Books help us escape our mundane everyday lives and enter a new world of imagination and creation, helping us to extend our knowledge and exposing us to fresh ideas. Every New Year brings us new books to look out for, so without further adieu here are 2015’s most anticipated young adult novels.

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
In a world separated by blood color, the Reds are poverty-stricken commoners, and the ruling Silvers possess powerful abilities. When Mare Barrow, a Red from The Stilts, discovers that she too has powers despite her designated social status, she becomes a threat to the mighty Silvers’ control.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
Travelers have the rare ability to traverse parallel universes, and Kell—capable of moving between Grey London, White London, and Red London— is one of the last few remaining. Kell is the ambassador of Red London, but he also has a dangerous hobby: giving people glimpses into worlds they will never set foot in.

Liars, Inc. by Paula Stokes
Max Cantrell and his friends Preston and Parvati begin a lying business, dubbed “Liars, Inc.” They forge permission slips, create cover stories, and receive an abundance of customers from the student body of Vista Palisades High. One day, Preston wants a cover story to impress a girl he met online. All is well until Preston goes missing, his corpse is found, and all evidence points to Max. Will Max be able to uncover the true killer and undo his lies?

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
When huntress Feyre kills Tamlin, a powerful faerie that hides in the body of a wolf, she is spirited away into the dangerous magical lands known only in legends. As her initial distaste for him transforms into passion, she discovers a darkness emerging within the faerie lands. Feyre must either choose to destroy it or leave the lands – and Tamlin – to impending doom.

Fairest by Marissa Meyer
As the evil Queen in the Lunar Chronicles, Lavana is depicted as manipulative and cruel in her quest to gain power. In this new bridge book between Cress and Winter, her mysterious past is revealed: a past that shows a whole new side of her.

The Orphan Queen by Jodi Meadows
Wilhelmina was a member of royalty, but when the Indigo Kingdom conquers her land, she is taken into hiding and trained by experts in stealth and theft.Meanwhile, Wraith—a toxic byproduct of magical mishaps— is slowly destroying her land and Wilhelmina’s magic may be the key to stopping it.

My Heart and Other Black Holesby Jasmine Warga
A website known as Suicide Partners provides assistance for those afraid to commit suicide alone. Aysel, is a misfit physics nerd obsessed with plotting her own death, and Roman, a boy haunted by a family tragedy, find each other on online and create an unshakable suicide pact. All seems to be going according to plan until Aysel begins to question whether or not she actually wants to take her own life.
 

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
The Martial Empire is a Rome-like world where Laia, a scholar, goes undercover as a slave in the world’s greatest military academy to receive assistance from a rebel force that will save her brother from execution. Meanwhile Elias, one of the top soldiers in the academy and a reluctant participant, is chosen to partake in a contest that will decide who will become the next Martial emperor. When their paths cross, they discover that their decisions could change the future of the empire.

Blood and Salt by Kim Ligget
When a mother decides to return to the spiritual commune she had escaped, her daughter Ash Larkin decides to follow her to a place haunted by unrequited love, murder, alchemy and immortality. As she delves deeper into the darkness of the village, Ash is tormented by the memories of her ancestor. 

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman
Competing rival corporations are at war over a small, ice-covered planet in the year 2575 when, without any warning, the inhabitants of the planet are enveloped in sudden chaos beset by a mutating plague and fleets of attacking artificial intelligence. Former lovers Kady and Ezraare forced to evacuate, but must come together to decipher mysterious hacked data in order to find the truth behind the conflict.

 This article originally appeared in the February 2015 issue of UNIT-E. It was written by Sophia Zheng, a student at the International School of Beijing.

About UNIT-E
UNIT-E was founded in the spring of 2010 with the aim of establishing a non-profit, student-run magazine for international students in Beijing. Staffed by current students from a range of international schools, the magazine provides an amalgam of cultural tidbits, fragments of Beijing student life, and a broad spectrum of unique perspectives from a diverse group of young adults.

Last week’s New York Times article (What Is It About 20-Somethings?, Aug 18, 2010) on the alleged phenomenon of young people in the US who are either unwilling or unable o cut the cord and assume full-blown adulthood (i.e. financial and domestic independence) has succeeded in ruffling a few feathers.

Critics refuted the article’s basic premise that this trend has become so commonplace it merits an entirely new categorization of mental development (“emerging adulthood,” which is now supposed to follow “adolescence” and precede “adulthood”) as being “one-sided, un-inclusive, and exaggerated,” primarily because it allegedly ignores the “many success stories” and the “unprecedented levels of accomplishment and achievement of so many of its members” (i.e. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg).

Indeed, there has been a long tradition of older generations decrying the perceived shortcomings of youth in society (“Get a haircut, you damn hippy!”), which is certainly not specific to American society. And taken in a Chinese context, this debate might seem culturally, or in this case, America-specific – many young Chinese, especially in the big cities, continue to live at home and depend on their parents far into their 20s, and in some cases, their 30s.

However one can still find parallels between the two societies – after all, for every “coddled urban rich kid” who may still be suckling at their parents’ proverbial teat, there are probably hundreds, if not thousands of young migrant workers who have had to strike out on their own and become breadwinners for themselves and extended families (a trend that the NYT article also acknowledges).

Speaking as a once-coddled 20-something myself, I tend to agree with the NYT on this one. It seems that as each successive generation “comes of age” it becomes harder and harder to go it alone – although economic factors (as in hard luck family backgrounds and global economic downturns) can certainly influence this, as many point out.

But the real crux of the argument lies in the question of how much of this phenomenon is culturally and even temporally constructed? I, for one, see parallels between Chinese and American society in the concept of “helicopter parents,” a term that the NYT describes as “heavily invested parents who hover over their children, swooping down to take charge and solve problems at a moment’s notice.” Quite frankly as parents (and the children of our own parents), we’ve all got “hovering issues” to deal with.

The other main question is whether or not recognizing “emerging adulthood” is a good thing.  To quote:

“Does that mean it’s a good thing to let 20-somethings meander — or even to encourage them to meander — before they settle down? That’s the question that plagues so many of their parents. It’s easy to see the advantages to the delay. There is time enough for adulthood and its attendant obligations; maybe if kids take longer to choose their mates and their careers, they’ll make fewer mistakes and live happier lives. But it’s just as easy to see the drawbacks. As the settling-down sputters along for the “emerging adults,” things can get precarious for the rest of us … So we’re caught in a weird moment, unsure whether to allow young people to keep exploring and questioning or to cut them off and tell them just to find something, anything, to put food on the table and get on with their lives.”

And a bit further down:

“Why does it matter? Because if the delay in achieving adulthood is just a temporary aberration caused by passing social mores and economic gloom, it’s something to struggle through for now, maybe feeling a little sorry for the young people who had the misfortune to come of age in a recession. But if it’s a true life stage, we need to start rethinking our definition of normal development and to create systems of education, health care and social supports that take the new stage into account.”

And finally, here’s my take:

Who doesn’t want to spend their 20s exploring the world, discovering their niche and generally living the life of a bon vivant? I know I certainly did in my younger days. No doubt that for most young people delaying adulthood is a fantastic experience – so long as you can afford it.

But for people in like my wife and me who have “been there and done that” and are now very much facing the real-life issues of adulthood in our late 30s*, the question now looms – why didn’t we just get on with it sooner?

*And to that I might add that we are among the lucky ones who, if worse comes to worse, can still rely on our families for support.