Realistic Fiction For Teens

It's too late for a Sweet Sixteen, but what if Mahalia had a coming-out party? A love letter to romantic comedies, sweet sixteen blowouts, Black joy, and queer pride. “A perfect ode to romantic comedies, wrapped in a dazzling rainbow dress.” —Rachael Lippincott, #1 New York Times...

"It took all of two paragraphs for me to fall head-over-heels in love with this story. Naive, plucky Margot was perfection, New York City brimmed loud and clear from the pages, and I absolutely adored the love story. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while."—Jenna Evans Welch, New York...

Afghan-American Mafi’s sophomore year gets a whole lot more complicated when she accidentally exposes family secrets, putting her family back in Afghanistan in danger in this smartly written YA debut. Sixteen-year-old Mafi Shahin is well-aware that life is not always fair. If it was fair, her...

“A writer to be reckoned with.” —Kathleen Glasgow, author of Girl in Pieces and You’d Be Home Now A heartbreaking, hopeful, and timely novel about facing family secrets, healing from trauma, and falling in love, from the award-winning author of How It Feels to Float George’s life is...

When Dimple Met Rishi meets Loveboat, Taipei in this hilarious YA rom-com about a Chinese-Filipina girl in Manila whose father sets her up on a marathon of arranged dates in hopes of convincing her to stay close to home for college. “A sweet and refreshing story about family, first love, and...

A debut young adult novel that’s Pride & Prejudice with a dash of magic, about a booksmart teen who spends the summer in Mexico City, meets two very cute boys, attempts to learn Spanish, and uncovers a family secret that changes her life forever. Lola Espinoza is cursed in love. Well, maybe...

A gorgeous contemporary romance about two ex-best friends, Cass and Syd, on a life-altering road trip following the reunion tour of the Darlas—the band Cass’s mom was in when she died. Perfect for fans of Nina LaCour, Mary H.K. Choi, and Jandy Nelson. After their high school graduation...

Acclaimed author Gloria Chao creates real-world magic in this luminous romance about teens who devote themselves to granting other people's wishes but are too afraid to let themselves have their own hearts' desires—each other. Liya and Kai had been best friends since they were little kids, but...

In the sequel to Tracy Andreen's debut romantic comedy So, This Is Christmas, we follow Finley and Arthur back to Barrington Academy for a swoony semester. Perfect for fans of Tell Me Three Things and Anna and the French Kiss! Finley and Arthur are back at boarding school and neither quite knows...

High schooler Natalie Cordova has just been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. Her mom insists she keep it secret. Putting up a front and hiding her mental illness from her classmates is going to be the hardest thing high schooler Natalie Cordova has ever done. It’s her senior year, and she’s...

From the award-winning author of A Heart in a Body in The World comes a gorgeous and fiercely feminist young adult novel. When a teen travels to Hawaii to track down her sperm donor father, she discovers the truth about him, about the sunken shipwreck that’s become his obsession, and most of...

A tender and heartfelt queer YA novel about the multiplicities of grief, deeply held family secrets, and finding new love. Isaac Griffin has always felt something was missing from his life. And for good reason: he's never met his dad. He'd started to believe he'd never belong in this world, that...

Finding her voice takes on a whole new meaning when fourteen-year-old Azar Rossi sets out to win her local Battle of the Bands contest in this heartfelt and hilarious contemporary YA. Fourteen-year-old Azar Rossi’s first year of high school has mostly been silent, and intentionally so. After...

Seoul, Korea. In this glittering city where the latest trends are born, Melody finds herself swept away by luxury, romance, and family drama... but is this a place she could ever call home? Thanks to a tiny transgression after school one day, Melody is shocked to discover that her parents have...

A girl rewrites sex education, one viral post at a time, in this fiercely honest and delightfully awkward novel from the award-winning author of Words on Bathroom Walls. Phoebe Townsend is a rule follower . . . or so everyone thinks. She’s an A student who writes for her small-town school...

A sweet and nerdy contemporary YA novel set in the world of marching band perfect for fans of Late to the Party, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega and Kate in Waiting. "As a former band kid, “well behaved” kid, “ideal Catholic” kid, figuring-myself-out kid, It Sounds Like This shines with its...

A sunny YA romance about a road trip and life’s unexpected turns from the author of Give Me a Sign. Iris doesn’t trust the odds. Not when she has a 1 in 4 chance of inheriting the same vision diagnosis as her sister, Amelia. When Iris travels to the east coast to help Amelia drive her things...

An exciting fiction YA anthology that celebrates the new experiences and final moments teenagers face on their journey into adulthood from editor Laura Silverman and a cast of spectacular contributors. From first breakups and romantic vampire encounters to last band performances and the deadly...

This laugh-out-loud debut romance introduces perfectly imperfect Payal Mehta, whose plan to get her longtime crush to finally notice her is destined for success, but only if she ignores her budding feelings for her archnemesis... Payal Mehta has had a crush on popular, athletic, all-around...

A poignant coming-of-age story told in two alternating voices: a California teenager railing against the Vietnamese culture, juxtaposed with her father as an eleven-year-old boat person on a harrowing and traumatic refugee journey from Vietnam to the United States. “A profoundly moving...