When 15-year-old Phillip hurts his foot on a cross-country run, he hides to avoid sadistic Coach Farragut, aka “Ferret,” and meets the most amazing girl. Rebekah seems to like him back, and so he ends up at her church youth group, an activity he hides from his atheist dad. Not that Dad would notice, having finally decided to clean out a basement full of emergency supplies laid in by Phillip's mother, who has since died. The entire family has raised not talking about that to an art form. Lucas Klauss titled his first novel Everything You Need to Survive the Apocalypse; the way things pile up on Phillip, it seems like it might come at any time.

As Phillip gets more involved in Rebekah's church, his relationships with everyone around him change. His best friends are beginning to branch out, one into new friendships with a couple of Grade-A jerks. The other is into girls . . . possibly including Rebekah. Things get ugly. Punches are thrown. And some things are damaged that can never be repaired.

Phillip is a likable guy, smart and funny, and it's easy to root for him to do the right thing. Much harder is figuring out exactly what that is. Does he really believe the things in the pamphlets he's been handing out, which would alienate almost everyone in his life? Is he truly seeking God, or just trying to win over a hot girl? And what does she think about all this? Everything You Need to Survive the Apocalypse is wise about the misunderstandings we hang onto and the ways we fail to understand one another in both friendship and love.

When he loses his best friend to a drive-by shooting, Anthony “Ant” Jones realizes he needs to get away from his dangerous school in East Cleveland. He decides to take advantage of the offer of a scholarship to attend elite prep school Belton Academy, in Maine. There he discovers a world he doesn’t really understand, where he feels completely misunderstood and alone.

As Ant struggles to find a place in the new school, where the kids assume he’s from Brooklyn and automatically call him “Tony,” he learns a lot about himself—and how to be true to himself even as he is faced with all new surroundings and people. Ant must come to terms with the fact that he is now a part of a world that he does not fully understand, and he has to find a way to survive there. How much is he willing to adapt? His home is now a place where he does not feel he belongs, but it is, nonetheless, home.

Debut author Brian F. Walker’s background as a tough kid running the streets of East Cleveland, only to move to an elite boarding school at the age of 14, is clearly the inspiration for this highly autobiographical novel. His prose rings true and the story is engrossing. Ant is a very realistic character whom readers will love, in spite of his idiosyncrasies. Black Boy White School poses compelling questions: How far should anyone go to “fit in,” and how can that be done while remaining true to oneself?

It should not shock you to learn that Why We Broke Up doesn’t have a happy ending. It’s the story of a breakup, told through the items Minerva Green collected while dating Ed Slaterton, which she has boxed up to return to him. The novel is Min’s letter to Ed, with each chapter centered on one item in the box and a story about how it came to be there. Daniel Handler provides the words, and Maira Kalman’s paintings of each item introduce the chapters; the two fit together to create a perfect mood, both magical and heartbreaking.

Min is a classic film-obsessed café denizen who shops at vintage stores that are only open for an hour and a half one day a week, but hates being pigeonholed as “arty” or “different.” Ed is co-captain of the basketball team and about as far from “different” as it gets, with his jocky earnest ways and string of exes. Can these two star-crossed lovers overcome their pasts and their separate groups of friends to throw an epic birthday bash for an 88-year-old stranger who may or may not be a film star from days of yore? Yeah, probably not.

Handler’s prose gets inside Min’s head and jumbled hormones; when she’s ultimately betrayed we’re ready to throw the box of stuff right in Ed’s stupid face (despite still kind of liking him). And Kalman’s paintings give us not just the thing-ness of the things left behind, but some of the magic that made them worth saving. Anyone who has had a broken heart and sifted through the detritus left behind will find Min’s collection extremely relatable. If that’s not you yet, just wait; Why We Broke Up is a beautiful story, but also soul food for dark times. Don’t miss it.

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Read our interview with Daniel Handler for Why We Broke Up.

Just when you think that every possible approach to fairy-tale retellings has been heavily trod, along comes Marissa Meyer, who boldly sends her retelling of Cinderella into a futuristic new realm.

Meyer’s Cinder is a cyborg, only 64 percent human, her other 36 percent reconstructed from robotic parts after a horrible childhood accident. She was adopted soon after, but her beloved stepfather has died from the plague that is ravaging New Beijing, and her stepmother is nowhere near as sympathetic. Now, on the eve of the ball sponsored by Prince Kai, Cinder’s beloved stepsister Peony has succumbed to the deadly disease, and Cinder herself has been conscripted as one of the cyborg guinea pigs for the scientists trying to find a cure. But Cinder’s artificial parts might be hiding a secret from her past—and perhaps also the key to her future.

Meyer cleverly includes enough elements of the original Cinderella story to keep fans of fairy tales happy, but she simultaneously makes the story entirely her own, constructing a futuristic, dystopian world that is complex enough to stand on its own. The good news is that Cinder is just the first in a projected Lunar Chronicles quartet, with futuristic takes on the tales of Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Snow White still to come.

Evan and Lucy have been best friends since childhood. After Lucy’s parents split up, she moved away, and now her winter break visits are the highlights of Evan’s year. Until this year. Lucy comes home draped in Goth gear, with a new attitude that falls somewhere between angry and totally absent. Evan is determined to figure out where his old friend is in the midst of this transformation; Lucy is just as focused on keeping her secrets under lock and key. This emotional tug-of-war is just one of the stories threading through Winter Town.

Author Stephen Emond (Happyface) has created an intricate world for Evan and Lucy to navigate, and shifts in perspective allow each to tell part of the story. Evan is an artist, or might be, if he can shake off his family’s Ivy League game plan; comic strips that he has drawn, sometimes in collaboration with Lucy, appear in the book, giving yet another view of what’s going on with him. Emond strikes a nice balance with the artwork. It never overwhelms the story, but gets us closer to the characters, and it’s lovely to look at, sometimes clean and literal, then cartoonish and fantastic.

Another neat trick Winter Town pulls off is blending some seriously heavy subject matter—parental pressure, dangerous relationships, drug use—into what is frequently hilarious writing. There’s an early scene, in which Evan’s entire family openly speculates about his sexuality as if he weren’t right there, that belongs on screen. Add in pop culture riffs and chapters titled with Beatles and Beach Boys songs, and Winter Town is a rare treat: a book about art and love, friendship and independence, that’s a real pleasure to read. Don’t miss it.

Day is wanted for assault, arson, theft, destruction of military property and hindering the war effort against the Colonies. The real problem is that no one in the dystopian Republic of America even knows what the 15-year-old looks like. According to military records, he died five years ago in a labor camp after failing the Trial and losing a secure spot in society. As Day now holes up in an abandoned and crumbling Los Angeles building, the annual plague has hit hard again, this time striking what’s left of his family.

On the other side of the city, wealthy June, the Republic’s favorite prodigy and the only participant to receive a perfect score on the Trial, has just been fast-tracked to become a detective in training. Her first tracking mission: Day. Going undercover, she blends in with the gritty life on the streets until she meets a boy who just may be her suspect. June and Day’s mutual suspicions turn into an adventurous cat-and-mouse game that will keep readers guessing.

As both teens discover more secrets about their corrupt, militaristic government, including the real cause of the plague, they suddenly find themselves on the same side—against the Republic. It’s life or death to the very end as Day and June work to save themselves, each other and civilians from a brutal fate.

Even though dystopias have become common fare in young adult literature, an intriguing premise, strong characterizations and fully realized world-building make the action-packed Legend a standout. Unanswered questions and final scenes set the stage for more excitement in a sequel.

Juliette has not seen, spoken to or touched another human being for 264 days. Locked away in an asylum as punishment for an accidental crime, her solitude is interrupted when she is assigned a cellmate. The fact that the cellmate is a boy both frightens and excites her. She is as frightened for him as for herself, because her powers, the same powers that caused her to commit the accidental crime, could be the end of this new cellmate, Adam.

She can inflict great pain—or worse—by simply touching or being touched. Her parents, who regard her as a monster, are relieved to be rid of her. Time in the asylum has not alleviated her insanity, but has actually caused it. Her lack of lucidity is represented throughout the book by insane thoughts struck through and then replaced with more appropriate remarks. Juliette is a work in progress, and her curse evolves into a power as the story progresses. As she is empowered, her need to strike through her thoughts wanes.

Author Tahereh Mafi, at only 23 years of age, has created a fascinating dystopian society where birds don’t fly, clouds are the wrong color, disease is rampant and the weather alternates between snow and blazing heat without seasons or any measurable pattern. A group known as The Reestablishment has taken over, and they rule with cruelty and psychopathic measures of torture. When the extremely good-looking but horribly evil Warner plans to turn Juliette into his secret weapon for torturing troublemakers, she has to choose her own path and fight for what she believes is right.

Although Shatter Me is the first of a forthcoming trilogy, it stands alone as a poetically written and absolutely riveting novel that rivals The Hunger Games in intensity and page-turning excitement.

If you are unfamiliar with the genre known as steampunk, then this collection of stories edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant is a good place to start. As the subtitle states, this “anthology of fantastically rich and strange stories” represents not only steampunk in the classic definition but also with unexpected sci-fi and fantasy twists.

For the neophyte, the standard setting for steampunk fiction is an alternate timeline in which there is more Industrial Age machinery (think steam engines, brass workings and aviation goggles) than computerized technology—though often these worlds are sufficiently advanced to include inventions like clockwork robots and huge flying ships. The genre has been expanding in recent years, and now Link and Grant have brought together some great names in YA fiction to produce this anthology, including M.T. Anderson, Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray and Garth Nix. The authors present numerous different variations on the steampunk theme and are clearly enjoying themselves as they let their imaginations loose.

Even though steampunk fiction has been around for many years (most people would include Jules Verne in this category), it has made a resurgence lately in the form of middle grade and teen fiction and is rapidly becoming the new favorite of previously hardcore fantasy fans. With a host of various heroes and villains—“scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, Utopian revolutionaries, and intrepid orphans” among them—Steampunk! would be a fine starting point for anyone curious about this genre as these popular authors more than live up to their reputations.

When Eleanor Crowe finds herself pregnant at 16, she doesn’t have a lot of good options. She can move to Kenya with her missionary parents or marry her boyfriend and work with him at his parents’ camp for overweight kids. She chooses the marriage, as much to go against her parents’ wishes as because she has any desire to marry her baby’s father, and she enters into a world where her mother-in-law is constantly chastising her, what looks like mashed potatoes is actually pureed cauliflower, and she has to help out with crafts and dance—two things about which she knows very little.

In spite of it all, Eleanor finds herself liking the campers, and she actually seems to have a way with them. She starts to wonder if she might make a decent mother. As she’s struggling to reconcile her new, sober life with what she used to be—a wild child who spent more than a few nights in juvenile detention—she’s also facing pressure from her childless older sister to give her the baby. Her new husband’s parents want to raise the child as their own, too. In the midst of it all, hubby Lam is partying like a rock star and showing no interest in being a husband and father.

As the story draws to an end the camp experiences a tragedy on the very day Eleanor’s baby is born, and the birth brings even more of a surprise. In Pregnant Pause National Book Award winner Han Nolan delivers a fascinating and complex main character and a series of situations teens will read about with interest and concern, with a very satisfying conclusion.