Books You May Have Missed 2022: Teen

Since the murder of the maharani of Ashoka--the country that controls all magic--the relationships between the royal siblings have fractured. At only 18, Vira has ascended to the throne, a role few in her council believe her capable of. Meanwhile, her twin brother, Ronak, is plotting to break free from a tactful marriage and taking their half-brother, Kaleb, (wrongfully imprisoned for the maharani's assassination) with him. The siblings' unease comes...

Josslyn Drake knows only three things about magic: it’s rare, illegal, and always deadly. So when she’s caught up in a robbery gone wrong at the Queen’s Gala and infected by a dangerous piece of magic—one that allows her to step into the memories of an infamously evil warlock—she finds herself living her worst nightmare. Joss needs the magic removed before it corrupts her soul and kills her. But in Ironport, the cost of doing magic is death,...

Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry. Jack Currer is a resurrection man who’s just trying to survive in a city where it’s too easy to die. When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr. Beecham’s lectures for being the wrong gender, she realizes that her new acquaintance...

Sunny G's brother left him one thing when he died: His notebook, which Sunny is determined to fill up with a series of rash decisions. Decision number one was a big one: He stopped wearing his turban, cut off his hair, and shaved his beard. He doesn't look like a Sikh anymore. He doesn't look like himself anymore. Even his cosplay doesn't look right without his beard. Sunny debuts his new look at prom, which he's stuck going to alone. He's skipping...

After Amerley is raped by her employer's son she realizes she two choices--stay quiet and keep her job or live her truth and speak up for herself and for justice. Ghana. Eldest of four girls, Amerley is offered a job working for one of her mother's old school friends. She has to accept: her wages will feed her family, help her sisters stay in school, and ensure that her mother won't have to worry about them. Amerley's move to Accra isn't easy, but...

Although he was assigned female at birth, Max is your average trans man trying to get through high school as himself. But on top of classes, crushes, and coming out, Max's life is turned upside down when his mom reveals an eons old family secret: he's descended from a long line of Magical Girls tasked with defending humanity from a dark, ancient evil! With a sassy feline sidekick and loyal gang of friends by his side, can Max take on his destiny,...

"Joan has just learned the truth: her family are monsters, with terrifying, hidden powers. And the cute boy at work isn't just a boy: he's a legendary monster slayer, who will do anything to destroy her family. To save herself and her family, Joan will have to do what she fears most: embrace her own monstrousness. Because in this story ... she is not the hero"--

You should know, right now, that I’m a liar. 
 
They’re usually little lies. Tiny lies. Baby lies. Not so much lies as lie adjacent.
           
But they’re still lies.
Twenty one-year-old Max Monroe has it all: beauty, friends, and a glittering life filled with adventure. With tons of followers on Instagram, her...

As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were secretly separated after the brutal lynching of their parents, who died for loving across the color line. Now, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, Charlie is a young Black organizer in Harlem, while White-passing Magnolia is the heiress to a cotton plantation in rural Georgia. Magnolia knows nothing of her racial heritage, but secrets are hard to keep in a town haunted by the...

Set during the height of the Russian Revolution and told in alternating voices, sixteen-year-old Evgenia--a peasant and proud member of the Bolshevik party--agrees to help a seventeen-year-old bourgeois girl traverse the war-torn countryside in search of safety, but Anna is harboring a secret that could cost them their lives. Includes historical note and author's note.