YA A to Z: Sarah Rees Brennan

Why I chose Sarah Rees Brennan:

So, I’m not sure if choosing Sarah Rees Brennan for ‘R’ is cheating or not. I know in my collection, she’s filed under ‘B’, and I certainly wouldn’t want to move her, since that puts her right next to Libba Bray. On the other hand, moving her to the ‘R’ section would put her right next to Philip Reeve. Hmm… What I’m pretty sure of, however, is that she is one of my favorite YA authors. You may be noticing a trend here, but Sarah is also one of my favorite people whom I follow on twitter. She is quirky and hilarious, and often comments on her love of people’s anguish over the trials and tribulations of her characters. She also has a tendency to go on extended tweet binges of running commentary on (or parody of) her current favorite TV show.

Sarah is often found being smart on the internet, especially when professing her love of Taylor Swift. She also has a tendency to post extended original work on her blog in installment format such as her ‘short’ story, Turn of the Story.

Mostly, however, I love her books! The Lynburn Legacy trilogy is my favorite although I am fond of her others. Sarah takes great joy in manipulating and subverting tropes, using them to her own means for wonderful storytelling. I was all in when she explained that the Lynburn Legacy books were a magical gothic story, where the ‘damsel in distress trapped in the castle with her crazy relatives’ is actually the male protagonist. She took the character we would normally consider to be the ‘sidekick’ and made her the female protagonist. It’s actually quite brilliant. My favorite character from the trilogy is Kami’s best friend, Angela, who seems to incorporate the qualities of my two favorite dwarves (Grump and Sleepy.) Too bad there aren’t also dwarves named Loyal and Kickass. This is another one of those series I have gotten my friend Mr. Horton (our school’s football coach) hooked on, although he seems convinced that the series is called the ‘Lyndburg’ Legacy…

Brief Biography:

Sarah was born and raised and still lives in Ireland although she did live in NYC for a time after college.

Books:

• The Demon’s Lexicon
• The Demon’s Covenant
• The Demon’s Surrender
• Team Human (with Justine Larbalestier)
• Unspoken
• Untold
• Unmade
• The Bane Chronicles (with Maureen Johnson and Cassandra Clare)

In Anthologies:

• Defy the Dark
• Enthralled
• After
• Shadowhunters and Downworlders
• The Girl Who Was on Fire

You can find Sarah online:

@SarahReesBrenna on Twitter

On Tumblr

Or her website or her LiveJournal

If you like Sarah Rees Brennan’s books, I’d recommend:

• Gail Carriger
• Cassandra Clare
• Holly Black
• Rachel Hawkins

Join the conversation!  Share a post about your favorite author OR tweet us your favorite author with the tag #YAAtoZ. While we’re sharing our favorite authors, we would love to hear about yours. We all might find some new authors we haven’t heard of before. And the more authors we share, the more comprehensive and diverse the list becomes. 

#YAAtoZ Schedule: Week 1 4: A ; 5: B ; 6: C ; 7: D  Week 2 10: E ; 11: F ; 12: G, H, I ; 13: J, K ; 14: L  Week 3 17: M ; 18: N, O ; 19: P, Q ; 20: R, S ; 21: T  Week 4 24: U ; 25: V, W ; 26: X ; 27: Y ; 28: Z

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