Tag: Young Adult

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2027) Featured Review: Last Chance Live! by Helena Haywoode Henry

Eighteen-year-old Eternity Price is on death row, so she decides to take her chances and become a contestant on the country’s most popular reality TV shows, Last Chance Live!, a show where the winner is forgiven of their crimes and can go back to society, but all of the contestants voted off the show are executed within a week. On the show, Eternity must convince the country that she deserves a second chance, but when she begins making strong connections with fellow contests and finds herself with friends for the first time in her life, she must grapple with the tough decision of whether she should take the risk and betray the only friends she’s ever had to survive, or protect her new found companions, no matter the cost.

Last Chance Live! has strong character development and will keep teens on their toes while also addressing some of the social issues in the criminal justice system. Mature teens interested in social justice, dystopias, and that liked Squid Games will enjoy this book.

Readers of The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Truth Is… by Hannah V. Sawyerr, and The Story of My Anger by Jasminne Mendez will enjoy this book.

-Amy Kilkenny

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Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2026) Featured Review: Lady’s Knight by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

  • Lady’s Knight
  • By Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
  • Publisher: Storytide
  • Release date: June 3, 2025
  • ISBN: 9780062893390

As the whole county gears up for the annual Dragonslayer Tournament, a jousting competition among knights, young Lady Isobelle is dismayed to find out that she and her dowry have been named the grand prize for the winning knight. In a nearby village, a blacksmith’s daughter named Gwen has been crafting her own armor and weapons with the intention of somehow finding her way into the tournament to prove to herself that she has what it takes to become a knight. When Isobelle and Gwen meet at the market, they’re curiously drawn to each other and Isobelle comes up with a plan that accidentally dovetails nicely with Gwen’s dreams of being a knight. Gwen will pose as Sir Gawain, carrying the favor of none other than Lady Isobelle. Outside of the tournament, Gwen will be Gawain’s sister. The goal: win the tournament and save Isobelle from a miserable marriage, a prospect that becomes ever more urgent as sparks fly between Isobelle and Gwen. What could possibly go wrong?

This anachronistic historical fantasy is a hilarious, unabashedly feminist, sapphic romp. The omniscient third-person narration rotates between Isobelle and Gwen’s perspectives with occasional fourth-wall-breaking interludes from the narrator, keeping the pace moving at a fast clip. Readers will be drawn in by the chemistry between the two leads, but what really sets this fantasy apart is the clever subversion of typical fantasy tropes that will keep readers on their toes – and laughing out loud – until the action-packed end. 

The teen reader who would most appreciate this title is the teen who loves some humor and social commentary along with their fantasy. Fans of Lady’s Knight would find similar energy in the Lady Janies series by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows, Lex Croucher’s Not For the Faint of Heart and the Montague Siblings series by Mackenzi Lee.

— Courtney Waters

The Selected Lists teams read throughout the year in search of the best titles published in their respective categories. Once a book is suggested (either internally or through the title suggestion form), it must pass through a review process to be designated an official nomination.

Each week, the teams feature a review of one of the officially nominated titles. Additional titles to receive this designation are listed as well. At year’s end, the team will curate a final list from all nominated titles and select a Top Ten.
The Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee appreciates teen feedback as members evaluate the nominated titles. Teen librarians are encouraged to share the List of Potential Nominees under consideration with their patrons and solicit feedback using the link: tinyurl.com/bfya2026

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2026) Featured Review: Up in Smoke by Nick Brooks

After a young man is killed by a police officer after allegedly stealing, a peaceful protest in the local neighborhood takes place. Uncomfortable at the thought, Cooper accompanies his “big brother” Jason and other friends to loot some of the local stores. A woman is shot and killed and Jason is the prime suspect.

This fast paced mystery will keep readers hooked. Additionally, readers will relate to Cooper’s guilt over keeping secrets from his father, his friends and his crush. This book also has a social justice component that will appeal to readers. It is a reasonable length and will appeal to reluctant readers.

Fans of the author’s work Promise Boys as well as readers who enjoy a mystery mixed with social justice themes will enjoy this book. This book will appeal to fans of Nic Stone as well as Angie Thomas and Jason Reynolds.

– Melissa Palmer

The Selected Lists teams read throughout the year in search of the best titles published in their respective categories. Once a book is suggested (either internally or through the title suggestion form), it must pass through a review process to be designated an official nomination.

Each week, the teams feature a review of one of the officially nominated titles. Additional titles to receive this designation are listed as well. At year’s end, the team will curate a final list from all nominated titles and select a Top Ten.
The Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee appreciates teen feedback as members evaluate the nominated titles. Teen librarians are encouraged to share the List of Potential Nominees under consideration with their patrons and solicit feedback using the link: tinyurl.com/bfya2026

Check out The Hub Advisory Board’s Interview with Nick Brooks

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Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2026) Featured Review: All Better Now by Neal Shusterman

A new pandemic is sweeping across the world. But this virus is different. People who recover from Crown Royale find themselves content and happy. The new mindset rattles economies and the traditional power structure. Three teens find themselves involved in an international power struggle between forces that want to use the virus to enlighten the human race and those determined to maintain the status quo.

The book balances a fast-paced storyline with thoughtful character development. Schusterman once again uses dystopian themes to explore the human condition, just as he did in the Arc of the Scythe trilogy. Readers will be drawn into the moral complexities, left questioning whether either side truly has humanity’s best interests at heart.

Readers who enjoy a mix of inner turmoil and high-stakes plots will enjoy this book. Fans of Shusterman’s previous works, specifically Dry and Arc of the Scythe, won’t be disappointed. Consider recommending this to readers who would enjoy Plagueland by Alex Scarrow without the gore.

– Cathy DeCampli

The Selected Lists teams read throughout the year in search of the best titles published in their respective categories. Once a book is suggested (either internally or through the title suggestion form), it must pass through a review process to be designated an official nomination.

Each week, the teams feature a review of one of the officially nominated titles. Additional titles to receive this designation are listed as well. At year’s end, the team will curate a final list from all nominated titles and select a Top Ten.
The Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee appreciates teen feedback as members evaluate the nominated titles. Teen librarians are encouraged to share the List of Potential Nominees under consideration with their patrons and solicit feedback using the link: tinyurl.com/bfya2026

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2026) Featured Review: Cope Field by T.L. Simpson

  • Cope Field
  • by T. L. Simpson
  • Publisher: North Star Editions
  • Release date: April 22, 2025
  • ISBN: 9781635831054

Crawford “Craw” Cope lives in constant anger. He’s currently serving community service for letting his anger get the best of him and won’t say exactly what happened or how his father ended up with a baseball bat to the face because of it. In their tiny town in the Ozarks Craw meets a punk rock girl at community service who challenges him to finally talk, and think about life outside of the abuse and expectations of his father, but is Craw in too deep trying to protect his father as the baseball legend everyone believes in?

Craw’s voice and inner anger as he deals with abuse, expectations, and living in a place the book says “many don’t get out of” is so freshly done and has enough of small town life and baseball to entice some readers that have yet to find that read they connect with. Craw’s little brother is so sweet and funny, and Hannah, while being a bit of a manic pixie punk girl, also has fleshed out enough character development to be more than just an eye opener for Craw. Readers might come for the baseball and the mystery of what happened before the start of the book, but will stay for the realistic and often hard to read authenticity.

Teens that enjoy realistic reads with hopeful endings will enjoy this one. Fans of Cope FIeld would also like T. L. Simpson’s first book, Strong Like You, Saints of the Household by Ari Tison, and Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt.

– Molly Dettmann

The Selected Lists teams read throughout the year in search of the best titles published in their respective categories. Once a book is suggested (either internally or through the title suggestion form), it must pass through a review process to be designated an official nomination.

Each week, the teams feature a review of one of the officially nominated titles. Additional titles to receive this designation are listed as well. At year’s end, the team will curate a final list from all nominated titles and select a Top Ten.
The Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee appreciates teen feedback as members evaluate the nominated titles. Teen librarians are encouraged to share the List of Potential Nominees under consideration with their patrons and solicit feedback using the link: tinyurl.com/bfya2026

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2026) Featured Review: Cope Field by T.L. Simpson

In a version of the near future, high school senior ‘Wayne (the “D” is invisible) Le receives an invitation to join a prestigious study, administered by a well-established university and complete with financial perks upon successful completion of the study. He accepts the invitation, believing that it will appease his perpetually disappointed father and knowing it will delight his information-brokering, hacker friend, Kermit. He is joined by fellow classmate, Jane, with whom he has agreed to meet for regular debriefs about their experiences with the study. As the circumstances and mechanisms of the study become increasingly bizarre, the trio of teens take a plunge down a conspiracy-theory-rabbit-hole, questioning what, exactly, the study is designed to reveal and how far the study’s authors will go in order to achieve the desired results. 

With snarky, self-deprecating humor, ‘Wayne’s first person narrative (complete with footnotes) rotates amongst various ephemera like letters, text conversations, screenshots from the study’s phone app that detail daily assignments, documents, and even interjections from both Jane and the author herself. As the mystery of the study unfolds, so too do ruminations on mental health, identity, origami, technology, and personal growth. This book is unusual in just about every sense, but readers will be sucked in by the quick pacing and puzzle-box plot. By the end readers will be desperate to discuss their own theories with others who experienced this weird, thought-provoking book.  

Teens who seek something smart and offbeat will find this debut particularly satisfying. This doesn’t read like a traditional YA book, so teens who gravitate towards adult books will appreciate that it doesn’t spell everything out for them. Fans of weird sci-fi novels like M.T. Anderson’s Landscape with Invisible Hand or Ian X. Cho’s Aisle 9 will be drawn to This Moth Saw Brightness. This will likely also have appeal to fans of other offbeat YA authors like A.S. King and Sean McGinty. 

– Courtney Waters

The Selected Lists teams read throughout the year in search of the best titles published in their respective categories. Once a book is suggested (either internally or through the title suggestion form), it must pass through a review process to be designated an official nomination.

Each week, the teams feature a review of one of the officially nominated titles. Additional titles to receive this designation are listed as well. At year’s end, the team will curate a final list from all nominated titles and select a Top Ten.
The Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee appreciates teen feedback as members evaluate the nominated titles. Teen librarians are encouraged to share the List of Potential Nominees under consideration with their patrons and solicit feedback using the link: tinyurl.com/bfya2026

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2026) Featured Review: The Thrashers by Julie Soto

After Emily takes her own life on prom night, her journal exposes a pattern of bullying by a group of students known as the Thrashers. Now, Jodi and her friends, Zach, Lucy, Paige, and Julian, find themselves under police investigation, as their reputations unravel under the intensifying scrutiny. Unlike the others, Jodi doesn’t come from money, which has always left her feeling like an outsider in her circle of friends. As detectives dig deeper, secrets begin to surface that force Jodi to question whether their bond was ever real. And while the investigation unfolds, something else seems to be stalking the group, causing a series of life-threatening accidents.

The Thrashers is a fast-paced novel that also delivers nuanced character development. Rather than presenting straightforward villains, it offers a cast of teenagers grappling with complex, relatable emotions and making flawed choices. Although Jodi isn’t an unreliable narrator, the story unfolds through her perspective, and it quickly becomes clear that there’s much she doesn’t know. This limited viewpoint adds layers of suspense, as secrets are revealed at just the right moments. A series of expertly timed twists propels the narrative forward, maintaining a relentless momentum right up until the final page.

Fans of psychological suspense and morally grey characters will enjoy this book. Hand this to fans of One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus, Sadie by Courtney Summers, and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher.

– Cathy DeCampli

The Selected Lists teams read throughout the year in search of the best titles published in their respective categories. Once a book is suggested (either internally or through the title suggestion form), it must pass through a review process to be designated an official nomination.

Each week, the teams feature a review of one of the officially nominated titles. Additional titles to receive this designation are listed as well. At year’s end, the team will curate a final list from all nominated titles and select a Top Ten.
The Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee appreciates teen feedback as members evaluate the nominated titles. Teen librarians are encouraged to share the List of Potential Nominees under consideration with their patrons and solicit feedback using the link: tinyurl.com/bfya2026

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2026) Featured Review: The Notorious Virtues by Alwyn Hamilton

In the country of Walstad, the Holtzfall family reigns supreme, both in material wealth and in magic. To be a member of that family implies a glittering life of leisure and media attention, but when the current heiress, Verity Holtzfall is murdered, ostensibly during a random mugging, matriarch Mercy Holtzfall calls for the Veritaz Trials. These trials are a potentially deadly set of challenges designed to assess various virtues and will determine who among the next generation of potential heiresses is worthy of inheriting all of the Holtzfall wealth and magic. Will it be Nora, Verity’s daughter and former heiress-apparent? Or will she be too distracted by investigating her mother’s murder? Will it be her cousins Modesty, Clemency or Constance? Or will it be Lotte, the secret cousin who has been raised in a convent, completely unaware of her connection to the legendary Holtzfalls?

The Notorious Virtues blends an original fantasy world with elements of high-stakes competition and mystery. The characters are well-realized and the dialogue crackles with wit. The pacing is steady and propels readers through the 500+ pages with ease. Twists and turns abound, keeping readers on their toes, right up to the satisfying, yet unexpected ending.

The genre-blended title will appeal to any teen who loves fantastical settings, competitions, mysteries, or any combination of the three. Fans of series like The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Barnes will be drawn to this book. For a more fantastical take on succession-based competition, readers should also consider Four Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake.

– Courtney Waters

The Selected Lists teams read throughout the year in search of the best titles published in their respective categories. Once a book is suggested (either internally or through the title suggestion form), it must pass through a review process to be designated an official nomination.

Each week, the teams feature a review of one of the officially nominated titles. Additional titles to receive this designation are listed as well. At year’s end, the team will curate a final list from all nominated titles and select a Top Ten.
The Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee appreciates teen feedback as members evaluate the nominated titles. Teen librarians are encouraged to share the List of Potential Nominees under consideration with their patrons and solicit feedback using the link: tinyurl.com/bfya2026

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2026) Featured Review: Fledgling by S.K. Ali

  • Fledgling
  • by S.K. Ali
  • Publisher: Kokila
  • Release date: October 8, 2024
  • ISBN: 9780593531242

Tensions between Upper Earth and Lower Earth have simmered since the last revolution. Now, a fragile peace hangs in the balance as Raisa of Upper Earth prepares to marry Lein of Lower Earth, a union meant to solidify an alliance and bring an end to lingering hostilities. But beneath the surface, danger brews. Nada and Nayf, Lein’s twin cousins and political prisoners, see an opportunity to derail Upper Earth’s sinister plans. They aim to manipulate Raisa and prevent the rollout of the Enlightenment, a dystopian program of mind control delivered through wearable technology. Meanwhile, Upper Earth fights back with a powerful propaganda campaign, casting Raisa as the Fledgling, a mythical figure destined to bring freedom

The narrative explores urgent contemporary issues: the manipulation of history through the destruction of records, the exploitation of land and people, and the use of technology to subjugate society. The post-apocalyptic world is vividly described, with a stratified society revealed through lost records and memories. The chapters alternate between multiple perspectives, each voice distinct and consistent, adding emotional depth to the story.

Fans of a large cast of characters and dystopian stories about oppressive governments will be captivated by this book. Fledgling will have ready-made fans among readers of Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard and An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir.

– Cathy DeCampli

The Selected Lists teams read throughout the year in search of the best titles published in their respective categories. Once a book is suggested (either internally or through the title suggestion form), it must pass through a review process to be designated an official nomination.

Each week, the teams feature a review of one of the officially nominated titles. Additional titles to receive this designation are listed as well. At year’s end, the team will curate a final list from all nominated titles and select a Top Ten.
The Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee appreciates teen feedback as members evaluate the nominated titles. Teen librarians are encouraged to share the List of Potential Nominees under consideration with their patrons and solicit feedback using the link: tinyurl.com/bfya2026

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2026) Featured Review: Not for the Faint of Heart by Lex Croucher

When Clem, a quippy young healer, is kidnapped by Mariel—the granddaughter of Robin Hood—and her band of Merry Men, things seem to be going according to plan until Mariel’s father is kidnapped by the Sheriff of Nottingham and Mariel is forced to bring her annoyingly chipper hostage along on the rescue mission.

Mariel’s company of Merry Men are so loveable that readers will find themselves invested in them all, even grumpy Mariel. Readers will also be invested in the familiarity of the tale of Robin Hood with a new spin and the alternating POVs between Mariel and Clem will keep young reader’s attention.

Fans of historical fiction and those interested in folklore will enjoy this book. There is a slight romantic element that will peak the interests of romance readers as well. Readers of Croucher’s previous novel, Gwen and Art Are Not In Love will enjoy this novel with its familiar funny tone, along with Casey McQuiston’s I Kissed Shara Wheeler.

– Amy Kilkenny

The Selected Lists teams read throughout the year in search of the best titles published in their respective categories. Once a book is suggested (either internally or through the title suggestion form), it must pass through a review process to be designated an official nomination.

Each week, the teams feature a review of one of the officially nominated titles. Additional titles to receive this designation are listed as well. At year’s end, the team will curate a final list from all nominated titles and select a Top Ten.
The Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee appreciates teen feedback as members evaluate the nominated titles. Teen librarians are encouraged to share the List of Potential Nominees under consideration with their patrons and solicit feedback using the link: tinyurl.com/bfya2026