2016 Georgia Peach Consideration List

While I've been toiling away with my high school library responsibilities I've also started to compile a list of "to read" titles for next year's list of nominations for the Georgia Peach Book Award. BookRiot was so kind to publish a list of upcoming titles and there are a few that I'm so excited to read. Take a look at the list and add a few to your Summer Reading List.

As just one member of the committee I lean towards:

• Diverse Books
• Science Fiction
• Fantasy
• Dystopian
• Feminist Storylines

Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill (Quercus, May 12): Where women are created for the pleasure of men, beauty is the first duty of every girl. In Louise O’Neill’s world of Only Every Yours women are no longer born naturally, girls (called “eves”) are raised in Schools and trained in the arts of pleasing men until they come of age. Freida and Isabel are best friends. Now, aged sixteen and in their final year, they expect to be selected as companions–wives to powerful men. All they have to do is ensure they stay in the top ten beautiful girls in their year. The alternatives–life as a concubine, or a chastity (teaching endless generations of girls)–are too horrible to contemplate.
But as the intensity of final year takes hold, the pressure to be perfect mounts. Isabel starts to self-destruct, putting her beauty–her only asset–in peril. And then into this sealed female environment, the boys arrive, eager to choose a bride. Freida must fight for her future–even if it means betraying the only friend, the only love, she has ever known.