To All the YA I've Loved Before

Hi! Kaycee and Ashley here with a new podcast all about the Movies, TV, books, music, and pop culture that influenced our childhood in the 90s and 2000s — and the stuff that came out before our time that still had a hold on us. We’ll discuss and analyze the artifacts of pop culture past all while sipping a themed cocktail or drink. Search for Nostalgic Nightcaps on this platform and subscribe now!

In this mini-episode, Kaycee sits down with author Micky O’Brady to discuss Playing With #Fire , and her latest release, CRISPR—CRIS PARR , a gripping YA Sci-Fi Thriller. Micky shares her unique journey from pediatrician to writer, and how her medical background shapes the compelling narratives in her YA novels. We explore the powerful themes in Playing With #Fire , including online bullying, iden...

In this episode, we sit down for an interview with Maureen Johnson, the mastermind behind the best-selling Truly Devious series. We explore her latest YA mystery, Death at Morning House , set in the picturesque Thousand Islands of upstate New York. Maureen's signature wit and complex storytelling shine through in this novel, especially with Marlowe Wexler, the protagonist who has quickly won o...

We adore retellings of classic stories, and Darling by K. Ancrum, published in 2021, instantly captivated our hearts. This dark, modern reimagining of Peter Pan unfolds in the vibrant cityscape of Chicago, seen through the eyes of 17-year-old Wendy Darling. On her very first night in her new home, Wendy encounters a mysterious boy named Peter who whisks her away on an adventure beyond her wildest...

The year was 2010, and emo boys were wreaking havoc on the girls in Josie Bloss’s Albatross (and perhaps in our own lives too). Tess is new in town and finds herself irresistibly drawn to Micah Richter, the brooding, “brilliant”, and emotionally erratic emo kid that everyone warns her about. As Tess navigates her first real connection at her new school, she quickly finds herself entangled in a web...

Welcome to a special mini-episode of To All the YA I've Loved Before! This week, Jamie Krakover, an aerospace engineer by day and a sci-fi and fantasy writer by night, joins Kaycee to discuss her upcoming book Authority. Jamie shares her unique journey as an engineer and the author of the Tracker Sequence duology. We dive into the YA she’s loved before, including the pivotal books that ignited her...

That’s right, this week we’re finally heading into the Dessen-verse. Sarah Dessen is one of Young Adult Literature’s best, and in this episode, we are talking about her 1998 novel Someone Like You . This is a coming-of-age classic, with just about every single high school experience packed into something really heartfelt and special. We’re about to take you back through the nostalgia of being a te...

Homecoming dances, overwhelming crushes, and…aliens?! In this episode about The Outsider, we're talking cosmic love. Melinda Metz packs in a whole lot of intergalactic goodness and meaningful themes in the first book of the Roswell High series, published in 1998. In this episode, Kaycee tells Ashley how she’s been a Roswell girly since she saw the WB/UPN teen drama years ago. She shares her fa...

In this month’s Featured Author Episode, Kaycee is joined by Bethanie Finger to talk about her nautical Young Adult Fantasy novel More Than Life . Discussions of topic include: incorporating grief into storytelling, worldbuilding candle pairings, and The Baby-Sitter’s Club spin-off fanfiction. Plus, we talk all about how The Princess Diaries and Meg Cabot shaped us as readers and writers with its...

Note: We’d like to blame Simon and Schuster for using the wrong name for one of the characters in the book blurb, which Kaycee reads at the beginning of the episode. There is no Lauren in this book, so we stand corrected. Justice for Lynne! Hey, Shadysiders! Despite all warnings to avoid the cursed Fear Street, we’re back for a visit with The Boy Next Door , published in 1996. This is one of R.L....

Frutopia mornings, business casual afternoons, and makeover weekends…Kaycee introduces Ashley to the best of Sweet Valley, which mean talks about black shampoo-in hair-dye, Jeffrey French romances, and Jessa Fields. Follow us on Instagram @toalltheya www.instagram.com/toalltheya You can find citations, notes, and further reading on this episode at our website  kayceeracer.com/toalltheya Theme Musi...

We are so sad to be wrapping up this Dear Diary season, but happy to have our favorite complicated woman of history, Marie Antoinette, to do it with. We read Marie Antoinette, Princess of Versailles of The Royal Diaries series by Kathryn Lasky (published in 2000) and we have a lot to say about this teenage future queen of France.  Join us for a Royal History for Dummies, where we hate on royalty i...

This episode is all about Titanic Culture, one of the most important things to hit our little 8 year old brains. Everyone was hopping on the Titanic obsession back in the late 90s, and Scholastic was no exception. Enter Voyage on the Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady, R.M.S. Titanic, 1912 (By Ellen Emerson White). Yep, we’re finally getting into the Dear America books that were absolutely e...

In this episode, Phoebe’s Diary by Phoebe Wahl (pub. 2023) allowed us to take our own trip down memory lane back to being a teenager in 2006. In a fictionalized diary based on her teenage years, Phoebe Wahl explores embarrassing moments, first boyfriends, and know-it-all older sisters that we spend the episode connecting with and sharing our own stories of.  Discussions of topic include: getting w...

We revisited The Healing Time of Hickeys by Karen Rivers (published in 2003) about 20 years after we read it the first time, which means we spotted a lot of the things that made us who we are in the pages of this book. This weird girl lit came at us in a time we needed it the most our freshmen year of high school. Haley Andromeda went through all the same things we did — bad haircuts, terrible cru...

A contemporary queer YA romance novel written in letters? Set in Minneapolis, Minnesota? With lots of Prince talk? Wow, what a treat We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra (published in 2019) was for us this week. Topics of discussion include: stinky ex-boyfriends, lots of Minneapolis talk, and poetic boners. Plus, we love a YA character who can’t help but cry! So relatable. Content Warning: Abuse...

This week’s book is all about learning how to stay Best Friends 4Ever from across the country, something we personally know a little about after moving so far away from each other :(. We read P.S. Longer Letter Later by Paula Danziger and Ann M. Martin, published in 1998. Main characters Tara*Starr and Elizabeth’s only source of communication is snail mail as they write to each other about their p...

This week, we have a much more nuanced, empathetic take on teens, drugs, and addiction than our last entry in the YA Diary genre. We read Things I’ll Never Say by Cassandra Newbould, published in 2023. It's a beautiful story about grief, love, and what comes next in life. Other topics of interest include sword-crossing erotica, the booze-soaked fruit drinks of our youth, and Vanilla Ice’s Ninj...

We’re starting this season off with a novel that was near and dear to a naive twelve-year-old Kaycee’s heart. Go Ask Alice, a book that boasted being a REAL diary from a REAL fifteen-year-old girl was published in 1971, and the journey this book took through history is quite a tale. In this episode, we air out our frustrations on Go Ask Alice as we talk Beatrice Sparks (the so-called editor and fi...

In 2002 a drug called ecstasy and a little Canadian teen drama by the name of Degrassi: The Next Generation combined to make one of the best television episodes of our young lives Degrassi proves a lot can happen in 23 minutes, and we discuss it all at length. Plus, we talk favorite and least favorite characters, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, The D.A.R.E. program promising free drugs to kids, an...

A carnival slasher for the last episode of the season (and the year) just felt so right! We read Tastes Like Candy by Ivy Tholen (published in 2020), and absolutely loved the cool year-round Halloween carnival setting, friendships, and very high school themes of moving on. This episode got us deep in our feelings, because we spend a lot of time exploring the feelings of our own high school years,...

When will the people of Shadyside finally abandon this horror of a town altogether? Absolutely never, if the many Fear Street spin-offs have their way (and we love it). Welcome to Fear Park, an amusement park that shows the horrors of imminent domain and exploiting huge tragedy for entertainment. R.L. Stine really knocked it out of the (theme) park with this one. Discussions of topic include: Robb...

Staring longingly across parking lots, bad wigs, and Jasper…these are only a few of the things Stephenie Meyer has to answer for as we take on the popular 2008 teen vampire flick Twilight this week.  Topics of discussion include: the vampire version of Wonderwalling a girl, 2008 fashion, and being Team Rosalie (and Team Eternal Vampires Need to Stay Away from High Schools). Plus, Ashley’s unsurpri...

We are back in 1995 this week with another vamp novel Look for Me by Moonlight by Mary Downing Hahn. Sixteen-year-old, shy and self-conscious Cynda goes to live with her father and his new family in their old Maine inn. She just wants to feel closer to her dad, and maybe experience a little normal teenage life after growing up a Navy brat with her mom and stepdad. A winter visiter at the inn, char...

Kaycee and Ashley take on another vampire in the Bailey School Kids Universe — penned by Debbie Daley and Marcia Thornton Jones — with Dracula Doesn’t Drink Lemonade . The core four crew of Howie, Eddie, Liza, and Melody are a bit creeped when they meet Mr. Drake, their new school counselor. He dresses in all black and is ice cold. Plus, he may or may not have hypnotic powers. Discussions of topic...