Edgar Awards – YA Nominees

As many of you know, I’m not a big Awards person. I’ve seen too many great books go unnoticed and too many mediocre books get nominated. And so it is this year as well with the YA Edgar nominations. Until finishing my current book, I had read two of them…both Edgar-worthy: Amelia Ann is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfeld and Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein.

However, my third read was not in this league. It is by a well known adult mystery author, whose books I’ve never read but I love the TV series based on her books (except for the last season which got a bit weird). However, her foray into YA literature, in my opinion, produced a ho-hum, overly long, hint of telepath non-mystery, with a totally anti-climactic ending. Particularly annoying, I found, was her use of “c’n” when a character wanted to say the word “can”. I don’t know how they speak on the west coast, but here in the east we CAN say the word “CAN” in its entirety. So, I wonder how books are nominated or make it into the final 5, or were they just paying homage to a known writer, because in this particular case, one isn’t like the others.

So, rather than dwell on the negative, I’ll say based on my reading of part of the nominee list, if Code Name Verity or Amelia Ann wins, they truly deserve it. I heartily suggest you read them both.