Every year, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) works with 15 teen book groups all around the country to generate a teen-led list of the best books of the year. In April, YALSA announced the two dozen nominees and then teens all over the country voted for their favorites. These ten books respresent "books of substance" that appeal to and speak to the teen experience. Enjoy!
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#MurderTrending
by Gretchen McNeil Falsely accused of murdering her stepsister, seventeen-year-old Dee fights to survive paid assassins on Alcatraz 2.0, the most popular prison on social media. |
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Wildcard
by Marie Lu Teenage hacker Emika Chen embarks on a mission to unravel a sinister plot and is forced to join forces with a shadowy organization known as the Blackcoats. |
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The cruel prince
by Holly Black Jude, seventeen and mortal, gets tangled in palace intrigues while trying to win a place in the treacherous High Court of Faerie, where she and her sisters have lived for a decade. |
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Thunderhead
by Neal Shusterman Rowan and Citra take opposite stances on the morality of the Scythedom, putting them at odds, and the Thunderhead is not pleased |
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Children of blood and bone
by Tomi Adeyemi Coming of age in a land where her magi mother was killed by the zealous king's guards along with other former wielders of magic, Zélie embarks on a journey alongside her brother and a fugitive princess to restore her people's magical abilities. |
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The prince and the dressmaker
by Jen Wang The best-selling cartoonist of In Real Life presents a graphically illustrated fairy tale set in Paris at the dawn of the modern age, where a cross-dressing prince hides his identity as a popular fashion icon and falls for a brilliant dressmaker who knows his secret at the same time his royal parents begin searching for a traditional bride for him to marry. |
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American panda
by Gloria Chao A freshman at MIT, seventeen-year-old Mei Lu tries to live up to her Taiwanese parents' expectations, but no amount of tradition, obligation, or guilt prevent her from hiding several truths--that she is a germaphobe who cannot become a doctor, she prefers dancing to biology, she decides to reconnect with her estranged older brother, and she is dating a Japanese boy. Can she find a way to be herself, before her web of lies unravels? |
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Batman : Nightwalker
by Marie Lu After making an impulsive choice on his way home from his birthday party, Bruce Wayne must do community service at Arkham Asylum, where he encounters Madeleine Wallace, a killer with ties to the Nightwalkers terrorizing Gotham. |
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Speak : the graphic novel
by Laurie Halse Anderson A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda's freshman year in high school. |
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The poet X
by Elizabeth Acevedo The daughter of devout immigrants discovers the power of slam poetry and begins participating in a school club as part of her effort to understand her mother's strict religious beliefs and her own developing relationship to the world. |