I have a friend who is on the American Library Association's Best Books for Young Adults committee (the world's greatest YA bookclub). He has his comments and reviews on his site:
http://www.richiespicks.com (it is hosted on my DSL, so be somewhat nice to me :-)
Some of the very best literature today is being written for Young Adults. And as befits the eternal battle between geek and cool, much of it is positioned as a battle between the outsider and the system...with the outsider ultimately triumphant.
I highly recomend _Whale Talk_ and _Ironman_, both by Chris Crutcher. Ironman kept me up late, laughing, and crying. It has been a long time since I have literally been in tears from a book...
Another fantastic book is _Postcards from No Man's Land_, by Aidan Chambers. What can you say about a book that manages to mix in A Bridge Too Far, the Diary of Anne Frank, and some good old transgender love interest ambiguity. Great Stuff!
_My Heartbeat_ gives us a nice Brother, Sister, Best Friend love triangle...two of them may be gay, but it is unclear which two, and remains unclear even after the consumation of one of the relationships...
I'll try not to babble too much on the topic...
