24 of the Best Young Adult Books of 2025

24 of the Best Young Adult Books of 2025 Book List
The Children’s Book Review

Today’s teens deserve stories that match the complexity of their world, and this year’s young adult literature rises to meet that challenge.

The 2025 selections showcase both celebrated voices—Angeline Boulley, Libba Bray, and Brian Selznick—and emerging authors who bring fresh perspectives to timeless coming-of-age questions. These books explore identity, mental health, first love, and systemic injustice with the honesty and emotional depth that define the best of YA fiction. From contemporary narratives to historical mysteries spanning multiple timelines, each story celebrates young people’s resilience while tackling themes of belonging, resistance, grief, and the courage to live authentically.

Here are twenty-four of the best young adult books of 2025:

As New York goes into lockdown and neighborhoods begin to feel the brunt of the pandemic, the city’s teens persevere with love and hope: Malachi writes an Armageddon short story, Tariq helps their ailing grandmother survive quarantine, and Zamira struggles with depression and loneliness after losing her parents. This powerful, genre-bending mosaic of fiction and poetry celebrates the humanity, grace, and resilience of teenage New Yorkers as they ride out the pandemic.

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Gospel is the Keeper of the Leaving Room—a place all young people must phase through when they die. When a Keeper named Melodee arrives, their souls become entangled, and Gospel’s seriousness melts while Melodee’s fear of connection fades. Now they must find a way out and be unafraid of their love in this hauntingly beautiful National Book Award finalist novel-in-verse that takes place over four minutes.

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It’s been a year since his best friend Sam died. Even though Oliver knows he won’t get a response, he can’t stop texting Sam’s number. Then one day, he accidentally hits the call button, and someone picks up. The voice isn’t Sam—Sam’s number was reassigned. But Ben, a college student in Seattle, won’t remain a stranger for long, and their spark is undeniable in this companion novel to the bestselling You’ve Reached Sam.

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Danny is spending his sixteenth summer in Rome, where he encounters a shadow who becomes a voice who becomes Angelo, a boy his age. Soon, Danny and Angelo are spending as much time together as they can, piecing together stories of the city while gradually sharing their own histories. Attraction leads to affection and intimate closeness—but also profound fear of what happens next—in this stunning creation, weaving words and illustration.

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Grace Woodhouse was a star kicker with a D1 future, but that was before she came out as transgender and quit football. When her old teammates beg her to rejoin the Pageland High football team, Grace can’t resist the call of the game. Can she be both a star football player and a trans girl? As Grace steps back onto the field, she’ll face transphobia, navigate complicated feelings, and learn to unite her past and present.

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Seventeen-year-old Caprice wants to piece her family back together now that her older brother has returned home. Just as she starts to get new footing—falling in love for the first time, mending her relationship with her brother, completing the app that will win her a college scholarship—wildfires strike her small California town, forcing her to reckon with a future that is impossible to predict in this powerful story reflecting the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California.

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Hollis Brown lives in a rotting small town where no one can afford to leave. After unknowingly making a deal at the crossroads, he finds himself losing control as Walt, a ghost with a deep and violent history, takes possession of his body. As Walt and Hollis work together to put Walt’s spirit to rest, an unspeakable bond forms between them in this queer romantic thriller about unfinished business and falling for one another in unexpected ways.

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Fifteen-year-old Marisol is the daughter of a soucouyant—every new moon, she sheds her skin and shifts into a fireball witch who must fly into the night. But Brooklyn is no place for fireball witches. Seventeen-year-old Genevieve’s worsening skin condition keeps her up at night, staring at the dark sky with deep longing. When a new nanny reveals a family secret connecting her to Marisol, the girls discover their flames may be more explosive than any ancient magic in this National Book Award finalist.

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Jared Peter Christensen is running for the Junior Class Council president at his university on a solid platform focused on increased equity and inclusion. But when a transfer student enters the race and calls him out for his big-talk/little-action way of moving, Jared writes letters to his deceased friend Manny to make sense of his confusion. What’s a white boy to do when love and politics collide in this thrilling final installment of the Dear Martin series?

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In 1943 Amsterdam, Emma Bergsma witnesses Jewish families being forcibly deported and decides to join the Dutch Resistance. In 2011, Amsterdam, Annick’s search for a bone marrow donor reveals her grandmother was secretly adopted, and the only clues are art prints signed by a mysterious “Emma B.” This timely graphic novel weaves together two timelines to reveal how art can become our greatest lifeline.

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Books are disappearing from shelves across the country. This bold anthology of fiction, memoir, poetry, graphic narratives, and essays explores book bans through various lenses and empowers teens to fight back. Fifteen legendary YA authors and illustrators—including Elana K. Arnold, Nikki Grimes, Ellen Hopkins, Kyle Lukoff, and more—confront the high-stakes question of what is lost when books are kept from teens, with resources to help teen activists fight for the freedom to read.

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Carmela Tofana has desperately wanted to be allowed behind the counter of her mother’s apothecary in seventeenth-century Rome. When she finally enters the workroom, she discovers that for every sweet-smelling flower extract, there’s another potion requiring darker ingredients. And then there’s Aqua Tofana, the remedy of last resort for deadly husbands. In all Carmela’s years of wishing to follow in her mother’s footsteps, she never realized one tiny vial could be the death of them all in this historical novel.

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Diego Benevides works hard, focused on school and getting into college. His single mother gave him her car to help him succeed. His best friend Lawson needs a ride—because Lawson is dealing. As long as Diego’s not carrying or selling, it’s cool, right? But when Lawson starts carrying powder and pills, their friendship is tested, and their lives are threatened in this propulsive novel-in-verse about the power and price of loyalty.

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Ever since Lucy Smith’s father died five years ago, “home” has been more of an idea than a place. Five years in the foster system has taught her to be cautious, but when Mr. Jameson tells her the truth her father hid—that she is Ojibwe, that she has siblings and a grandmother who’d love her—Lucy wonders if she can finally have a home. But Lucy is being followed, and when the past comes for revenge, it’s fight or flight.

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Each night, Winter Moon counts her earnings, dreaming of escape for her and her grandmother. When her mother steals her money, Winter is forced to turn to her estranged father in exchange for payment: she spends time with him. As she navigates grief, first love with new boy Joon, and forgiveness, Winter begins to question everything about her future and what it really means to be family.

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There are countless good reasons to hate seventeen-year-old Jess Lanza, Stone Bridge High’s premier autistic theater nerd. Unfortunately, the cyberbullies are stuck on last year’s life-ruining mistake. Jess vows to dazzle them with posts about her own fails, but all her posts circle back to her friendship with Chloe and the gaping hole she left in Jess’s life in this hilarious and heartfelt novel told through blog posts and short scripts.

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When her older sister is found mysteriously drowned in the river, Soojin Han disregards every rule and uses her ancestral magic to bring Mirae back from the dead. At first, the sisters are overjoyed, but Mirae grows restless and hungry, driven by an insatiable desire to finish what she started—to unravel the truth that crushed her family and seek revenge in this stunning horror novel.

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Margo is on her way to a new boarding school when she suddenly appears on Moon’s train. In a universe where time is key to power and privilege, Margo must learn to survive by passing as a traveling salesman. Move north and time speeds up; move south and time slows down—and salesmen die young of skipshock in this dazzlingly inventive, genre-defying fantasy romance.

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To keep Rajan out of prison, Simran agrees to handle his former gang’s books—but when a gang war erupts, they must decide how much they’ll sacrifice for each other. As long as Simran has known Rajan, her immigrant community has warned her away, but she can’t believe he’s beyond hope. When his old gang tries to force him back in, Simran makes a desperate bargain in this high-stakes forbidden romance.

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Seven years ago, Maeve Abenthy lost everything: her world, her father, even her name. Then she receives a mysterious letter containing four impossible words: “Your father was innocent.” To uncover the truth, she poses as an apprentice for the Otherwhere Post, learning scriptomancy—the dangerous magic that allows couriers to enchant letters and deliver them to other worlds—in this stunning dark academic fantasy.

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‘Wayne Le—known as “Invisible-D ‘Wayne” at school—has been invited to participate in a seemingly ordinary adolescent health study. But the study quickly proves to be anything but ordinary, and Wayne, his best friend Kermit, and fellow participant Jane find themselves in an Escheresque maze of conspiracies in this weird and revelatory debut that vividly captures the dislocation of growing up BIPOC and neurodivergent.

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It was said that if you write to the Bridegroom’s Oak, the love of your life will answer back. In 1940s Germany, Sophie and her best friend, Hanna, send messages—not just for love, but as acts of resistance against the Nazis. In 1980s West Germany, Jenny falls for punk-rock Lena. In 2020, New York City, Miles and Chloe investigate a cold case about two teens who went missing under the oak eighty years ago. This propulsive historical mystery examines truth, rebellion, and what must be sacrificed for a better world.

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Seventeen-year-old Truth Bangura wants nothing more than to know a life beyond her hometown. When Truth learns she’s pregnant by her ex-boyfriend, she makes one decision she’s finally sure about: an abortion. But when a video of her slam poetry performance about her choice goes viral, her decision quickly becomes everyone’s business, in this empowering National Book Award finalist told through searing free verse and poetry prompts.

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