I have 137 YA books on my to-read list, which is actually my to-read spreadsheet. (Am I the only YAnnabe with an addiction to Excel?)

Most of these entries came from Book Crush, subtitle For Kids and Teens: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Interest, by librarian extraordinaire Nancy Pearl.

My other major sources of YA book recommendations are:

Even with all this vetting, sometimes I indulge a whim or a pretty cover and start a book that’s not so great.

Which just annoys me.

We have so little time to read, when it comes down to it. Even if I read 100 books a year for the next 40 years, that’s only 4,000 books left in my reading life. That’s nothing at all, not really.

I’m trying to force myself to stop reading if a book’s so bad I’m actually rolling my eyes at it. But sometimes, I keep going just because I want to see how the plot plays out. Sometimes it’s the only book I have with me, and reading something is better than reading nothing.

Still, this is a struggle for me. I’d like to avoid starting a crappy book in the first place, but I also don’t want to just stick to award winners and books popular in the blogosphere. It would be fun to one day discover the next Graceling, y’know?

How do you make sure your next read is worth your time?

Tell me your secret! Does it involve checking the Amazon rating, going with Goodreads recommendations, devising a complicated five-pronged algorithm?

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