Young Adult Giveaway Hop!

January 29th to February 4th
Hosted by I Am A Reader, Not A Writer & BookLove 101

Thank you for stopping by and checking out my giveaway! I'm so excited for the opportunity to participate in this blog hop and offer a lucky winner one of the fantastic YA books listed below.

On to the books...

Amy and Elder have finally left the oppressive walls of the spaceship Godspeed behind. They're ready to start life afresh--to build a home--on Centauri-Earth, the planet that Amy has traveled 25 trillion miles across the universe to experience.

But this new Earth isn't the paradise Amy had been hoping for. There are giant pterodactyl-like birds, purple flowers with mind-numbing toxins, and mysterious, unexplained ruins that hold more secrets than their stone walls first let on. The biggest secret of all...
~Go to the entire Goodreads description of Shades of Earth by Beth Revis

'I pause to look around the hive - all the podlike chambers are lit up as the drones shoot up on memories ... I've wanted to get out of here before, but now the tight quarters start to choke me. There has to be more to death than this.'

Felicia Ward is dead. Trapped in a stark white afterlife limbo, she spends endless days replaying memories, of her family, friends, boyfriend ... and of the guy who broke her heart. The guy who has just broken into Level 2 to find her...
~Go to the entire Goodreads description of Level 2 by Lenore Appelhans

June and Day arrive in Vegas just as the unthinkable happens: the Elector Primo dies, and his son Anden takes his place. With the Republic edging closer to chaos, the two join a group of Patriot rebels eager to help Day rescue his brother and offer passage to the Colonies. They have only one request—June and Day must assassinate the new Elector.

It’s their chance to change the nation, to give voice to a people silenced for too long...
~Go to the entire Goodreads description of Prodigy by Marie Lu

There are people in this world who are Nobody. No one sees them. No one notices them. They live their lives under the radar, forgotten as soon as you turn away.

That’s why they make the perfect assassins.

The Institute finds these people when they’re young and takes them away for training. But an untrained Nobody is a threat to their organization. And threats must be eliminated...
~Go to the entire Goodreads description of Nobody by Jennifer Lynn Barnes




Here are the official rules/guidelines for the giveaway:

1. You must be a follower of this blog. Just click the Join this Site box below "Followers" on the sidebar.
2. You can gain extra entries by following me on Goodreads, Twitter,"liking" my Facebook fan page, tweeting about this giveaway, or leaving a comment below.
3. This is open to international followers. (Only if The Book Depository ships to your country; please check this link to see if your country's included.)
4. This contest runs from January 29 - February 4.
5. The winner will be selected on February 5th via Rafflecopter random selection and announced in this post. You will have 48 hours to respond or I will draw another winner. 

***As the winner, if you are just dying to get another YA book, then you may substitute one of the books listed above for another of similar value from The Book Depository***

Thanks Again & Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Also, make sure to check out the other blogs participating in this Giveaway Hop, too!

"Y" is for Young Adult

The popularity of young adult (or YA) has exploded over the past ten years. A lot of it has to do with the success of Harry Potter (with is categorized as middle grade, but the second half of the series transitions to young adult), then Twilight, and now The Hunger Games. These books continue to propel the genre because they appeal to adults as well as to children and teens. They also seem to interest people who are not primarily diehard readers. Young adult has become the "it" genre to write and its sub-genres hit the market in waves. Young adult paranormal romance has been the hot sub-genre for the past five years with the market domination of Twilight, and young adult dystopian is now fast on its heels with The Hunger Games' growing popularity.

I became fascinated with young adult after reading the Harry Potter series, which I read consecutively in about three months. Then I branched out and haven't looked back. The best thing about books is that they take their readers on an adventure, to another place and time, creating great escapism entertainment. But what I love about young adult books even more is that their stories and adventures also have a wonderful nostalgic factor to them, which is something I don't think I would have appreciated ten years ago.

Now, I write young adult fiction--fantasy at the moment, but I'd like to try my hand at different sub-genres in the future--and the nostalgia is even greater during the story's creation. I enjoy writing from the perspective of a teenager, having my protagonist do and feel things I did and felt, as well as having him do things I would have loved to do and feel like I might have missed out on. It's like a fusion of entertainment and therapy--half joking. Many of us are still kids at heart and young adult fiction allows us to let that kid out to play for awhile amidst the excess work and responsibility of being an adult, out in the world and driven by an unrelenting force to conquer, contribute, and succeed. Young adult fiction takes us back to a romantic time when every day was a grand scale adventure on a small stage. I love young adult fiction--to read, to write...and to relive.