a ballerina, falls her to her death and wakes up again with a bionic heart, after having met the mysterious Gavin. It's hard to place what genre this book is- perhaps sci-fi or thriller? Or dystopian?

My Tally

For the sake of fairness, I decided to allow books to fit inside multiple genres, although I tried (and succeeded) to keep them all in the genre I thought they fit most. I also decided to list titles instead of simply leaving a number so if someone disagrees with a genre they can let me know why in the comments. I haven't read any of these books although I know a few lucky people have ARCs so they should have a better grasp on the books. 

Paranormal

• The Chaos of Stars

There were many books that could be paranormal, but I think The Chaos of Stars is the only one that you can classify as straight up paranormal. 

Fantasy

• The Burning Sky

I think this is one of the easier books to categorize on this list. Nothing else has a truly fantasy feel. 

Contemporary

• The Beginning of Everything
• The Paradox of Vertical Flight
• How to Love

All three are contemporary but they all approach very different subjects. 

Sci-Fi

• 3:59

Many books on this list could be sci-fi, but it's very hard to classify them that way because they almost seem to better fit other genres. 

Historical

• Hideous Love

Another easy to categorize title. 

Dystopia

• Not a Drop to Drink
• The Brokenhearted 

I had to think a lot about what to include or not to include for dystopia. The Brokenhearted made it because it's about a place that doesn't exist, somewhere comparable to Gotham, whereas Blackout didn't because it takes place in America and there's not enough context there for me to decide what type of America. 

Thriller

• Undercurrent
• Asylum
• Find Me
• Blackout

Asylum was a little hard to place, but the description said thriller so I placed it there. Every single one of the books on this list had "thriller" or "thrilling" in their description. 

Recap

1 Paranormal

1 Fantasy

3 Contemporary

1 Sci-Fi

1 Historical

2 Dystopia

4 Thrillers

This shows just how far paranormal has fallen, as well as dystopia. Contemporary does seem to be on the rise, but I was most surprised at thrillers. So many of these books seem to be high action with major conspiracies caused by the government, or simple mysteries. I guess people now want to read about excitement in the modern world. Either way, I thought this was interesting. 

Extra

I also wondered, while looking at the titles, how many were narrated by female protagonists vs male vs multiple (or unknown). 

Female

• The Chaos of Stars
• 3:59
• The Burning Sky
• Find Me
• Not a Drop to Drink
• Hideous Love
• How to Love
• The Brokenhearted

Male

• Undercurrent
• Asylum
• The Beginning of Everything
• The Paradox of Vertical Flight

Mixed/Unknown

• Blackout

I guess it's pretty obvious that mostly females narrate books, but what I found interesting were that male narrated books were of two genres: contemporary and thriller. Anyway, I promise this is all. I'll do another post for another publisher soon. Just looking at this list of books, there are way too many books I need to add to my TBR. 

Were you surprised at anything you found here? Do you disagree with how I categorized any book? Let me know in the comments!

-P.E