Kate and Andy have always loved having crushes on the same boys. After all, what could be more fun than spending time with your best friend dissecting every glance, word and text message for hidden signs of reciprocation from the object of your mutual affection? But when their summer theater camp crush, Matt, shows up at their school on the first day of junior year, their lighthearted attraction to him suddenly becomes a little too real. As Kate navigates her feelings for Matt—not to mention the stress of the fall musical—she wonders if her friendship with Andy can withstand first love.

Though Kate’s and Andy’s competing crushes on Matt take center stage for much of the book, Kate in Waiting celebrates love in all its forms, including friendship, family, unrequited attractions and new romances. Kate’s BFF-ship with Andy is fierce, flawed and extremely relatable, as is her sibling dynamic with her older brother, Ryan, and her budding flirtation with Ryan’s best friend, Noah.

Becky Albertalli creates a colorful, true-to-life cast of supporting characters, from “the squad” of Kate’s theater friends to their jock antagonists, “the f-boys.” Although these tropes can be found in any teen movie, Albertalli makes them entirely her own, transforming theater kids and jocks alike into fully developed characters who blur the lines between their cliques.

Fans of Albertalli’s Creekwood novels (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, et al.) will feel right at home with Kate in Waiting, which encapsulates all the joys and anxieties of the high school experience, with special attention paid to the strange and wonderful electricity of the theater. The result will make both loyal Albertalli fans and newcomers alike give Kate in Waiting a standing ovation.

Rika Rakuyama loves Little Tokyo, from its ramen shops and beautiful old trees to the neon signs that cast “a wild rainbow glow” upon the street. Her appreciation for her Los Angeles neighborhood, which is marvelously rendered in Sarah Kuhn’s From Little Tokyo, With Love, is deep and abiding—even though Rika often feels unwelcome there.

Community elders critique her hair (reddish and wavy), her face (freckled) and her parentage (her dad wasn’t Japanese). A classmate sneeringly calls her “half-breed,” while neighbors say she’s a “mistake” because her mother had her at 15 before dying in childbirth. Judo training helps Rika channel her understandable anger, and she’s looking forward to participating in a martial arts demonstration at the Nikkei Week festival. Her enthusiasm for fighting earns eye rolls from her cousins: Belle, the reigning Nikkei Week Queen, and Aurora, a junior princess. Though her cousins are enchanted by fairy tales, Rika is certain that happy endings aren’t real.

Everything changes in a chaotic moment when the parade’s grand marshal, a movie star named Grace Kimura, locks eyes with Rika during the festivities, leaps out of her parade vehicle, runs toward the convertible Rika’s driving, whispers Rika’s name and then disappears into the crowd. In the aftermath, Rika discovers a photo of young Grace that points to a shocking secret. Grace’s co-star Henry offers to help track Grace down, and together he and Rika embark on an epic and entertaining quest across LA, falling for each other along the way. Could Rika have her own happy ending after all?

The concept of fairy tales swirls through Kuhn’s novel like a refrain. Initially, it’s a taunt other characters aim at Rika, a reminder of everything she can’t have, but it becomes a quiet song of possibility that underlies her journey to self-acceptance. Her emotional maturation is realistic and moving, while her forays into romance are charming and often funny. (Henry’s biceps are apparently quite distracting.)

From Little Tokyo, With Love is a hopeful testament to all we can gain by opening ourselves to people outside our immediate circle. We can find kindred spirits, learn to stand up for ourselves and create our own fairy tales—no princesses required.

Stacey Lee has earned critical acclaim and a loyal readership for intricately plotted fiction featuring Chinese characters amid memorable historical settings, including Under a Painted Sky and The Downstairs Girl. Her new book, Luck of the Titanic, was prompted by a little-known fact: Of the eight Chinese passengers aboard the Titanic, six survived, but they were deported within 24 hours of arriving in the United States.

The novel opens with a mesmerizing action scene as Valora Luck, a trained acrobat, catapults her way on board the doomed ship. Although she has a valid first-class ticket, an officer has refused to let her board, claiming she lacks proper documentation and won’t be allowed to disembark in America due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. But Valora is determined to join her twin brother, Jamie, who has already boarded in third class for the first leg of a journey to Cuba. They haven’t seen each other for two years, and Valora has a scheme to reunite them: She wants to convince a circus executive who’s also on board to hire them both as acrobats for the Ringling Brothers.

Lee’s characters often adapt disguises, and Valora alternately poses as a male laborer alongside Jamie below decks and as a fashionable first-class widow who turns heads with her confidence and style. As Valora navigates the highly class-conscious world of the ship, readers witness the stark discrepancies between rich and poor, as well as some of the racist behavior of its passengers. “The English love all things Chinese—silk, tea, plates—just not if it comes with a beating heart,” Valora observes.

The narrative builds slowly toward the looming, inevitable tragedy. In a moment of overt dramatic irony, a well-heeled character remarks, “Imagine being afraid on such a magnificent vessel as the Titanic.” Once the ship strikes the iceberg, Lee unspools one heartbreaking scene after another as Valora, Jamie and their friends struggle to find each other and reach safety. 

From the start, readers are aware that two of the book’s Chinese characters will die. When one succumbs early in the disaster, the remainder of the novel becomes a superbly choreographed guessing game of who the second victim will be. Despite the hardships its characters encounter, Luck of the Titanic is anchored by its energetic and empowered heroine. This novel is an admirable and engaging addition to the annals of fictional Titanic lore. 

Over the course of her nine YA novels, including Michael L. Printz Honor book Please Ignore Vera Dietz and Printz Medal winner Dig., A.S. King has earned a reputation for writing books that are consistently smart and timely. She is unafraid to challenge readers with ambitious prose and structure or to confront them with frank treatments of weighty themes including race, sexuality and mental health. Switch continues this work. 

In Truda Becker’s world, time has stopped. It’s been June 23, 2020, for nine months, more or less. An online program called N3WCLOCK has stepped in to fill the void, informing everyone from airline pilots to high school students what time it would be, had time continued to function properly. At school, Tru and her classmates participate in an initiative called Solution Time, pooling their resources and creativity to either solve the time problem or sufficiently distract themselves so they stop caring about it altogether. 

Tru’s attempts to solve the problem are complicated by a couple of issues. At home, her father has begun building a series of nested plywood boxes around a mysterious light switch at the center of their house. As the novel progresses, the house begins to turn on its axis, Tru and her family members separated into boxes within it, casualties of this inscrutable DIY project. 

Tru has also recently discovered that she’s a javelin-throwing prodigy. The media has begun to report on people with special abilities, so-called Anomalies who can solve impossible math problems, heal injuries with a mere touch or even fly. As Tru navigates both the situation at her house and her newfound athletic fame, she wonders how all these strange circumstances could be connected—and whether she can break open the boxes that are keeping people apart from one another.

At first, the story’s intriguingly abstract world is so surreal as to be disorienting, as is Tru’s fragmented narration, her scattered thoughts punctuated only by forward slashes (like / so). broken apart by slashes (/) between them. Readers would do well to relax and settle into the novel’s bizarre, provocative premise and follow King where she wants to lead them. As Switch explores the spectrum between isolation and connection, it becomes an unsettling but emotionally resonant novel for our own unsettling times.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: A.S. King reveals how an invitation to speak at a library led to the genesis of Switch.

What are you willing to look past in order to be happy?

Rani Kelkar just wants to take beautiful photographs, become a pediatrician and not disappoint her conservative Indian parents. That means focusing on school and applying to Chicago-area colleges—and absolutely no boys. But when she meets Oliver, a talented artist with tattoos, piercings and a rebel attitude, Rani quickly falls for him. However, it soon becomes clear that Oliver doesn’t understand or respect Rani’s Indian culture. What’s more, she’s lying to her parents, and her relationship with her best friend is straining under the weight of Rani and Oliver’s secret. It soon becomes clear that Rani must choose between her first love and herself.

American Betiya fearlessly portrays Rani’s struggle between honoring her Indian heritage and attempting to fit in with her peers. Debut author Anuradha D. Rajurkar evokes a sense of deep discomfort through Oliver’s behavior; every time he calls Rani “Princess Jasmine,” the words lie uneasily on the page. When Rani travels to India, Rajurkar depicts the beauty of the country and its people with self-assurance while still holding space for Rani’s changing beliefs about her culture, never taking her personal growth for granted.

The book’s laser-focused prose will resonate with any teen reader who has been harassed for their brown skin, struggled with first love or borne the pressure of family expectations. Rajurkar’s depiction of a young woman who attempts to shrink herself in order to satisfy the desires of others before recognizing her own inner strength is impossible to read without tightness in your chest and your heart in your throat.

In We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire, Joy McCullough (Blood, Water, Paint) portrays the inner workings of a young woman whose anger ignites like a gallon of gasoline touched by a lit match.

Em Morales is the youngest sister in a close-knit family. As the book opens, she is preoccupied by her older sister’s court case. Nor, a college student, was sexually assaulted outside of a frat party and is pursuing justice through the legal system. The jury finds Nor’s attacker guilty, but a sympathetic judge sentences him to time served. Outside the courthouse, a furious Em goes viral for commenting that the sentence makes her want to learn to use a sword. In fact, violent revenge is the subject of the book’s parallel narrative, a series of poems written by Em about Marguerite de Bressieux, a 15th-century noblewoman who hunted rapists. 

We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire explores how one person’s traumatic experience can ripple through an entire family and depicts how trauma can affect every person differently. Nor wants to put the horror of the past behind her and rebuild her life, but Em is consumed by her anger. Though the book features many strong and unapologetically feminist characters, the extent to which Em’s own feelings are foregrounded is sometimes uncomfortable, given the other characters in the book who have personally experienced sexual violence. Nonetheless, We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire is an unusual novel that readers drawn to complex, imperfect protagonists will appreciate.

Award-winning science fiction author Charlie Jane Anders’ highly anticipated first YA novel, Victories Greater Than Death, invites readers aboard the starship Indomitable for a colorful tour of a delightfully strange universe.

Tina might look like a normal human, but she’s actually the clone of a legendary alien war hero, Captain Thaoh Argentian, hidden on Earth until she’s old enough to join the war between the peacekeeping Royal Fleet and their genocide-minded enemies who call themselves the Compassion. One day, the Fleet will return and unlock all of Captain Argentian’s memories, which are hidden deep in Tina’s DNA.

Tina wants nothing more than to step into her big heroic destiny, but when the Fleet does finally arrive, she finds herself falling short of the life she imagined. Argentian’s knowledge was passed on to Tina but not her memories, leaving Tina a walking encyclopedia of alien trivia with none of the experience to make it useful. She might be able to name every species on the Indomitable’s bridge, but that doesn’t mean she can lead them. Tina’s strained relationship to her past life makes her a compelling protagonist, especially when the lines between “doing what’s right” and “doing what Argentian would do” conflict. 

Tina is accompanied on her adventure by her best friend, Rachel, and a squad of Earthling Fleet recruits from across the globe. They represent an admirably diverse cross section of interests, cultures and queer identities, and their friendships and escapades form the book’s lively core. Together, the Earthlings experience the universe at its most ridiculous, as when they see Beyoncé on a billboard in an interstellar marketplace or they travel to a world dubbed “Best Planet Ever” in an attempt to increase tourism. But they must also face the universe at its most cruel, as the Compassion’s leader wipes out entire planetary populations in pursuit of his own twisted goals. 

Readers who enjoy a humorous, relaxed approach to science fiction will find much to enjoy here, as Anders’ tone lands squarely between Star Trek and “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.” The Indomitable’s crew are endlessly charming as they meet each new cosmic challenge with courage.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Charlie Jane Anders reveals which authors inspired her to write her newest book for teens.

Nami Miyamoto is living her dream: She is headed to college in the fall, she loves her supportive family, and she just confessed her feelings to her longtime crush—and learned that he feels the same way. It seems like everything is falling into place. Then, on her way to a graduation party, Nami is unexpectedly and brutally murdered. 

But that’s only the beginning of Nami’s story. Her consciousness is revived in Infinity, an afterlife ruled by an artificial intelligence assistant from Earth named Ophelia. (Think Siri or Alexa, but much more vengeful.) Determined to stop Ophelia’s plans to destroy humanity, Nami joins the rebellion. In the midst of their struggle, she must come to terms with what it really means to be alive. 

It’s not surprising that a book set in an afterlife would grapple with weighty, philosophical themes, but the cerebral tone of The Infinity Courts sets it apart from its YA genre fiction peers. Ethereal and thoughtful, this story is as much about emotion as it is action. Nami is motivated by her feelings, which makes her a stubborn, sometimes reluctant hero. When she first arrives in Infinity, she must wrestle with grief, loss and forgiveness, all from the other side of her own death. Her participation in the rebellion is shaped by her ever-evolving beliefs about what defines good and evil during a war and who deserves to be saved. 

Though Nami’s fellow rebels are outwardly committed to freedom, author Akemi Dawn Bowman (Summer Bird Blue) also establishes the internal desires that drive each of them. For example, Theo sympathizes with the humans Ophelia has captured, while Ahmet wants to retain as much of his humanity as he can. The narrative raises age-old questions about the individual versus the community but proposes a range of answers rather than one definitive solution. The shifting beliefs of Nami and the other rebels propel the plot forward while impressively reflecting the mutable, unpredictable nature of humanity.

Best known for realistic fiction, including her Morris Award finalist debut novel, Starfish, Bowman combines the psychological with the heart-pounding in her powerful leap into science fiction. Featuring an imaginative world, a terrifying villain and a complex heroine, The Infinity Courts is a mesmerizing series opener that’s sure to lead to a thrilling, expectation-shattering sequel.

Alex Rufus is cursed. Everything he touches gives him a glimpse of the future, but he never knows when what he envisions will manifest. He knows, for example, that the ice cream shop he works at is going to be sold and that his girlfriend is going to break up with him—he just doesn’t know when. Worst of all, Alex knows that his little brother, Isaiah, is going to die, but without knowing when, he can’t try to prevent it from happening. 

When Alex makes a critical discovery about the source of his visions, he attempts to find a cure to get rid of them so that he and his brother can fully enjoy what little time Isaiah may have left. But their lives as two Black boys in a wealthy gated community are complicated, and Alex may not be able to protect his brother from every danger.

In The Cost of Knowing, author Brittney Morris (Slay) gives Black boys power in a world that considers them powerless. Though Alex treats his abilities like a burden, they eventually enable both him and Isaiah to reclaim their lives, face their greatest fears and live out their dreams. Indeed, Alex spends much of the book motivated by what he fears, but this is a rational reaction not just to the vision he’s trying to stop from coming to fruition but also to his daily experiences as a Black teen in his mostly white Chicago suburb, where he regularly endures microaggressions from his neighbors. Throughout the novel, Morris frames Alex’s fears as possible for him to overcome, a choice that speaks to the hopes of every Black boy in America—to live without fear and to be seen by everyone as worthy of dignity and respect. 

Emotional and gripping, The Cost of Knowing uses fantastical elements to convey how life-threateningly real the problems that Black boys face in America are—so real, in fact, that even having superpowers isn’t always enough to overcome them.

Seven years ago, Iris Hollow and her two older sisters disappeared from the streets of Edinburgh. They returned, transformed, a month later, with shocking white hair and their beautiful blue eyes now dark. Their parents’ relief quickly turned to suspicion as it became clear the sisters didn’t just look different; they now wielded the ability to force people to do their bidding. 

These days, Iris is finishing up high school while middle sister Vivi tours Europe with her punk rock band and the oldest, Grey, has become a fashion designer and model known for her outlandish, almost grotesque creations. When Grey vanishes without a trace, Iris and Vivi search for her, joined by Grey’s delightful and charming boyfriend, Tyler. But the search soon becomes a race for their lives when they realize they’re being hunted by a dangerous, otherworldly figure.

Australian-born British author Krystal Sutherland blends elements of detective fiction, fairy tales and horror in House of Hollow. Iris’ first-person narration gives the book a gorgeous but often dark feel that’s buoyed by witty banter between Vivi and Tyler, which cuts the tension and provides necessary levity. As the search for Grey grows increasingly frantic and desperate, Sutherland excellently conveys the way Iris and her sisters are bound not just by family ties but also by the trauma they shared when they were younger. 

Readers who enjoy fantasy books with contemporary or urban settings such as Holly Black’s Folk of the Air series or Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood will find much to enjoy here. Sutherland’s lush, gruesome prose, a sinister Scottish woodland setting and the powerful yet destructive role of magic combine for a truly chilling tale. Pick this up before bedtime, if you dare.