For Lou, the months before college are full of change and uncertainty. She just broke up with her too-pushy boyfriend, and she thinks she might be asexual. Her mother, Louisa, is away selling beadwork on the powwow circuit, and her former best friend, King, is back in town for the first time in three years. And her family’s ice cream business is going under.

Then a letter arrives from Lou’s father, a dangerous, manipulative white man who has recently been released from prison and demands to be involved in her life. Lou was conceived when he sexually assaulted her mother, and the pair spent years running from that history and their own Métis heritage before finally settling down with Lou’s uncles. If anyone in Lou’s family learns that her father is out of prison, Lou fears that Louisa will want the two of them to disappear again, and Lou will lose every ounce of stability she’s managed to find. With support and tough love from King and other friends, Lou spends a pivotal summer learning to finally embrace who she is, who she loves and what she stands for.

In The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, Jen Ferguson (Border Markers) portrays one weighty subject after another, including Lou’s exploration of her sexuality, her relationship to her Métis heritage, her quest to save her family’s ice cream shack, her father’s threats and her burgeoning relationship with King. Each of these storylines could easily fill a whole novel, but Ferguson impressively blends them all together in a complex depiction of one teenager’s struggle to find her center when every aspect of her life seems on the verge of collapse.

Lou is wonderfully multidimensional, and so is everyone around her. As Lou comes to a new appreciation of her community and its power, Ferguson paints the novel’s ancillary characters with vivid strokes, creating detailed and dynamic portraits of Louisa, King, Lou’s uncles and even her ex-boyfriend.

Readers will appreciate that Lou’s journey toward strength and self-acceptance is not neat or linear; instead, it’s messy and filled with as many stumbles as steps forward. They’ll empathize with her when she reaches for King and when she pushes him away. It’s moving and inspiring to witness Lou’s tenacious drive to understand, on her own terms, what family and identity truly mean.

To commemorate their “dumpster fire” of a year ending, two teenage girls light a fire in their school’s garbage dumpster. Over the course of a single day, the fire sets off a twisting chain of events and unravels a complex relationship that flickers between best friendship and so much more.

In Nothing Burns as Bright as You, Ashley Woodfolk (When You Were Everything, The Beauty That Remains) plumbs the depths of female friendship, first love and the grief that often comes with navigating—and losing—both. The narrator retraces the history of an intimate friendship with someone referred to only as “you” across the novel’s nonlinear structure, creating a portrait of a defining relationship. With the day of the fire as an anchor, readers follow the girls back and forth in time and witness them becoming best friends and partners in crime, then slowly but fully—though the narrator’s partner can’t bring herself to admit it—falling in love.

Woodfolk’s second-person free verse and rich language imbue both characters and their relationship with vivid, vulnerable life. She exposes their conflicted feelings about their love for each other as well as the exhaustion from the weight of the expectations they bear as Black teenagers. The narrator poignantly recalls her first realization that she lives “in a world that always makes things that aren’t your fault / your fault,” describing how, at age 13, she found herself in danger simply because she was a Black girl. Yet only a few lines later, the narrator reveals that when she met her friend “a year later, almost to the minute,” her friend told her, “You didn’t need to be rescued. / You are infinitely powerful. / You had already saved yourself.”

In moments like these, Woodfolk captures an intense connection between two girls in its truest form. Readers will recognize touchstones of their own friendships in the unguarded, affectionate and protective way Woodfolk’s protagonists relate to one another, and they’ll also feel the ferocity of the deep love and sadness the girls experience as their relationship begins to singe and smolder in the days before and the hours after the fire. Nothing Burns as Bright as You is an emotional inferno and Woodfolk’s best book yet.

Set against the backdrop of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Katherine Locke’s This Rebel Heart is a queer, fabulist novel about a girl navigating her complicated feelings toward the place she calls home—a place where magic and horror live side by side.

Csilla Tisza, whose hair is as silver as the Danube River, has lost almost everything. Her Jewish family survived the Holocaust only for her parents to be declared enemies of the state and executed four years ago. Now Csilla lives with her aunt, Ilona, her last living relative. The secret police watch their every move, their family’s home has been nationalized and subdivided into smaller apartments, and they are constantly surrounded by antisemitism. Together, Csilla and Ilona are plotting to escape Soviet-controlled Hungary. Yet when Csilla meets two young men—one a mysterious figure who rescues her from the police, the other a student who asks her for a dangerous favor—her plan to abandon Hungary transforms into a resolution to save it.

“Whoever can protest and does not is responsible for what happens without protest.” Csilla recalls her mother sharing this line from the Talmud, a collection of writings about Jewish theology and law. The energy behind this idea fuels This Rebel Heart. In an author’s note included with advance editions of the book, Locke frames their novel as a story about why “showing up matters” in any fight for the future.

This Rebel Heart is a story with grim, heavy stakes, filled with characters who grapple with the answers to impossible questions. How do you love a country that has killed your family? How do you love a family member with blood on their hands? Locke’s prose often has a circular quality to it, repeating phrases and images like refrains or even mantras. Though this technique may, at times, grate on some readers, the repetition also draws attention, again and again, to what these characters have experienced and how these experiences still echo in their lives. A 2020 survey of Americans ages 18 to 39 revealed that almost 1 in 4 believed the Holocaust was either a myth or had been exaggerated, and every day, fewer survivors remain to tell their stories. A friend drives it home to Csilla: “You survived. You survived. You survived.”

Any reader who has ever felt unsure of their place in history will find solace in This Rebel Heart.

Armed with knitting needles, retractable swords and a mean cup of tea, the pink-clad Ladybird Scouts are the covert defenders of the world. High school junior Prudence Perry left her Ladybird circle after her best friend was killed three years ago. She wants nothing to do with the competitive toxicity of the group, but she’s part of a legacy scout family, so her grief, anxiety and PTSD share space in her heart with a daily dose of guilt. Still, she strives for normalcy with her rebellious nonscout friends—but a life of fighting enormous interdimensional mulligrubs that feed on human emotions isn’t so easy to shake.

Now that Prue’s cousin Avi is of training age, Prue is expected to begin training her own circle of Ladybirds. Intending to fulfill that duty but nothing more, Prue throws herself back into battle while grappling with her mental health and her family’s expectations. As she becomes unexpectedly close with her trainees, Prue must choose: forget the Ladybirds and leave that life behind for good, or help lay the groundwork for a kinder, more supportive sisterhood?

With a sly sense of humor and nostalgia, Scout’s Honor riffs on postmodern horror classics like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and recent hits like “Stranger Things.” Author Lily Anderson offers a clever subversion of “chosen one” narratives as the novel explores tantalizing “what ifs” like “What if Buffy had just gone to a psychiatrist?” and “What if Girl Scouts were masters of cookies—and karate?”

It’s an absurd premise, but Anderson makes it work through unself-conscious world building and a skillful blend of fantastical and real-world threats. While Prue and her “babybirds” fight literal monsters, they’re also railing against toxic female institutions, intergenerational conflict and the notion that women should shoulder the burden of emotional labor. Scout’s Honor works as both allegory and satisfying speculative fiction, portraying battles with mulligrubs and the challenges of mental illness with equal grace. It’s hilarious and heart-wrenching in equal measure.

Anderson understands the necessity of characters who feel grounded in reality, despite the absurdities of their situations, and Scout’s Honor poses powerful questions: How do you let grief move with you rather than letting it swallow you whole? How do you balance the weight of obligation with your own needs? How do you remain soft in a hardened world? With the support of her friends, Prue works to figure out her own answers. As her favorite mantra goes, “Can’t go over it, can’t go under it.” The only way out is through.

A group of teenagers must survive an interstellar disaster in Alone Out Here, a blistering standalone science fiction novel.

Leigh Chen, first daughter of the United States, is fortunate to have a spot on the Lazarus, one of several huge spacecrafts that will evacuate some of Earth’s population before a volcanic eruption renders the planet uninhabitable. Leigh and many of the Lazarus’ other young passengers are touring the ship when disaster strikes, forcing them to launch much earlier than planned.

It soon becomes clear that the Lazarus wasn’t fully prepared for the journey, and there are no adults on board. Attempts to communicate with anyone else in orbit or on Earth fail, and the truth sinks in: Leigh and a group of survivors are completely alone with no planet to return to, no viable destination in sight and only enough supplies to last a few months.

Leigh emerges as one of the leaders who start to cobble together a survival plan, as does Eli, whose mother would have been the ship’s pilot. Through Leigh’s methodical mindset, author Riley Redgate excellently establishes the enormity of the crisis. Everyone must begin training as pilots, mechanics, scientists or doctors to gain even a slim hope of success, let alone live long enough to create and educate future generations.

But what is lost amid this overwhelming focus on the future? Some aboard the Lazarus find it easier to leave the past behind than others, and Leigh tries to keep the peace between conflicting sides of a growing divide. As Eli’s decisions raise ethical concerns, Leigh questions her own neutrality and whether her skill for seeing both sides is preventing her from developing opinions of her own. Can Leigh discover what she stands for in time to save the crew—and her soul?

On the surface, Alone Out Here is an enjoyable sci-fi tale with many familiar elements, including a ticking-clock survival plot, plausibly futuristic technology, a lovely slow-burn romance and a cast of interesting, complex and diverse characters.

But what makes Alone Out Here compelling, even haunting, is Redgate’s fearless exploration of the deeper moral questions prompted by her plot’s high stakes: What is survival without memory? What if the cost of saving humanity was everything that makes us human? The result is a far more intense and emotional experience than readers may expect from the book’s premise, but it’s also a rewarding one for readers with the courage to ride along.

Achingly heartfelt and unabashedly nerdy, Julian Winters’ Right Where I Left You delivers the perfect ode to the end of adolescence, when it often feels like you have your whole life ahead of you—and no time left at all.

Isaac Martin has one summer left with his best friend, Diego, before he’ll face college alone as Diego takes a gap year. All he needs are two tickets to Legends Con, a huge comics and gaming convention, to make it the greatest summer ever. At the event, Isaac plans to ask the creative team behind “Disaster Academy,” his favorite comic series, if superheroes Charm and Reverb will ever reveal their true feelings for each other and provide the racially diverse, canonically queer representation he deserves. Diego also hopes to get some vital career advice from Elena Sánchez, the video game designer he idolizes.

But when Isaac lets Davi, an old crush, distract him from buying tickets on time, all those plans are over before they’ve begun. Suddenly Isaac is juggling his strained relationship with Diego, a potential romance with Davi, complicated family dynamics and friendships he never expected. His first Teen Pride celebration awaits at summer’s end, but to get there, he’ll have to survive the social minefield he’s created.

Right Where I Left You is chock-full of geeky references to comics, games and movies, alongside an astounding number of nods to other queer YA books. While these pop culture references are fun, Winters’ incredible attention to detail goes far beyond the surface, straight into the novel’s emotional core. Every location in the book’s suburban Atlanta setting holds history for the characters, underscoring just how much Isaac will leave behind at summer’s end. Winters communicates big emotions through the minute ways that characters coexist in a space, their casual touches and familiar gestures. The perfect pair of Pride socks, a single comic book panel or a brother’s go-to hamburger order—these simple things carry the weight of a character’s deepest feelings. It’s a perfect reflection of that period in life when everything feels too big and too small all at once.

Although the central romance is delightful and swoony on its own, Right Where I Left You is not just one love story, but many. It’s also about the love of friends and family. It’s about loving stories and the communities that form around them. And it’s about what it means for those stories to love you back and how the right representation can help you create your own happy ending.

Because its military ranks have been decimated by a devastating famine, the Bayt-Sajji empire has expanded its squire training program to enlist young people from conquered territories. Aiza is a member of the Ornu people, who are treated like second-class citizens. She is deeply familiar with the oppression and discrimination that plague the empire but still dreams of becoming a knight.

Once Aiza joins up, her visions of grandeur and heroism are quickly replaced by the harsh reality of grueling training, complicated new relationships and pressure to keep her Ornu identity a secret. As Aiza learns more about the empire, she realizes that its knights may not be as noble as she once thought. Eventually, she is forced to decide where her loyalties truly lie.

Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas’ Squire takes readers on a heart-pounding adventure set in a fantasy world inspired by the history and cultures of the Middle East and North Africa. Aiza is charming and spunky, and although she can seem naive as she chases her lofty dreams, she also admirably clings to her desire to do good.

As Aiza makes her way through training, she meets a diverse and appealing cast of characters. Her fellow trainees include serious but encouraging Sahar, who comes from poverty and wants to support her family; Husni, a lighthearted jokester who longs to prove himself to his father; and Basem, the son of a senator, who is determined to beat his father’s record and become a squire faster than anyone ever has.

Squire explores complex, ambitious questions as Aiza is confronted by the lengths the empire is willing to go to achieve the greater good: What do we do when our dreams don’t turn out to be like we imagined? Who has the ability to create history, and whose stories are left out or lost? What should we do when we are ordered to compromise what we believe is right?

Alfageeh’s illustrations brim with lush backgrounds and charming details. She excels at drawing expressive characters and conveying a range of emotion and movement, from silly banter between friends to fast-paced battle scenes bright with action and feeling. This is a graphic novel with detailed, poignant illustrations worth lingering over.

Shammas and Alfageeh have created a story that successfully balances both exciting fantasy and resonant realism. Squire demonstrates how anyone, from earnest heroes to sneaky villains, can become tangled up in webs of social and political systems bigger and more powerful than a single person. But it also shows how, sometimes, it just takes one person to make a meaningful difference in the world.

Rafael “Flaco” Herrera and his buddies, Magaña and Tiny, live in an impoverished Houston neighborhood where their choices for the future are limited. They can decide between working low-paying jobs or joining the military and possibly winding up dead, like Flaco’s cousin Carlos.

So when the boys have an opportunity to buy and fix up a rare 1959 Chevy Impala that Magaña’s godfather is storing in a barn in a south Texas town called Diamond Park, they jump at the chance. They plan to restore the car to its former glory and sell it for cash. Tagging along on the trip is Susi Taylor, a neighborhood girl Flaco has a serious crush on.

What starts as a youthful adventure quickly becomes a nightmare when a man is murdered and Susi is arrested for the crime. Feeling responsible, the boys embark on a journey into Mexico to clear Susi’s name. Their quest puts their lives and their families in jeopardy, but also transforms them into the men they have always hoped to become.

Author Phillippe Diederich, the son of Haitian exiles who grew up in Mexico City, has penned a poignant and powerful story about a compelling group of Mexican American teens. Flaco knows his mother wants more for him than the meager living she makes. He wants to become an artist, but she’s pushing him to study medicine or law. Magaña, whose father is in prison, worries that his only option will be to work at the local AutoZone. And despite his stellar grades, Tiny can’t apply to college because his parents entered the country without documentation when he was a child. Instead, he lives in fear of being discovered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deported. Through their stories, Diederich offers a moving depiction of the injustice, poverty and trauma that many new Americans experience every day.

In Mexico, Flaco begins to find his way to hope when he reflects on how his life would have been different if his mother hadn’t come to the U.S. “It’s weird how one decision made by one person changes everything for everyone who comes later,” he thinks. There’s hope, too, when tough-talking Magaña has an epiphany of his own. “We need to shoot for more than what they expect from us,” he tells Flaco.

Tense, raw and gorgeously written, Diamond Park will resonate with any reader who, in a world filled with ample reason for pessimism, strives instead for optimism.

During times of war, every person must make their own choices—and their own sacrifices. In Great or Nothing, a creative retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women co-written by Joy McCullough, Caroline Tung Richmond, Tess Sharpe and Jessica Spotswood, Meg, Jo and Amy March face choices and sacrifices after their sister Beth dies and the United States enters World War II.

The novel opens a few months after Beth’s death. The remaining March sisters have had a bitter falling-out and are scattered across the world. Jo has given up writing and moved to a big-city boardinghouse to work in an airplane factory. Amy has set aside her art, lied about her age and, without telling her family, joined the American Red Cross in London, where she serves as a Clubmobile girl. Meg has remained at home with Marmee to teach high school English and wait for John Brooke to return home from the war.

Each sister struggles with her choices and who she is growing up to become. Amy wrestles with the secret life she’s living, which becomes a bigger issue when she encounters Jo’s friend Laurie in a hospital in England. Jo yearns to write again and to understand how she feels about her adventurous reporter friend, Charlie Yates. Meg feels like she isn’t doing enough for the war effort, isn’t strong enough to hold her family together after Beth’s death and wonders whether marrying John, whom Amy has dismissed as a “boring old fuddy-duddy,” will make her happy. And Beth, who contributes sections in verse from beyond the grave, longs to intervene and wonders whether the choices she made in life were the right ones.

Great or Nothing will be enjoyed equally by devotees of Alcott’s classic novel and by readers who are completely unfamiliar with it. Alcott fans will delight in the creative ways the tale has been adapted to its 1940s setting, and the novel is full of clever Easter eggs.

Impressively, Great or Nothing also tells a cohesive, complete story through four distinct voices in four separate narrative threads, each written by a different author. By the end, readers will feel unique connections to each sister and their motivations, heartbreaks and joys. This is a compelling and tender historical coming-of-age novel with wide appeal.

Poppy’s family has a secret. It’s a secret so big that Poppy doesn’t even know what it is. She knows her family is on the run. From whom? Police. Bad guys. Everyone. 

The Winslows barely exist. They leave only fake names, fake IDs and nary a digital trace behind. Schools come and go. Just when friendships take root, Poppy’s parents rip their family up and disappear, never to be seen again. 

But something is different this time. Poppy’s parents have been arguing about their next stop, a beautiful house in California that seems familiar—almost lived in. Poppy is almost 18, and the end of her high school career convinces her parents to allow her to enroll in a summer school program where she finds not only romance but also crumbs that lead her to the truth of why she’s been forced to live like a fugitive for as long as she can remember. 

Marit Weisenberg hits the ball out of the park in This Golden State, her fourth YA novel. She mines the depths of what a young adult novel can encompass, building to a catharsis so satisfying, you could end the drought in California with the tears you’ll cry. The book transforms as you read, revealing layers that include a twisting, high-wire crime thriller, a sensual teen romance and, most significantly, a story about finding your place in your family.

Weisenberg must unravel a truly scandalous yarn to explain what the Winslows did that led them to such an isolated life, but she never sensationalizes or romanticizes their circumstances. On the contrary, their life is awful. Poppy imagines her parents being swept away in a sting operation, leaving her and her little sister behind, abandoned, and her visions lead to panic attacks. What would she do if that happened? What could she do? If she could just know the truth . . . 

Yes, a secret of epic proportions does lurk in Poppy’s family’s past, and it’s fun for the reader to find clues and untangle the mystery with her. But it’s the gentle and then brutal heartache that Weisenberg crafts perfectly alongside it that sets This Golden State apart. This is a story about human people, not true-crime caricatures. 

“Life was better than any romance novel I’d ever read,” Poppy realizes as she begins living her own life, an unthinkable choice that violates every rule her parents ever made for her. 

A Rapunzel-esque tale about breaking free, finding out who you are and where you can go, This Golden State shines.