Epic Reads, HarperCollins’s online community for YA lovers, is teaming up with Belletrist, the digital reading hub founded by actor Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss, to launch “Why Not YA?,” a virtual book club devoted to teen lit. The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (HarperTeen) is the group’s inaugural selection. The program kicks off on November 30 with the first in a monthly Facebook Watch series, featuring interviews with book club authors.
“Why Not YA?” will showcase books from a wide range of genres and publishers. The unifying theme will be stories of female empowerment.
Roberts and Preiss said in a statement, “Earlier this year, [Belletrist] selected our first young adult title to great reception, as many people in the book club are huge fans of young adult fiction. Through our partnership with Epic Reads and ‘Why Not YA?,’ we’re thrilled to continue offering books that are so rich in themes and language and have a wider readership than young adults exclusively. We’re both adult women who we love reading YA!”
Ebony LaDelle and Jane Lee, co-producers of “Why Not YA?” and members of the Epic Reads team, said, “When Belletrist announced their first YA book club pick, we knew they wanted to expand into the YA space and we knew we wanted to be involved. Books like The Hate U Give and The Miseducation of Cameron Post show there are so many books in the YA market that are conversation starters, and we want to be able to introduce these crossover titles to the adult reading audience.”
