Teen Pride Staff Picks

In a dystopian world devastated by The Storm, seventeen-year-old Liz finds refuge in her old bookstore, but when Maeve breaks in seeking shelter from another impending storm, the two confront their secrets and inner demons as they fight for their lives.

Quinn Marcelo wouldn't necessarily win the award for Most Popular Person at her school, but unbeknownst to her peers, Quinn entertains them at every football, basketball, and baseball game--as Peaches the Parrot, her high school's God-like mascot. When someone sabotages the legendary Peaches costume at the Homecoming Game, Quinn's left unmasked and humiliated. After all, Peaches' identity was a closely guarded secret and a point of pride for nearly everyone at Olivia Newton-John High. As if that wasn't enough, Little Peaches, a new, real parrot that the PTA got to enhance the Peaches Experience, is kidnapped right after Quinn's unmasking. Determined to uncover the culprit, Quinn publicly unravels the lives of everyone in her path--including Tessa Banks, the most popular girl in school--in a no-holds-barred conspiracy-fueled investigation. But when a killer starts going after the people implicated in Quinn's mascot disaster, she must race to uncover the truth behind her feathery faux-pas--before the truth kills her, too. 

Basil Eyres and Arabella Oregano are both students of cooking with magic at Porta Bella Magiculinary Academy, and although the two are instantly smitten with each other, Arabella has a secret with the potential to throw Basil's future aspirations into jeopardy.

The aliens are coming for us and they want our voices. New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger brings you a gloriously warm and unique scifi about the power of art, celebrity, and found family. Phex is a barista on a forgotten moon. Which is fine - he likes being ignored and he's good at making drinks. Until one day an alien hears him singing and recruits him to become a god. Now Phex is thrust headfirst into the galaxy's most cutthroat entertainment industry, where music is visible, the price of fame can kill, and the only friends he has want to be worshiped. Welcome to the divinity. Where there is no difference between celebrity and religion, love and belief, acolyte and alien. Where the right kind of obsession can drive a person crazy or turn them divine.

In medieval England, the bickering, bethrothed duo Arthur and Gwen find common ground in their secret romantic interests, leading them to form an unexpected alliance while navigating Camelot's summer festivities.

After coming out as nonbinary, Ben must leave home and goes to live with a sister and her husband to finish the last year of high school.

Wren Martin, the asexual student council president, plans to eliminate the school's annual Valentine's Day Dance, until his rival Leo sabotages Wren's plan by securing a sponsorship from a dating app, which leads to unexpected feelings and realizations about Leo's seemingly perfect life.

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--but 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.

Annie is a smart, antisocial lesbian starting her senior year of high school who's under pressure to join the cheerleader squad to make friends and round out her college applications. Her former friend BeeBee is a people pleaser, a trans girl who must keep her parents happy with her grades and social life to maintain their support of her transition. Through the rigors of squad training and amped up social pressures (not to mention micro-aggressions and other queer youth problems), the two girls rekindle a friendship they thought they'd lost and discover there may be other, sweeter feelings springing up between them.

Nonbinary teen Ander is ready to leave their family's taquería and focus on their art, but when Santi, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, begins to work at the restaurant, the two teens spark a romance made complicated by immigration police.

Ivy Winslow has the house to herself for a week while her parents are away. She's planning to use this newfound freedom to binge-watch her favorite fantasy TV show, H-MAD, and hang out with her best friend Henry. She'll also have to avoid her former best friend-turned-enemy (and neighbor) Mack. But things quickly go awry when Ivy wakes up to find Weston, the gorgeous, very fictional main character of H-MAD, in her bedroom, claiming to be her soul mate. Ivy realizes that her fanfic writing has somehow brought Weston to life as she's imagined him. But it turns out that the tropes she swoons over in her stories are slightly less romantic in reality, and her not-so-fictional crush is causing some real-world problems.

Mickey James III is following in his father's (and grandfather's) skates by playing hockey at Hartland University, but he is not enjoying the situation: for one thing he is seriously depressed, unsure of anything, even whether he can make it as a hockey player (or wants to); more troubling his rival, Jaysen Caulfield, is also on the team and seems to bitterly resent him--and Mickey actually finds Jaysen very attractive and does not know how to deal with that.

Seventeen-year-old Avery Anderson is convinced her senior year is ruined when she's uprooted from her life in DC and forced into the hostile home of her terminally ill grandmother, Mama Letty. The tension between Avery's mom and Mama Letty makes for a frosty arrival and unearths past drama they refuse to talk about. Every time Avery tries to look deeper, she's turned away, leaving her desperate to learn the secrets that split her family in two. While tempers flare in her avoidant family, Avery finds friendship in unexpected places: in Simone Cole, her captivating next-door neighbor, and Jade Oliver, daughter of the town's most prominent family-whose mother's murder remains unsolved. As the three girls grow closer-Avery and Simone's friendship blossoms, the sharp-edged opinions of their small southern town begin to hint at something insidious underneath. The racist history of Bardell, Georgia, is rooted in Avery's family in ways she can't even imagine. With Mama Letty's health dwindling every day, Avery must decide if digging for the truth is worth toppling the delicate relationships she's built in Bardell-or if some things are better left buried.

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 as he navigates family issues, competition, and complicated feelings for his rival.

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.

Follows 17-year-old Will as they struggle with the aftermath of parental abuse and learn to a forge a new life for themself.

Witches and lovers Caro Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle's twisted past comes to light as they are once again thrust into each other's lives and beckoned back to Wonderland, the dark, monster-filled forest where it all began.

2019: Moud is an out gay teen living in Los Angeles with his distant father, Saeed. When Moud gets the news that his grandfather in Iran is dying, he accompanies his dad to Tehran, where the revelation of family secrets will force Moud into a new understanding of his history, his culture, and himself. 1978: Saeed is an engineering student with a promising future ahead of him in Tehran. But when his parents discover his involvement in the country's burgeoning revolution, they send him to safety in America, a country Saeed despises. And even worse--he's forced to live with the American grandmother he never knew existed. 1939: Bobby, the son of a calculating Hollywood stage mother, lands a coveted MGM studio contract. But the fairy-tale world of glamour he's thrust into has a dark side. Set against the backdrop of Tehran and Los Angeles, this tale of intergenerational trauma and love is an ode to the fragile bonds of family, the hidden secrets of history, and all the beautiful moments that make us who we are today.

Sixteen-year-old Mexican American Yami Flores starts Catholic school, determined to keep her brother out of trouble and keep herself closeted, but her priorities shift when Yami discovers that her openly gay classmate Bo is also annoyingly cute.

Two boys, alone in space: sworn enemies sent on the same rescue mission. Ambrose wakes up on the Coordinated Endeavor with no memory of a launch. There's more that doesn't add up: evidence indicates strangers have been on board, the ship's operating system is voiced by his mother, and his handsome, brooding shipmate has barricaded himself away. But nothing will stop Ambrose from making his mission succeed--not when he's rescuing his own sister. In order to survive the ship's secrets, Ambrose and Kodiak will need to work together and learn to trust each other-- especially once they discover what they are truly up against. Love might be the only way to survive.

In a world where some people are born with powers and some people take them, brothers Emil and Brighton Rey get swept up in a supernatural turf war generations in the making.

Teenager Boo has pink hair and a very vivid imagination that she has trouble separating from the real world. In her daydreams, she dances beautifully at balls or fights monsters as a magical girl. In reality, she has a complicated home life, work stress, school stress, and a wicked crush on the girl of her dreams. When a new student, Mimi, arrives at school, Boo starts exploring a side of herself that she never considered before. As she grows closer with Mimi, it may finally be time for Boo to face reality ... Who is the real Mimi? The one in her dreams? Or the one in real life?

Yadriel, a trans boy, summons the angry spirit of his high school's bad boy, and agrees to help him learn how he died, thereby proving himself a brujo, not a bruja, to his conservative family.

It's 1930s Mississippi. Magic is permitted only in certain circumstances and by certain people. Unsanctioned broom racing is banned. But for those who need the money, or the thrills...it's there to be found. Meet Billie Mae, captain of the Night Storms racing team, and Loretta, her best friend and second-in-command. They're determined to make enough money to move out west to a state that allows Black folks to legally use magic and take part in national races. Cheng-Kwan - doing her best to handle the delicate and dangerous double act of being the perfect "son" to her parents, and being true to herself while racing. Mattie and Emma -- Choctaw and Black -- are the youngest of the group and are trying to dodge government officials who want to send them and their newly surfaced powers away to boarding school. And Luella, in love with Billie Mae. Her powers were sealed away years ago after she fought back against the government. She'll do anything to prevent the same fate for her cousins. Brooms is a queer, witchy Fast and the Furious that shines light on history not often told - it's everything you'd ever want to read in a graphic novel.

After being nearly beaten to death for evidence he holds against the corrupt sheriff, sixteen-year-old transgender Miles joins his fellow townsfolk to end the blood feud and oppressive politics that plague his town.