With Christmakwanzahanukkah well over, I bet all those gift cards are burning a hole in your wallet. So let me help you spend them.

In order of lesser known to most popular*, these are the best 10 books I read in 2009. I got all but one of these books from the library, so I slapped a $$$ icon next to books I’m going to spend my gift cards on this week. These are the titles I foresee rereading one day or lending out to my non-YA-reading friends.

Fresh & Hot

In the mood to drool over a sweet new honey? Try these 2009 releases.

Jack Tumor by Anthony McGowan $$$
When’s the last time you read a book with a talking brain tumor? That’s what I thought. This book has gotten the least attention of my entire top 10 list, and that’s a damn shame. It even has the stamp of approval from my reluctant reader hubby. (Psst, Guys Lit Wire, this one’s for you!)

Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine $$$
Another absolute hottie that didn’t get nearly enough play in its first year in the US. Rowan is a girl dealing with grief and a depressed mother, which sounds like a drag but add in the love interest and clever writing, and this one will hit all the right spots.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson $$$
A haunting beauty of a book. Knowing that it was about a girl dealing with an eating disorder, I didn’t want to read it. But I saw it in a bookstore, read the first 15 pages, and was hooked. It took all my self control to put it back on the shelf and wait for it to come in at the library. Which is funny since this Friday, I’m going to my local bookstore to buy a copy to keep anyway.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
The second book in The Hunger Games trilogy is bit of a tease. But in a good way. You’ll have to wait til August for the final installment, but in the meantime you can have a taste of the juiciest love triangle in all of YA.

They’ve Still Got It

Sure, they’ve been around the block a few times. But trust me, they know what they’re doing. You won’t regret taking them for a spin.

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta $$$
This story unfolds a little at a time. Every time you get another glimpse of the full picture, it’s like a finger beckoning you to come hither. A bit of a heartbreaker tempered by humor and hope.

Looking for Alaska by John Green
The sexual tension and flirty banter will get you all aflutter, but the depth of the story will hit you where it counts. This one has the added bonus of a geek chic author, so even if the book isn’t your cup of tea, you can flip back to the author photo every now and then to get your fix.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
My review is forthcoming, but in the meantime I can tell you that this dystopia has just the right amount of social and political commentary (i.e. barely any at all) with the perfect dose of heart-stopping mystery and love.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Girls who kick ass get my heart racing (see also: Buffy), and Katsa could kick your ass in the time it would take you to flip to the next page. This is fantasy done right: The world rings true, and the sexy bits will warm you up on a nippy night.

Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers
Parker is a perfectionist who’s made a huge mistake. From the first page, it’s obvious she’s having a hard time coping with that reality. With her biting sarcasm and dark humor, she’s not a fun person to be around. But she sure is a good read.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
The cougar of this list has an undercurrent of war that will keep you on your toes, but the 15-year-old narrator makes the book. Don’t be fooled by the name Daisy—she’s no vapid little flower. Her funny, clever storytelling is likely why this book is the most popular* of all the titles on my 2009 list.

Not Satiated?

Chicken Spaghetti links to all the “best of” children’s book lists, but check the School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly lists for some quick YA picks.

For a complete guide to all the “best of” lists out there, browse the “Best of 2009″ Book Lists.

*Popularity determined by Googling the title plus the author’s name, then counting the number of hits.

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Audience Pick!

Title: Story of a Girl
Author: Sara Zarr
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 4/5
Why I Read It: Because you told me to!

Summary: Deanna made a mistake when she was 13. A big mistake. Her father will never look at her the same way again, and she can’t shake her nasty reputation at school. So how is she supposed to move on?

Review: I just resubmitted a request to my library to order Zarr’s latest, Once Was Lost. Because this woman can write.

I liked Story of a Girl even more than Sweethearts, which I liked quite a lot. This gritty story completely swept me away. I felt like I was reading about a real girl and her real problems.

The opening:

I was thirteen when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy’s Buick, parked next to the old Chart House down in Montara at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night. Tommy was seventeen and the supposed friend of my brother, Darren.

I didn’t love him.

I’m not sure I even liked him.

I want more book recommendations from you! You’re making me go back and read “old” YA instead of just getting caught up in whatever hot new thing just hit the shelves. Without that feeling of obligation to do what you say, I don’t know if I would have the discipline to branch out from recent releases.

Your Turn: Got a book recommendation for me? Please leave it in the Pick My Next Book box to the right of this post!

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
Buy: Your local bookstore | Powell’s | Amazon

Did you like this book? Try:

• Thirteen Reasons Why
• Twisted
• Sweethearts—My rating: 3.5/5
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them and The Treasure Map of Boys: Noel, Jackson, Finn, Hutch, Gideon–and me, Ruby Oliver
Author: E. Lockhart
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3/5
Why I Read It: The Boyfriend List was a good read, so I wanted to finish out the series.

Summary: Ruby Oliver just started her junior year, but she still doesn’t have much to speak of in the way of friends—and definitely no boyfriend. Not only that, but the one boy she wants to move into the BF column? Roo’s former girlfriend who’s slowly warming back up to a friendship with her happens to have a crush on that same boy.

Review: The rest of this series made for quick, fun reads. The two issues I had with The Boyfriend List—too many footnotes and a confusing story timeline—did not crop up in these two books.

Just pure, clean fun. Well, except for the flirty bits and also the kissing.

This exchange between Roo and her crush Noel made me smile. Someone at school called Roo a slut, and she’s telling Noel about it over an afterschool pizza.

“I wish I’d responded to the slut thing, though.”

“What is there to say?”

“I don’t know. Maybe ‘I prefer tart’?”

“Tart is nice. It’s a pastry.”

“Maybe I could reclaim the word slut,” I said. “Like gay people have reclaimed the word queer, so it’s not a whatever.”

“Epithet.”

“Yeah. I could run around with signs. ‘Slutty and Proud!’”

“Sluts of America Unite!”

“Exactly.” I took a sip of my pop.

“Your mom could wear a T-shirt: ‘I’m proud of my slutty kid.’” Noel fished around in his backpack for a pen. “Here, I’ll design you a slut logo.” He found a ballpoint and started to draw on a piece of notebook paper. A sketch of a woman wearing a superhero cape, glasses like mine and a strange pointy bra.

“I don’t think I ever told you that none of the stuff people say about me is true,” I blurted out.

“About the boyfriend list?”

“I was never with all those guys.”

Noel shook his head. “I wouldn’t care if you were.”

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
Buy: Your local bookstore | Powell’s | Amazon

Did You Like This Book? Try:

• The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things
• An Abundance of Katherines—My rating: 4/5
• Fly on the Wall: How One Girl Saw Everything
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

After the craziness of this year’s NaNoWriMo, I decided to put myself on a writing hiatus for the month of December. But the thing with hiatuses (hiati?) is that one day, they end.

With January nipping at my heels, I’ve started thinking about what I’ll tackle first. The options:

• Pick up where I left off in the third rewrite of last year’s NaNo novel. Currently at 6,421 words in the rewrite, compared to 51,358 in the first draft.
• Read this year’s novel and start revisions.

Even though I have about 90% left to go in my rewrite of last year’s novel, the logical thing would be to go back to that because at least I’m on the third rewrite and not the first one.

But—please don’t tell my first novel—I’m not sure the spark is there anymore. This new hussy of a novel sashayed her way into my life, and every time I think about my first January of the aught persuasion, it’s her I imagine spending it with.

I’m just afraid that if I don’t go back to my first now, I never will.

Who should win out: Logic or love?

Photo by Anna Gay.

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: Looking for Alaska
Author: John Green
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 5/5
Why I Read It: I loved Green’s other novels, so I had a hunch I’d like this one too.

Summary: 16-year-old Miles leaves his comfortable but friendless life in Florida to go to boarding school in Alabama. His roommate Chip quickly adopts Miles as a friend and introduces him to a girl who lives down the hall—Alaska. Beautiful and brilliant, Alaska flirts with Miles and he falls for her. But it could never work, and they both know it.

Review: This is my favorite novel from Green.

On the surface, the book offered up plenty to make me laugh. Here, Miles just found out his new school, Culver Creek, has a basketball team:

I hated sports. I hated sports, and I hated people who played them, and I hated people who watched them, and I hated people who didn’t hate people who watched or played them. In third grade—the very last year that one could play T-ball—my mother wanted me to make friends, so she forced me onto the Orlando Pirates. I made friends all right—with a bunch of kindergartners, which didn’t really bolster my social standing with my peers. Primarily because I towered over the rest of the players, I nearly made it onto the T-ball all-star team that year. The kid who beat me, Clay Wurtzel, had one arm. I was an unusually tall third grader with two arms, and I got beat out by kindergartner Clay Wurtzel. And it wasn’t some pity-the-one-armed-kid thing, either. Clay Wurtzel could flat-out hit, whereas I sometimes struck out even with the ball sitting on the tee. One of the things that appealed to me most about Culver Creek was that my dad assured me there was no PE requirement.

But the soul behind Miles’s story, behind his love for Alaska—that’s what made me fall for this book. My heart ached for Alaska right alongside his.

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
Buy: Your local bookstore | Powell’s | Amazon

Did You Like This Book? Try:

• How I Live Now—My rating: 5/5
• An Abundance of Katherines—My rating: 4/5
• I Am the Messenger
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing