20 YA Books You Should Read!

(Cross posted from my Substack newsletter: Reading Through the Chaos.)


This past month I’ve participated in a BookTube event called YA’UGUST where we celebrate reading YA books. As part of that, I posted some videos highlighting a couple of awesome YA book lists.

First up was books that are currently getting a lot of buzz. The ones people are talking about and adding to their TBRs like crazy. And I get it because I want to add them to mine too. So yea, I haven’t read any of these books yet, but I hope to soon!


Have you read any and what did you think? Are they worth the hype?

Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
Release Me by Tahereh Mafi
If Only I Had Told Her by Laura Nowlin
The Escape Game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss
Shadow Reaper by Lynette Noni
The Secret World of Briar Rose by Cindy Pham
Such a Lucky Girl by Wendy Heard
Behind Five Willows by June Hur
The Sun and the Star Maker by Rachel Griffin
I Could Give You the Moon by Ann Liang




To watch the video click here.

Then I created this list of some diverse books… books with POC authors or characters. With this list, I have actually read them all and highly recommend.


Have you read any of these? Do you agree with me that they are all great ones?

Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang
All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir
The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi
Gods and Comics by Kat Cho
Love Me Tomorrow by Emiko Jean
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh
Furia by Yamile Saied Méndez
Pride by Ibi Zoboi

To watch the video click here.




Let me know what you think about these lists!