Best young adult books: YA page turners for teens to add to their collection

Best: Overall

Rating: 10/10

We were absolutely floored by this debut YA novel from author and journalist Caroline O’Donoghue. Set in contemporary Ireland, the story focuses on Maeve Chambers who feels the odd one out in her family and has fallen out with her best friend, Lily. Then she discovers a pack of old tarot cards at school and starts giving spookily accurate readings to her classmates. Maeve feels like she has finally found something she’s good at and convinces her former best friend to sit for a reading. Two days later, Lily disappears. All Maeve can do is hope her newfound talents are enough to bring her friend back before it’s too late.

A darkly seductive mystery with a supernatural sting in the tail, the novel examines guilt, sacrifice and friendship and we found ourselves growling at anyone who interrupted us during reading. The best bit? It’s the first in a series focusing on four protagonists – Maeve, Lily, Roe and Fiona – who each learn they have an otherworldly gift. Read it now before it’s inevitably turned into a Netflix blockbuster.

Best: For manga fans

Rating: 7/10

This powerful and hugely original graphic novel is written in part prose, part manga to tell the coming-of-age story of 15 year old Yuki Hara Jones. She’s caught up in the 2011 Great Eastern Japan earthquake and tsunami, which forces her to come to terms with the loss of her life as she knows it.

This beautifully written tale is interwoven with Japanese folk tales, ghost stories and the creation of Yuki’s very own manga hero, and reflects on the nature of trauma and how we can overcome it. It is perhaps even more significant after the last 18 months have forced so many of us to face a future that may look different from the one we had envisaged. Our teen tester found it unusually thought provoking and loved the accompanying illustrations featured throughout by acclaimed Japanese manga artist Chie Kutsuwada.

Best: Dystopian

Rating: 8/10

One of the world’s biggest selling authors, James Patterson has penned everything from romance to thrillers and written popular series including The Murder Club and the Alex Cross novels. The Maximum Ride series is his gripping, pacey books aimed at YA readers. Hawk is the tenth novel in the series but you don’t need to have read the earlier ones (we hadn’t) to guzzle this down in one sitting, as it’s intended for a new generation of Maximum Ride fans.

It tells the tale of teenager Hawk, who doesn’t know her real name or who her parents were. All she remembers is they told her they would return to the same street corner she now visits every day at the same time. Ten years on, she’s finally ready to give up waiting, but that’s when her troubles really start… We were hooked until the very end.

Best: For keeping you up at night

Rating: 9/10

This creepily compelling modern fairytale is unsettling from the start, but we couldn’t whip through it quickly enough to find out the mysteries of the glamorous Hollow sisters. The three siblings disappeared without trace on a suburban street in Scotland as children only to return a month later with no memory of what had happened to them.

Ten years later, one of them goes missing again, leaving a trail of clues behind, and her sisters are forced to investigate her final few days. They soon realise they aren’t the only ones looking for her and their puzzling past may at last be catching up with them.

Packed with twists and a sprinkling of supernatural eeriness, this disconcerting tale screams future TV adaptation. Not least because author Sutherland previously wrote Our Chemical Hearts, which premiered on Amazon Prime last year starring Lili Reinhart.

Best: Romcom

Rating: 9/10

We loved this brilliantly written romance with its deftly conceived characters, laugh-out-loud observations and simmering sexual tension. But this is no frothy beach read either, weaving issues of race, identity and cyber bullying throughout the plot.

Quinn keeps lists of everything in her journal, including noting her deepest secrets, greatest fears and the boys she’d like to kiss. One day, her notebook goes missing and an anonymous Instagram account blackmails her into facing her worst fears or having her entire journal shared online. Unsure who to trust, she turns to Carter Bennett – the last person she knows had the notebook, and who Quinn can’t stand – to try to uncover the blackmailer. Along the way, Quinn has to learn to live in the moment, however much she wants to avoid it.

Best: For wannabe adventurers

Rating: 7/10

This debut novel from hugely popular BookTuber, Christine Riccio proves she’s definitely not all talk. One of three names behind YouTube’s longest running book club, Riccio is known for her witty reviews, sketches and videos detailing the process of writing her very own novel.

A delightful tale of self-discovery, it follows Shane who is fed up of life at college and craves excitement. She signs up for a term in London determined to do things differently there, to make friends, find love and live her very best life, despite inevitable bumps along the road.

The novel is a little slow to start but it’s hard not to fall for Shane’s dreamy determination as she moves across the world for a new start. Though be warned, you’ll be digging out your passport the minute it finishes…

Best: For a grown up princesses

Rating: 8/10

A recent pick for Reese Witherspoon’s book club, this charming, funny novel adds a quirk to the traditional girl-discovers-her-secret-royal-relations, by setting it in Japan. When Izumi Tanaka discovers her unknown father is actually the Crown Prince of Japan, she travels to Tokyo to discover a new world that couldn’t be more different from the one she knows in small town USA.

Our teen tester loved this novel’s forthright first-person narration and Izumi’s often-clueless attempt to learn thousands of years of tradition, all with the paparazzi hot on her heels. There’s a healthy sprinkling of glamour, a lot of laughs and a forbidden romance that keeps this novel racing forwards until the very last page in a contemporary take on The Princess Diaries. A completely irresistible read.

Best: For first love laughs

Rating: 7/10

This book had our teen tester chuckling out loud within just a few pages. A joyous, disarmingly honest book that seems to leap right inside the mind of a teenage girl, this lesbian love story is written in a diary format that makes it a breeze to read in no time.

Phoebe Davis is intent on avoiding love no matter what. She’s convinced that relationships turn brains to mush and make people obsessed with sex, which she’s quite sure she has zero interest in. Throw in death, GCSEs and kittens and she has plenty to deal with already, thanks very much. But then her plan is derailed when she meets Emma and has to rethink her philosophy on life with hilarious consequences.

Best: For teenage confusion

Rating: 9/10

The fourth novel from the remarkably talented Alice Oseman has already picked up this year’s YA Book Prize and we were equally wowed by it. Georgia has never even had a crush on anyone, but is convinced she’ll find the one for her eventually. When she heads to university with her best friends, the dream turns out to be more complicated than she had bargained for and Georgia wonders why love seems to come so easily for most people but still eludes her. Getting older only seems to leave her more confused than ever.

As Georgia discovers true love comes in many forms, this gorgeously heartfelt story about identity, friendship and the LGBTQ+ community had us smitten from the start.

Best: Historical novel

Rating: 8/10

We were almost heading to the Eurostar by the time we’d reached the final chapter of this wonderful debut novel from New York journalist Jordyn Taylor. This cleverly written and surprisingly moving story juxtaposes the plight of two 16-year-old girls in Paris, seven decades apart.

Alice visits the French capital when her grandmother dies and leaves her an apartment that has been locked for 70 years. She sets about finding out why the apartment was abandoned and what secrets her grandmother left behind when she moved to America after the Second World War. Her discoveries are interspersed with Adalyn’s story, told from Paris under Nazi occupation with war raging all around. Packed with mystery, romance and finely woven family complexities, this novel is a must for historical fiction fans.

Best: For the big issues

Rating: 9/10

Keep the tissues close at hand for this phenomenal novel, which is set amidst the painful aftermath of a terror attack. Teenagers Alice and Jack are complete opposites who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time when a bomb goes off in London. Struggling to deal with the fallout of a day they never imagined, their unlikely new friendship helps them find a way to cope, and the tender alternate narration of this novel brings each character to life beautifully. Startling, well written and confronting issues of mental health, terror and friendship without flinching, it’s a book that will stay with you long after it’s finished.

Best: Modern take on a classic

Rating: 8/10

Think you’ve read every possible retelling of Romeo and Juliet? This sweetly romantic, funny and utterly contemporary take on Shakespeare’s original proves there’s always room for improvement.

Shot through with a dash of Hamilton cool, Davis’ version is set in New York where Jerzie Jhames is desperate to land the lead role in Broadway’s hottest new show, “Roman and Jewel”, a hip-hop era based on… well, you know the rest. The course of true love and theatre never runs smooth though, and Jerzie ends up as understudy to the lead while falling head over heels for male star Zeppelin Read. When a video of the two rehearsing goes viral, everyone suddenly has an opinion on who the leading lady should be. Expect a fun, fast-paced look at fame, friendship and love on and off the stage.

Best: New talent

Rating: 9/10

Some people are just annoyingly talented but it’s hard to begrudge 22-year-old school librarian Rebecca Henry, who won the Everything with Words YA competition in 2019. She is now firmly establishing herself as the genre’s most exciting new voice with this outstanding debut novel The Sound of Everything.

Tackling thorny issues of self-harm, cyberbullying, foster care and family ties, this exquisitely perceptive book focuses on Kadie who has just arrived in yet another foster home, feeling she can only truly trust herself. She is tough, resilient and hardened to a world that has never given her a chance. Then she meets Lips and wonders if she has finally found a friend she can rely on or if her long-buried secrets will always get in the way. A sensitive, mesmerising coming-of-age novel, this is a must-read for any YA devotee.