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Riot Recommendation: What’s the Best Contemporary YA?

Come tell us your favorite contemporary YA novel!

Jamie Canaves

Contributing Editor

Jamie Canavés is the Tailored Book Recommendations coordinator and Unusual Suspects mystery newsletter writer–in case you’re wondering what you do with a Liberal Arts degree. She’s never met a beach she didn’t like, always says yes to dessert, loves ‘80s nostalgia, all forms of entertainment, and can hold a conversation using only gifs. You can definitely talk books with her on Litsy and Goodreads. Depending on social media’s stability maybe also Twitter and Bluesky.

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This Riot Recommendation is sponsored by Penguin Teen.

Turtles All the Way Down is about love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship. But at its heart is Aza Holmes. Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also navigating daily existence within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

 

So many contemporary YA novels come to mind, from Fangirl to The Hate U Give, that choosing a best is hard! From the fun, to the romantic, to the ones with social justice themes we just can’t narrow it down—there are so many excellent choices! So we’re asking you to tell us in the comments below: what’s the best contemporary YA?