Young Adult 2021 Librarian Recommendations

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon – YA F MEN

Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family—and from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board.
Destination Anywhere by Sara Barnard – YA F BAR

After five years at secondary school spent without any friends, Peyton King started sixth form college determined that things would be different. Whatever happens, she will make friends at any cost. When she finds the friends she’s always dreamed of, including an actual boyfriend, she’s happier than she’s ever been. But when they let her down in the worst way, Peyton is left no better off than when she started. With nothing but her sketchpad and a backpack, she buys a one-way ticket and gets on a plane…
Yolk by Mary H. K. Choi – YA F CHO

Jayne Baek is barely getting by. She shuffles through fashion school, saddled with a deadbeat boyfriend, clout-chasing friends, and a wretched eating disorder that she’s not fully ready to confront. But that’s New York City, right? On the other hand, her sister June is dazzlingly rich with a high-flying finance job and a massive apartment. Unlike Jayne, June has never struggled a day in her life until she’s diagnosed with uterine cancer.
Can’t Take That Away by Steven Salvatore – YA F SAL

A debut novel about a genderqueer teen who finds the courage to stand up and speak out for equality when their high school administration discriminates against them.
Wilder Girls by Rory Powers – YA F POW

It’s been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was quarantined. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty’s life out from under her. It started slow. First, the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don’t dare wander outside the school’s fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous.
There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool – YA F POO

For generations, the Seven Prophets guided humanity. Using their visions of the future, they ended wars and united nations―until the day, one hundred years ago, when the Prophets disappeared. All they left behind was one final, secret prophecy, foretelling an Age of Darkness and the birth of a new Prophet who could be the world’s salvation…or the cause of its destruction. As chaos takes hold, five souls are set on a collision course.
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes – YA F BAR

Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why–or even who Tobias Hawthorne is. To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into the sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man’s touch–and his love of puzzles, riddles, and codes.
Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas – YA F THO

If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. He can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad’s in prison with this money. Mav’s got everything under control. Until that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father.
The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould – YA F COU

Something is wrong in Snakebite, Oregon. Teenagers are disappearing, some turning up dead, the weather isn’t typical, and all fingers seem to point to TV’s most famous ghost hunters who have just returned to town.
Maybe We’re Electric by Val Emmich – YA F EMM

Tegan Everly is quiet. She is known around school simply as the girl with the hand. When her mom ambushes Tegan with a truth she can’t face, she flees home in a snowstorm, finding refuge at a forgotten local attraction—the tiny Thomas Edison museum. She’s not alone for long. In walks Mac Durant. Striking, magnetic, a gifted athlete, Mac Durant is the classmate everyone adored. Tegan can’t stand him. Except for the Mac Durant she thinks she knows isn’t the one before her now—this Mac is rattled and asking her for help.
Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim – YA F LIM

Shiori, the only princess of Kiata, has a secret. Forbidden magic runs through her veins. She usually conceals it well, but on the morning of her betrothal ceremony, Shiori loses control.
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson – YA F NEL

At first, Jude and her twin brother Noah are inseparable. Noah draws constantly and falls in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude wears red-red lipstick, cliff-dives, and does all the talking for both of them. Years later, they are barely speaking. Something has happened to change the twins in different yet equally devastating ways…
When Can We Go Back to America?: Voices of Japanese American Incarceration During World War II by Susan H. Kamei – YA 940.5317 KAM

It’s difficult to believe it happened here, in the Land of the Free: After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States government forcibly removed more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific Coast and imprisoned them in desolate detention camps until the end of World War II just because of their race.
The Other Talk: Reckoning With Our White Privilege by Brendan Kiely – YA 305.809 KIE

The Other Talk begins a much-needed conversation for white kids. In an instantly relatable and deeply honest account of his own
life, Brendan Kiely offers young readers a way to understand one’s own white privilege and why allyship is so vital so that we can all start doing our part—today.
The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming – YA 947.083 FLE

Here is the tumultuous, heartrending, true story of the Romanovs—at once an intimate portrait of Russia’s last royal family and a gripping account of its undoing.