Book Lists for Teens and Young Adults

Eighteen-year-old Muslims Adam and Zayneb meet in Doha, Qatar, during spring break and fall in love as both struggle to find a way to live their own truths.

Budding screenwriter Nate, sixteen, finds his conviction that happy endings do not happen in real life sorely tested when his childhood best friend and crush, Oliver James Hernandez, moves back to town.

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.

When eighteen-year-old Ben De Backer tells their parents that they are non-binary they are immediately thrown out of their home, without even time to put on a coat or shoes, despite the cold January North Carolina weather; Ben is rescued by Hannah, their estranged older sister and her husband Thomas, and desperately hopes to finish the last half of senior year while dealing with an anxiety disorder and without calling attention to themselves--a plan that goes awry when they meet Nathan Allan, a charismatic student, and start to fall in love.

Chloe's mom shut the door on her daughter's aspirations with three little words: No dance school. But Chloe refuses to give up. With her dream conservatory on the line, she hatches a plan to drive two hundred miles to the nearest audition. She hits her first speed bump when her annoying neighbor Eli insists upon hitching a ride with his smelly dog, Geezer. So now Chloe's chasing her ballet dreams down the East Coast with two unwanted (but kinda cute) passengers in her car, butterflies in her stomach, and a really dope playlist on repeat.

Told from two viewpoints, teens Lucky, a very famous K-pop star, and Jack, a part-time paparazzo who is trying to find himself, fall for each other against the odds through the course of one stolen day.

Ashish Patel didn't know love could be so... sucky. After being dumped by his ex-girlfriend, his mojo goes AWOL. Even worse, his parents are annoyingly, smugly confident they could find him a better match. So, in a moment of weakness, Ash challenges them to set him up. The Patels insist that Ashish date an Indian-American girl -- under contract. Per subclause 1(a), he'll be taking his date on "fun" excursions like visiting the Hindu temple and his eccentric Gita Auntie. Kill him now. How is this ever going to work? Sweetie Nair is many things: a formidable track athlete who can outrun most people in California, a loyal friend, a shower-singing champion. Oh, and she's also fat. To Sweetie's traditional parents, this last detail is the kiss of death. Sweetie loves her parents, but she's so tired of being told she's lacking because she's fat. She decides it's time to kick off the Sassy Sweetie Project, where she'll show the world (and herself) what she's really made of. Ashish and Sweetie both have something to prove. But with each date they realize there's an unexpected magic growing between them. Can they find their true selves without losing each other?

On the day Torrey officially becomes a college freshman, he gets a call that might force him to drop out before he's even made it through orientation: the bee farm his beloved uncle Miles left him after his tragic death is being foreclosed on. Torrey would love nothing more than to leave behind the family and neighborhood that's bleeding him dry. But he still feels compelled to care for the project of his uncle's heart. As the farm heads for auction, Torrey precariously balances choosing a major and texting Gabriel--the first boy he ever kissed--with the fight to stop his uncle's legacy from being demolished. But as notice letters pile up and lawyers appear at his dorm, dividing himself between family and future becomes impossible unless he sacrifices a part of himself.

After falling for Kate, her unexpected death sends Jack back in time to the moment they first met, but he soon learns that his actions have consequences when someone else close to him dies.

The first time Sana Khan asked out a girl—Rachel Recht—it went so badly that she never did it again. Rachel is a film buff and an aspiring director, and she's seen Carrie enough times to learn you can never trust cheerleaders and beautiful people. Rachel was furious Sana tried to prank her by asking her on a date. But when it comes time for Rachel to cast her senior project, she realizes there's no one more perfect than Sana—the girl she's sneered at in the halls for the past three years—to play the lead role. And poor Sana says yes. She never did get over that first crush, even if Rachel can barely stand to be in the same room as her.