Young Adult Fiction
Books for teens, twenties, and those who are young at heart.
Act cool
McSmith, Tobly, author
2021
Transgender teen and aspiring actor August lands a spot at a prestigious performing arts high school in New York City, but he struggles to move past the life he left behind, with conservative parents who wanted to send him to conversion therapy.
Dark rise
Pacat, C. S., author
2021
"Sixteen-year-old dock boy Will is on the run, pursued by the men who killed his mother. Then an old servant tells him of his destiny to fight beside the Stewards, who have sworn to protect humanity if the Dark King ever returns. Will is thrust into a world of magic, where he starts training for a vital role in the oncoming battle against the Dark"-- Provided by publisher.
Iron widow
Zhao, Xiran Jay, author
2021
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall of China. It doesn't matter that the girls die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the pilot responsible for her sister's death. But when she gets her vengeance, it becomes clear that she is an Iron Widow, a rare kind of female pilot who can sacrifice males to power up Chrysalises instead. To tame her, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest male pilot in Huaxia. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily.
The last legacy : a novel
Young, Adrienne, 1985- author
2021
When a letter from her uncle Henrick summoning her back to Bastian arrives on Bryn Roth's eighteenth birthday, Bryn is eager to prove herself to the family, even as she learns the Roths are still engtangled in the kind of dirty business that got her parents killed years ago.
Tides of mutiny
Rode, Rebecca, 1981- author
2021
A sixteen-year-old girl hiding as a cabin boy must fight for her place in a world that executes female sailors, all while falling for a mysterious stowaway who could destroy everything.
Walking in two worlds
Kinew, Wab, 1981- author
2021
Bugz is caught between two worlds. In the real world, she's a shy and self-conscious Indigenous teen who faces the stresses of teenage angst and life on the Rez. But in the virtual world, her alter ego is not just confident but dominant in a massively multiplayer video game universe. Feng is a teen boy who has been sent from China to live with his aunt, a doctor on the Rez, after his online activity suggests he may be developing extremist sympathies. Meeting each other in real life, as well as in the virtual world, Bugz and Feng immediately relate to each other as outsiders and as avid gamers. And as their connection is strengthened through their virtual adventures, they find that they have much in common in the real world, too: both must decide what to do in the face of temptations and pitfalls, and both must grapple with the impacts of family challenges and community trauma. But betrayal threatens everything Bugz has built in the virtual world, as well as her relationships in the real world, and it will take all her newfound strength to restore her friendship with Feng and reconcile the parallel aspects of her life: the traditional and the mainstream, the east and the west, the real and the virtual.
Walls
Elliott, Laura, 1957- author
2021
In the days before the treacherous overnight raising of the Berlin Wall, teenaged cousins Drew, an American army brat in West Berlin, and Matthias, a young communist in East Berlin, become wary friends on opposite sides of the Cold War. Interspersed throughout the story are captioned photographs from the era.