All the Birds in the Sky

Anders's debut novel has been filed, officially, on the adult side of fiction (and it does have an R-rated scene or two), but I think it might find its most passionate readers among older teen readers. It's a crazy hodgepodge of a book, goofy and tragic all at once, combining, among a half-dozen other favorite themes of fantastic fiction, the magic of Harry Potter and Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy with the geek-makes-good triumph of Ready Player One. They meet in the characters of Patricia and Laurence, whose mutual coming of age (as they save—or destroy—the world) gives the story its gigantic heart. (15 and up)