Jack has a tendency to think too much, which is why, at the opening of Emil Ostrovski’s debut novel, The Paradox of Vertical Flight, he’s sent into a spiral of near-suicidal despair prompted by something as seemingly harmless as his friends’ Facebook birthday wishes. It’s shaping up to be Jack’s worst birthday ever, and maybe his last—until he gets a phone call from the last person he ever would have expected.

Jack’s ex-girlfriend Jess is in the hospital, where she’s just given birth to a baby boy—Jack’s son. She’s planning to give the baby up for adoption, but as soon as Jack sees the baby, he knows he’s not ready to say goodbye. Instead of turning him over to the adoptive parents, Jack takes his newborn son, whom he’s named Socrates, and hits the road. Soon he and Socrates—along with Jack’s best friend Tommy and, eventually, Jess—are heading from Maine to New York to see Jack’s dying grandmother.

Along the way, Jack and his baby son engage in Socratic dialogue, in which baby Socrates’ (imaginary) questions prompt Jack to investigate his notions of happiness, success and life itself. Despite the fact that their journey culminates in several kinds of goodbyes, Jack manages to wrest a kind of hope from their situation: “The world’s so fragile, and we’re all so clumsy. But maybe Socrates will be more sure-footed than me. That’s worth believing in.”

The Paradox of Vertical Flight might not give readers a real introduction to the classical philosophers, but its thoughtful, often funny approach to philosophy may just inspire readers to ask their own deep questions and seek their own profound answers.

Step into any bookstore and you’ll likely see adults of all ages perusing the YA shelves. It’s not just fantasy or dystopian novels that attract this wider audience but the work of a number of incredibly talented contemporary authors. Among them is Trish Doller, whose 2012 debut novel, Something Like Normal, received numerous accolades. Doller’s new book, Where the Stars Still Shine, is an engaging, compulsive read and a thought-provoking look at a family under duress.

Callie has been on the run with her mother for 12 years. After her mother’s marriage fell apart and she kidnapped young Callie, both became survivors. Callie’s idea of “normal” includes hanging out in a Laundromat when her mother has men over, never going to school, avoiding her mother’s friends who might abuse her, pursuing casual sexual encounters and leaving one nameless town for another at a moment’s notice. All that ends when her mother is stopped for a missing taillight and is arrested.

The next day, Callie is claimed by her father and flies with him to Florida, where she suddenly finds herself thrown into a new family with a father she barely remembers, a stepmother and two younger half-brothers. Family life in close-knit Tarpon Springs, especially in the extended Greek community, comes with rules, responsibilities and expectations (like letting your dad know if you stay out until all hours). All this is a difficult adjustment for Callie, who is used to fending for herself. She also finds that forging real friendships and romantic relationships presents challenges—and rewards—she never dreamed of in her previous nomadic life.

Callie is a complex, fully drawn character struggling to make sense of who she is when everything she has learned about the world is turned upside-down. Where the Stars Still Shine is a compelling coming-of-age story and a portrait of an extended family seeking to move forward and heal. Remember Trish Doller’s name the next time you’re looking for something simply marvelous to read.

In Tumble & Fall, under the looming, inevitable threat of a world-shattering asteroid on course to collide with Earth, the lives of three teenagers unfold in their last week of existence. Like a well-written soapy drama, the novel cuts back and forth between each teen and explores their relationships with families, friends and newfound love interests. Bipolar Sienna is readjusting to life outside the mental institution, grieving Zan is learning to live without the recently deceased love of her life, and abandoned Caden struggles to carry on with his alcoholic mother and without his absent father.

Because the end of the world is a matter of how soon rather than if, Sienna, Zan and Caden feel compelled to take risks that were previously unfathomable. When their last-ditch efforts to find love and discover themselves take unexpected turns, their truest selves begin to surface. Disparate coping mechanisms for past and oncoming tragedies define them as well, but each eventually wonders, “What will [I] be like, in those final minutes, should it come to that? Calm, like the rabbit, or a total, inconsolable mess?”

Employing plot devices and narrative tools similar to those made famous by blockbuster movies such as Armageddon and Crash, author Alexandra Coutts, a former playwright and script reader, crafts an episodic saga of tangentially related characters whose lives have been intertwined all along. She sets Tumble & Fall in her native Massachusetts with the central locale on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, one of the last remaining safe havens as the end nears, and includes a visit to Boston, which has been transformed from bustling city to ghost town in a matter of days.

Tumble & Fall, Coutts’ third novel for young adults, is a well-paced and well-planned end-of-days tale that left me eager to read more about the lives and emotional reactions of characters who very easily could be my own neighbors.

Classic detective literature meets vampires and steampunk London in Colleen Gleason’s new Stoker and Holmes series, featuring budding detectives Mina Holmes (Sherlock’s niece) and Evaline Stoker (Bram’s half-sister). With love interests, time travel and murder, The Clockwork Scarab has all the elements of a must-read not just for teens but for anybody who loves any of these genres.

Mina and Evaline begin as somewhat prickly, reluctant partners, brought together by a summons to the British Museum at midnight. Their partnership is forged by the formidable Irene Adler—yes, “the woman” from the Holmes story, “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Miss Adler, working for the British Museum under royal command, calls for Mina and Evaline to place themselves at service to the Crown and help solve the mystery of why the daughters of London society are disappearing.

Murder, of course, is in the wings. Quite close, in fact. In the very midst of their briefing, the three discover the body of a young woman in the halls of the Museum. Standing over her, knife in hand, is a handsome young man dressed rather strangely. As Mina will soon discover, he is wearing the telltale footwear of any self-respecting 21st-century time traveler, “decorated with an odd swoop-like design on the sides.”

And so the fun begins. Told in alternating points of view by Mina and Evaline, The Clockwork Scarab is an exciting YA debut for Colleen Gleason, who is best known for her adult paranormal romance series. The novel is sure to be crowd-pleasing, and an Educator Guide linking the book to the new Common Core Standards is also available.

In a world where all humans are born with two souls in every body, hybrids are the citizens who refuse to lose or sacrifice their second souls. Once We Were, the second book in Kat Zhang’s Hybrid Chronicles, takes us deeper into the hidden realm of the hybrids.

In What’s Left of Me, hybrid Addie/Eva struggled to share their body and join the revolution for hybrid freedom. Now, after being rescued from the Nornand Clinic, where doctors attempted to "cure" them of their hybridity, Addie/Eva find protection with an underground hybrid movement run by cautious, scheming Peter. In the safety of their new underground existence, Addie/Eva discover and hone “going under”—voluntarily and temporarily separating their consciousnesses for up to a few hours. This new skill allows them a little precious time “away” from each other, to feel more like actual individuals, and to focus on developing their respective relationships with fellow Nornand escapee(s) Devon/Ryan.

The secret lovers later befriend a smaller, younger faction of the underground movement, and they all quietly become more and more rebellious as they tire of Peter’s endless plans and precautions. But their collective rebel spirit, born of camaraderie and retribution, turns violent, and Addie/Eva are left wondering: Should they stand by and watch as a hateful world has its way with them, or will they be agents of change within it, helping themselves and their fellow hybrids along the way?

Young author Kat Zhang blends elements of fantasy, sci-fi and historical fiction to compose a riveting, semi-dystopian narrative, both inside Addie/Eva’s head and beyond. Through a bevy of new hybrid characters, each with two distinct and dynamic personalities, Once We Were expands the imaginative world Zhang first introduced in What’s Left of Me. Zhang has only begun to tap the potential of this alternative world and its history, and with Once We Were, she has once again ensnared the reader’s interest to discover what will happen next to each of these characters.

At first glance, Oleander, Kansas, is a town like any other—small, isolated and full of secrets—until the “killing day,” when five citizens inexplicably murder 12 people before killing themselves. Only one teenage girl survives. Cassandra Porter is convicted and locked away without any answers as to how she could kill a person—let alone an infant.

A year after the killing day, the town is leveled by a Category 5 tornado, but that’s just the beginning of the destruction. Oleander is immediately quarantined, the town elders impose their own rule and violence ensues. Five teenagers—the closeted jock, the drug dealer’s daughter, the outcast’s son, the religious fanatic and Cassandra the baby killer—can see the evil plaguing their town, even if they don’t quite understand it. And only they can stop the madness or die trying.

The Waking Dark is a well-crafted, multi-narrative tour de force that explores weighty issues such as physical and sexual abuse, drug addiction, hypocrisy and homophobia with the chill of a Stephen King novel. Robin Wasserman cleverly uses science fiction and horror to explore themes of good and evil, and the choices people make to be one or the other. Are the townspeople driven to commit such violence because deep down that’s who they really are? Or is it because something sinister is turning them into monsters? Wasserman doesn’t tread lightly here: The violence is cringe-worthy and frequent, but it serves a narrative purpose. Fast-paced and engrossing, The Waking Dark has great crossover potential for adults as well as teens.

Holly Black’s highly anticipated novel opens with a massacre. Seventeen-year-old Tana Bach wakes up in a bathtub after a night of partying to find all her classmates dead, their bodies strewn about like bloody confetti—the victims of a vampire attack. Tana also discovers her ex-boyfriend, Aidan, tied up in a bedroom. He’s been bitten and is now infected, but he’s alive. And he’s not alone. He’s trapped with a wounded vampire, the enigmatic and dangerous Gavriel. Tana makes a quick decision to save them both, putting her life in danger and risking infection. The three of them drive to Coldtown, an inescapable ghetto for vampires and the humans who venerate them.

Once inside the walls of Coldtown, Tana gets mixed up in a centuries-old power struggle that pits her against a celebrity vampire. Tana’s only thought is to stay human and stay alive, but that may not be possible when she has a weakness for saving others.

Black treats readers to a richly woven narrative full of flawed characters with unenviable choices. Coldtown is a place of nightmares, but it’s also a place of seduction. Some humans will do anything to get inside, giving up their comfortable homes to live in squalor, all for the chance to become immortal. But Black shows that immortality eventually becomes hellish, even for those who willfully seek it. Rich in imagery and told in Black’s standout, signature prose, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a memorable literary feast.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read an interview with Holly Black for The Coldest Girl in Coldtown.

Felix’s last season of high school football is all that matters. When he’s out on the field, he can forget about his older brother who never came back from the war, his mother who disappeared inside her own mind after losing her oldest son, and the mining town that seems to be crumbling around him. If he can just lead the Muckers team to victory, he knows everything will be all right.

But even as the Muckers win more games, it’s hard to ignore everything that’s going wrong in his small Texas town. The threat of communism has everyone on edge, and race relations in the multiethnic immigrant community are near a boiling point. One of his best friends is heading off to the Korean War to prove himself, and the town will never accept the fact that Felix is white and the only girl he wants to kiss is Mexican.

Muckers is a strong piece of young adult historical fiction that manages to touch on many topics without seeming disjointed. The frame of a local newspaper helps to add some extra historical content without forcing it into the dialogue.

The novel is strongest when it gets inside Felix’s head off the football field, when he’s forced to think about not only his painful past, but his future. His desire to honor his parents and brother is strong, but what makes him a truly compelling protagonist is his thirst to prove his worth to himself, and his determination to avoid a life in the mines.

Muckers will entertain anyone interested in 1950s America, but it will especially capture the attention of football fans and anyone who’s ever felt hometown pride.

The short, fragmented chapters in Julie Berry’s YA debut, All the Truth That’s in Me, fall like puzzle pieces, slowly revealing 16-year-old Judith’s difficult, veiled story. It all begins with an early memory of an ocean journey, when Judith and a group of pioneering families traveled far from their homeland, finally landing and forming a small, insular community.

Judith’s childhood friend, Lucas, has long been the love of her life, and she relates her story as if speaking to him directly. However, in reality, Judith cannot speak to Lucas at all. When she was 14, Judith was abducted and held captive for two years. The details of her abduction—the man who seized her, the place of her imprisonment and the atrocities performed upon her—are revealed gradually. When Judith finally escaped and staggered back home, she was nearly dead and half her tongue had been carved out.

A grim tone persists throughout All the Truth That’s in Me, much like the prolonged hardship Judith and her community face as soldiers attack and secrets poison from within. It becomes increasingly clear that only Judith knows the truth that will bring peace and justice—if only she could speak it.

Berry has created something unique in her story of fear and repression set in an unspecified time and place. Although Judith’s loneliness and longing are almost unbearable, readers sense that she has the strength and intelligence to overcome her handicap. The ever-present violence is reminiscent of Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking series, but Judith’s uncompromising love for Lucas will sustain the most romantic of readers. All the Truth That’s in Me is a perfect emotional blend of horror and romance.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Julie Berry for All the Truth That's in Me.

After an unsuccessful suicide attempt, 16-year-old Elise Dembowski realized she never really wanted to die; she just wanted to be noticed. Change seems impossible when the popular kids speak in a code she can’t crack; she’s often a little precocious when the world embraces ordinary; and a bully writes a fake blog in her name, making the school think she is unapproachable and suicidal again. However, when Elise accidentally discovers an underground dance party called Start, big changes happen when she least expects it.

In a voice that ranges from honest and heartbreaking to witty and hopeful, Elise relates her weekly secret escapes to Start, where she encounters Vicky and Pippa, her first friends, and DJ Char, who shares her first kiss (and more). Char and Elise also share a passion for music, and with Char’s help, Elise may become Start’s newest and hottest DJ. With song lyrics kicking off each chapter and heart-thumping descriptions, readers can almost hear the music in the background.

While being a DJ gives Elise her first sense of power, she uses the opportunity to find self-acceptance, to reconnect with her divorced parents and to look for the positive in her classmates. Her experiences will encourage young adults to find their own power and aspire for the extraordinary. Of course, they’ll also be inspired to download all the classic hits that make this novel rock on. This Song Will Save Your Life is for anyone who’s ever felt alone and just wanted to fit in. And who hasn’t?

Eighteen-year-old Cath is not looking forward to her first year of college. Her twin sister Wren, who has always seemed like her other half, decides they should both use college as a time to meet new friends—separately. But even as she stresses about her sister’s distance or what living alone will do to her loving but scatterbrained father, she has one constant in her life to lean on: her fan fiction.

Cath has been writing Simon Snow fan fiction since she was a preteen, and she’s become a bit of a celebrity in the community. With the series finishing up in the spring, she’s desperate to finish her version of Simon’s story before the author ends his journey in canon. In fact, she’s so busy writing her final fanfic, she barely has time to deal with an absentee mother who suddenly wants to re-enter her life, an English professor who admires her writing but thinks fan fiction is plagiarism, or the attention of a boy who’s always coming to her rescue no matter how many times she pushes him away.

Rainbow Rowell’s latest YA novel is truly fantastic. She creates an incredibly relatable protagonist with Cath, a college freshman who would rather live off granola bars for the entire year than ask her intimidating roommate for directions to the cafeteria. Yet in spite of her social anxiety, Cath is a character with tremendous inner strength who comes to the aid of her family without a second thought and who finds her confidence with a pen in her hand.

Rowell also creates a very believable romance, with a slow build and false starts that seem genuine to the college experience. All stages of her developing relationship are equally important, from Cath’s disbelief that such a guy would be interested in her to her questions about his expectations.

Fangirl is bound to become a classic for anyone who grew up writing fan fiction and to all the teens scrolling though Tumblr, hoping to meet others who have decided that their favorite novel’s protagonist and antagonist are actually the romantic leads. Even readers who have never heard of fanfic will be drawn in by Cath’s witty, original voice and the sense of safety she feels when disappearing into the world of a book.

Molly Horan has her MFA in writing for children and young adults from The New School.

Readers of Nancy Farmer’s award-winning 2002 novel, The House of the Scorpion, are familiar with the country of Opium, epicenter of the Drug Confederacy, and an imagined future when drug lords have the power of kings. After the death of Matteo Alacrán (aka El Patrón), attendees at his funeral unknowingly consumed poisoned wine, killing all possible heirs to Opium, save one—El Patrón’s clone, 14-year-old Matt Alacrán.

In Matt’s earlier adventures in Opium, he was much maligned due to his clone status. Now, however, Matt is no longer a copy of an existing person, but a unique human being, a bona fide heir. But first Matt must prove himself worthy of command, facing both his own security force and menacing foreign drug lords.

Matt’s top priority becomes the fate of the eejits, people with microchips implanted in their brains, reducing them into soulless zombies, unable to act without command. With their spooky, unresponsive eyes, eejits appear to have lost all traces of personality. But when Matt tries to befriend a beautiful eejit called Waitress, he notices that she seems to “come alive” when eating baked custard. Is she connecting with her past?

Determined to discover the truth, Matt teams up with Cienfuegos, an intelligent, dry-witted soldier who is grappling with his own demons, and Listen, a smart and sassy 7-year-old. Matt is also reunited with Celia, his longtime caregiver; Maria, his true love; and his Lost Boy friends from the plankton factory.

As with The House of the Scorpion, The Lord of Opium encompasses great and relevant themes, such as ecology, autonomy, the greater good and absolute power. Suspenseful and creepy, funny and wise, Farmer delivers a sequel with all the satisfying clout of its predecessor.

Somewhere in the future, Em and her best friend Finn are imprisoned in adjacent cells and subjected to torture at the hands of a man called “the doctor.” Inside the drain in her cell, Em finds a piece of paper written in her own handwriting. Two things are clear: Time travel is possible, and the only option is to kill “him.” With the help of a guard, Em and Finn escape from their prison and access a time machine to take them four years into the past, where their actions could prevent a world war. In the days before impending disaster, Em and Finn’s loyal friendship may be the only thing strong enough to take on the untouchable doctor.

Four years earlier, Marina is the typical girl next door in love with her cute neighbor, James, made all the cuter because he has remained clueless for years. Things look like they may be finally falling into place for James and Marina, but life begins unraveling when tragedy strikes. Someone tries to kill James’ brother, and James struggles to discover the secrets behind the assassination attempt. Marina wants to be there for James, but standing beside him is not always a safe place to be. As the future begins catching up with James and Marina, they will be forced to grow up quickly, but they may not like what they discover about themselves. Love and friendship bind them, but is anything permanent with the invention of a time machine?

Great time travel stories are rife with spoilers, so little more of the plot can be shared. Cristin Terrill’s fast-paced debut novel, All Our Yesterdays, is a multilayered tale that goes beyond entertaining. Incorporating the paradoxes of time travel, evil doctors and secret government operations, this novel has a bit of everything for any reader seeking adventure.