Road Trip Wednesday

This Week's Topic: What IRL people can you talk to about YA?
The internet is a smiling sea of writers, editors, book bloggers and other people who spend blog post after tweet espousing YA knowledge. But who can you call in your family to recommend the newest Sara Zarr? Anyone around the watercooler psyched that Bitterblue is finally out? Who are your in-real-life YA buddies?
Road Trip Song of the Week: “You Understand me" by Sam Cooke 
Wow, it's been awhile since I've been able to participate in a RTW, but now that the A-Z challenge is over, I'm back :) And here's my answer to this week's topic:
I don't really have a real-life YA buddy. I do have friends who read a bit of YA, but none who are really as psyched about it as I am. And certainly none who are up-to-date or are psyched for what's coming out next. On the other hand, my friends do come to me for reading recommendations (and not just for YA) and I love being able to take their interests into consideration and really think about a book I know they'll love - and then (hopefully) be able to talk to them about it once they're done. In the end, I'm not sure I need a IRL YA conversation partner - there's such a huge online community and I love being able to interact with other readers and writers via Goodreads, blogs, and writer websites.
What about you? Do you have real-life YA buddies? And if not, do you feel like you're missing something? Or does the online community fill your need to talk YA?