Teens and technology are natural companions, in part because both are drawn to challenging limits and pushing boundaries. Two new YA thrillers set in the not-so-distant future explore the complex relationships between humans and their digital creations.

At a theme park called the Kingdom, dreams come true, ugliness is against the rules and everything ends happily ever after. Teenage Ana, a cyborg princess known as a Fantasist, lives with her sisters in the Kingdom, where she spends her days entertaining guests with her beautiful appearance, delightful manners and unfading smile. Surely a creation like Ana, designed to be flawless in every way, couldn’t be capable of murder. But when a park employee is found dead, Ana is the most likely suspect.

Starting an hour after the murder and then jumping back and forth in time, The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg alternates between Ana’s voice and a series of interview transcripts, court documents and news clippings. Theme park aficionados might smile in recognition—or wince in pain—as their favorite attractions become instruments of dystopian horror. Could faulty settings at the Princess Palace have caused Ana to snap? Did she encounter someone on the monorail connecting Magic Land with Winter Land? Or maybe the blame lies with a quickly covered-up incident at the Mermaid Lagoon? As the Kingdom Corporation defends Ana’s inability to supersede her programming, Ana herself begins to question all she has known. Is everything in the Kingdom really as ideal as it seems? Is she able to doubt, deceive or love? The Kingdom invites readers to ponder how far technology can—or should—go in the quest to create a perfect world.

High school can be a theme park all its own, as Arvin Ahmadi’s Girl Gone Viral attests. Students at the exclusive Palo Alto Academy of Science and Technology (PAAST) build virtual reality worlds, interact with wall-size screens in their dorm rooms and grumble about using old-fashioned iPhones in their history of social media class. Opal Hopper isn’t distracted by holos, Zapps or even her college applications. She and her friends are focused on entering the Make-A-Splash virtual content creation contest. The winning team will be showered with rewards, but the prize Opal cares about most is a meeting with Silicon Valley superstar Howie Mendelsohn, who may hold the key to understanding why Opal’s father mysteriously disappeared seven years ago.

The team—Opal, Moyo, Shane and Kara—hopes that their show “Behind the Scenes” will reach top popularity in a virtual universe where success is measured in LiveTags, comment volume and number of avatars in attendance at each broadcast. Viewership of “Behind the Scenes” skyrockets, but their success has its downsides: Opal’s values are questioned at every turn, including her decision to make her budding romance with Moyo part of her public persona. Meanwhile, a presidential election pits a progressive candidate against one from the anti-technology Luddite party. College acceptances come in, friends and couples at PAAST bicker and fight and make up again, and the truth that Opal seeks lurks constantly in the background, waiting to emerge. Pick up Girl Gone Viral for a boarding school mystery with a technological twist.

These new novels can be challenging and even downright harrowing, but their authors imbue them with warmth and humor.

When Hằng arrives in Texas, she has lost everything except a filament of hope. Six years before, she helped her younger brother, Linh, get out of Vietnam as the war came to a close. But when Hằng finally follows Linh to America, she discovers that he’s grown into a young man with little to no memory of his life before. Butterfly Yellow follows their halting attempts to reconnect. 

National Book Award-winning author Thanhhà Lại (Inside Out & Back Again) spares her protagonist very little. Hằng has lost nearly all of her family, she is wracked with guilt about her brother, and her journey to the U.S. on a dangerously overcrowded boat is so traumatic that she practically folds into herself with PTSD. Her unlikely friendship with a Texas cowboy named LeeRoy allows her to find some relief. Lại writes Hằng’s dialogue phonetically, and it may take readers a while to acclimate before they can easily understand her. It’s a small choice that gives this tender story that much more of an impact.

Dove “Birdie” Randolph is beginning to yearn for some independence when Carlene, an aunt she barely remembers, shows up at her Chicago home. Birdie spends her time studying ever since her parents made her quit the soccer team, but she’s emboldened to claim a little more freedom by Booker, the guy she likes but can’t bring home yet. Meanwhile, Aunt Carlene is not only enabling but even encouraging Birdie's rebellious impulses. The Revolution of Birdie Randolph is either going to shake things up or burn it all down. 

Brandy Colbert, author of the Stonewall Book Award-winning Little & Lion, has created a world that readers will want to hang out in, from the snug apartment above the family’s beauty salon to the rooftop with its view of the city. When Birdie and her sister go to Chicago Pride, the mix of excitement and claustrophobia is palpable. There’s a big twist in the story—a bombshell of a family secret—that throws Birdie’s life into disarray, and the struggle to define herself separately from the strong women in her life has the potential to pull her apart. Thankfully, her web of friends and family form a net that won’t tear so easily.

Very different in tone but equally compelling, these two ghost stories will haunt readers long after the last page.

In Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All, Printz Medal-winner Laura Ruby weaves a heart-wrenching story about loss and familial bonds as two girls, an orphan and a ghost, struggle to make their way during the early 1940s.

Pearl, who narrates, died in 1918 and haunts the Chicago orphanage where Frankie is abandoned by her father, a poor shoemaker. Pearl watches as Frankie endures both harsh treatment by the nuns and the heartbreak of her father’s remarriage and subsequent move to Colorado without her. Frankie must also weather the loss of her first love, who enlists in the Army at the height of war. 

Over time, Pearl meets other spirits and begins to unburden herself of the secrets that keep her locked in the mortal realm. She discovers that her afterlife doesn’t have to be spent wandering Chicago’s streets, trapped in an endless loop.

Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All calls to mind A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, another story that explores the struggles, heartache and joy of those who grew up without privilege in the early 20th century. Pearl is a tragic heroine, a product of the social expectations placed on a beautiful young woman in the late 1910s, and Frankie comes of age amid the uncertainty and instability of World War II—yet both refuse to succumb to hopelessness. A beautiful and lyrical read that pushes against the boundaries of what we often think a young adult novel can contain, Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All is sure to garner Ruby even more acclaim.

The ghosts in Rules for Vanishing are tragic entities with malevolent intentions. A year ago, Sara Donoghue’s sister Becca traipsed into the Massachusetts woods, never to be seen again. Only Sara knows where she went—in search of a ghostly road that emerges on the anniversary of the disappearance of Lucy Gallow, who vanished in 1953 and whose ghost now calls out to travelers for rescue. Now Sara must try to find Becca. To do so, she enlists the help of some old friends and ensures that everyone knows the rules of the road: Everyone must search in pairs. Everyone must bring a lock to open a gate. And everyone must stay on the road. But breaking the rules, even unintentionally, is easier than it seems, and the consequences for doing so are gruesome. To reveal anything more than that would spoil the reading experience.

Kate Alice Marshall interweaves video footage transcripts, interviews, emails and text messages, documentary-style, into Sara’s first-person narration. The effect not only heightens suspense but stretches the confines of the story and causes readers to question Sara’s version of events. What is real, and what has been distorted? Marshall doesn’t shy away from violence or gore, and readers will feel like they are watching a horror film unfold on the page. Shudder-inducing and unusual, The Rules for Vanishing checks all the boxes for a pulse-thumping read.

Heartwarming or hair-raising, Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All and Rules for Vanishing will keep readers up all night.

Anyone who’s been reading along with some of the most popular YA series would be overjoyed to find one of these titles in their stockings. Just make sure they’re all caught up on the previous volumes first!

The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black
Devoted fans of Holly Black’s bestselling Folk of the Air series have been buzzing with nervous energy over what will become of frenemies Jude and Cardan. Rest assured, Black doesn’t disappoint with The Queen of Nothing.

Jude and her twin sister, Taryn, are humans who have been raised in the faerie kingdom of Elfhame. Although humans are often victims of faerie cruelty, Jude has been trained as a warrior. But after treating King Cardan like a pawn in a game of political chess, Jude has been exiled to the human realm, where she works dangerous jobs for faeries—until Taryn shows up, seeking Jude’s help. Jude risks her life as she pits herself against old friends and new enemies, including her stepfather, who has his eyes on the crown. But survival in the faerie court is fraught with political gambles, disloyal spies and impending war, not to mention confusion about where Jude stands with Cardan. When a curse threatens the kingdom, Jude is forced to make a heartbreaking choice.

Black’s writing flows like honey as she injects intoxicating chemistry into romantic tropes. Jude is clever, cunning and empowered, while Cardan is deliciously flawed and imbued with Black’s biting wit. The Queen of Nothing is a satisfying, if bittersweet, conclusion to this successful trilogy. 

The Toll by Neal Shusterman
In his Arc of a Scythe trilogy, National Book Award winner Neal Shusterman has created a futuristic world as complex and ambiguous as our own. Tackling morality, ethics, life and death, Shusterman’s work is hefty—the entire trilogy clocks in at around 1,500 pages—but ultimately it’s a masterpiece of allegory and plot twists that transcends genre and age. 

In a post-mortal age, an omniscient supercomputer called the Thunderhead has relieved the world of disease, violence and destruction. Humans now live for centuries, creating a problem the Thunderhead cannot address: death. In order to control population growth, some humans are drafted as “scythes” and tasked with murdering citizens efficiently and compassionately. Unfortunately, not every scythe abides by the commandments, and Scythe Goddard’s corruption is undoing all of the Thunderhead’s progress. But Goddard comes up against formidable opponents, including Citra and Rowan, two teens determined to destroy Goddard and his new order, and the Toll, a religious figurehead who can speak to the Thunderhead. When Goddard’s ambitions result in large-scale tragedy, the Thunderhead accelerates its plans for humanity’s survival. But a supercomputer and three humans may be no match for one man intent on bringing the world to its knees. The Toll culminates with star-crossed lovers Citra and Rowan deciding whether to make the ultimate sacrifice for each other. After all, what good is immortality without someone by your side to share it? Gift The Toll to any ardent reader, whether they’re 18 or 80. 

Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater
Readers have eagerly awaited Call Down the Hawk, the first book in bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater’s (Shiver, All the Crooked Saints) spinoff trilogy starring the Raven Cycle’s beloved Ronan Lynch. Ronan, who can manifest objects from his dreams into reality, is struggling to adapt to life after high school. His boyfriend, Adam, is away at college, leaving Ronan bored and purposeless. He’s able to keep his dreams under control as long as he stays close to home, but the longer he goes without dreaming, the more disastrous the outcomes. No one understands this better than Hennessy, a thief and con artist who never learned to control her dreams; consequently, they’re slowly killing her. 

Hennessy has a doppelgänger, Jordan, who works as an art forger and whose path intersects with Declan, Ronan’s straight-laced older brother. Declan has spent his whole life lying to protect his family from a covert sect who believe killing dreamers will avert an apocalypse—and Ronan and Hennessy are their next targets.

Call Down the Hawk represents a tonal shift from its predecessors. It feels darker and headier as Stiefvater stretches the confines of her magical constructs and raises the stakes beyond the Raven Boys’ old prep school. This change feels organic to the narrative; as the characters mature and graduate, so must the story. But loyal readers needn’t fear. Beloved characters from earlier books make a few cameos, Adam and Ronan’s relationship has plenty of romantic breathing room, and Stiefvater’s lyrical writing style is a gift in itself. Readers new to the story should start with The Raven Boys, but everyone else will want this on their bookshelf, dog-eared, until the next book in the series arrives.

There’s plenty of love to be had in this trio of romantic books. Social media plays a key role in all three, facilitating flirting, turning up the tension and making the will-they-won’t-they even more thrilling. The hopeless (and hopeful) romantic will find much to savor.

Tweet Cute
High school senior Pepper Evans misses how things used to be. Not long ago, her family lived in Nashville, her parents’ marriage was intact, and the restaurant they founded, Big League Burger, hadn’t yet grown into a megachain. Now, in debut novelist Emma Lord’s Tweet Cute, Pepper’s sister is at college, her dad’s in Nashville, and she’s attending a fancy private school in New York City. When she’s not juggling AP classes, debate club and swim team—or fretting about her parents’ divorce—she’s co-writing a baking blog and being pestered by her CEO mom to handle BLB’s social media. 

Meanwhile, Pepper’s classmate Jack Campbell has a lot on his plate, too. He works in his family’s popular East Village deli and feels pressured to someday take it over. But does he want to? He’s trying to figure it out when disaster strikes. BLB tweets about a sandwich that copies an item on his family’s deli menu, and Jack claps back, kicking off a snarky Twitter war that garners the attention of internet influencers and the media. As Pepper and Jack duke it out on Twitter, they’re also flirting on an anonymous messaging app—and getting closer in real life as well.

Lord creates delicious, funny suspense around whether the teens will finally reveal their identities and have a huge argument or, even better, a huge make-out sesh. Tweet Cute empathetically conveys the tension of feeling torn between pleasing one’s parents and planning an independent future. Lord’s characters are a likable, smart, diverse bunch, and readers will eagerly follow along as secrets explode and romance blooms online and IRL.

Yes No Maybe So
Fans of bestselling authors Becky Albertalli (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda) and Aisha Saeed (Written in the Stars) will be thrilled to get their hands on their new joint effort, Yes No Maybe So, an earnest and engrossing of-the-political-moment story about Jamie and Maya, who were friends as children and reconnect a decade later when their moms volunteer them to canvass for a newbie Democratic state senate candidate. 

Jamie is deeply self-conscious about his awkwardness and trying to tread lightly around his mom and sister’s feverish bat mitzvah planning. Maya is reeling from an emotional one-two punch: Her bestie has become distant as she prepares to leave for college, and her parents just began a trial separation—in the middle of Ramadan. She’s not thrilled about canvassing, but her mom dangles the promise of a car, so she dives in, joining Jamie and his quirky, civic-minded family as they try to bring change to their city of Atlanta, Georgia. As their interest in politics and policy grows into true activism, Jamie and Maya realize they’re becoming passionate about each other, too. 

Albertalli and Saeed have created a lovely cross-cultural romance and a compassionate exploration of what’s worth fighting for, especially when the outcome is uncertain. It’s full of messages of hope, loving support and the empowerment that comes from pushing for change and taking action.

★ The Gravity of Us
Self-proclaimed space nerd Phil Stamper’s The Gravity of Us is so interesting and well crafted that it’s hard to believe it’s his first novel. He harkens back to mid-20th-century NASA, when astronauts were heroes and their seemingly perfect families served as living public-relations tools for the space program. As it turns out, things aren’t so different when it comes time for NASA’s Orpheus V mission to Mars. 

Whiz-kid Cal Lewis, a savvy 17-year-old from New York City, is shocked when his commercial airline pilot dad announces he’s been selected for Orpheus, which means their family is moving to Houston . . . in three days. Cal is devastated to be leaving his best friend, his beloved city and perhaps his budding career. An entertainment network, Star Watch, has an exclusive contract to cover the mission, which means Cal, a well-known video journalist with half a million followers on the FlashFame app, will have to give up his BuzzFeed internship. Even worse, he may not be able to report anything anymore. 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read an interview with The Gravity of Us author Phil Stamper.

As his life changes at warp speed, the questions mount: Will Cal be able to survive hot, humid Houston? Will his parents ever stop arguing? How can he be a journalist without the internship and FlashFame? But isn’t it nice that the enchanting Leon, son of another astronaut, lives in Cal’s brand-new, astronaut family-packed neighborhood? 

It’s thrilling to witness Cal using his social media savvy to find a way around barriers to his reporting and his happiness. Stamper shines a light on the vagaries of reality TV and a space program dependent on tenuous government funding, while giving a platform to the nonastronauts who are also passionate about space exploration—from soil scientists to the families swept up in this all-consuming career choice. Readers will root for Cal and Leon, their budding romance, their astronaut families and, of course, the prospect of life among the stars.

Home: It’s a loaded little word with different implications for everyone. Tradition says it’s a locus of comfort and security, a place where family members offer unconditional love. The reality, of course, is often very different. What happens when home is a source of uncertainty and upheaval? Two YA novels provide teen perspectives on navigating life’s obstacles in the absence of the centering force of home.

Jennifer Longo’s What I Carry is narrated by Muiriel, Muir for short, a resilient young woman born an orphan at the John Muir Medical Center (for which she was named) in California. Almost 18 and wise beyond her years, she’s about to age out of the foster-care system.

Compared to other foster kids, Muir feels she has certain advantages. She’s white, she doesn’t agonize over memories of lost family members, and she’s had the same social worker for nearly her entire life. It was kindhearted Joellen who once gave her a book called The Wilderness World of John Muir, a collection of writings by the great naturalist. The volume inspired Muir to hone her survival skills amid the unpredictable world of foster care. Carrying with her only the bare essentials, she lives out of her suitcase and doesn’t own a phone. Eleven months is the longest she’s ever stayed with a foster family, and where exit strategies are concerned, she’s a pro.

After Muir moves into a foster home on an island not far from Seattle, her outlook changes. She connects with her foster mother, Francine, and befriends Kira, a talented young Japanese American artist. When she meets a fellow nature lover named Sean at her forestry internship, she finds herself falling hard—both for him and for her new life. But staying still has never come easy to Muir, and as the novel progresses, she wrestles with her instinct to run.

Longo has a gift for arresting details: “Slamming doors are birdsong in a foster house—always there,” Muir observes, “a kind of background music.” Longo writes with warmth, humor and a flair for good old-fashioned storytelling, spinning subplots involving Kira and other supporting characters to create a beautifully realized tale of a teen’s search for her place in the world.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with What I Carry author Jennifer Longo.

Izzy Crawford, the 16-year-old narrator of Maria Padian’s How to Build a Heart, is on journey similar to Muir’s. Izzy’s father, a Marine, died in Iraq when she was 10. With her mother, Rita, and little brother, Jack, Izzy has bounced from town to town over the years.

Now settled in Clayton, Virginia, in the Meadowbrook Gardens Mobile Home Park, the Crawfords are struggling to make ends meet. Izzy, a junior at the girls-only St. Veronica Catholic School, is ashamed of her home situation and keeps the details of her family life a secret. But an unexpected friendship with wealthy Aubrey Shackelton, whose brother, Sam, is the heartthrob of Clayton County High School, opens up new possibilities for Izzy. And when Sam shows an interest in her, she’s suddenly in “Crush Hell.”

Izzy maintains her precarious social facade until the Crawfords are chosen to build their very own house through Habitat for Humanity. The selection will be announced to the public and will invariably blow her cover. Afraid she’s about to become the “poverty poster child of Clayton, Virginia,” Izzy is forced to make important decisions about herself and her future.

As the story unfolds, so do the many layers Padian has built into the novel. Izzy’s father was Methodist and Southern, while her mother is Puerto Rican and Catholic; these differences have caused friction in their extended family. Readers are bound to see a bit of themselves in Izzy as she copes with the conflicting sides of her background, along with social pressures and delicate new friendships.

How to Build a Heart is a sensitively rendered story, but it’s also a fun read, brisk and engaging. There are mean girls who get their comeuppance, text-message mix-ups and, yes, the thrill of first love. Like What I Carry, Padian’s book demonstrates the importance of home as a source of support and identity for teens. Both novels illustrate that while family configurations may shift, the need for a home remains a constant. There really is no place like it.