You've waited all year for this and it's finally here: the 2024 Staff Picks Year in Re(ar)view, teen edition!
The death of a beloved mentor, and the need to save and rebuild their fire-damaged Islamic Center, bring former best friends Said and Tiwa back together, rekindling their romantic relationship.
A high school stage manager has to face his complicated feelings about love when he catches himself falling for the same guy as his sister.
As a cupid, Jude's job is to bring couples together. Their new assignment involves a couple of teenagers—except Jude's attraction to a certain human boy keeps getting in the way and threatening their career.
Momo Gardner is the kind of friend who's always ready to lend a helping hand. She's introverted, sensitive, and maybe a little too trusting, but she likes to believe the best in people. PG, on the other hand, is a bit of a lone wolf, despite her reputation for being a flirt and a player. Underneath all that cool mystery, she's actually quick to smile, and when she falls for someone, she falls hard. An unexpected meet-cute brings the two together, kicking off the beginning of an awkward yet endearing courtship. With their drastically different personalities, Momo's overprotective friend, and PG's past coming back to haunt her, Momo and PG's romance is put to the test.
Arthie Casimir, a criminal mastermind, transforms her tearoom into an illegal bloodhouse for vampires, but when her establishment is threatened, she forms an unlikely alliance and assembles a misfit crew to infiltrate vampire society and uncovers a world-threatening conspiracy.
Viola Reyes is annoyed. Her painstakingly crafted tabletop game campaign was shot down, her best friend is suggesting she try being more 'likable,' and her school's star running back, Jack Orsino is the most lackadaisical Student Body President she's ever seen, which makes her job as VP that much harder. Vi's favorite escape from the world is the MMORPG Twelfth Knight, but online spaces aren't exactly kind to girls like her, girls who are extremely competent and have the swagger to prove it. So Vi creates a masculine alter ego, choosing to play as a knight named Cesario to create a safe haven for herself. But when a football injury leads Jack Orsino to the world of Twelfth Knight, Vi is alarmed to discover their online alter egos, Cesario and Duke Orsino, are surprisingly well-matched.
When Mariachi star Rafael Alvarez moves to a new school he anticipates claiming the lead vocalist role but instead faces a rival with a familiar face. Follow Rafael as he navigates family issues, competition, and complicated feelings for his rival.
A queer YA coming-of-age featuring three queer teenage boys in small-town Alabama who set out to get revenge on their ex-boyfriends and end up fighting their school's anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives.
As Jane's mother tours the world to support the family, Jane lives and goes to school in a Victorian mansion with her younger brother and their mendacious father who confines Jane's mother to a system of pneumatic tubes whenever she's at home. For Jane, this all seems normal until she suddenly gains access to the files for a lifetime of security-camera videos...her lifetime.
Emory might be a student at the prestigious Aldryn College for Lunar Magics, but her healing abilities have always been mediocre at best—until a treacherous night in the Dovermere sea caves leaves a group of her classmates dead and her as the only survivor. Now Emory is plagued by strange, impossible powers that no healer should possess. Powers that would ruin her life if the wrong person were to discover them. When her new magic captures a secret society's attention, she finds herself drawn into their world of privilege and power, all while wondering if the truth she's searching for might lead her right back to Dovermere...to face the fate she was never meant to escape.
In an alternate 1991, the authoritarian US government keeps tabs on everybody and everything. It censors which books can be read, what music can be listened to, and which plays can be performed. When her best friend is killed by the authorities and her theater teacher disappears without a trace, Gigi decides to organize her fellow Champaign High School thespians to put on a production of Henry VI. But at what cost?
1930s Los Angeles Chinatown: sisters, May, Gemma, and Peony, suspect foul play in the death of Chinatown star Lulu Wong and take it upon themselves to solve the murder, revealing a conspiracy that threatens their Chinatown neighborhood.
Sadie Wen is perfect on paper: school captain, valedictorian, and a 'pleasure to have in class.' It's not easy, but she has a trick to keep her model-student smile plastered on her face at all times: she channels all her frustrations into her email drafts. She'd never send them of course—she'd rather die than hurt anyone's feelings—but it's a relief to let loose on her power-hungry English teacher or a freeloading classmate taking credit for Sadie's work. And Sadie doesn't have to hold back in her emails because nobody will ever read them... until they're accidentally sent out.
High school senior Magdalena Herrera already has adult responsibilities and a deadly secret hidden in the dark of the basement, one that drains her energy and leaves her bleeding. The return of her childhood friend, Nessa, forces her to face her secrets.
In the Belle Époque city of Severon, Sybil Clarion and Esme Rimbaud, best friends with a secret crush on each other, find themselves drawn into a risky heist proposition from a mysterious Green Faerie named Maeve, who offers them financial security at the risk of endangering their carefully constructed lives.
A gamer girl with a secret identity and an online bestie she's never met IRL—until she unwittingly transfers to his school. It's not long before a romance ensues.
In Prohibition-era Washington, three best friends investigate their beloved headmistress's murder as dark secrets and new feelings start to arise among them.
In the summer of 1995, almost fifteen-year-old Almudena is sent to live with her estranged Spanish-speaking father. Together they renovate a brownstone and build a relationship while Almudena navigates the Latin American side of her heritage for the first time.
Poet Renée Watson looks back at her childhood and urges readers to look forward at their futures with love, understanding, and celebration.
Told from alternating perspectives, seventeen-year-old frenemies Jonah and Dylan pretend to date after a homecoming disaster, but their plan begins to crumble when they unexpectedly start falling for each other.