New YA Books Out This Week, September 23, 2024

Whew, if you’re looking for a book about resentment—an all-consuming experience that’s not covered a ton in YA—as well as about friendship, this’ll be up your alley.

Molly, her brother Hank, and Hank’s best friend Tray were inseparable, but then a climbing accident left Hank with a traumatic brain injury. Molly knows it wasn’t Tray’s fault, even if he was there when it happened and didn’t try to stop it. Molly also knows it’s not her fault, but she can’t help but feel some responsibility.

As graduation closes in, Molly wants to make good on the trip the three of them had planned before the accident. They were going to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. Now that trip will be just Molly and Tray, with plenty of resentment and anger flaring up from Molly, especially as her parents put Tray in charge of keeping an eye on her.

This very weird, unique little book features a talking cat, and I know for some readers, that’s enough to make it an instant TBR title.

Jasper is working a dead end job as a cashier at Here For You discount mart. There is a portal to hell in aisle nine, part of the realities of life now, where demons may emerge at any minute.

Jasper doesn’t mind the job. He has no friends or family anyway (except that talking cat) and he also has no memories from the before. Plus the job allows him to be close to Kyle Kuan, a monster fighter he has a crush on but who hates him for reasons he cannot remember.

So when Jasper and Kyle realize they’re experiencing the same haunting visions of the end of the world, the two must team up to fight the demons around them and understand what the heck is actually going on. This story hits so many big, meaty issues about resistance and fighting back in a world that feels hopeless in a way that’s also a little, err, funny? Humorous? Bizarre? In other words, it feels fresh.

A queer historical thriller? Yes, yes, and yes.

It’s 1927 in Washington, D.C., and sure, prohibition is in place, but it’s not if you’re wealthy and powerful enough. Gertrude, as well as besties Clara and Milly, are students at Washington Female Seminary, and they’re also not above going out to have a little fun.

So when they sneak out to visit a speakeasy, they aren’t anticipating that they will return to learn the headmistress, Ms. Rose, would be found murdered.

Now the trio are on the hunt to find out who committed the crime. Ms. Rose was one of Gertrude’s mentors and not without plenty of controversy.  

Let’s keep this one short and sweet. This is the third paranormal fantasy anthology of short stories edited by knockout duo Córdova and Parker. This time, they’re going deep into the lore of faeries. The collection features authors like Holly Black, Dhonielle Clayton, Chloe Gong, Ryan La Sala, and more.

Payal Mehta fell head over heels for Jonathan Slate her freshman year and has pined for him since. It’s spring break now of her junior year and she’s finally worked up the courage to talk with him. At a party, she goes to talk with him and he pukes on her. Not once. But twice.

As an apology, he offers to take her out to lunch and Payal is certain this is the start of their forever love. Lunch goes really well, but then Jon asks if Payal has a boyfriend. Her “no” leads to him offering to set her up with his friend who is Indian American.

Flashing red lights all around.

Payal won’t be giving up though. She’s going to enlist her arch-nemesis, Philip Kim, to help her get revenge on Jon for that microaggression by…making him fall in love with her. The plan is working well until Payal starts to catch feelings for Philip.

Jane Vandermaker-Cook is desperate to get her mother back. Living at home with her father means she and her little brother are subject to brutal verbal and emotional abuse and his weird, unhinged rules. Jane’s mom travels the world to make ends meet for the family because she is a rockstar. Literally. But even if things are a little easier for Jane and her brother when mom is home, Jane’s dad confines her mom to a series of pneumatic tubes. The family is also joined by a rat named Brutus, a gardener, and a whole bunch of security cameras.

When Jane gets access to the footage of those cameras, what they reveal is a family that is anything but simply weird or quirky. This discovery, though, is key to helping save her mother—and as a bonus (if that’s even the right word!), there’ll be a punk opera involved in this story because when she’s able to, Jane is in a band and loves making music like her mom.

Throughout the book, there are interludes from Brutus the rat, who can also shapeshift. There are also interstitials written as a play and as a rock concert. This character-driven novel is a big boy at 400 pages and explores the relationships between mothers and daughters, as well as the way girls and women are subjected to the systems of the patriarchy, whether they want to be or not.