#BBCreativityProject Yellow Team: Quiet YA – Devoted and The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly

The wonderful Nori from Read Write Love is hosting the Book Blogger Creativity Project. She’s compiled several teams of newbie and veteran bloggers, who are meant to work together to come up with a feature that they’ll post on their blogs. We are supposed to get creative and work as a team, and I’m really happy to say I’m part of the Yellow Team! Here’s the other members of my team (I’m linking you to their Twitters so you can learn more about them!): CJ Listro, Karina Romano, Kim, Sara, Emma K, Lauren, The Book Jar Blog, and, of course, Nori.

My team has decided to each write a post about a book (or books) that we would consider Quiet YA – books that didn’t receive huge publicity campaigns, that aren’t being made into movies, didn’t receive a lot of press, aren’t best sellers or award winners, etc. I couldn’t pick one book to feature, so instead, I’ll be focusing on two books I read this year that I think deserve more attention, two of my favorite Quiet YA books – DEVOTED by Jennifer Mathieu and THE SACRED LIES OF MINNOW BLY by Stephanie Oakes. Both of these books are powerful, thought-provoking, moving, and very well-written. They will make you question yourself and others; they’ll make you cheer and tear up, smile, laugh, cry, and love.

When I reviewed Devoted, I said it was quiet, powerful, honest, and beautiful. I flagged at least 30 or 40 passages because they were so well-written or difficult to read or powerful. Rachel is such a great character, and you should all meet her. My only issue with the book is that we didn’t have more of it. I wanted to keep reading about Rachel and her new life. I loved it so so much. Check it out on Goodreads if you want to learn more!

As for The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly, I thought it was thought-provoking, intriguing, beautiful, sad, hopeful, and so many other adjectives. You’ll be completely engrossed in this story because of Oakes’ writing. It’s decidedly disturbing and difficult to read, but it’s well worth it. My review goes more in depth, and you can find it on Goodreads too!

I paired these two together, 1. because I love both of them, but 2. because they each talk about religion and the different ways it can affect you. They have two completely different stories here, but they also both make you question, make you want to learn and experience new things. They are both disturbing in places and thought-provoking. They are both powerful and engrossing and beautiful and horrifying. And they both deserve your attention and time, and I hope some of you will check them out.

Tell us about some of your favorite Quiet YA books, and make sure you check out the #BBCreativityProject hashtag on Twitter to see what everyone else has come up with!