Go Your Own YA

Sunshine and Self Help month kicks off with a groovy guide to life by the endlessly cool Jennifur Brandt (aka Jennifer Brandt Taylor). Were you a weirdo, nostalgic teen who admired both Riot Grrl culture and classic cinema? Do you love collage, paper dolls, and pissing off the patriarchy? Read along with us as we talk novelty stores, fashion tips from 2000, and the eternal appeal of Weetzie Bat.

Happy Hols, Readers and Listeners! This episode is all about the classic Betsy-Tacy series and their wonderful, homey Christmas chapters. We talk holiday memories, stories about childhood friendship, and just a little bit of terrible boys, creepy elves, and talking trains.

The month of dark becoming light and whitefish become lutefisk continues! Kate Bjorkman uses her Romance Writer's Handbook, with its three paragraph kisses and dashing heroes, to capture her winter romance. Along the way we get to experience the Bjorkman family Christmas, love in the time of broken glasses and six layers of fleece and wool, and the affectionate embrace of a nerdy, quirky family.

Happy Yule and Saturnalia! It's a Winter Wonderland at Go Your Own YA, where everything festively terrible happens to Gemma Doyle in Rebel Angels by Libba Bray. Carols, presents, wraiths and horrible fates in the classic about monstrous teen girls. We talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the heroine's journey and folk horror Christmas traditions as we gear for a festive month of reads.

What do marauding vampires, teen restaurant impresarios, small town politics and grieving families have in common? Cynthia Leitich Smith, writer and scholar extraordinaire. Carey and Marie talk about the inescapable legacy of Twilight, Native American kidlit and YA, photography as a catalyst for self-exploration and expression, and really terrible men who dress like they did a walk of shame from a Hot Topic.

Carey and Marie discuss the myriad works of Matthue Roth! From teen punk sitcom stars, young poets in San Francisco, and boys trying to find their way from Hebrew school to Rocky Horror, Matthue Roth writes music, faith and friendship in an unimitatable style.

Travel to magical utopian New Jersey with Carey and Marie in this groundbreaking queer YA romance. For such a sweet book, we spend a lot of time talking about mental health issues and our dead parents! But don't let that take away from this very sweet, very romantic magical realist story where boy meets boy and transphobes meet the Jersey Devil (in our hearts).

Girls Kiss! Flashmobs Happen! Adults Hate This One Hilarious Book About Addiction, The Internet, and Finding Yourself! Carey and Marie talk about Very LeFreak by Rachel Cohn, seeing Very through her career as social media star, ESCAPE artist, and soul-searcher. Also, the girls get together in the end.

Happy Halloween! Spooky Month concludes with a classic involving strange powers, mysterious girls, Victorian social mores and ancient goddess cults. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray gives readers a chilly horror fantasy set in a boarding school, answering the question, what if you gave teenage girls phenomenal cosmic power?

Carey and Marie talk about a classic of middle-grade horror, The Curse of the Blue Figure by John Bellairs. The latest installment of Spooky Month involves Egyptian magic, evil priests, and chocolate cake. Will the ghost trains finally take Cohost Rie away? What, exactly, was Carey doing involving arcane rituals with a hoard of musicians? And where does Catholic mysticism fit in? Find out in this episode!

Find the show notes at: https://www.goyourownya.com/blog/2017/10/24/episode-6-theres-always-time-for-chocolate-cake-the-curse-of-the-blue-figurine-by-john-bellairs