Skip to main content

Young Adult Books You Want to Read

As you may or may not know, our company, The Book Report Network, has a number of websites about books and authors in addition to Bookreporter.com. Throughout the year, Bookreporter.com features adult books on Teenreads.com, our site for young adult readers, that we think will have definite appeal to a teen audience. In the spirit of sharing, we are now spotlighting a selection of titles each month from Teenreads.com that we believe are great reads that you might enjoy.

Hold Tight, Don't Let Go by Laura Rose Wagner

January 2015

HOLD TIGHT, DON'T LET GO follows the vivid story of two teenage cousins, raised as sisters, who survive the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti. After losing the woman who raised them in the tragedy, Magdalie and Nadine must fend for themselves in the aftermath of the quake. The girls are inseparable, making the best of their new circumstances in a refugee camp with an affectionate, lively camaraderie, until Nadine, whose father lives in Miami, sends for her but not Magdalie.

Read more »

X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz

January 2015

Malcolm Little's parents have always told him that he can achieve anything, but from what he can tell, that's a pack of lies --- after all, his father has been murdered, his mother has been taken away, and his dreams of becoming a lawyer have gotten him laughed out of school. X follows Malcolm from his childhood to his imprisonment for theft at age 20, when he found the faith that would lead him to forge a new path and command a voice that still resonates today.

Read more »

A List of Things That Didn't Kill Me: A Memoir by Jason Schmidt

January 2015

Jason Schmidt wasn’t surprised when he came home one day during his junior year of high school and found his father, Mark, crawling around in a giant pool of blood. Things like that had been happening a lot since Mark had been diagnosed with HIV, three years earlier. A LIST OF THINGS THAT DIDN'T KILL ME is a funny, disturbing memoir full of brutal insights and unexpected wit that explores the question: How do you find your moral center in a world that doesn't seem to have one?

Read more »

Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky

November 2014

Grayson Sender has been holding onto a secret for what seems like forever: "he" is a girl on the inside, stuck in the wrong gender's body. The weight of this secret is crushing, but sharing it would mean facing ridicule, scorn, rejection, or worse. Despite the risks, Grayson's true self itches to break free. Will new strength from an unexpected friendship and a caring teacher's wisdom be enough to help Grayson step into the spotlight she was born to inhabit?

Read more »

Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christine Heppermann

November 2014

In 50 poems, Christine Heppermann confronts society head on. Using fairy tale characters and tropes, POISONED APPLES explores how girls are taught to think about themselves, their bodies and their friends. The poems range from contemporary retellings to first-person accounts set within the original tales, and from deadly funny to deadly serious. Complemented throughout with black-and-white photographs from up-and-coming artists, this is a stunning and sophisticated book to be treasured, shared, and paged through again and again.

Read more »

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

October 2014

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Jacqueline Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world.

Read more »

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

October 2014

Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At 13, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives, wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways…until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else --- an even more unpredictable new force in her life.

Read more »

Egg & Spoon by Gregory Maguire

September 2014

Elena Rudina lives in the impoverished Russian countryside with her mother, who is slowly dying in their tiny cabin. But then a train arrives in the village, carrying untold wealth, a cornucopia of food, and a noble family that includes Ekaterina, a girl of Elena’s age. When the two girls’ lives collide, an adventure is set in motion, an escapade that includes mistaken identity; a monk locked in a tower; a prince traveling incognito; and Baba Yaga, witch of Russian folklore, in her ambulatory house perched on chicken legs.

Read more »

Positive: A Memoir by Paige Rawl

September 2014

Paige Rawl has been HIV positive since birth, but growing up, she never felt like her illness defined her. One day in middle school, she disclosed to a friend her HIV-positive status --- and within hours the bullying began. One night, desperate for escape, 15-year-old Paige found herself in her bathroom staring at a bottle of sleeping pills. That could have been the end of her story. Instead, it was only the beginning. Paige's memoir calls for readers to choose action over complacency, compassion over cruelty --- and, above all, to be Positive.

Read more »

Zac & Mia by A.J. Betts

September 2014

“When I was little I believed in Jesus and Santa, spontaneous combustion, and the Loch Ness monster. Now I believe in science, statistics, and antibiotics.” So says 17-year-old Zac Meier during a long, grueling leukemia treatment in Perth, Australia. A loud blast of Lady Gaga alerts him to the presence of Mia, the angry, not-at-all-stoic cancer patient in the room next door. Once released, the two near-strangers can’t forget each other, even as they desperately try to resume normal lives.

Read more »