The most recommended young adult books

Lucky Broken Girl is about overcoming adversity and finding hope. 

Ruthie Mizrahi and her family immigrated from Cuba to New York City. Immigration brings lots of new challenges, especially learning a new language. Ruthie is adjusting fairly well until she’s in a car accident and breaks her leg. As part of her recovery, Ruthie gets a body cast that stretches all the way from her chest to her toes. 

I read this book because my sister, Robin, was also in a car accident and ended up in the same kind of cast as Ruthie. My sister’s accident was the inspiration for my novel. I was curious to see how two different authors handled the same storyline.

Jeff Zentner’s writing is lyrical and beautiful and indescribably wonderful (although I just tried to describe it and failed). Goodbye Days deals in such a raw way with grief and regret—to feel the feelings instead of avoiding them—and learn to face hard realities without much support, at least at first. Check out Goodbye Days and all of Jeff’s amazing books. You will go on an emotional journey as his characters make hard choices and face new beginnings.

This Field Party series starter is my go-to when I need a good dose of Friday Night Lights, a splash of steam, and a heavy dose of drama. I mean, football meets love in bloom—can you get any more Southern that that? Main characters West and Maggie are both suffering through a recent/impending significant loss in their families, and this pain unites them on a deeper level than either has known before against the backdrop of a small Alabama town. 

The Long Season of Rain (the title refers to the monsoons that afflict the Korean Peninsula at the start of summer) reminds us that in Hell Chosŏn women remain subservient to men in almost every sphere of society, and learn early on to endure silently instead of speaking out. This novel exemplifies the richness of Korean-American young-adult novels, which often focus on coming of age and the quest for identity. Especially poignant is the author’s use of a naïve narrator, the daughter of a woman who learns that her husband has taken a concubine.

“Every story has a villain, and the one in this story is me.” With this fantastic opening line, Kate introduces herself.

Changing friendships is a classic theme of middle-grade fiction, but I love this unique point of view of the narrator as the person who abandons her longtime best friend instead of the other way around.

Kate is every bit the villain she claims to be, but I still rooted for her. My writer's brain loved the way Claire Swinarski made that happen, and it got me thinking about how I might make my main characters likable even when they make bad choices.

Blogger Adoma Adeniyi turned me on to Swinarski, and now I’m a fan for life.

My Lady Jane is a retelling of the true-life story of Lady Jane Gray, who lived in Tudor England during the reign of Edward VI. Though the plot isn’t as fast-paced as other novels, it is nonetheless engaging, and so are its main characters, with plenty of banter and humor throughout the whole book that had me laughing out loud on several occasions. If you are into period pieces, this lighthearted read is guaranteed to entertain you.

I’m amazed that more people aren’t talking about this book. It falls in line with the vampire romance genre so effortlessly, and yet it is egregiously overlooked. I remember reading it years ago when I was a teenager and being totally entranced. There’s this beautiful lilt to the writing, and the plot is so richly complex. It deals with the subject of immortality in such an interesting way, comparing the endless life of this vampire to the swiftly expiring life of this girl’s mother. The romance itself is actually refreshing as well. There’s this soft, sweet gallantry that you don’t see a lot in modern work, in my opinion.

You Should See Me in a Crown is such a cute sapphic romance story, set around the fact that both the main character, Liz, and her love interest/new girl, Mack, are both running for homecoming queen to win a scholarship.

This book was a breath of fresh air because there were also real problems and insecurities brought up that sometimes are overlooked, making it the characters seem so real. 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include this YA by the incomparable Patrick Ness. Turning the contemporary Chosen One trope on its head, The Rest of Us Just Live Here is about Mikey, just a normal kid—in a high school beset with the occasional, say, zombie problem that the other, more special kids have to take out. It’s both a classic of the genre while also lovingly parodying it. It will make you feel seen. Read it.

I picked up this book on a blind recommendation, knowing only that it was an anthropomorphic middle grade novel with illustrations by an artist whose work I liked. To my absolute delight, I discovered a story that’s unabashedly whimsical and warm.

Personally, I love skunks, so I was a little frustrated with Badger for being so unwelcoming when Skunk showed up on the stoop of his townhouse. In Badger’s defense, though, the amount of mayhem Skunk created would have made anyone lose their temper, let alone a buttoned-down badger with “very important rock work” to perform.

I also very much appreciated the celebration of chickens! Reminiscent of kid-lit classics like A Cricket in Times Square and books by E. B. White but never antiquated, this book was divine!