Three years ago, Vanessa Adler's sister Margaret disappeared from the prestigious New York Ballet Academy. Her family was told that Margaret cracked under the high pressure of life as a prima ballerina. But Vanessa, now a freshman at NYBE, doesn't believe that. Although she's the most talented dancer in her class—with a strange ability to fall into a trance-like state when her steps are completely perfect—Vanessa hasn't enrolled at the elite boarding school to study ballet. Instead, she intends to track down the truth about how her sister vanished . . . and where Margaret might be now.

Vanessa immediately makes friends and almost as quickly finds herself drawn to two upperclass boys: the sensual but mysterious Zep and the disturbingly astute Justin. But events take a sinister turn when freshman orientation includes a creepy nighttime ritual, and when Vanessa discovers something distinctly disquieting about a subterranean practice room. When Vanessa is cast in the same lead role her sister was scheduled for just before Margaret's disappearance, she and her friends fear that their time to discover the ballet academy's secrets may be running out. But as they learn more about the school in general—and one unnerving, arrhythmic dance in particular—they find themselves embroiled in a plot beyond anything they could have suspected.

Inspired by the traditions of Gothic horror, Yelena Black's debut novel crackles with spooky imagery and thrilling suspense. Her detailed descriptions of ballet technique, set against the backdrop of autumn in New York City, transport the reader into Vanessa's world. Fans of classical ballet, dark romances and mysteries set at boarding schools won't want to miss Dance of Shadows . . . or its two upcoming sequels.

The young adult genre can be as repetitive as it is inventive, so the popularity of the dystopian YA subgenre guarantees some familiar storylines. It seems unfair, then, to classify Sally Gardner’s new novel, Maggot Moon, as dystopian YA, as it defies comparison to all of its shelfmates. Rather than looking ahead to a bleak future, Gardner imagines what the 1950s would have been like if the Allies had lost World War II. In the Motherland, “impurities” are “rubbed out,” citizens snitch or starve, and sheep have the best chance for survival.

Fifteen-year-old Standish Treadwell is no sheep. He is dyslexic (like the author)—“Can’t read, can’t write, Standish Treadwell isn’t bright”—and therefore an impurity, an easy target both at school and in the Motherland. His dyslexia, however, is more a power than a hindrance. It keeps his eyes up and his ears open, and through his wry, incisive and original voice, he creates a narrative that is not quite linear, resembling instead the colorful mind of a daydreamer.

Standish escapes his circumstances by retreating into his one remaining vestige of independence, his imagination. He and his best friend Hector dream of the free world, “Croca-Colas” and Cadillacs. They build a rocket ship to take them to Juniper, an imagined utopian planet with a name that feels within the realm of possibility, yet is obviously unobtainable. They are not alone in their dreams of reaching the stars, as the Motherland takes strides each day to be the first nation to land a man on the moon.

When Hector and his family are taken away just before the moon launch, Standish finds himself uniquely positioned to risk all and unveil the Motherland’s elaborate ruse to its citizens and the rest of the world. He is the wolf among the sheep.

In Maggot Moon, hope lies in truth. This is a small victory, but an achievable one, especially for a clear-eyed boy driven by friendship.

At just 14 years old, Celia Door has turned Dark. Not goth or emo, but withdrawn into herself, clad in black and focused solely on getting back at the kids who pushed her over the edge. Befriending a cool new guy at school helps to broaden her horizons, but when he gets entangled in her scheme, it looks like she might lose everything. Will The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door be worth it?

Author Karen Finneyfrock works magic on the page here. We get glimpses of the real Celia, an earnest, slightly nerdy poet, and we can see she’s not cut out for vengeance or darkness. Flashbacks to her mistreatment by classmates are unsparing, though, and it’s easy to understand why she wants so badly to even the score. Celia’s parents are divorcing and think her acting out is a response to them, which leaves her even more alone.

New BFF Drake is a delight, just finding his way in the world and looking for order amid the chaos. His reliance on a kooky self-help book to aid in his coming-out process is both hilarious and poignant. When Celia sticks up for Drake and he drops to one knee and proposes friendship, she thinks: “I didn’t say anything at first because I wanted to see how long those words could hang in the air. Best friend. Best friend. Best friend.”

Readers will like Celia and pull for her to learn that being true to herself is the sweetest revenge of all.

I love a good boarding school novel. Kirsten Miller’s Mandel Academy is different—and far more disturbing—than any other fictional boarding school I’ve come across. The main character, Flick, dubs the school “Hogwarts for hustlers,” and the course catalog reads like a series of ugly jokes. “Mining the Masses: Big Profits from Little People” and “Let Them Eat Cake: Exploiting America’s Obesity Epidemic” are just two of the courses at this school that also teaches the fine arts of hacking, blackmail and assassination.

Flick, a skillful pickpocket, is a “legacy kid,” the son of a Mandel alumnus. But Flick enrolls in the academy not because he aspires to be like his dad but because he longs to take him down and expose his secret, murderous history. As Flick rises to the top of the class, he discovers just how sinister the academy is. When his “one good thing,” his girlfriend Joi, winds up at the academy, too, she shows him that there may be another option, one that will keep Flick alive while maintaining his moral integrity, one that will turn Mandel upside down.

In How to Lead a Life of Crime, Miller has created a gruesome school environment, one in which ambition turns bloodthirsty and loyalties are tested. Along the way, she raises significant questions about the origins of evil, the capability of the individual and the distribution of wealth and power. Readers might not want to enroll in the Mandel Academy, but their time spent there will certainly make them think.

“It’s like he came out of nowhere.”

So begins Maria Padian’s engaging novel about the impact a young Somali refugee and his family have on high school senior and avid soccer player Tom Bouchard. Saeed, the new player in Tom’s small Maine town, may not yet be fluent in English, but he is a master of the language of soccer. And thanks to Saeed’s skills, for the first time the school’s team is winning. That is, until Saeed’s eligibility to play for the team is questioned.

As Tom learns, real life is not nearly as clear-cut as the final score of a soccer game. He finds himself negotiating new and unfamiliar territory—not only in his relationships with Saeed and Samira, Saeed’s sister, but with Myla, the progressive, outspoken young college student who volunteers her time with the Somali community. At the same time, Tom is torn by old loyalties, especially to his girlfriend, Charisse, and his troubled best friend, Donnie. But the more he gets to know Saeed, Samira and Myla, the more he finds himself growing apart from his old friends and family members—and their attitudes. 

Negotiating this new cultural landscape is not easy for Tom or his new Somali friends. Maria Padian’s third novel for young adults includes well-drawn characters and a compelling story with sports themes that will be especially appealing to male readers. Most of all, the author is not afraid to show us that there are no easy solutions—and that even simple actions, no matter how well-intentioned, can have serious cultural consequences.

In Homeland, Cory Doctorow’s stand-alone sequel to the award-winning Little Brother, it’s been a few years since Marcus Yallow stood up to the Department of Homeland Security. With unemployed parents (partly because of his DHS run-in) and insurmountable student loans, recent college dropout Marcus is still dating Ange and looking for a job in his San Francisco neighborhood. Just when he scores a webmaster position with a progressive, independent senatorial candidate, he receives a load of incriminating files from former DHS operative Masha, who asks him to make them public if she goes missing.

When Masha is indeed kidnapped, Marcus must sort through the hundreds of thousands of files containing information about government corruption. Releasing the information—without linking it back to himself—is no easy task, as the teen’s perpetual (and justly earned) paranoia against the Department of Homeland Security, the police department and rogue technology thieves drives this high-tech thriller. Once again, smart dialogue gives the story energy as Marcus turns to his old friends from Little Brother to help arrange the information and evade trouble. As tech guru Doctorow returns to issues of privacy rights, he offers up more descriptions of cutting-edge, often underground technology.

The story serves a fine blend of technological expertise for Doctorow’s legions of followers and limited jargon for less tech-savvy readers. Now that Marcus and his pals have matured, they’re also trying to figure out where they stand in their relationships. This can be just as exciting and scary as dodging the DHS. This modern dystopia also rewards readers with a revelation of a disturbing future with a hint of the present—or perhaps a snapshot of the present with a hint of disturbing events that could infiltrate our future. Either way, it’s downright riveting.

Mackenzie Bishop is no stranger to death. In the span of a few years, she’s lost both her beloved grandfather and her younger brother. Now, her family is trying to start over by moving to the Coronado, an old hotel in the city. Not only has Mackenzie been torn from her best friend and her childhood home, but she’s been assigned to the Coronado as her new territory. Mackenzie is a Keeper. In an afterlife where the dead are shelved like books in a library, it is her job to patrol the Narrows, a slip of space between the normal world and the Archive. When the dead, also known as Histories, accidentally awaken, Mackenzie must send them back to the Archive. It’s a dangerous job, as the Histories can become violent, but Mackenzie must prove herself to the Librarians. After all, she’s her grandfather’s legacy.

The Coronado seems to be a hotbed of activity, and Mackenzie thinks it might have something to do with a 60-year-old murder. The Histories are waking up at alarming rates, and she struggles to contain them, even with the help of another handsome Keeper with a penchant for eyeliner and literature. But when a mysterious History wanders into the Narrows, Mackenzie can’t send him back, and a forbidden attraction blooms. If Mackenzie can’t figure out what’s waking the dead, it might be the Archive’s undoing. Some things are best left dead.

Victoria Schwab’s latest novel is a clever reimagining of the afterlife, and Mackenzie is a tough protagonist bearing heavy burdens. As a Keeper, she must lie to her family and friends, essentially isolating her from everyone. It’s a lot to ask of a teenage girl. The Archived is as much about loss as it is about finding oneself.

“Enter here to be and find a friend,” reads the stone entrance arch at the Irving School, a small boarding school in upstate New York. Like friendship itself, this supposedly inspirational saying proves to be much more complicated than perhaps the school’s founders intended. The Tragedy Paper opens with Duncan starting a new school year under that arch; he’s a senior, but he’s more than a little apprehensive about the year to come. There is, of course, the Tragedy Paper, a requirement for every student in Mr. Simon’s senior English class, in which he’ll need to analyze a story—even a true story—for the elements of classical tragedy. And adding to his dread is the memory of the horrible things that happened the year before, when Duncan was a junior.

Duncan would probably rather forget about all of that, but when he discovers that his room was formerly occupied by Tim Macbeth, last year’s senior who was at the center of everything that happened, he knows forgetting is unlikely. And when he discovers that Tim has left him an account of those events, narrated in his own voice, Duncan knows that ignoring the past will be entirely impossible.

LaBan’s debut novel alternates between Tim’s first-person narrative and the third-person account of Duncan’s current senior year. Tim's story—in large part about the forbidden attraction between albino Tim and the most popular girl at school—is more dramatic by nature, and so it’s not surprising that this alternating approach can seem a bit uneven. But the suspense builds throughout, as does the sense of dread, and readers may be inspired to parse both Tim and Duncan’s stories, thinking about those classic elements of tragedy in a new light.

Six months ago, Hannah’s best friend Lillian died, wasted away after a battle with anorexia. Somehow, Lillian never left, and only Hannah can see her skeletal ghost always hovering in the background. It’s all Hannah can do to deal with her friend’s haunting and maintain a happy face for family and friends. But when someone starts killing teenage girls in her neighborhood park, Hannah suddenly has more than one ghost to deal with.

Author Brenna Yovanoff has created a rich, layered novel that perfectly interlaces a love story, a murder mystery and a story of grief. The goosebumps-inducing creepiness of the young girls’ murders and Hannah’s compulsion to solve them is balanced by the giddy excitement of her crush and budding relationship with the local bad boy. Her feelings about Lillian's death, from the guilt she feels for not stopping it to the anger she has toward Lillian for letting it happen, are fresh. It's not a one-sided expression of grief; it’s something she can talk about with the dead girl herself.

The novel’s main problem is its false resolutions. Sometimes an issue seems to be resolved, only for the reader to be dragged back into the conflict a few chapters later. While false starts and red herrings make the mystery aspect of the story more suspenseful, they can be frustrating when applied to Hannah and Lillian's relationship. 

Paper Valentine is both frightening and hopeful, a novel that uses the supernatural to make a common YA storyline seem totally unique.

Molly Horan has her MFA in writing for children and young adults from The New School.

Allie Kim is the near opposite of most 16-year-olds. Living with Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP) means avoiding sunlight is a matter of life or death, so she can only go out at night. As the disease rarely allows the luxury of a long life, Allie feels anything but invincible. She has great friends in Rob and reckless Juliet, both of whom have XP as well. When Juliet turns the group on to Parkour, the YouTube-friendly urban sport, they have a sense of cheating death with every leap or swing, especially since they’re increasing the danger by practicing in the dark. One night they land on an apartment balcony and see what may be a crime in progress. Allie wants to find out the truth, Juliet is oddly silent and Rob is caught in the middle. What We Saw at Night combines exhilaration, fatalism and mystery in a gripping novel.

Author Jacquelyn Mitchard (The Deep End of the Ocean) has turned Rear Window on its ear with this mystery. Allie’s investigation is hampered both by her friend and her inability to accomplish anything during the day. The mystery is grabby and scary, and the Parkour scenes have visual flair on the page, but there are quiet moments that speak volumes as well. When Allie awkwardly calls an old friend to reconnect, she’s watched by the local pizzeria’s alcoholic owner: “Maybe that's why he drank so much: he understood that basic social interaction was sometimes a lot harder than risking your life.” Her mother knows Allie is in a race against time, so she allows her daughter crazy amounts of freedom; instead of feeling liberated, Allie is only reminded of her vulnerability.

What We Saw at Night doesn’t resolve as neatly as one might hope, but in this case that might be a good thing. There's a sequel on the way, and readers will want to reconnect with Allie and her quest for truth and justice.

Seventeen-year-old Chelsea Price is facing yet another boring summer in Massachusetts with her dad when she stumbles upon an old shoebox hidden in the back of a closet. Inside is a letter that changes her life.

Chelsea had always been told that her mother died when she was 3. “Of a brief illness,” her father said. Her discovery casts doubt on everything she knows about the world, for it now seems possible that Catherine Eversole Price, Chelsea’s mother, might still be alive. And Chelsea is determined to find her.

Chelsea’s journey takes her to a forbidding black concrete building at the corner of Houston and Bowery in Manhattan. This is the Underground, the place to hear cutting-edge underground music, a club famous for launching careers. It also has played an integral role in Chelsea’s family history.

Chelsea finds that Catherine’s presence haunts not just the room that once belonged to her, but also the dark, brooding club owner named Hence. Chelsea and the reader are drawn into the past as alternating chapters slowly reveal the passionate love at the heart of Catherine’s life. It is up to Chelsea, with the help of an aspiring young musician named Cooper, to unravel the clues to her mother’s fate.

Author April Lindner, a professor of English, gives readers an original, fresh retelling of Wuthering Heights with Catherine. Teen readers are likely to enjoy Catherine and Hence’s romance so much they’ll be eager to read about Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, those enduring characters that inspired this modern mystery.

Eighteen-year-old Scarlet was happy with her quiet life as an outsider, working on her beloved grandmother’s farm and ignoring the whispers about her eccentricities. But when her grandmother is kidnapped and the police refuse to believe she was taken by force, Scarlet sets out to find her with the help of a handsome stranger called Wolf.

Meanwhile, 16-year-old cyborg Cinder—still reeling from the news that she’s actually Princess Selene, Lunar Queen Levana’s own niece—manages to escape from her prison cell and certain death at the hands of the Queen. Cinder begins to develop her newfound power of mind control while coming to terms with her new identity, and her conflicting feelings about the morality of using her powers of manipulation are well portrayed.

Marissa Meyer has created a rich, unique, yet accessible fantasy world. While the technology of half-machine girls plants the story firmly outside the reader’s reality, the constant presence of portscreens and “comms” seems no different from the ubiquity of present-day smartphones and texts.

Scarlet doesn’t try to recreate the fairy tales it borrows from, but instead takes their most interesting characters and gives them new purposes that expose emotions never revealed in the original tales.

RELATED CONTENT
Read our interview with Marissa Meyer for Scarlet.

Dinah seems much younger than her 15 years. She’s innocent and hopeful, someone who always sees the bright side of any situation. She and her best friend Skint help out at church as part of the “Girls’ Friendly Society” (even though Skint’s a boy) in their small Maine town. But as Skint likes to remind her, a lot of complicated problems—like hunger, poverty, mental illness and abuse—are everywhere, including right in their own backyard.

And Skint should know: His father suffers from early-onset senility, and his mother, desperate to keep her husband out of an institution, is at the end of her rope. Unlike Dinah, Skint is cynical and angry about the world around him, and he often grows frustrated with Dinah’s inability or unwillingness to comprehend the extent of the world’s troubles.

As a long Maine winter takes its toll on the town’s residents, Dinah becomes increasingly aware of the problems that consume Skint. When she must change her own opinion of her best friend, Dinah finds herself feeling unexpectedly unmoored, “like a child whose balloon has come undone from her wrist.”

N. Griffin’s debut novel raises issues (such as religious faith, social responsibility and poverty) not commonly found in young adult fiction. In the end, Griffin encourages readers to consider important questions: Is it possible to see the troubles that surround us without succumbing to despair? And what is left when loving someone is not enough to save them? Simultaneously quirky, funny, thoughtful and sad, The Whole Stupid Way We Are will remain with readers long after its heartbreaking final pages.