New YA Books Hitting Shelves This Week: July 15, 2024

Caroline and Kenny were in different worlds in high school and never interacted. But now, they’ve both died and are existing together in a mysterious white room. They can see their loved ones on a television and have their wishes (somewhat) granted—but the question remains of how they got there and why.

As they begin to watch what’s happening on Earth, Caroline and Kenny are not only bonding, but they realize they can impact what’s going on on Earth through radio signals and electromagnetic interference. It’s through this they begin to understand the profound loss their families are experiencing and how the two of them came to be together in this afterlife.

I like afterlife stories like this one—I immediately think of Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin and The Everafter by Amy Huntley. I’ll be picking Grief in the Fourth Dimension up!

Mae’s older sister Inez is missing. It seems like everyone from the police investigators to her parents have given up, resolved to never get closure. But Mae won’t.

In Inez’s art studio, there’s a painting that haunts Mae. That Mae is convinced is related to her sister’s disappearance. Now with the help of a boy claiming to be Inez’s neighbor, Mae is going to get answers. But now the pair have not only begun a quest to find Inez. They may be unlocking a centuries-old mystery, too.

Theater kids taking on a political regime? This sounds not only fun but, unfortunately, quite timely, too.

It’s 1991 and an authoritarian government has put the clamp on anything they don’t like. From books to music, everything is censored.

When Gigi’s high school theater teacher disappears and her best friend is killed by authorities, it’s time to strike back. She’ll be coordinating a production of Henry VI, and the outcome might not be pretty.

Felix has left piano lessons (failed) and competitive ping-pong, and his parents are on his case about finding an extracurricular that’ll look good on his upcoming college applications. He’s decided he’s going to start a film club.

As he prepares to launch the club, Felix meets Cassie Chow. He’s drawn to her for reasons he can’t pin down, but as he gets to know her, he’s especially consoled by the fact she faces similar pressure from her parents about being the perfect student. Felix then invites Cassie to star in the short film he’s making.

But the film shifts from a mockumentary into a serious emotional drama at the urging of Felix’s college admissions coach, and Cassie isn’t so sure she wants to be a star anymore. Now Felix has to decide whether the pressure he’s feeling is worth bowing to or if saving his friendship with Cassie matters more.

This collection has such a killer—excuse that there—roster of authors, including Kalynn Bayron, Lamar Giles, Tiffany D. Jackson, Kendare Blake, and others, and it flips the all-too-common horror trope of the character of color dying first in horror on its head. In this collection, it’s the white character who goes down first. Stories include those of haunted houses (my favorite), killer clowns, cannibals, and more.

I’m currently elbow-deep in Rob Costello’s We Mostly Come Out at Night, a short story collection that came out earlier this year and that explores the idea of what makes a monster through a queer lens, and I’ll be picking up Benton-Walker’s trope-defying collection as soon as I’m done.

Mira and Layla are on a road trip visiting colleges when they find themselves stranded. They get a room at the Wildwood Motel and nothing seems out of the ordinary for room 9. Layla’s actually kind of charmed with its weirdness and thinks it’ll be great for photographs.

Except this is no ordinary hotel room. It’s watching them. And when the girls — who are struggling with their own feelings for one another — learn that eight people have died in the room before, they want to learn what is connecting those deaths with the weird things happening around them.

Will they survive long enough to do that, though?

A Guide to the Dark got a new cover in its paperback edition and I have to say it’s a major upgrade. The previous cover didn’t quite give horror vibes in the same way this one does (the hardcover look also blends in to every other YA cover that’s got an illustration of two people).

Last but not least, do yourself a favor and read through this Printz award winning short story collection. I picked this one up earlier this year and still think about some of the pieces in it.

The premise is simple: these are stories about collections. But the execution of this book is not simple. There are stories about everything here, from actual physical curio collections to collecting experiences and more. The book utilizes some innovative formats, too, including a stellar piece about misery (and white supremacy) from Cory McCarthy set up like a museum exhibit. Other favorites include the short stories by Anna-Marie McLemore (who just shines in short story formats!), David Levithan, Jason Reynolds, and G. Neri. It’s a tight ten stories, and no words are wasted.