25 Exceptional Books I Always Recommend to Teens

Far from Normal follows Maddy, a 17-year-old from Normal, Illinois, who moves to Chicago for a summer internship in aunt’s sports marketing company. Away from home — and her parents’ low expectations of her — for the first time, Maddy is ready to prove that she can be excellent at something, even though she has to work hard, unlike her genius brother. Things are going fairly well until she runs into one of the company’s clients, 19-year-old soccer star Gabe. Gabe is Italian and is not in a great place with the press, so Maddy’s aunt Emma and his manager decide that Maddy can work with Gabe to revamp his public image. Along the way, things do not go according to plan — no thanks to all the sparks flying. Far from Normal is a sweet young-adult novel, perfect for younger YA readers ages 12 and up.

In this powerful, inspiring narrative about his high school’s basketball team, graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang turns his pen to nonfiction. Yang, who is a high school teacher, becomes inspired by the meteoric, potentially historic run of the men’s varsity basketball team. When he decides to interview them, he realizes that each player, as well as the team’s history itself, has a fascinating personal story that might even be bigger than just one basketball season. Ages 12+

After a car accident — that she survives — takes the lives of her father, brother, and uncle, Maguire feels like she’s cursed. It doesn’t help that she’d been present for a string of other near-fatal (for other people) events. Maguire copes by buying different good luck charms online. She’s also seeing a therapist (to whom she barely speaks) for PTSD. Everyone seems to have moved forward from their grief — her mom has even remarried and has two kids, but Maguire can’t seem to let go. Then, she meets Jordy at her therapist’s office. Jordy has his own issues, and his status as a teen tennis prodigy is at the forefront. The two, along with an entertaining and complex cast of characters, find ways to take control of their lives. Ages 13+

Maya, who is Deaf, has to move across the country to Colorado just before her senior year. As if that isn’t bad enough, she’s moving from a hearing-impaired school to a hearing school. Having lost her hearing at age 13 after an illness, she can speak but can’t hear. At the new school, Maya slowly begins to make friends and let people in. She befriends a nice girl named Nina and begins to fall for a smart, hearing boy, Beau who starts to learn ASL for her. But Maya begins to have doubts about their relationship when Beau can’t understand why she’d prefer to remain Deaf when she can get a cochlear implant. This is a rousing young adult novel with a Deaf protagonist who never lets her disability set her back. It explores the challenges of a Deaf/hearing relationship and addresses the strain a sibling’s chronic illness can have on a family. Ages 13+

Eloise Deane is a sarcastic, unfriendly teenager who’s recently ditched her best friends and embraced the loner life after an incident the year before. Now she spends her time preparing for college and playing video games. But her escape plans develop a hitch when her school’s guidance counselor tells her she needs extracurricular activities on her application. Enter LifeCare, a volunteer agency that pairs teens with the elderly. Also, enter Austin Yang, the sunshine boy Eloise is paired with to visit a former rockstar, Marianne Landis. As Eloise reluctantly opens her heart to them both, she finds herself irrevocably changed. This book is totally absorbing, with a perfect teen voice and relatable depiction of anxiety and depression. Heads up for frequent profanity, good for ages 14+.

Henri’s parents are Haitian immigrants. He’s popular at his high school and runs a successful dog-walking business. The thing is, he tells customers that he has an entire network of dogwalkers when in reality, it’s just him. When his neighbor and fellow high schooler Corrine’s mother hires him to walk their dog, Corrine quickly uncovers his sham of a company. Corrine then essentially blackmails Henri into helping her get a social life (to look good on college applications) in exchange for keeping quiet about his fake company. Together, Henri and Corrine form a friendship that eventually blossoms into something more. This charming (pun intended), realistic young adult novel tackles several themes from the immigrant experience, familial expectations, the pressure of college admission season, and finding a person with whom we can be our truest selves. Ages 14+

When two art-loving teens meet at an annual camp and spend an entire night exploring together, they make a pack to return every year–but there’s a catch. They can’t contact each other throughout the year until they meet again. Florence has a degenerative eye condition, and Jude’s anxiety and his parents’ divorce aren’t letting him give his best to his art, but together, these two find their place in the world. This swoony, gorgeously written romance is written in dialogue and verse and is absolutely stunning on audio. One of my favorite YA books in 2024! Ages 13+ (some language).

When Zan’s best friend cuts all contact with her after moving to California, she’s convinced that something’s gone wrong and dives into an investigation to get to the bottom of the mystery. I enjoyed this YA mystery featuring smart girls + a sweet story of friendship, with just a dash of romance. Some language, but good for ages 14+

This is the creepiest thriller I’ve read in a minute! Good girl Jessa’s sleepover with her friends goes off the rails when her friends start going missing. I’ll say nothing else, but this was terrifying to read at night and kept me flipping the pages. There is a fair bit of language, but otherwise, this would be fine for readers ages 13 and up.

Rich kid Alice Ogilvie and her new tutor Iris Adams are forced to work together when one of Alice’s former besties (who stole her boyfriend) is found murdered with Alice’s ex-boyfriend as the prime suspect. As the two girls collaborate in this funny, cozy mystery, they end up finding a warm friendship with each other — and the shocking culprit. Ages 12+

This young adult thriller for fans of McManus’s One of Us is Lying follows four Native teenagers under suspicion for the murder of a classmate. It integrates the Missing Indigenous Women issue with other challenges of Native Americans, one of the teens is half Native, and another one is raising his sister because his drug-addict father has abandoned them. I loved seeing the way this mystery came together, and the reveal was definitely worth waiting for. Ages 12+

Five private school teen boys go target shooting, and one of them ends up dead, shot by his own gun — with the fingerprints of all four friends on the gun. All the boys claim they don’t know what happened. The story is told from two perspectives: that of the unknown killer and that of a schoolmate in the new public school the boys attend. Kate also happened to be regularly texting the boy who was killed and works at the DA’s office, where she’s helping the DA with his investigation since he has very poor eyesight. As things progress, it seems nothing is as it seems, both with Kate and with the boys in question, and Kate gets more involved as the stakes get higher in finding the killer. This is a gripping mystery for fans of McManus’s One of Us Is Lying that tackles pressing contemporary issues.

Set in Romania during WWII, this young adult novel stars young Jewess Rieke, whose small life with her brash older sister, depressed mother, and doting grandfather is upturned by the Soviet invasion and, later, Nazi occupation. I love the characterization and storytelling in this story even more than the often-heard WWII/Holocaust plot. Rieke is a compelling protagonist and the Romanian setting makes this WWII novel unique. Although there are references to mature themes like sex, sexual abuse, war & violence, and alcoholism, this book is still appropriate for older teens ages 14+

It’s 1846, and Ireland is in the midst of a growing famine. Nell is working as a scullery maid at the big house (where the residents are living in surplus) while her father is out of work and her family’s potatoes are rotting. The last thing she needs (and yet, what she yearns for) is love. Unfortunately, the boy whose attention she captures is the nephew and heir to the owner of the big house. Balancing love, devotion to her family, and her safety proves life-threatening for Nell in this moving young adult novel. My favorite thing about this book is that I learned something new about the history of Ireland. The writing is gorgeous, although definitely for older teens ages 14 and up.

When Calvin and his parents move from Chicago to the Levittown suburbs in Pennsylvania, he’s torn between leaving his culture and older brother behind in the black neighborhoods and assimilating into the all-white neighborhood. Meeting and falling for the new black girl in his town doesn’t help as he finds himself caught up in organizing to get more Black teens into his school. But things quickly turn dangerous for him and his friends as loyalties are tested across the board. Ages 12+

Leo, Elsa, and Max are three friends in 1930s Vienna, Austria when Hitler’s reign begins to spread through Europe. Elsa’s family flees to Prague, Leo’s family remains in Austria, and Max and his Nazi-supporting father move to Munich. Told from all three perspectives, we follow the three teens in this heartwrenching story as they navigate these turbulent times and attempt to find a way back to each other. Ages 12+

In this fan-favorite historical fiction, four teens’ lives intersect during WWI and WWII as they experience life-changing love and romance during the most heartbreaking time. Uniquely, this book is narrated by Greek gods resolving a personal dispute. It is absolutely fantastic on audio. Ages 12+

In This Is Not a Personal Statement, we meet Perla Perez, a 16-year-old high school senior who has been rejected from the college of her (and her parents’) dreams. Much to her dismay, she put all her eggs in this one basket and didn’t give her other college applications half as much care as she did this one — so all the other colleges rejected her, too. With her back against the wall and under the immense pressure from her immigrant parents to succeed, she forges an acceptance letter and thus begins months of lying and elaborate schemes to get into the dorms, going through all the motions of a real student. She hopes to re-apply in the next session and get in so her parents never know she was rejected. But will her plans go up in flames? Ages 12+

Chloe Chang lives a boring life in Oklahoma — with her busy single mom and her two best friends — where she loves watching K-dramas. But when her best friends gift her a 23-and-me test kit for her birthday, things take a dramatic turn. She finds out that her father was a son of the Noh family, a prestigious family in Seoul, South Korea and before she knows it, she’s off to meet them for the first time. Unfortunately, she’s thrust into a web of lies as she realizes that the family might have ulterior motives for reaching out to her. Ages 12+

Gary Vo is a Vietnamese-American soon-to-be junior high schooler. Gary and his friend Preston have been at the bottom of the social totem pole forever, and Preston is determined that this is the summer they rise up the ranks. So when they’re approached by two popular classmates with an offer to join their group, the boys are all ears! The task is to steal a bracelet from Gloria Buenrostro (a popular, but mysterious A+ student) so the boys can add it to their collections of tokens from “the hottest girls” in school. Easy enough, no? That is until Gary Vo befriends Gloria and realizes that there’s more to her than meets the eye. Ages 12+