2023 Contemporary Fiction for Teens

Told from multiple points of view, Ardith and Hollis Blackwood's lives are upended when their great-grandmother, legendary actress Blossom Blackwood, passes away, and family secrets emerge.

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.

Clark is stuck in a time loop that is endlessly monotonous until he meets Beau, the boy of his dreams.

Effie Galanos' goals for her senior year include her navigating her way through her high school that is not really wheelchair-friendly, getting into the perfect college, and getting her crush Wilder to accompany her to the prom--but by spring she is beginning to see herself entirely differently.

The unlikely friendship between Syrian American boxer Khadija and Syrian refugee Leene reveals the pressures and expectations of the perfect Syrian daughter and the repercussions of the Syrian Revolution both at home and abroad.

Life can change in an instant. When you're wrongfully accused of a crime. When a virus shuts everything down. When the girl you love moves on. Andre Jackson is determined to reclaim his identity. But returning from juvie doesn't feel like coming home. His Portland, Oregon, neighborhood is rapidly gentrifying, and COVID-19 shuts down school before he can return. And Andre's suspicions about his arrest for a crime he didn't commit even taint his friendships....

Intertwining the stories of two Black students decades apart, this compelling and honest novel follows Kevin and Gibran as they navigate similar forms of insidious racism while discovering who they want to be instead of what society tells them they are.

Things have been tough for newly out trans guy Max since his summer romance, Danny, turned into his bully. This year, his plan is to keep his head down and graduate. Things change when new It-girl Gloss becomes interested in an introverted skater kid, but Max blooms in the hothouse of her attention. Caught between romance and obsession, he'll do whatever it takes to keep her on his side: haircuts, makeovers, drugs, parties. When someone gets killed...

"A lifetime of hard work has put Lydia Chass on track to attend a prestigious journalism program and leave Henley behind--until a school error leaves her a credit short of graduating. Bristal Jamison has a bad reputation and a foul mouth, but she also needs one more credit to graduate. An unexpected partnership forms as the two remake Lydia's town history podcast to investigate the Long Stretch of Bad Days--a week when Henley was hit by a tornado,...

Sixteen-year-old Phoenix knows her parents have invested thousands of dollars to help her leave Hong Kong and get an elite Ivy League education. They think America means big status, big dreams, and big bank accounts. But Phoenix doesn't want big; she just wants home. The trouble is, she doesn't know where that is...until the Hong Kong protest movement unfolds, and she learns the city she's come to love is in danger of disappearing. Seventeen-year-old...