The Best YA Books of 2024
by Laura Lambert
Looking back on 2024, YA readers saw many smart, thrilling, fantastical, dystopian, and romantic books emerge. In this list, I collected the best of the best in the young adult category. So, if you’re ready to meet the most exciting books for teens (and YA readers of all ages) from the year, then keep scrolling. You’ll find 19 fast-paced, heartfelt, and thrilling reads to add to your “to be read” pile.
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Blood at the Root
Buy from:“What if Harry Potter went to an HBCU?” That question sits at the heart of Williams’s debut novel — the first in a trilogy. In it, 17-year-old Malik Baron attends New Orleans Caiman University, a historically Black college hidden in the backwoods of Louisiana, meant for those who practice hoodoo and vodun. Malik is there to learn magic and unravel the mystery of his mother’s disappearance. Williams — an accomplished playwright and screenwriter — told CBS, “Writing this book for me is healing my inner teenager.” He added, “We always talk about the inner child, but we never talk about our inner teenager too.”
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These Deadly Prophecies
Buy from:Fans of Knives Out and The Inheritance Games will love this fantastical murder mystery that keeps you guessing until the final page. Tabatha Zeng gets more than she bargained for as an apprentice to the famed Sorcerer Solomon. He predicts his own death, which tragically comes true. When Tabatha and Sorcerer Solomon’s son Callum become the prime murder suspects, they team up in a race against the clock to clear their names and find the true killer.
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The Reappearance of Rachel Price
Buy from:Rachel Price vanished when her daughter Bel (Annabel) was two years old. Now, 16 years later, Bel and her father — who was acquitted for his wife’s disappearance — are part of a true crime documentary about what happened when suddenly, Rachel reappears. Bel doesn’t believe a word Rachel says — and, along with the youngest member of the documentary crew, Bel sets off to figure out what really happened.
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Snowglobe
Buy from:In Soyoung Park’s award-winning dystopian young adult novel, all is not what it seems in Snowglobe, the sunny, green, celebrity-filled city — and the last place on earth that isn’t frozen. Residents of the frozen world (the result of the climate crisis) toil to keep Snowglobe warm. In return, Snowglobe residents allow their lives to be broadcast to the frozen world 24/7. When 16-year-old Jeon Chobahm, a lowly inhabitant of the frozen world, gets to replace a Snowglobe megastar who mysteriously died, she realizes that the reality television she watched her whole life isn’t real. This book was translated from the original Korean.
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Sky's End
Buy from:In volume 1 of the Above the Black YA fantasy series, we meet 16-year-old Conrad. He was once a High. But now, after his uncle betrayed his father, Conrad is a Low. To rescue his sister from the clutches of his murderous uncle, Conrad must enter the Selection of the Twelve Trades and rise through the ranks of this socially stratified, dystopian world as a Hunter meant to kill steel-scaled monsters. Volume 2, Among Serpents, is slated for January 2025. The series has already been picked up for film and will be directed by Antoine Fuqua.
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Everything We Never Said
Buy from:“A dark and romantic thriller for those who love sexy suspense,” says Kirkus. In Sloan Harlow’s Colleen Hoover-esque debut novel, Ella, a senior at North Davis High, finds herself in a support group after the death of her best friend, Hayley. But she was the one driving the car — drunk — when Haley died. What’s more, Haley’s boyfriend, Sawyer, is also in the support group, and Ella is developing feelings for him. As Ella navigates her grief and complicated feelings for Sawyer, she discovers Hayley’s diary, and things grow even more complex.
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The Glass Girl
Buy from:How do you face down addiction and find yourself again? Kathleen Glasgow’s latest novel, The Glass Girl, tackles that weighty question. Amidst her parents splitting up, her grandmother dying, and the end of her first relationship, 15-year-old Bella escapes into alcohol. When a bout of blackout drinking lands her in the hospital, it’s time for rehab. Publishers Weekly writes, “Combining The Bell Jar with Euphoria, this heart-wrenching read offers a resonant and compassionate look at teenage substance reliance.”
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The Thirteenth Child
Buy from:Hazel is the Lafitte family’s ill-fated 13th child. They promise her to the god of death — Merrick, the Dreaded End — who gives Hazel the gift of being a healer. But Hazel can also see when death has claimed someone, and she is haunted by the ghosts of those she had to kill. When Hazel is summoned to heal the king, she and her powers are put to the test.
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Old Wounds
Buy from:Kirkus calls Logan-Ashley Kisner’s debut YA horror novel, “an ode to the strength of trans kids in the face of all kinds of terror.” In it, Max and Erin are two trans teens escaping Columbus, Ohio, for a new life in Berkeley, California. En route, they get stranded in small-town Kentucky, where, as luck would have it, the locals are searching for a girl to sacrifice to a deadly monster that lives in the woods. But Max and Erin aren’t exactly who the locals think they are.
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Heir
Buy from:Heir takes place in the same YA fantasy world as Sabaa Tahir’s debut, An Ember in the Ashes — 20 years later. The story follows three young people — Aiz, an orphan; Sirsha, a tracker; and Quil, prince of the Martial Empire — as their lives intersect. Kirkus says this first installment of the duology is “a fantasy with complex characterization that will build anticipation for the next entry.”
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Fledgling
Buy from:In this sci-fi debut, Raisa Freelund, daughter of the chief guardian of Upper Earth, and Lein Verg, crown prince of Lower Earth, are set to wed in a bid to bring the two worlds together and forge peace between humans. But Lein’s cousin Nada wants to upend the wedding and bring forth a revolution. “References to the Islamic lunar calendar and scripture and Arabic naming conventions, as well as clear allusions to present-day geopolitics, conflicts, inequities, and imperialism, lend verisimilitude to a dystopian future of technological and environmental destruction,” says Kirkus. This book is the first in a duology known as The Keeper's Records of Revolution.
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Sunderworld, Vol. I: The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry
Buy from:Kirkus calls Sunderworld, Vol. 1 — the first in Ransom Riggs’s new Sunderworld series — “a fully imagined fantastical world with compelling characters and a nail-biting cliffhanger.” When 17-year-old Leopold Berry starts noticing strange things happening in Los Angeles, they remind him of his favorite show on TV, Max’s Adventures in Sunderworld. Soon, he realizes that Sunderworld is a real place — and Leopold could have a role in saving it.
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When the World Tips Over
Buy from:When Theo Fall, a winemaker, drove away from Paradise Springs, California, 12 years ago, he left behind a pregnant wife and two young boys. The three Fall children — Dizzy, Miles, and Wynton — have been trying to piece their lives together ever since. But it takes a curious rainbow-haired stranger named Cassidy to upend their lives and change them all forever.
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Every Time You Hear That Song
Buy from:Inspired by Dolly Parton’s real-life time capsule, which sits in Dollywood, waiting to be opened on Dolly’s 100th birthday, Every Time You Hear That Song is told from two points of view. The first is that of 17-year-old Darren Purchase, an aspiring journalist from the small town of Mayberry, Arkansas, who wants to unearth the story behind country music legend Decklee Cassel’s empty time capsule. The second is that of Decklee Cassel in the 1960s, coming up in the music world, and what she had to give up to succeed. Says Kirkus, “Discoveries of love, legacy, and self take center stage in this musical tapestry of a novel.”
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Hearts Still Beating
Buy from:In this “richly realized and distinctive queer zombie romance” (Kirkus), 17-year-old Mara finds herself on an island after being cured of the Tick, an ancient virus that turns its victims into zombies. She’s resettled with her godparents and their family, including their daughter Rory, with whom Mara shared one fateful kiss before Tick changed everything. Tentatively, they find a new way forward.
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Everything We Never Had
Buy from:In this “powerful and moving family saga” (Kirkus), we witness four generations of Filipino American boys — Francisco in 1929, Emil in 1965, Chris in 1983, and Enzo in 2020 — and how the immigrant story in the United States shapes them all.
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Libertad
Buy from:The history and politics of Honduras take center stage in this moving young adult novel. Libi (Libertad) Morazán, a queer high school senior, finds her voice amidst a rigged election in which a right-wing dictator threatens her future and the future of the country itself.
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Gita Desai Is Not Here to Shut Up
Buy from:Kirkus calls Gita Desai Is Not Here to Shut Up a “tough read that's worth the discomfort.” In it, 18-year-old Gita Desai, a freshman at Stanford, dreams of being a doctor but is pulled off her path by a series of sexual situations that unearth an awful secret from her past. It is based on the author’s own experiences.
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Of Jade and Dragons
Buy from:The first in a series, Of Jade and Dragons conjures a richly imagined Chinese silkpunk fantasy world. The main character, Aihui Ying, pretends to be her brother and enters the elite, all-male Engineers Guild so that she can avenge her father’s death.
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