Kirkus Reviews - Best Young Adult Books of 2024Like this list

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• Best of 2024: Our Favorite YA Books

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  "Somehow we’re here again, at the end of another year of reading, contemplating the books that rise above and invite a second look. Our list of best teen titles of 2024 reflects the sheer variety of intriguing, eye-opening works—ones that experiment…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Call Me Iggy

  Aguirre, Jorge Augusto

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  "Ignacio “Iggy” Garcia doesn’t often think about his heritage, until a ghost shows him what he’s missing. Iggy, who’s Colombian American and from Ohio, is starting high school. He wants to take French, because he’s a Francophile like his father.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Just Another Epic Love Poem

  Nothing Ruins a Friendship Like Falling in Love

  Akhbari, Parisa

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  "Poetry, first love, and family trauma all play roles in a queer Iranian American teen’s coming of age. Mitra Esfahani, a “Muslim-Zoroastrian raised-in-Catholic-school weirdo,” has worn a protective shell since she was young, ever since her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Fledgling

  Ali, S. K.

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  "In a socially and physically stratified future, political forces seek a marital alliance between Raisa Freelund, daughter of the chief guardian of Upper Earth, and Lein Verg, son of the amir of Lower Earth."

• Icarus

  Ancrum, K. (Kayla), 1991-

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  "A queer art thief stealthily steps into a love story. Seventeen-year-old Icarus Gallagher, who has black hair and brown eyes, leads a double life. Mostly, he’s busy being a high school senior. But also, he’s an art thief, trained by his widowed…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Killer House Party

  Anderson, Lily, 1988-

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  "High school friends must survive a haunted graduation party. When valedictorian Arden’s perfect future—a private college that guarantees medical school admission—is derailed because her feuding, divorced real estate agent parents spent her tuition…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Hedgewitch of Foxhall

  Bright, Anna

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  "A witch and two princes are brought together in an adventure to save 8th-century Wales. When Ffion, a hedgewitch estranged from her powerful magical family, members of the Foxhall coven, suffers a terrible loss, she finds herself in the position…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Songlight

  Buffini, Moira

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  "Thousands of years after the Light People destroyed Earth, two factions are at war in a racially diverse world: the Brightlings and the Aylish. Elsa and Rye, residents of Northaven, a pretty coastal town in Brightland, are in love. They also share…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Ukraine, Remember Also Me

  Testimonies From the War

  Butler, George, 1985-

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  "This work of war reportage presents illustrations, reflections, and interviews with everyday people who were in Ukraine when Russian forces attacked the country in February 2022."

• Kindling

  Chee, Traci

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  "Cast adrift after the war that they were created to fight, seven magical warriors search for meaning in the defense of a mountain village. In a tale explicitly inspired by the Kurosawa classic Seven Samurai, the seven teens—six use she/her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Ariel Crashes a Train

  Cole, Olivia A.

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  "Vulnerability and openness may hold the key to survival for a teenager struggling with violent, intrusive thoughts. Without best friend Leah there, Ariel’s usual summer job at Wildwood carnival just feels scary and unfamiliar. To make matters…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Rules for Camouflage

  Cronn-Mills, Kirstin, 1968-

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  "Multiple trials make a neurodivergent Minnesota teenager’s last days of high school decidedly tumultuous. Like Aretha, the octopus she tends devotedly as a volunteer at the nearby zoo, Evvie Chambers has an intense personality as well as the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Eddy, Eddy

  De Goldi, Kate, 1959-

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  "A New Zealand boy reckons with his past and his present. Eddy Smallbone is mourning the loss of his beloved Labrador, Marley. Her death occurred right around the two-year anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake and his grandmother’s passing. An…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Atlas of Us

  Dwyer, Kristin

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  "After her father dies, a teen drops out of high school, loses her job, and embarks on a four-week journey through the California backcountry. Everyone in the Bear Creek Community Service program is assigned a nickname as part of starting over with…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Visitations

  Egbert, Corey, 1988-

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  "Illustrator Egbert has drawn on tumultuous childhood memories to craft his first solo graphic novel. Looking back, Corey wonders how much of his childhood was real. His family, who present white, lived in a remote, rural part of California, so his…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Bright Red Fruit

  Elhillo, Safia

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  "A teen poet in Washington, D.C., becomes entangled with an older man as she tries to break free from her mother’s expectations. Sixteen-year-old Sudanese American Samira Abdullahi has long had a tarnished reputation within her ever watchful…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Tempest of Tea

  Faizal, Hafsah

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  "Bestselling author Faizal returns to the universe of We Hunt the Flame (2019) with a stand-alone duology opener. Orphaned Arthie, brown-skinned with mauve hair, has created a criminal empire out of sheer pluck despite being Ceylani in Ettenia,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Place for Vanishing

  Fraistat, Ann

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  "Sisters return to their mother’s mysterious and legendary childhood home. Libby’s mom grew up in the internet-famous haunted house Madame Clery’s House of Masks, at once deeply unsettling and incredibly beautiful underneath decades of neglect and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Ruin Road

  Giles, Lamar, 1979-

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  "A star football player makes a life-changing wish that comes to haunt him. Kincade Webster III attends high school on an athletic scholarship—he’s one of the few Black students at the exclusive, mostly white Neeson Preparatory Academy in Virginia.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Immortal Dark

  Girma, Tigest

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  "An orphaned teenager tries to connect her sister’s disappearance to their family’s decadeslong relationship with vampires. Nineteen-year-old Kidan Adane wants nothing to do with her family’s horrifying rules and traditions, which stipulate that…Read moreRead more of this annotation