Young Adult

By: Vincent Tirado (Author), 2023, paperback

The 2023 Pura Belpré Award-winning young adult novel!

Mysterious disappearances. An urban legend rumored to be responsible. And one group of friends determined to save their city at any cost. Stranger Things meets Jordan Peele in this acclaimed novel from an incredible new voice.

For over a year, the Bronx has been plagued by sudden disappearances that no one can explain. Sixteen-year-old Raquel does her best to ignore it. After all, the police only look for the white kids. But when her crush Charlize's cousin goes missing, Raquel starts to pay attention―especially when her own mom comes down with a mysterious illness that seems linked to the disappearances.

Raquel and Charlize team up to investigate, but they soon discover that everything is tied to a terrifying urban legend called the Echo Game. The game is rumored to trap people in a sinister world underneath the city, and the rules are based on a particularly dark chapter in New York's past. And if the friends want to save their home and everyone they love, they will have to play the game and destroy the evil at its heart―or die trying.

By: Sara Farizan (Author), 2023, Paperback

In this “terrifyingly fun” (NYT) horror comedy, two friends must solve the mystery of their long-missing former friend’s supernatural reappearance—perfect for fans of Stranger Things.

Growing up, Cori, Maz, and Sam were inseparable best friends, sharing their love for pop culture, Halloween, and arcade games. Now it’s 1992, Sam has been missing for five years, and Cori and Maz aren’t speaking anymore. How could they be, when Cori is sure Sam is dead, and Maz has good reason to believe he was kidnapped by a supernatural pinball machine?
 
These days, all Maz wants to do is party and run away from his past. Meanwhile, Cori hides her abiding love of horror movies and her queer self under the bubblegum veneer of a high school queen bee. But then Sam returns—still twelve years old, while his best friends are now seventeen. What really happened the night he disappeared? And just because he's back, does that mean he's safe? To find answers, Cori, Maz, and Sam will need to reveal secrets they never told one another, then and now. And Sam’s is the darkest of all . . .
 
Award-winning author Sara Farizan delivers edge-of-your-seat terror, with her insightful characters, witty narration, and trademark referential humor.

* "Well-crafted homage to narratives like It and Stranger Things . . . A great choice for stalwart horror fans and newcomers to the genre." —Booklist, starred review

By: James Klise (Author), 2023, Hardcover

From an Edgar Award-winning author, this historical noir novel follows the life-changing summer of sixteen-year-old Joe Garbe as he discovers queer community in 1930s Chicago and gets caught up in the city's crooked underbelly.
 
In the summer of 1934, Joe Garbe arrives in Chicago with one goal: Earn enough money to get out of debt and save the family farm. Joe’s cousin sets him up with a hotel job, then proposes a sketchy scheme to make a lot more money fast. While running his con, Joe finds himself splitting time between Eddie, a handsome flirt on a delivery truck, and Raymond, a carefree rich kid who shows Joe the eye-opening queer life around every corner of the big city.
 
Joe’s exposure to the surface of criminal Chicago pulls him into something darker than he could have imagined. When danger closes in—from gangsters, the police, and people he thought were friends—Joe needs to pack up and get lost. But before he can figure out where to go, he has to decide who he wants to be.
 
I’ll Take Everything You Have is a vivid portrayal of queer coming of age in Depression-era Chicago, and a timeless story of trying to make your future bright when the rest of the world is dead set on keeping it hidden in the dark.

By: Tash McAdam, 2023, Hardback

A trans teen is swept up in a whirlwind friendship with lethal consequences in this taut YA thriller, for fans of Sadie, Andrew Joseph White, and HBO's Euphoria.

BEFORE. Newly out trans guy Max is having a hard time in school. Things have been tough since his summer romance, Danny, turned into his bully. This year, Max's plan is to keep his head down and graduate. All that changes when new It Girl, Gloss, moves to town. No one understands why perfect, polished Gloss is so interested in an introverted skater kid, but Max blooms in the hothouse of her attention. Caught between romance and obsession, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her on his side.

AFTER. Haircuts, makeovers, drugs, parties. It’s all fun and games until someone gets killed at a rager gone terribly wrong. Max refuses to believe that Gloss did it. But if not Gloss, who? Desperate to figure out truth in the wake of tragedy, Max veers dangerously close to being implicated—and his own memories of that awful night are fuzzy. Both sharp-edged thriller and moving coming of age, this gorgeously wrought novel is perfect for readers who want stories with trans characters front and center.

By: C.B. Lee (Author), 2019, Paperback

Emma Robledo has a few more responsibilities that the usual high school senior, but then again, she and her friends have left school to lead a fractured Resistance movement against a corrupt Heroes League of Heroes. Emma is the only member of a supercharged team without powers, she isnt always taken seriously. A natural leader, Emma is determined to win this battle, and when thats done, get back to school. As the Resistance moves to challenge the League, Emma realizes where her place is in this fight: at the front.

By: Jas Hammonds (Author), 2024, Paperback

"An absolute must read." ―Buzzfeed

"A gripping portrayal of the South's inherent racism and a love story for queer Black girls." ―Teen Vogue

Family secrets, a swoon-worthy romance, and a slow-burn mystery collide in We Deserve Monuments, a YA debut from Jas Hammonds that explores how racial violence can ripple down through generations.

What’s more important: Knowing the truth or keeping the peace?

Seventeen-year-old Avery Anderson is convinced her senior year is ruined when she's uprooted from her life in DC and forced into the hostile home of her terminally ill grandmother, Mama Letty. The tension between Avery’s mom and Mama Letty makes for a frosty arrival and unearths past drama they refuse to talk about. Every time Avery tries to look deeper, she’s turned away, leaving her desperate to learn the secrets that split her family in two.

While tempers flare in her avoidant family, Avery finds friendship in unexpected places: in Simone Cole, her captivating next-door neighbor, and Jade Oliver, daughter of the town’s most prominent family―whose mother’s murder remains unsolved.

As the three girls grow closer―Avery and Simone’s friendship blossoming into romance―the sharp-edged opinions of their small southern town begin to hint at something insidious underneath. The racist history of Bardell, Georgia is rooted in Avery’s family in ways she can’t even imagine. With Mama Letty's health dwindling every day, Avery must decide if digging for the truth is worth toppling the delicate relationships she's built in Bardell―or if some things are better left buried.

A School Library Journal Best Book of 2022