Are you the type of reader who spends just as much time on YouTube or Goodreads looking for new books as you do actually reading new book? I'm guilty as charged. Here's some exciting news: Bloomsbury Children's is teaming up with 13 of the biggest names in young adult literature and 13 influential 'booktubers' for a villain-themed anthology called Because You Love To Hate Me. The collection of stories will be released in July 2017.
When I say "biggest names" in YA, I mean the biggest freakin' names in YA. Renée Ahdieh, Victoria Schwab, Adam Silvera, Nicola Yoon, Marissa Meyer and more have all signed on to the project. Better yet, the anthology will be edited by Grammy-nominated YouTube star Ameriie.
"Readers today are more interactive with authors and one another than ever before," Ameriie says in a press release from the publisher. "The booktube community on YouTube has exploded in the last two years, energizing hundreds of thousands of readers around the world, the majority of whom read YA."
Because You Love To Hate Me will pair up one author with one booktuber to write stories from the point of view of famous villains. The only catch? They must be stories of vengeance, defiance, rage, pain, heartbreak, or sorrow. These won't be light-and-fluffy stories about do-gooders doing good and saving the world. These will be dark and twisted stories that will remind readers just how good it feels to be bad.
The authors include:
- Renée Ahdieh, author of The Wrath and The Dawn series
- Ameriie, of Books Beauty Ameriie
- Soman Chainani, author of The School for Good and Evil series
- Susan Dennard, author of Something Strange and Deadly Series
- Sarah Enni, creator of First Draft podcast
- Marissa Meyer, author of The Lunar Chronicles
- Cindy Pon, author of Kingdom of Xia series
- Victoria Schwab, author of Shades of Magic series
- Samantha Shannon, author of The Bone Season series
- Adam Silvera, author of More Happy Than Not
- Andrew Smith, author of the Winger series
- April Genevieve Tucholke, author of Wink, Poppy, Midnight
- Nicola Yoon, author of Everything, Everything
The booktubers include:
- Benjamin Alderson (benjaminoftomes)
- Sasha Alsberg (abookutopia)
- Whitney Atkinson (WhittyNovels)
- Tina Burke (ChristinaReadsYA and The Lushables)
- Catriona Feeney (LittleBookOwl)
- Jesse George (JessetheReader)
- Zoë Herdt (readybyzoe)
- Samantha Lan (Thoughts on Tomes)
- Sophia Lee (thebookbasement)
- Raeleen Lemay (padfoordandprongs07)
- Regan Perusse (PeruseProject)
- Christine Riccio (polandbananasBOOKS)
- Steph Sinclair & Kat Kennedy (Cuddlebuggery blog and channel)
I don't know about you, but I'll be slowly counting down the days until July 2017, because this anthology sounds like a whole lot of twisted fun.
Images: booksenchanted/Instagram
