Welcome back to my bookish blog, fellow readers! Or, if you’re new here… welcome in general! You know, bienvenidos… and all that!

Today, I want to explore one of my personal favorite genres with you… young adult literature! And, of course, all of the fun and intriguing facts about all of our favorite YA Lit books… for example, did you know that the fictional city “Panem” of The Hunger Games is actually Latin for “bread”? Huh. Well, the more you know!

Let’s dive in now, folks.

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1. John Green based Looking for Alaska on his own experiences…

…kind of.

The school featured in the book (which later became a hit miniseries on Hulu, lest not we forget) was based on the author’s time spent at Indian Springs School, which is a boarding school in Birmingham, Alabama. The characters and events of the story are also somewhat of the memoir genre, but the story itself is entirely fictional.

2. Tris, the MC of the Divergent series by Veronica Roth, was misrepresented in the movie adaptation…

…but just because she was said to be 18 in the movie while, in the book, she was only 16, at least in the beginning.

3. Ali Hazelwood’s famous The Love Hypothesis was originally a fan fiction…

…inspired by the “Reylo” relationship of main characters Rey and Kylo Ren of Star Wars. The original title of the book was also “Head Over Feet.”

4. To Kill a Mockingbird, that classic we all read in high school…

…was not meant to be titled “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Actually, the original title that its author, Harper Lee, wanted to use was “Atticus”, after a main character. She also wanted to call it “Go Set a Watchman” before she changed it.

5. Richelle Mead’s The Vampire Academy was inspired by…

…the author’s fascination of Russian and Romanian vampire stories. She also started writing the series while in college, which was also while she was taking classes on the mythology of Eastern Europe.

6. James Dashner’s The Maze Runner was meant to be…

…akin to a mix of other well-known young adult books. The author said that he wanted to mash-up ideas from books like The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card and Holes by Louis Sachar and make a book all his own.

7. Karen M. McManus’s bestseller One of Us Is Lying was based on…

…the 80s cult classic The Breakfast Club. McManus was also inspired to begin writing it after reading the series The Hunger Games.

8. Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries, has said…

…that her inspiration for this classic teen book came from her own childhood. As a kid, her mother began to date her teacher after her father had passed, and she included this event in the book. She also cites that she used to imagine that her parents were royalty, so writing about a teen who instantly becomes a princess probably made her inner child really happy.

9. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder won 5 prestigious accolades right after its release…

…including nominations for the Goodreads Choice Award for Young Adult Fiction and YA Book Prize. Holly Jackson’s book also won awards like the American Library Association’s Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults, British Book Awards Children’s Fiction Book Winner of the Year, and the name of one of the best books of 2020 by Barnes & Noble.

10. Sophie Gonzales’s Only Mostly Devastated is meant to be…

…a modern re-imagining of the classic rom-com musical Grease. It was also shortlisted for numerous awards and called a Gold Standard Selection by the Junior Library Guild.

11. The hit series The Hunger Games was based on Ancient Rome…

…and further inspiration for the books came when author Suzanne Collins was channel surfing on TV. While flipping through shows, she wondered how reality TV and news programming could be combined, creating the books’ concept.

12. Author Matthew Hubbard got inspiration for The Last Boyfriends Rules for Revenge from watching…

…The First Wives Club on a movie night-in with his husband. He also cites the book as a “coming of age” for queer joy and friendship.

13. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before had a title before it had a plot…

14. I Hope This Doesn’t Find You by Ann Liang has been called…

15. Kari Lynn M. based her debut novel Cartoon on a vintage video game…

16. Holly Black’s The Folk of Air series uses an archaic spelling of the word ‘fairy’ on purpose…

…and it’s instead spelled ‘faerie’ to honor the epic poem The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser, which was published in 1590.

17. The Mortal Instruments is the first published series in The Shadowhunter Chronicles, but…

…it is chronologically the third series in the six chronicles by Cassandra Clare. So, think of it kind of like Star Wars movies… the prequel and sequel series get published later on!

18. Stephanie Meyers claims that each of her Twilight series books are based loosely on classic literature…

…including Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, Withering Heights, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Merchant of Venice.

19. Percy Jackson of Percy Jackson & the Olympians by Rick Riordan has green eyes…

…not blue, which most readers assume since he is the son of Poseidon, the god of the oceans. However, his favorite color is still blue.

20. All of the books in The Chronicles of Narnia were started, completed, and published in different orders…

…but C.S. Lewis had them all started, completed, and published within just 7 years.

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Leave a comment below, of course, if you learned something new here today! Or, perhaps, if there’s a hot YA book you love that I left out of the list… Although, honestly, it’s kind of hard to research and uncover fun facts about every top YA Lit book out there, so I kind of edited the list down for now.

Until our next blog post, though, homedogs…

–Kari