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.

Conor O’Malley is having nightmares. Ever since his mother became sick with cancer, Conor has been struggling to keep his life going on as normal at home. His dad and stepmother live in another country, Conor and his grandmother don’t exactly get along, and the kids at school treat him differently. It all makes it very hard to be “normal” at home—or anywhere else. To tell anyone about the nightmares would prevent him from maintaining his illusion that everything is all right.

One night after the nightmare, a monster appears at his window—not the monster from his nightmare, but a different one. This monster wants something from Conor that he just cannot give. This monster wants the truth: Conor’s truth. And that truth is more frightening to Conor than anything else.

To say that A Monster Calls is a moving story about an adolescent boy facing a difficult time in his life would be like saying that Old Yeller is a story about a dog. Both are inadequate statements for conveying the depth of feeling these stories engender. Award-winning author Patrick Ness, working from an idea dreamed up by the late Siobhan Dowd, builds up Conor’s struggle in such a way that we as readers feel his pain and frustration in our very bones. This book is astonishing and heart-wrenching and miraculous all at once. Teen readers looking for the scary tale that the illustrations promise will be surprised at what can really be frightening in life—and it is not a monster calling your name in the middle of the night, as Conor O’Malley already knows.

Wren is heartbroken when her boyfriend Danny is killed in a car accident. Using supernatural powers she inherited from her mother, though she doesn’t yet completely understand them, Wren brings Danny back from the dead. She quickly realizes that what she’s awakened isn’t the real Danny, but something else entirely. Living Danny was a sweet, funny and humanly flawed boyfriend. Zombie Danny feeds off of nothing but Wren’s attention.

As Wren struggles with her emotional decision to raise Danny from the dead, a new boy arrives at her school. Gabriel somehow senses Wren’s secret and gets her to let her guard down enough to confide in him. Wren’s friendship with Gabriel allows her to begin to overcome her grief and see why what she did was so wrong.

Cold Kissis so much more than just another paranormal romance. Wren is a strong character readers will easily relate to, and her struggle to do the right thing is genuine and heartfelt. She’s learning about true love, including the difficult lesson that sometimes what you really must do is let go.

Amy Garvey’s young adult debut is an intricately woven story, full of complex characters and emotional descriptions of love and loss. Readers of all ages will appreciate Wren’s growth throughout the novel. She experiences a believable transformation—one that transcends the paranormal aspects of the novel. Cold Kiss is a valuable addition to the genre of paranormal teen romance.

Seventeen-year-old Karou is an unusual girl. She speaks foreign languages without any effort, is handy with a knife and sports naturally blue hair. By day, she is an art student in Prague, but during her off hours, she runs questionable errands for Brimstone, the father-like demon who raised her. Traveling through portals to the underground markets of Paris and Marrakesh, she buys human and animal teeth, which Brimstone strings together into necklaces in his magical shop. Despite her downworld upbringing, Brimstone is the only family Karou has, so when she is suddenly locked out of the shop, she resorts to dangerous tactics to get back home. Then she meets Akiva, an angel in the middle of an otherworldly battle. Fated and forbidden, Karou and Akiva struggle to be together when their sides are at war.

Laini Taylor’s beautifully written novel features a well-drawn cast of characters. From Karou’s serpent-bodied nanny to her arrogant actor ex-boyfriend, each character is alive in the reader’s imagination. Even the city of Prague feels personified, as Taylor describes it: “The wind carried the memory of magic, revolution, violins, and the cobbled lanes meandered like creeks. Thugs wore Mozart wigs and pushed chamber music on street corners, and marionettes hung in windows, making the whole city seem like a theater with unseen puppeteers crouched behind velvet.”

The first in a trilogy, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is a romantic, incredibly imaginative and gripping story; readers will find themselves heavily invested.

Don’t call 19-year-old Hannah Ward a ballerina, a term reserved for the stars of the prestigious Manhattan Ballet. As a dancer in the company’s corps de ballet since leaving home at 14, she’s a true bunhead, dedicating nearly every waking moment to her profession. Hannah’s world is an unusual mix of constant jealousy, as every girl tries to outperform the others for coveted soloist positions, and fierce loyalty forged out of years of devotion together. To remain competitive and to maintain their gaunt appearances, the dancers practice to near exhaustion before their three to four performances per evening and succumb to unhealthy diets that only lead to fatigue and injuries later.

Despite the anxiety in her shared dressing room, Hannah feels confident that she can advance as she enters the fall season. But when puberty strikes, causing her breasts to grow, she faces the impossible task of losing her curves. An even bigger obstacle—named Jacob—also enters the scene. Hannah, who’s never even been kissed, can only manage to spend a few precious hours with Jacob, and she begins to see how little of the city, and the world, she’s experienced outside of ballet.

In Bunheads, her eye-opening debut novel, former New York City Ballet dancer Sophie Flack gives readers a compelling look at the rigorous life of ballet dancers. Will Hannah forfeit everything, including Jacob, to take her dance to the next level, or can she give up the only life she’s known, and even her friends, to start over in the real world? Either path requires sacrifices in this unforgettable journey of self-discovery.

Life: An Exploded Diagram, the new novel from award-winning British author Mal Peet, is a reminder that labeling a work as “YA” (young adult) is often, well, arbitrary. Peet may put young people at the center of his fiction, but his work is so spectacular that it can—and should—be savored by readers of all ages.

This far-reaching, ambitious historical novel begins toward the close of World War II on the day Clem Ackroyd is born, after a German pilot flies a plane low over his mother’s house on March 9, 1945. By the time Clem, a good student who wants to go to art school, is a teenager, his father has gone to work for Gerard Mortimer, whose family owns Bratton Manor. Picking strawberries on the Mortimer farm one summer, Clem finds himself attracted to the Mortimer daughter, Frankie, even though, as Clem’s friend Goz puts it, “She Mortimer You Ackroyd.” Clem and Frankie begin meeting secretly. But just as readers might be expecting a traditional Romeo and Juliet crisis to unfold, Peet steps back from his canvas to paint a compelling picture of the historical landscape that envelops the young lovers—in this case, the Cuban missile crisis.

The random violence of war and terrorism threads through this compelling novel; but Peet weaves it in so seamlessly and relentlessly that when the crisis does come for Clem and Frankie, it is unexpected and devastating. It is not until decades later, when chance and violence once again play a part in their lives, that we fully begin to understand the depth of their connection.

If you’d like to give a young person this novel, do yourself a favor: Read it first!

Traditional versions of the Minotaur legend often portray Ariadne as a tragic figure: After helping her lover Theseus escape the labyrinth, she is later abandoned on an Aegean island. Tracy Barrett’s retelling of the legend, Dark of the Moon, turns this image on its head. Barrett’s Ariadne is a powerful but socially isolated priestess, and the Minotaur who lives under her palace is no monster, but instead her beloved, deformed brother Asterion. Ariadne is confident in her hereditary role of She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess and the future it will bring her. But when she meets Theseus and his fellow tributes, she finds friendship for the first time, learns about the world beyond her palace and begins to question the role she might play in determining her own path.

Barrett both incorporates and undermines well-known aspects of her story, giving new interpretations to Ariadne’s ball of thread, Theseus’ interaction with the Minotaur and the reason for black sails on the Athenians’ returning ship. Details of the complex politics and rituals of her reimagined Krete abound, as do references to other people and places of Greek mythology. She does not shy away from violence, but the bloodiness always serves to establish the characters and setting and is never gratuitous. Chapters are alternately narrated by Ariadne and Theseus, allowing the reader to gain insight into the actions, thoughts and motivations of both characters. In the end, this tale leaves both its characters and its readers questioning the very nature of how stories are told and retold. Fans of mythological retellings will relish this fresh, feminist interpretation of the tale of Ariadne and Theseus.