Summer is upon us! Which means a slew of great new books are already on their way. Ready or not, your to-read lists are about to take a hit because these 15 YA books to add to your summer TBR are as intriguing as they are lovely. Perfect for beachy bookstagrams and shelfies alike! Murder mysteries, coming-of-age stories, imaginative fantasies, and video game convention adventures–it’s all here, and it’s all sure to keep you busy reading this summer.
The Haunted by Danielle Vega
(June 4, 2019 by Razorbill)
This paranormal novel about family secrets follows Hendricks Becker-O’Malley, the new girl in town who arrived with plenty of baggage. At least small town life seems like it will be nothing but boring. That is, until she finds out that her family’s new fixer upper has a notorious reputation for being haunted. As increasingly terrifying events plague the family, Hendricks teams up with the boy next door to try to take down the ghosts in her new house before they become the death of her.
The Grief Keeper
by Alexandra Villasante (June 11, 2019 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers )
Marisol has always dreamed of life in the US. But when she pictured it, it was always like the characters on her favorite TV show, not like this. Not fleeing El Salvador under threat of death and slipping across the border as “an illegal.” And it’s all Marisol’s fault. If she’d never fallen for Liliana, if her brother hadn’t been murdered, if they hadn’t been caught crossing the border, if, if, if. But ifs won’t change the fact that their appeal for asylum will never be accepted now. A risky new opportunity may allow Marisol and her younger sister to stay… if she’s willing to become a grief keeper, to take another person’s grief into her body to save their life. But what if the most surprising outcome is love? A love so powerful it may even help her to finally face her own crippling grief.
Screen Queens by Lori Goldstein (June 11, 2019 by Razorbill)
For teens hoping to make it big in the world of Silicon Valley startups, ValleyStart competition is the opportunity of a lifetime. And for Lucy Katz, Maddie Li, and Delia Meyer it’s also a chance to be the first all-female team to win…ever. As if that’s not enough pressure, add in some first love, an ex-boyfriend, and a two-faced mentor. Described as The Bold Type meets The Social Network– not to mention loads of girls in STEM–this is exactly the kind of book I love seeing more of.
All of Us with Wings
by Michelle Ruiz Keil (June 18, 2019 by Soho Press)
Xochi is on the run from a painful past when she finds herself accepting a position as the governess for Pallas, the precocious twelve-year-old daughter of rockstar legends. But on the Vernal Equinox, Xochi and Pallas accidentally summon a pair of creatures determined to avenge the wrongs of Xochi’s past. Xochi wants to live in the present, enjoying the wonderful new life she’s worked so hard for, but with these avenging creatures on the loose no one in Xochi’s life is truly safe.
Wicked Fox by Kat Cho (June 25, 2019 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)
Gu Miyoung isn’t just your average seventeen year old girl– she’s a gumiho, a nine-tailed fox who devours the energy of men to survive. Modern day Seoul is full of evil men no one will miss, making it the perfect place to live. But when Miyoung saves a human boy from a goblin attack one night, she loses her fox bead–her gumiho soul–for her trouble. Despite their obvious–and dangerous–differences, Miyoung and Jihoon become friends. But a shaman with a way to track down Miyoung’s fox bead forces her to choose between her new friend and her own immortality.
THE BEST LIES by Sarah Lyu (July 2, 2019 by Simon Pulse)
Remy Tsai thought she knew everything about Jack and Elise–her boyfriend and her best friend. But now Jack is dead, shot through the chest. And Elise is the one who did it. Told in alternating timelines, The Best Lies follows Remy’s attempts to untangle what she knows and what she thought she knew about the two most important people in her life.
We Walked the Sky
by Lisa Fiedler (July 2, 2019 by Razorbill)
The multigenerational story of two teenagers in the circus. In 1965, Victoria joins the circus. Fleeing from an unstable home, she hopes to find a better life among the lion tamers and dreamers. Fifty years later, her granddaughter is a talented tightrope walker, but when her mother accepts a job in Florida just months after her grandmother’s death she’s forced all her dreams of becoming a circus legend behind. As she struggles to acclimate to her new life at a regular high school, she discovers a collection of old notes from her grandmother with tips and tricks to survive her new life in the circus. Maybe with Victoria’s help, Callie can survive life outside the circus after all.
Me Myself & Him by Chris Tebbetts (July 9, 2019 by Delacorte Press)
One moment can change your life forever. When Chris Schweitzer is found passed out after taking a hit of whippets he’s shipped off to stay with his jerky physicist of a father to prove he can get in line before his dad will pay for college. But in a different timeline, where Chris’s parents remain blissfully unaware of the incident, he finds himself becoming the (gay) third wheel when his two (straight) best friends start to get closer. To make matters worse, the truth about the whippets incident is starting to unravel, making Chris wonder if he can be jealous of an alternate version of himself that doesn’t even exist… or does it?
Wilder Girls
by Rory Power (July 9, 2019 by Delacorte Press)
The Raxter School for Girls is under quarantine. It has been for eighteen months. Girls who should have graduated have died and the ones that are left, the ones who have survived the Tox, have gone odd–grown second spines or blistered all over. Surviving is hard enough when you’re cut off from everyone and trying to survive a strange plague, but when one of Hetty’s best friends goes missing, she’ll do anything and everything to get her back–even if it means learning more dark and dangerous truths about the Tox and the people supposedly searching for a cure.
All the Bad Apples by Moïra Fowley-Doyle (August 1, 2019 by Penguin)
When Deena’s wild sister Mandy disappears, the family is devastated. Only Mandy isn’t missing. A series of strange letters from her supposedly missing sister reveal that Mandy has gone out to find the source of the curse she believes is haunting their family–and now Deena has to go after her. Is their family’s past really that rotten? And will uncovering it break the curse or just bring on even more heartache?
Hello Girls
by Brittany Cavallaro and Emily Henry (August 6, 2019 by Katherine Tegen Books)
Winona Olsen and Lucille Pryce have a friendship forged by the most harrowing of circumstances. They met outside a police station, deciding whether to turn their own families in. For Winona, it’s a seemingly perfect abusive father. For Lucille, it’s her mother and drug-dealing brother. But maybe they don’t have to wait for someone else to rescue them. Maybe all they need is three grand–fast–and a stolen convertible to get them out of Michigan and their broken homes for good.
Let’s Call It a Doomsday
by Katie Henry (August 6, 2019 by Katherine Tegen Books)
Ellis Kimball’s obsesses over thoughts of how the world will end. So when she meets Hannah Mark in her therapists waiting room it seems like fate. Because Hannah doesn’t just wonder how the world might end–she knows. But as Ellis worries about the mess of her own life and tries to help Hannah decipher her premonitions about the end times, it seems to bring up more questions than answers. After all, how are two girls just starting out on their lives supposed to prepare for the end of the world?
The Downstairs Girl
by Stacey Lee (August 13, 2019 by Putnam)
By day, Jo Kuan works as a lady’s maid for one of the wealthiest families in Atlanta. By night, she pens a popular advice column under the heading of “Dear Miss Sweetie.” When the column for proper Southern ladies takes off, Jo tries to use some of that power to push back against some of society’s problems. But her audience isn’t interested in her ideas about gender and race. And when they start pushing to discover the face behind the column, Jo decides it’s time to start looking into her own past, and the parents who abandoned her as a baby. But is this downstairs girl really ready to step out of the shadows?
Fan the Fame
by Anna Priemaza (August 20, 2019 by HarperTeen)
Lainey is toting cameras for her brother, AKA popular YouTuber Codemeister, for the last time. She’s determined to finally set the record straight on what he’s really like off camera– that is, a sexist jerk. Meanwhile, all SamTheBrave wants out of this video game convention is to meet his idol, Codemeister. And when fans start shipping ShadowWillow with Code, she realizes she might be able to use that to her advantage. But the video Lainey is hoping to release to ruin her brother’s reputation puts Sam and Shadow in the crosshairs too, making things even messier than they were to begin with.
The Revolution of Birdie Randolph
by Brandy Colbert (August 20, 2019 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
After Little and Lion and Finding Yvonne, Brandy Colbert is back with a great new YA book. Birdie has always tried to be the perfect daughter–quit soccer, devoted herself to school, and is about to graduate top of her class. Then she falls for Booker. He’s a sweet boy with a troubled past, and there’s no way her parents would approve. And tensions grow at home when her estranged aunt Carlene comes to stay with them–especially as she and Birdie grow closer and she begins to discover long buried secrets about her family. Secrets that could turn her world upside down.
You might also want to check out these YA books to add to your spring TBR, this list of the best books to read this summer, and the best beach reads of 2019.
