New YA Book Releases This Week, March 26, 2025

This one is compared to Jandy Nelson with the feminine anger and rage of SHOUT by Laurie Halse Anderson, so you know I am entirely sold. It’s also written in verse.

The women in Nell’s family have always been gifted — err, rather cursed — with some kind of magic when they turn 15. The magic is cool, but there’s always some kind of not-great side effect. Nell’s mom is a different age every single day, which means Nell often feels like she doesn’t have the mother she needs. Nell’s sister bleeds music and wants nothing more than to get the songs inside of her outside of her.

So when Nell wakes up and sees ladybugs lighting up her piano keys, she thinks she’s okay. But then come the other bugs, each seeming to connect to an emotion she’s feeling. Moths show up when she’s disappointed. Beetles, when she’s feeling judged. And then there are the wasps that arrive at the hint of Nell’s anger.

The only way Nell seems to be able to make the unpleasant creatures disappear is to lock her darker feelings inside. But is it a life if she can’t express what she’s truly feeling?

Ellery West is a magical school on an island off the coast of Washington, and it’s the only place where Faith has ever felt at home. She’s had a busy, unsettled young life. This is her opportunity to fit in and be a normal teenager (as normal as possible for someone at a magic school, obviously).

But then Faith and another student walk into the surrounding forest and only Faith comes back. She’s now been marked with a red stripe, designating Faith an outcast and a danger to others. She can’t attend regular classes anymore because of this, but she also knows that she only needs to get through one more year of school. Flunking out of Ellery West would mean losing her magic and that would be more dangerous than being a social pariah.

Whatever happened in the forest, though, has followed Faith and bad things begin happening at school. Now she needs to work together with fellow red stripe outcasts to uncover the truth to save themselves and the school at large.

Ari is dead, and the investigators on the case called it an accident. Milo, her best friend, refuses to believe that. There are too many suspicious elements, including why she was in the woods the night of the big fire. Milo’s obsession with getting an answer is why he decides to return to Yates Academy for another school year.

Liam has always had it pretty good at Yates. He’s seen as royalty, but when he begins to get anonymous letters stating that he was the reason behind Ari’s death, Liam worries that his good times are about to end. He wants to keep his reputation clean, so Liam asks Milo to help him clear his reputation and help track down what happened to Ari.

Milo’s game until he, too, becomes suspicious of Liam. Liam is hiding something, but what? And what REALLY happened that night in the woods? There are a lot of secrets, and it’s not just Liam holding onto things that need to be said.

You want your dark academia very, very queer? This one’s for you.

Another novel in verse, this is Ogle’s first foray into fiction.

Diego Benevides is a good kid, and he’s working hard to get out of his neighborhood after high school. He’s also extremely trustworthy, which is why his mom lends Diego her car.

Diego’s bestie, Lawson, sells drugs. Diego is working as his driver, and as long as it’s weed, Diego figures he’ll be okay doing this. But it’s not long before Lawson starts dealing more than weed, putting both their lives and futures in jeopardy.