Julian Randall

And now that list has been narrowed down to five finalists.

The titles are Holloway by Ellen K. Arnold, That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian Gothic by Keala Kendall, The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America by David Levithan and Gabriel Duckles, and Shook by Julian Randall, with illustrations by Nathan Walker.

A total of two hundred and ninety titles were submitted for the twenty twenty-six National Book Awards.

The winners for each category will receive ten thousand dollars, a medal, and a statue, and finalists for each category will receive one thousand dollars.

Let's acknowledge the final titles here.

Alana K. Arnold's Holloway, Tay Keller's When Tomorrow Burns, and Julian Randall's Shook.

Look at the sheer velocity of the verbs and imagery: burns, shook, holloway, implying something being violently hollowed out.

It perfectly captures the psychological frequency of modern adolescence.