The Divergent trilogy has drawn to a close, finishing with a volume that has drawn decidedly mixed reviews from your Hogpro faculty and the most of the rest of the world as well. There is still much more to be said about that series—personally, I find myself changing my mind about Allegiant about as often as I change my socks. We need to hear more about the first movie, and the others to come–are they really going to split Allegiant into two films?.  It’s Insurgent that needs more screen time! –We also have the Mockingjay movies to look ahead to, as well as more from Ms. Rowling as the Fantastic Beasts movie launches and the Cormoran Strike series continues. Having just re-read James Thomas’s Rowling Revisted, I am particularly looking forward to seeing the adventures of Newt Scamander unfold. But that’s still a long way off.

Last week, I went into the first and hopefully annual LSU Young Adult Literature Conference with a central question in mind… what’s next? What new book series do we start to discuss on this site? The female-centric dystopia trend shows no sign of abating; indeed, there was enough buzzing about Marie Lu’s Legend and Joelle Charbonneau’s The Testing series that both are on my library hold list. But I can also see the value in a change of pace.

So, here’s my suggestion….

Several books by our guest authors were recommended to the LSU instructors-in-residence for reading prior to the conference. Among them was Matt de la Pena’s latest novel, The Living, published in November 2013 and described by the conference leadership as a “future classic.” I was unfamiliar with de la Pena’s previous work, although I had read of the controversy regarding his books being pulled from the Arizona public school curriculum. But it made little difference, since according to virtually everyone I talked to who knew Mr. de la Pena’s work, The Living was a radically different type of story from his previous four novels. [Read more…]