I examined Harper Teen and LB Teen

Harperteen is a very thorough site which advertises and updates works by some of the most significant Y writers, notably Veronica Roth of Divergent , the prolific Avi, Kathryn Lasky, Meg Cabot,Walter Dean Myers and Terry Pratchett. It features book reviews, interviews (written and visual), links to newsletters, official websites and blogsites, movie tie-ins, live chat. The content is not particularly  deep or analytic or memorable, but it is not supposed to be -- this a news site updating teens on media and popular culture.

LB teen deals primarily with books, less with the cultural phenomena that stems from the books -- The list of authors is impressive, though not so much as Harper. Cornelia Funk, Darren Shan, James Patterson most notably. Live chats with authors are advertised and older chats are presented in archive. There are some meatier offerings to teachers and librarians on the site, educator guides, book talks, ways by which books can be found by theme. This website is less visual, colorful and ADD than Harpers-- less attractive, I think, to teens, more attractive to the adults who recommend the books to teens -- the colors are more sedate, there are fewer funky links and less teen language used.

What I gather from both these sites and simply from my own observations is that  many, many of new YA books are written for young ladies by female authors. They feature the strong, quirky female character facing real life or dystopian challenges which by and large she overcomes via her special abilities (innate abilities, sometimes magic--but usually abilities which come from within as opposed to learned skills). Most of them are narrated by the major female character. Many seem to be written to empower teenage girls and make them more aware of their ability to influence their environment. I think that is all well and good although, , as an adult, I have to acknowledge that hard earned useful skills combined with a positive attitude are much more vaulable to our world than magic or lore. But I am old-school, more Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Diary of a Young Girl, than Gossip Girl or Wither. I positively enjoy reading many of these books, but they are not books that I would return to read, they do not build character -- They are written for immediate pleasure, not lasting thought. What I don't understand is why more books are not being written for young men --maybe it is because young men simply are not as attracted to fiction  as the ladies. I have to say, though, that those books which feature male characters are far more thought provoking and long lasting than teen girl reads. Walter Dean Myers, Gary Paulsen, Orson Scott Card, S.E. Hinton, Andrew Horowitz, Neil Gaiman-- better writers, deeper message, more enduring and complex, less self involved and self serving -- books that can be read by all genders and ages.I have to ask myself is this plethora of dystopian girl lit really doing a disservice to teen girls-- either that or underestimating them. The good thing is that teens read all kinds of books -- by and large do not limit themselves to one type of read and they also are able to weed out the good from the bad , the fad from the enduring classic.