Welcome to my blog

Let me introduce myself and my blog.  My name is Dan Johnson and I'm studying to be a librarian at the University of North Texas.  I have a huge passion for well-written graphic novels and YA lit, and would love to be a youth services librarian.  One of the classes I'm taking this semester is Trends in YA Lit.  We'll be reading 3-5 YA novels a week for the next few months, and we've been asked to journal our literary experience through a blog.  I'll be discussing some of the books we will read in this blog. Please swing by and check out my thoughts on the books I read.  Just as a fair warning, I will often discuss plot points and spoilers, so be advised.  You might want to read my posts AFTER you've read the book in question.

Image from Amazon

BTW- In case you don't know why I chose the blog's name, it's a reference to Barry Lyga's The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl, one of my absolute favorite YA novels.  It's got a whip-smart cast of characters and the book is steeped in comic-book fandom.  Double-good, in my book, as I'm a huge comic book reader. How can you go wrong in a book that includes a fictionalized version of Brian Michael Bendis? Why not both Fanboy and Goth Girl? Because I can only write from the stance of a Fanboy, as I have never been nor ever will be a Goth Girl.

In case you haven't been introduced to Barry Lyga, his books are amazing. I discovered him through one of my earlier library classes and have now read most of his YA books, including Boy Toy, Hero-type, Goth Girl Rising, and the I Hunt Killers trilogy. I absolutely adore Barry Lyga.  He has such flawed and 3-dimensional characters, you can't help but fall in love with them. As we've been asked to try new books instead of retreading ones with which we are already familiar, this will probably be the only mention of Lyga's books in my blog.  But take my word for it, his writing is a treat.