Farmingdale Library Teens

  Tirzah Price   Jun 24, 2022 The star-crossed lovers or forbidden romance trope is always a big draw to me as a romance reader — who doesn’t love all that angst of characters who should be together but are kept apart for Some Big Reason? I also enjoy this trope because while enemies-to-lovers is great, the obstacles of forbidden romance or star-crossed lovers goes beyond the personal dynamics between your protagonist and love interest and usually involves bigger reasons why they shouldn’t — or can’t! — be together. This could be due to family feuds, cultural expectations, or circumstances of the world that put your characters at odds. Being together is often forbidden and frowned upon by other people in their lives, and finding a way to be together provides a challenge to the characters. The biggest inspiration behind this forbidden romance trope is obviously the play Romeo and Juliet, which…spoiler alert, is not a romance. (At least not a romance in terms of how we...

  Aurora Lydia Dominguez   Jun 9, 2022 Are you looking for adventure? I always am! One way to satisfy that sense of adventure is by embarking on a road trip and exploring somewhere different, just by hopping in your car with some good tunes to accompany you and a jam-packed weekender bag. While it would be wonderful to head on out on a quick road trip, sometimes we don’t have enough vacation days or time. With that said, we all love a quick bookish escape that will transport us somewhere different. And when you add in the fact that the book includes characters going on their own road trip, it makes the read an even more perfect escape. Also, a lot of the best road trip romances tend to be young adult, from my experience reading many of them. Those are the times when we are first experiencing the most freedom and hope for the future, and it’s also a time of rediscovery. A good road trip story filled with heart will always lead the way. How about a road trip that turns into roma...

 Alice Nuttall May 30, 2022 Books run the full emotional range. Some are upbeat or funny, some take your breath away with high-octane adventure…and some rip your heart out and stomp on it, leaving you emotionally devastated. Sometimes, a sad story is exactly the thing you want to read. Exploring sadness through the safe environment of fiction can be a great form of catharsis, letting us feel the emotion without any real-world stakes attached. It can also be a useful way of processing existing sadness in our own lives; reading about grief, breakups, or life plans going awry helps remind us that many people have had these experiences, making us feel less alone. Safe places to explore emotion are particularly important for teens and young readers, as many of them will be dealing with major life events for the first time and going through the emotional rollercoaster that comes with physical and mental development as they do it. Because of this, it’s unsurprising that YA tearjerkers mak...

 by Tirzah Price  June 3, 2022 Historical fiction was my first genre love because from a young age I loved learning about history and life in the past, but I didn’t love that my history classes focused on men and major events. Reading about girls and every day life made history feel accessible to me, and good historical fiction books for teens are able to put readers in the shoes of the very real experiences of people throughout history. I continue to enjoy YA historical fiction in part because this genre is all about exploring stories that have long been overlooked by history books, whether it’s the experiences of people of color, queer people, or even just suppressed stories of those who resisted persecution. While there is so much great historical YA out there to explore, we’ve rounded up fifteen newer historical fiction books for teens from the last two years that you definitely don’t want to overlook! These books will take you back as far as Jerusalem in the 12th century,...