Today marks the beginning of a new year, and with a new year comes hundreds of new YA books. And before we start talking about them – and oh, we will; our debut author line-up for this year is spectacular – we thought we’d compile a list of what we think are the top 100 YA books to read.
We won’t call it the “best written YA books,” because best written is very subjective as to taste. We won’t call it the “bestselling YA books,” because that would cut out a lot of important texts, and a lot of books by amazing women and amazing authors of color, and we don’t want to do that. We won’t call it “the YA books with the biggest fandoms,” because some of those are objectively more poorly-edited and problematic books despite their popularity.
But we will call this the top 100 YA books – 100 YA books that we think are great and that we think you should read. Just in our opinion, of course. Because there are a lot of lists like that out there, and hey, they were missing a lot of great books – and including a lot of books that, whoops, weren’t YA at all!
This list groups entire series as one listing, or else Harry Potter and The Hunger Games would eat up ten spots. It also only includes titles that have been published before 2016, though there are upcoming titles that are phenomenal.
- the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
- the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
- Monster by Walter Dean Myers
- The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
- Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
- the Grisha series by Leigh Bardugo
- the Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer
- Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley
- Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour
- Liar by Justine Larbalestier
- the Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
- Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
- The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
- the His Dark Materials saga by Philip Pullman
- the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness
- Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
- the Starbound trilogy by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
- the Bloody Jack series by L.A. Meyer
- the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
- the Graceling Realm series by Kristin Cashore
- Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
- More Than This by Patrick Ness
- Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick
- the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series by Laini Taylor
- Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner
- The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth
- Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
- The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider
- Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
- Ask The Passengers by A.S. King
- Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
- the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas
- 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher
- Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst
- Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
- the Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr
- Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown
- Bone Gap by Laura Ruby
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
- The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr
- Shine by Lauren Myracle
- Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
- Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson
- the River of Time series by Lisa T. Bergren
- Blues for Zoey by Robert Paul Weston
- Ash by Malinda Lo
- Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon
- Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
- Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go by Laura Rose Wagner
- The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
- Fifteen by Beverly Clearly
- Deenie by Judy Blume
- the Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter
- The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
- Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
- The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater
- Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
- Cracked Up To Be by Courtney Summers
- Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
- The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow
- How to Love by Katie Cotugno
- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
- Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
- More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
- I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson
- The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
- The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma
- the Abhorsen series by Garth Nix
- the Lynburn Legacy by Sarah Rees Brennan
- All the Rage by Courtney Summers
- It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
- Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy
- To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie by Ellen Conford
- the Theatre Illuminata series by Lisa Mantchev
- the Alanna series by Tamora Pierce
- Orleans by Sherri L. Smith
- What We Left Behind by Robin Talley
- The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen
- She Is Not Invisible by Marcus Sedgwick
- Black Dove, White Raven by Elizabeth Wein
- Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz
- Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt
- The Curse Workers series by Holly Black
- The Lumatere Chronicles series by Melina Marchetta
- The Archived series by Victoria Schwab
- Hold Still by Nina Lacour
- the Rephaim series by Paula Weston
- the P.S. I Still Love You duology by Jenny Han
- the Eon series by Alison Goodman
- Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma
- Mistwood by Leah Cypess
- Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
- the Finishing School series by Gail Carriger
- Forever by Judy Blume
- Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older
- the Metamorphoses series by Sarah McCarry
- Court of Fives by Kate Elliott
What did we forget to include on the list? Sound off in the comments below!