As we prepare to celebrate World Book Day on Thursday, we enlisted the help of children’s bookseller Jem Gooding from Waterstones in Ipswich town centre to create a list of the top 11 books for young adults.
From slasher horror Shakespeare to coming-of-age dramas, here’s a list of 11 lesser-known titles teenage readers will love.
Have we included your favourite?
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks – E. Lockhart
Frankie knows what she wants, Frankie will stop at nothing to get it and Frankie is my kind of hero.
A witty, sharp tongued and sharp edged tale of secret societies, terrifying personal ambition and trying to be the smartest person in the room when the room is the whole world.
A terrific protagonist/antagonist narrator and a fresh new look at social climbing. Smarter than Mean Girls, lighter than Heathers. One for the misfits.
Fangirl – Rainbow Rowell
One of my very favourite love stories. If you want to read a book that is natural, charming and as easy as watching a movie then Fangirl is the answer. A love letter to romance, to siblings, to literature, movies, fiction and fanfiction.
The book equivalent of a much needed water fight on a long summers day. Don’t miss the companion novel Carry On which is it’s own brand of magic.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe – Benjamin Alire Saenz
‘Coming of Age’ is a much used and abused term when talking about books, but when you literally feel yourself change with the characters what else can describe it? ‘Becoming an Age’ I suppose? Becoming an age and surpassing it.
Learning and shaping yourself to what you are and who you love, one poetic word and collision at a time.
The Dream Thieves – Maggie Stiefvater
While technically the second book in the Raven Cycle, I believe this to be one of the all time great YA novels.
Never have I seen such a deftly handled and woven dynamic as this.
The characters are so real they seem to be spilling off the page. Delightfully odd and magically haunting, hilarious and heartbreak. Featuring the best 16-word chapter in any book.
Maresi – Marie Turtschaninoff
“I am no storyteller, I will do my best only to describe what is relevant to my story and leave out everything else.”
Despite this claim, Maresi lays out so much more than a simple tale, it is a mix of myth and feminism with a great and equal helping of hope and darkness. The sequel cannot come fast enough.
Au Revoir Crazy European Chick – Joe Schreiber
Pure, brilliant entertainment.
When your prom date turns out to be a mysterious, car-hijacking, prom night ruining assassin what else can you do but go along for the ride?
One night and one more kill is the mantra of this book, which is darkly funny, high speed and madcap.
Wicked Lovely – Melissa Marr
Real fairytales are dark. We know this. Fairies will offer you forbidden fruit, keep you dancing in their kingdom forever and fairies cannot lie, but that doesn’t make them good. The characters are many and strange, likeable but by turns horrifying.
Morality, like eternity, is a flexible concept for the court inhabitants and the humans who get caught up can hold their own too.
This is an older series that is so established in my mind, with five books and a dozen short accompanying tales, this is a world to get stuck in forever indeed.
As I Descended – Robin Talley
If ‘southern gothic, modern day LGBT retelling of Macbeth’ isn’t enough to hook you then I won’t go on any further....or tempt you with ‘Shakespeare as a slasher horror’.
However if you like your stories familiar yet diverse, writing brutal but tender and your characters to be flawed, awful, in ambitious love and screwing their courage to the sticking place, then this one is for you.
Strange the Dreamer – Laini Taylor
An exciting upcoming title that I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of. This book has everything you could want and a stellar cast of characters.
Among those is a mythic hero with blood on his hands, a young librarian with a singular dream, and a girl every bit as perilous as she is imperilled...
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street – Natasha Pulley
A book club favourite, this is incredible.
Victorian London, Japanese artistry and a magnificent octopus, make sure you check this out.
If I Was Your Girl – Meredith Russo
A fantastic book from Meredith Russo exploring new schools, new relationships and new perspectives through the eyes of Amanda... who used to be Andrew.
To mark World Book Day, the store is inviting all its customers to come dressed as their favourite book characters on Saturday and Sunday, take part in a treasure hunt and put their book knowledge to the test with a special quiz.
On Friday, March 10, author Robert Radcliffe will be in store from 7pm to discuss his new historical thriller Airborne.
Tickets are £3 available in store – for more information on both events visit the store’s website here.
• Is your school taking part in World Book Day on Thursday? Email your photos to us and we include them in our special supplement.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here