Magonia

I loooved this! I love pretentious dying teens, and gifted Aza and her equally-gifted BFF Jason definitely fulfilled that desire for me. The fantasy element of this sounds so absurd but is pulled of SO WELL, and I was completely intrigued by the actual historical elements pulled into it (according to the author's endnotes, the historical research is real!) Basically... it turns out Aza has been dying on Earth because she's not human, she's Magonian... so basically, a bird person. And the bird people come to bring her to live on a ship in the sky, full of other bird people. They fly around and steal crops and stuff from earth, because of course, nothing can grow in the sky...

Anyway, this feels like such a fresh take on the ~misfit chosen one~ thing as well as the ~pretentious dying teen~ thing. So cool. Can't wait for the sequel!