I Heart YA Carnival #1: What was your first?

I've been dealing with a bit of blogger's block lately, trying to come up with some creative, interesting posts. That led me to discover the world of blog memes, which I am becoming increasingly obsessed with, and today I found a little gem called the I Heart YA Carnival, which just completely made my day.

It's hosted by Suze Reese, author of the ExtraNormal series. Each Tuesday, a blog prompt will be posted about YA, which Suze says is "the best reading genre possible" - and I wholeheartedly agree! I have a serious love of YA fiction, especially paranormal, historical, or dystopian.

This week's prompt is: "What was your first? Not the first you read, but the first that comes to mind when you think of YA fiction. The one that held on tight and wouldn't let go until you got to the final chapter and closed the book with a sigh--hungry and tired and wishing it hadn't ended."

I didn't even have to think about my answer to this question. Caroline B. Cooney's Time Traveler series was my first, starting with Both Sides of Time.

(The cover has been updated since I read it, but I used this one because
this is my cover. This is the image I saw in my mind when I was daydreaming
in class in middle school, dying to get home and get back to reading.)

I'm sure I probably read some other YA books before I started this series, but this was the one that made me aware of what YA was, and made me realize that I loved it. This book captivated me on page one and tightened its hold as the story progressed. I felt like I was being whisked through time alongside Annie, falling in love with Strat a little bit myself. I finished book one in a daze, wishing with all my heart that it wasn't over.

And then I learned that it wasn't over - there were 3 other books!!

(Once again, these are the mismatched covers of my own beloved collection.)

Both Sides of Time was my introduction to YA, to time travel, to spunky offbeat heroines, to handsome and devoted love interests, to true romance. When I found this book, I was ready for a little more detail and emotion than middle grade lit, but not quite ready for (nor interested in) the complicated symbolic language of adult lit. I discovered that this book spoke my language, and from there I branched out into other YA wonders that also told stories just the way I wanted to hear them.

I'm in my mid-twenties now and *should* be moving on to adult lit... And sometimes, admittedly, I do enjoy adult lit, especially historical fiction. But YA still holds my heart. I will continue reading YA predominantly until I am old and wrinkled, when I will still be dreaming about Annie and Strat and rereading their books for the 1000th+ time.