Category: What’s Up in YA

Jake and Nate’s ex-boyfriends decided to fake that they’re doing well post-breakup. Their exes are together and sharing on Instagram just how perfect their relationship is.

Naturally, Jake and Nate decide they’re going to get back at their exes and pretend to have the best summer ever. They’ll hit the ‘Gram, too, with incredible photos of their perfect road trip. It’s a big scheme to make everything look like it’s going great, and the two of them are mourning the loss of their relationships.

What they won’t talk about is how they’re stuck in a van with Nate’s annoying parents and younger sister. Nor how they actually haven’t talked to each other in years.

Nor…how they might be falling for one another. A hilarious road trip meets social media hijinks rom-com.

Perla, 16, has done everything right in high school in order to graduate early, with honors, and get into her dream college, Delmont University. But when she’s rejected by the school, she doesn’t know what to do. Everything she’s worked for has been upended.

So she decides to do what anyone else would do: forge an acceptance letter and show up anyway. If she can lay low but see how things work, maybe she can actually get an acceptance when she reapplies for next year.

In the meantime, she’ll be crashing classes.

Nova Albright is going to be the first Black homecoming queen at Lovett High School. This is a huge deal, especially because the system at Lovett has been rigged in favor of white courts since the beginning, as the school came to be post-Katrina and combined the rich white students from one part of the Mississippi town with the lower-income Black students from another part of town. The Black students are de facto segregated at the school: they’re not in the AP classes, but they ARE there to help the school’s sports teams excel. This little factoid is important for several reasons, including why Nova’s crowning is especially important.

So it’s incredibly suspicious when Nova is found dead days before Homecoming on the same night a viral video of Tinsley McArthur emerges. Tinsley, who believes she deserved the crown. Tinsley, who has a family legacy to uphold. Tinsley, who was drinking with her friends that night and said she was going to murder Nova.

But Tinsley swears she’s innocent. This was a setup by her ungenerous so-called friends. She was drunk when she made that statement. She absolutely did not kill Nova. 

Or did she?

Looking for a teen sports memoir about coming of age as a queer person? This is a winner for that and more.

Karina skated at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and quickly became a fan favorite. She then became the first skater on Team USA to come out as queer.

Her memoir explores life on the ice, as well as growing up in a big school where, even in an era where queerness became more accepted than in the past, she knew virtually no one else having the experiences she was. Because this is a sports memoir, it also explores the ups and downs of figure skating, including the unreal pressures placed upon athletes to look and act in a certain way.

This book cover is one that has stood out to me this year—it’s bright, and it is delightful—and the description is making me even more excited to pick it up.

Kalvin is a high school sophomore with a unique side hustle: he sells candy at his school, and because he’s got the good stuff with no drama, it’s a successful underground business. Then, one day, his long-time crush, Sterling, stumbles into the storage closet where Kalvin keeps his supply and he begins to talk with her about the bad relationship she is in. Now he’s accidentally become a romance therapist, too—but how long can he put on the act before the truth of his own experiences and models of good relationships emerge?

What happens when his feelings for Sterling become too difficult to hide?

Calli is 18 and lives in a small town where it seems everyone knows everyone—and everything. She’s just buried her father, and everyone has gone home. Or so she thinks.

Standing there alone is a girl who is scared, bruised, dirty. She can’t speak. Calli knows right then she needs to help the girl, whom she has started to call Ash, but Calli cannot let anyone know about her.

When a detective comes around asking about whether or not Calli has seen or heard anything about a girl who has disappeared from another town, she’s not saying anything.

But it seems as though Ash might have a whole lot to tell.

A diverse heist story set aboard the ill-fated Titanic? That’s right.

Our thief, Josefa, is not out for money, though: it’s a book encrusted in gems worth millions of dollars. Josefa recruits three other girls to help take the book. As much as securing the prize would ensure them all success down the road, their infighting, mistakes, and romantic side quests might put them in danger…and, as we know, that ship is also going down.

Seelie might look just like her twin, Isolde, but she knows she’s different. She’s autistic, dropped in the human world by a fae as a baby. Seelie’s magic is a little unpredictable, but she’ll use it to her advantage as she and her sister take up the hunt for treasure. Too bad the girls end up in a heist that goes south and now, they’re discovering a bigger mystery connecting the world of the fae to humans.

If you like fairy tales, fae/faeries, mystery, and twins at the center of your fantastical world-building, this is written especially for you.

Devin Baez has been looking forward to winter break at his family’s cabin in Lake Andreas. But then he runs into the neighbors, the Seo-Cookes, who have been dominating in the local winter games for years. The families decide to amp things up this year with a bet: the Baez family offers up their cabin as a prize if the Seo-Cookes win again this year.

Julian Seo-Cooke needs a fake boyfriend, and Devin agrees. He sees it as a chance to score some secrets and win the games this year.

But as much as Julian and Devin are supposed to be hating each other…there might be more complicated feelings involved.

This book will be available in hardcover and paperback at the same time.

When they were younger, Ethan and Rebecca met and became quick friends. They shared secrets and kisses until Ethan’s mom took him away. He’s able to visit periodically, and when he does, he leaves a flower on Rebecca’s windowsill.

Four years later, Ethan is gone for good. He’s now responsible for taking care of his mom, who struggles with substance use.

Two years ago, Rebecca and her father were in a terrible car accident that left him dead. She became a wheelchair user.

Now, Ethan and Rebecca are reconnecting. But can they find common ground in their grief and trauma? Or are they forever pulled apart?

Sara comes from a large Afghani-Uzbeck family, but she’s feeling alone after the divorce of her parents. Her dad’s started dating someone new, and making things more awkward is the fact that her dad and mom still work together in their house flipping business. Sara’s recruited as part of their work to take photos of the before and after.

The newest project, Sumner, is not giving great vibes. Sara begins to see the ghost of her grandmother and then the ghost of a strange little girl. No one else is seeing this, and she can’t capture it on camera. Her grandmother, who struggles with memory, has been having strange conversations about having another child that none of her family seems to know about. Are these comments and what Sara’s seeing related?

This is an immersive story about family, about history, and about the stories and choices immigrants sometimes have to make in order to build a new life.

A Sapphic Jewish romance at Christmas? Count me 500% in.

Shari runs into May with her Subaru, and that is not the plan. Shari’s got a month-long internship she’s excited about, but in addition to dealing with the accident, she’s also struggling to get over the big breakup she just experienced.

Then Shari’s taken up a dog walking gig. And guess who is there? It’s May. Now, the two of them are thrown together again, and it might upend everything. Especially as they’re snowed in together on Christmas Eve…

A queer, Medieval romcom? Count me in for this one.

Hundreds of years after King Arthur’s reign, his descendent Arthur—a future Lord himself—has been betrothed to Gwendolyn since their births. But the only thing the two of them agree about is how much they hate each other.

They’re now being forced to spend the summer together in Camelot in preparation for their marriage. It takes zero time, though, for it to become clear the two of them would be far better allies than marriage partners. Art finds himself caught by Gwen after kissing a boy and Art, for his part, has been snooping through Gwen’s diary and learns about her big crush on a lady knight in the kingdom.

The two of them decide to make a pact and cover for one another. But what will that mean for the future of the kingdom and their marriage?

Zhong Ning’er is a thief, and when she takes her most recent job, she expects it to be quick and fast. But instead, she finds herself among a group of young revolutionaries. Ning’er doesn’t consider herself the type, but as it becomes clearer that the Beiyang Army is crushing the pulse of Beijing—which has been under its rule because of General Yuan Shikai’s emperorship 150 years ago—she might be changing her tune.

This is a cyberpunk read that sounds like it’ll be the kind of fast-paced adventure readers of Leigh Bardugo or Fullmetal Alchemist will dig.

If you’d like a sort-of-enemies-to-lovers rom-com with a fake dating trope tossed in, this sounds like it’ll be 100% up your reading alley. Bailey just took a job at a hotel waterpark, and she’s discovered her coworker is Charlie. The Charlie she sat next to on a flight after her parents divorced and she moved to Omaha. He annoyed her then, and he’s annoying her now.

Or at least he was annoying her. She’s actually enjoying working with him, and the two of them are engaged in friendly conversation about the types of people frequently visiting the hotel waterpark. They make a bet on whether or not a pair of coworkers will begin to date, as they’ve been heavily flirting. But now Charlie cannot deny his feelings for Bailey and the fact the two of them need to fake date in order to hedge off some annoyance between Bailey and her mom and new boyfriend.

Perhaps the real bet isn’t on their coworkers but on the future of their own relationship.

Dawn wants queer love so bad. It’s senior year of high school in her Houston community, and she’s realizing if she cannot have those feelings herself, perhaps she could use her skills as a burgeoning filmmaker to document queer love in other ways. Perhaps that could help her even get a scholarship for college.

Armed with a camera and her two besties, Dawn is ready to take down the obstacles to her dreams—those of film school and those of love.

This collection of science fiction short stories has two clear selling points. First, the premise is the question of what the future could look like with the help of technology. Second, the lineup of authors is out of this world good. You’ll get work from K. Ancrum, Elizabeth Bear, A.R. Capetta, Charlotte Nicole Davis, Nasugraq Rainey Hopson, A.S. King, E.C. Myers, Junauda Petrus-Nasah, and Wendy Xu.

Twelve teens are out to help a friend make a giant apology, but then, Atlanta is struck by a snowstorm. Will they be able to make it happen? This is a sweet winter romance told through several voices, perspectives, and, of course, packed with feelings.