2018 was a super busy year for YA books being adaptated into movies: The Hate U Give, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Dumplin’, and so many others. (p.s. I have some Read-a-Like lists for The Hate U Give, To All The Boys & Dumplin’ if you’re interested, no pressure.)
The good news is, it looks like 2019 is shaping up to be another year of cool stories and adaptations coming to your various streaming services and movie theaters. Now might be the right time to catch up on the book before your fav heads to the screen!
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941—she paints, she draws, and she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions. Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously—and at great risk—documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a story that will steal your breath and capture your heart.
Can you love someone you can never touch? Stella and Will both suffer from cystic fibrosis. Being together means they could pass an infection to each other. Stella is waiting for a lung transplant; Will is on a clinical drug trial. The only way to stay alive is to stay apart. Staying six feet apart doesn't feel like safety, it feels like punishment. Would five feet apart really be so dangerous if it stops their hearts from breaking too?
This dystopian thriller features a boy and girl on the run from a town where all thoughts can be heard and the passage to manhood embodies a horrible secret. Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding something from him—something so awful Todd is forced to flee with only his dog, whose simple, loyal voice he hears too. With hostile men from the town in pursuit, the two stumble upon a strange and eerily silent creature: a girl. Who is she? Why wasn't she killed by the germ like all the females on New World? Propelled by Todd's gritty narration, readers are in for a white-knuckle journey in which a boy on the cusp of manhood must unlearn everything he knows in order to figure out who he truly is.
Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.
Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.
The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?
When a twelve-year-old evil genius tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and demanding a ransom in gold, the fairies fight back with magic, technology, and a particularly nasty troll. Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is a most ingenious criminal mastermind, and heir to the Fowl family empire, a centuries-old clan of underworld figures and famous con artists. When Artemis kidnaps Holly Short, one of the Fairy People, to help him on his quest for gold, he takes on a Fairy world determined to rescue Holly.
Told in alternating voices, when Theodore Finch and Violet Markey meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school. Both teetering on the edge, it's the beginning of an unlikely relationship, a journey to discover the "natural wonders" of the state of Indiana, and two teens' desperate desire to heal and save one another.
From the day she arrives at quiet Mica High in a burst of color and sound, the hallways hum with the murmur of "Stargirl, Stargirl." She captures Leo Borlock’ s heart with just one smile. She sparks a school-spirit revolution with just one cheer. The students of Mica High are enchanted. At first. Then they turn on her. Stargirl is suddenly shunned for everything that makes her different, and Leo, panicked and desperate with love, urges her to become the very thing that can destroy her: normal. In this celebration of nonconformity, Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli weaves a tense, emotional tale about the perils of popularity and the thrill and inspiration of first love.
Excited to see one of these book to screen adaptations? Did I miss your favorite? Let me know in the comments!
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