Books for Teens: 7 Young Adult Novels Worth Reading
This is a list of seven young adult novels, picked for readers in their teens and for anyone buying for one. It runs from a dystopian prequel that topped bestseller lists in 2020 to a school-reading staple written by a teenager in the 1960s.
The selection is based on two things: which titles our own readers look at most, and the standing each book holds. Several are New York Times bestsellers, BBC Big Read entries or set texts in schools. Others have been challenged and banned, which tends to mean they struck a nerve. The order follows reader interest, starting with the most looked at.
Each entry explains what the book is about and where it sits in the genre, so you can judge whether it suits the reader you have in mind.
The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes
Suzanne Collins returned to Panem in 2020 with a prequel set 64 years before the original trilogy. It follows 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow, heir to a ruined Capitol family, who is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird of District 12 in the 10th Hunger Games. The book was a New York Times bestseller and launched virtually during the pandemic, with an audiobook read by Santino Fontana. Lionsgate released a film adaptation in November 2023.
The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole
Sue Townsend's 1982 comic diary gave British fiction one of its best known teenagers. Adrian Mole, aged 13¾, records his worries and his firm belief in his own intellect, while the Falklands War, the royal wedding and Margaret Thatcher (one of his listed enemies) play out in the background. Much of the humour comes from the gap between what Mole reports and what is actually happening. It made the BBC Big Read list and spawned a long run of sequels.
The Hate U Give
Angie Thomas's debut novel began as a college short story written in response to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between a poor Black neighbourhood and an affluent white private school, and witnesses a white officer shoot and kill her childhood friend Khalil. The book debuted at number one on the New York Times young adult bestseller list and stayed there for 50 weeks, winning several awards along the way.
Anne Of The Island
The third Anne of Green Gables book, published in 1915, takes Anne Shirley away from Avonlea for the first time to study at Redmond College in Nova Scotia. She makes new friends, sets up house in a cottage called Patty's Place, turns down a proposal from Gilbert Blythe and works out what she actually wants. A good choice for teens who like a coming-of-age story about friendship and first love rather than action.
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
Judy Blume's 1970 novel follows 11-year-old Margaret Simon, who moves to suburban New Jersey and talks to God about everything: periods, bras, boys and the fact that her interfaith parents raised her without a religion. It was popular with young readers in the 1970s for treating early-adolescent anxiety plainly, and it has been challenged and banned for the same frankness. A film adaptation starring Rachel McAdams and Kathy Bates came out in 2023.
The Outsiders
S. E. Hinton started writing The Outsiders at 15 and was 18 when Viking published it in 1967. Narrated by 14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis, it sets the working-class greasers against the better-off socs in 1960s Tulsa, and turns on a killing in a park. Hinton published under her initials so reviewers would not dismiss a book about gangs written by a woman. It remains a standard school text, and has been adapted by Francis Ford Coppola in 1983 and as a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical.
The Prince Of Mist
This was Carlos Ruiz Zafón's first novel, published in Spanish in 1993 and translated into English in 2010. It is June 1943, and 13-year-old Max Carver moves with his family to a coastal town to escape the war, into a house once owned by a man whose son drowned. Max finds a strange sculpture garden, a shipwreck called the Orpheus and a station clock running backwards. One for teens who want mystery and horror rather than realism.
Between them these seven cover most of what teenage readers go looking for: dystopia, comedy, contemporary realism, classic coming-of-age and a ghost story. Any one of them works as a starting point, and most come with a film or series adaptation if that helps get someone reading.