No publishing genre is as expansive as young adult fiction. YA catches a lot of often undeserved shade—-for its youthful protagonists, its unabashed embrace of stories about identity and queerness, its cute romances, its behind-the-scenes drama—but there’s no other genre that’s doing as much as young adult is, week in and week out. From contemporary coming-of-age stories and twisty thrillers to complex fantasies and historical tales that wrestle with all too modern problems, almost every kind of fiction is represented under its larger umbrella.
The scope of YA, as a genre, does make it a bit difficult to narrow down what any of us might consider the best titles of the year, though we’re here to give it our absolute best shot.
Here are our picks for the best YA books of 2023.
Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood
The highly anticipated YA debut from bestselling romance queen Ali Hazelwood is a bit of a swerve from her popular STEM romances, but more than lives up to her reputation for charming, feminist fun. A delicious, utterly delightful rivals-to-lovers romp set in the world of competitive chess, Check & Mate is every bit as good as (if not better than, yes, I said it) Hazelwood’s adult romances.
Full of humor, realistic conflicts, and complex family dynamics, this story is as concerned with a young woman figuring out who she wants to become as it is who she falls in love with. Granted, the romance at its center is positively swoon-worthy, but it’s also not the point of the larger story Hazelwood is telling, and this balance is a big part of what makes the book feel like such a breath of fresh air.
Foxglove by Adalyn Grace
Adalyn Grace’s Foxglove is a sequel that has to serve a lot of masters—-the Belladonna follow-up adds a new POV character, tackles a new mystery, plays with new tropes, and even introduces a new immortal to heroine Signa Farrow’s life. That it manages to effortlessly expand the series’ scope and create a world that feels much broader than its predecessor is a welcome surprise as it deftly juggles frequently competing plots and voices.
The introduction of Death’s brother Fate is only one of the big swings Grace takes in Foxglove, a sequel that not only continues Signa’s journey but centers it in a world that’s no longer focused solely on her and her emotional arc. Other characters, new relationships, and different settings are all given a chance to shine, resulting in a fantasy world that feels rich, vibrant, and fully alive. (And don’t worry, shippers—there may be a hot new immortal on the scene, but Signa and Death still get plenty of chances to recommit to their bond with one another.)
Godly Heathens by H.E. Edgmon
The most unhinged—in all the absolute best ways—YA read of the year is H.E. Edgmon’s Godly Heathens, a story of a group of queer, feral, messed up teens in south Georgia who also happen to be interdimensional gods that have been living repeating lives together through the centuries.
Full of morally complex—and often straight-up unlikeable—characters and dark themes, Edgmon’s story is unafraid to let her characters be their ugliest, most selfish selves as they love, betray, and hurt one another. Though the story’s larger plot involves cosmic stakes, the book is at its best when it explores smaller, more personal questions of identity and belonging that span the gap between the characters’ human and divine sides. (The thoughtful, effortless way that Edgmon addresses queerness throughout the novel as her characters experience lives through different eras and on different continents is particularly well done.)
One of Us Is Back by Karen M. McManus
One of Us Is Back concludes Karen M. McManus’s One of Us Is Lying trilogy by tying everything together. Literally. In a unique twist, this final installment combines the characters from the previous two novels as they all try to get on with their lives after the shocking and often deadly events of their early adventures. Alongside multiple shocking revelations—-some of which retroactively impact events we saw in the previous books—stories of self-acceptance, honesty, and generational trauma unfold, each with surprising emotional depths.
So often, popular YA trilogies don’t manage to stick the landing, struggling to figure out how to bring a series’ larger stories to a close or what its ultimate message was. The One of Us Is Lying series successfully eschews that problem by staying true to the messages that have always worked for the series: Secrets always come out. The truth can set you free. And there’s no one you can count on like your friends. It’s been real, Bayview.
Painted Devils by Margaret Owens
Painted Devils is the second installment in Margaret Owen’s Little Thieves trilogy, the story of a scrappy jewel thief and con artist adopted by the gods Fortune and Death who is struggling to figure out where she belongs. The story includes everything from an accidental cult and fake gods to big-picture questions about the nature of family, and how to navigate the physical and emotional intimacies that come along with falling in love.
Much of Painted Devils will feel familiar. There are heists and sidequests and several intricate ancillary legends whose lessons deftly tie back into the novel’s larger story. And Vanja Schmidt remains as entertaining a heroine as ever: Sarcastic, selfish, hard-edged, self-destructive, and frequently rude, she’s no one’s idea of a damsel in distress. Yet, in this sequel, it’s more clear than ever that her rough exterior is both a survival instinct and the product of trauma, and Owen digs deep into her heroine’s mental and emotional healing.
House of Roots and Ruin by Erin A. Craig
The second installment of Erin A. Craig’s Sisters of the Salt series—if you haven’t read her excellent House of Salt and Sorrows please fix your life immediately—House of Roots and Ruin is a standalone tale set twelve years after the events of the first book. The story follows the youngest Thaumas sibling Verity, and aims to explore everything from doomed love to the sinister side of ambition, and the ghosts—both literal and figurative—that haunt us.
Though she still dreams of seeing the world beyond the Salt, Verity is still at Highmoor, living with her older sister Camilla. But when she receives an invitation to paint a portrait for the Duchess of Bloem—wife of a celebrated botanist—family secrets erupt, sending her on the run to the lush and luxurious neighboring province and setting her on a path to discover the darker side of Bloem’s sickly-sweet facade. Dripping with Gothic vibes, dark twists, and a rather scorching central romance, it’s a lavish and enjoyable indulgence.
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
Andrew Joseph White’s debut novel Hell Followed With Us was one of the best young adult novels that hit shelves in 2022, a primal scream of righteous queer fury set amid a dark, dystopian tale of the end of the world. (Not to mention a book that features everything from disturbing body horror and nightmarish mutant creatures to a devastating man-made plague.) How in the world do you follow that up? With a completely different, yet no less impactful story that explores life, death, what comes afterward, and the people we give ourselves permission to be in between.
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is a very different sort of story than White’s debut, but it is no less visceral, no less righteously furious, and no less delightfully, thoroughly queer. Set in an alternate version of Victorian London, the story follows Silas, a youg trans boy who is marked with the violet colored eyes that mean he has the power to commune with the dead. After attempting to escape an arranged marriage—and a family that refuses to treat him as the boy he is rather than the girl they see—Silas finds himself shipped away to a sanitorium, a place that’s full of dark secrets and angry ghosts desperate for help.
The Blood Years by Elana K. Arnold
Elana K. Arnold’s The Blood Years would have made this particular best-of list even if it wasn’t arriving in an uncomfortable historical moment of rising antisemitism and violence against other marginalized communities, but it certainly makes this harrowing tale of the two sisters in Holocaust-era Romania feel more timely than ever.
Meticulously researched and based on the life of the author’s grandmother, the story follows Frederieke Teitler, who lives in Czernowitz, where 40% of the population is also Jewish. Arnold’s deft blending of small family-focused concerns—an absentee father, a depressed mother, and the grandfather who holds the family together—with the large-scale horrors of loss, assault, death, and deprivation is particularly impressive. This is not always an easy book, but it is undoubtedly an important one.
This Dark Descent by Kalyn Josephson
Kalyn Josephson’s This Dark Descent is one of the latest entries in the popular YA subgenre that’s marked by its obsession with magical competitions, usually of the deadly or dystopian variety. Full of morally gray characters, generational family grudges, feisty heroines, and a swoon-worthy romance, this is a story of less-than-perfect choices, life-or-death stakes, and forbidden magic.
The story follows Mikira, the daughter of a famous horse breeder who’s desperate to save her family farm—and her father’s life after he’s suddenly arrested thanks to a dangerous rival who wants to use his skills. To free him, she’ll have to team up with an unlicensed enchanter to win a dangerous cross-country horse race known as the Illnir which is as famous for its high body count as it is for its life-changing prize money. But what sets the story apart from the young adult fantasy pack is the elements of Jewish folklore and history woven throughout, including golems, dybbuks, and more.
The Third Daughter by Adrienne Tooley
Adrienne Tooley is one of the best YA authors you probably haven’t heard of. Her previous standalone fantasies—Sweet & Bitter Magic, Sophie & the Bone Song—offered refreshing, unexpected perspectives on many of the most familiar tropes of the genre, all centered around compelling central sapphic romances. The Third Daughter marks the start of her first series and is Tooley’s best book yet, a complicated story of faith, power, jealousy, and the weight of duty and expectation.
In the Kingdom of Velle, a prophecy states that Princess Brianne, the third daughter of a third daughter, is supposedly the second coming of the church’s New Maiden, destined to one day rule over the kingdom. Her eldest sister Elodie, struggling with her own emotions about not being allowed to inherit her mother’s throne, has trained to be her regent. Suspicious of the Church’s motives regarding her sister and their control over the younger girl, Elodie decides that the only solution is too put her sister to sleep until she comes of age. (That this choice means Elodie would get a chance to rule in her stead is just one of the emotionally complicating factors of this twist.)
But when she’s accidentally given an undiluted potion by Sabine, an apothecary who uses her magical tears to flavor her brews, young Brianne is cast into a sleep from which it appears she might never awaken, and the girls will have to join forces to find a way to save her—and unravel the centuries-old conspiracy theory they uncover along the way.
Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert
If you—or anyone in your life—are even a casual fan of romance novels, you’ve probably heard of Talia Hibbert, whose bestselling The Brown Sisters trilogy (Get a Life, Chloe Brown, Take a Hint, Dani Brown, and Act Your Age, Eve Brown) has rightly piled up both fans and critical acclaim, thanks to its charming heroines, great dialogue, and effortless sense of fun. It’s not always easy for authors with demonstrated skills in certain genres to transfer them to a different one, but Hibbert manages to bring everything that works in her adult fiction to her first YA effort, grounding the romance in contemporary coming-of-age issues involving family expectations, growing up, and realizing the aspirations you once had for your life might no longer fit the person you’re becoming.
A frankly adorable childhood-best-friends-to-rivals-to-something-more romance, Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute follows the story of two Black British teens whose mysterious years-ago falling out takes center stage once more when the pair both decide to participate in the Breakspeare Enrichment survival course program in the hopes of winning a full-ride university scholarship. As a result, they find themselves repeatedly thrown together in the sort of wild team building, trust, and survival exercises that will not only force them to confront their own failings but discover their own truths. As Celine attempts to force herself out of her socially avoidant comfort zone and Bradley does his best to manage his OCD in a high-stress environment, they figure out not only how much they’re capable of—but how much they still mean to each other. A charming romance bolstered by excellent mental health representation on top.
She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran
It seems, well, almost too on the nose to describe Trang Thanh Tran’s She Is a Haunting as a thoroughly engrossing and, yes, haunting, piece of YA horror, but it’s the sort of book that will stick in your mind long after you’ve finished reading the final page. One part ghost story, one part coming of age tale, and one part exploration of the all too real horrors of French imperialism, the book features increasing threats from monsters both supernatural and human.
The story follows Jade, who goes to visit her estranged father in Vietnam for the summer after he promises to trade the trip for college tuition. The French colonial house he’s renovating has a dark history both literal and figurative, and visiting her family’s homeland is strangely alien for a girl who doesn’t speak the language and is largely unfamiliar with its customs. A Gothic thriller with a very non-Western perspective, the tension rises to nigh on unbearable levels as Jade descends into what often feels like madness and the harsh truths of her homeland’s history.
Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB