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Titles for Teens
Recommended books for high school students
Maximum Reads • Books With Bite • Read Irresponsibly
Morph Your Mind • Get Real • Not Required Reading
Maximum Reads
Twisted
by Laurie Halse Anderson
Senior year of high school begins with Tyler enjoying his tough new reputation and the attentions of a popular girl, but soon his life starts to go bad again.
Deadline
by Chris Crutcher
Given the medical diagnosis of one year to live, eighteen-year-old Ben Wolf decides to keep his illness a secret and to fulfill his greatest fantasies during his senior year of high school.
Blood Brothers
by S. A. Harazin
With his best friend on life-support after taking drugs at a party, seventeen-year-old Clay, a medical technician, recalls their long friendship, future plans, and recent disagreement, and tries to figure out who is responsible for the accidental overdose.
Slam
by Nick Hornby
At the age of fifteen, Sam's girlfriend gets pregnant and Sam's life of skateboarding and daydreaming about Tony Hawk changes drastically.
Yellow Flag
by Robert Lipsyte
After Kyle, an accomplished trumpet player, has to replace his injured brother in the family racecar, he wonders if he’ll have to choose between making music with a brass quintet and making headlines as a NASCAR driver.
Teen, Inc.
by Stefan Petrucha
Fourteen-year-old Jaiden discovers that NECorp, the corporation that has been raising him since it was held responsible for his parents’ death when he was a baby, has been contaminating the local water supply with mercury.
Notes from the Midnight Driver
by Jordan Sonnenblick
After being assigned to perform community service at a nursing home, Alex befriends a cantankerous old man who has some lessons to impart about jazz guitar playing, love, and forgiveness.
Rucker Park Setup
by Paul Volponi
While playing in a crucial basketball game on the court where his best friend was murdered, Mackey tries to come to terms with his part in that murder and decide whether to maintain his silence or tell his friend’s father and the police what happened.
Books With Bite
Eclipse (Twilight series)
by Stephenie Meyer
Bella must choose between her friendship with Jacob, a werewolf, and her relationship with Edward, a vampire.
The Final Warning: A Maximum Ride Novel
by James Patterson
Maximum Ride and the other members of the Flock, a band of genetically modified children who can fly, encounter danger while on a mission to Antarctica to save the world from global warming.
Tantalize
by Cynthia Leitich Smith
The chef is murdered just before the re-opening of her family's vampire-themed restaurant, so Quincie must train the new, mysterious chef while worrying about her best friend, a werewolf in training who is suspected of the murder.
The Secret Hour (Midnighters Trilogy)
by Scott Westerfeld
After moving to Bixby, Oklahoma, Jessica learns that she is one of the Midnighters, people born at the stroke of midnight who can exist in an hour hidden at midnight.
Read Irresponsibly
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie
art by Ellen Forney
Junior, a budding cartoonist, leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
Beige
by Cecil Castellucci
Katy, a quiet French Canadian teenager, reluctantly leaves Montreal to spend time with her estranged father, an aging Los Angeles punk rock legend.
The Luxe
by Anna Godbersen
Despite the strict rules of society and the plans of scheming parents, five teens of different social classes lead dangerously scandalous lives in Manhattan in 1899.
Unwind
by Neal Shusterman
In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives "unwound" and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs and, perhaps, to save their own lives.
Morph Your Mind
Does My Head Look Big in This?
by Randa Abdel-Fattah
Year Eleven at an exclusive prep school in Australia becomes even more difficult for Amal when she decides to wear the hijab, the Muslim head scarf, full-time as a badge of her faith.
Repossessed
by A.M. Jenkins
A fallen angel leaves Hell, enters the body of a seventeen-year-old boy, and tries to experience the full range of human feelings.
The God Box
by Alex Sanchez
Paul, a committed Christian, examines his sexuality and his faith after openly gay Manuel, also a Christian, transfers to his high school.
Parrotfish
by Ellen Wittlinger
A transgendered high school student yearns for acceptance by his classmates and family as he adjusts to his new identity as a male.
Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
by Gabrielle Zevin
After a nasty fall, Naomi has no memory of the last four years, so she begins reassessing her life.
Get Real
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
by Ishmael Beah
At the age of twelve, the author fled attacking rebels in Sierra Leone, and, after wandering the violence-torn land for several months, was recruited by the government army.
Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope
by Jenna Bush
Seventeen-year-old Ana, who lives in Latin America and is HIV positive, wants to protect her daughter and give her a better future.
Infidel
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Hirsi Ali became an outspoken freedom fighter after surviving a treacherous childhood and adolescence as a Muslim in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya.
The Tender Bar: A Memoir
by J. R. Moehringer
As a boy, the author found a diverse collection of father figures at a neighborhood bar and credits them with providing the male role models he craved in the absence of his own father.
Not Required Reading
Before I Die
by Jenny Downham
A terminally ill teenaged girl makes and carries out a list of things to do before she dies.
T Is for Trespass
by Sue Grafton
Private investigator Kinsey Millhone uncovers the true background of a sociopath who has stolen an identity that allows her to work as a caregiver for the elderly.
Book of a Thousand Days
by Shannon Hale
Fifteen-year-old Dashti, sworn to obey her sixteen-year-old mistress, the Lady Saren, shares Saren's years of punishment locked in a tower, then brings her safely to the lands of her true love, where both must hide their true identities as they work as kitchen maids.
First Shot
by Walter Sorrells
David suspects his father murdered his mother when he sees him bury a rifle.