By Alex, founder of Highstreett
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Best YA books: six young adult novels across fantasy, mystery, romance and growing up
Start with The Hunger Games if you want a story you cannot put down, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder if you want a mystery to solve, or Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe if you want a love story. Six books follow, grouped by what you want to read rather than ranked, and every one of them came back from a Highstreett book search run for this page. Each was on sale at Foyles when we checked. Last verified 15 October 2026.
Edition and source checks: 15 October 2026.
What Highstreett returned for “the best YA novels for readers aged 13 to 18 and adults who read young adult fiction: standout young adult books across fantasy, romance, thriller and mystery, and contemporary coming-of-age”
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky (1999)
- Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson (1999)
- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz (2012)
- We Were Liars, E. Lockhart (2014)
- The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (2008)
- American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang (2006)
See this result · Run 15 October 2026. One request, without re-prompting.
Editor’s verdict: A good first search: all six are real young adult books, correctly credited and correctly dated, and four of them are on this page. It leaned towards modern classics, with nothing newer than 2014, and towards contemporary stories: it found one dystopian novel and no fantasy at all, though it was asked for fantasy. It dropped the accent from Benjamin Alire Sáenz's name. The Perks of Being a Wallflower and American Born Chinese are not on the page; the honest bit says why. The run started at 12:38 UK time and the result is shown unedited.
How this list was made: it starts from the Highstreett book search results above, run 15 October 2026 and shown as they came back. Alex, founder of Highstreett, chose the final list.
Young adult, or YA, fiction is written mainly for teenagers and is told from a teenager's point of view, but a large share of its readers are adults. This list covers the main kinds of YA: fantasy and adventure, mystery, romance and stories about growing up.
This page was built from two searches on 15 October 2026: one asking for the best YA novels across fantasy, romance, thriller and contemporary fiction, and a second asking for more YA fantasy, romance and mystery from the 2010s and 2020s. Between them they returned eleven different books. We checked each one against a UK edition at Foyles and chose six; the five we left out, and why, are in the honest bit below. Both searches are shown in full at the foot of the page, exactly as they came back.
There is no year in the title on purpose. Highstreett's book search knows the established YA shelf well but not this year's new releases, so this is a list of YA books that have lasted, not of new ones. Each pick has a readability marker.
If you want fantasy and adventure
One from each search: a dystopian survival story that began one of the best-known YA series, and a fantasy heist with a crew of misfits.
1. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (2008)
Dystopian adventure · survival in a televised fight to the death · Readability: easy, mid-length
In a future North America called Panem, the Capitol makes each of its twelve districts send a boy and a girl to fight to the death on live television. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers in place of her younger sister and has to survive both the arena and the show built around it. Differs: the fastest read here and the best known; the killing of children is the premise, though it is not dwelt on. It is the first of a trilogy, and Collins has since added two prequels, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Sunrise on the Reaping.
Edition source: Scholastic paperback, 1 December 2011, 464 pages; £9.99, usually dispatched within one to two days at Foyles on 15 October 2026. ISBN 9781407132082.
2. Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo (2015)
Fantasy · a heist with a crew of outcasts · Readability: moderate, long
In the trading city of Ketterdam, the young criminal Kaz Brekker is offered a fortune to break a captive scientist out of the Ice Court, a military fortress no one has breached, and recruits five outcasts to do it. The story is told in turn by several of the crew, and the romances between them build slowly underneath the heist. Differs: the longest book here, with a large cast and a world of its own; it is set in the same world as Bardugo's Shadow and Bone but stands alone, and it ends on a cliffhanger resolved in Crooked Kingdom. There is plenty of violence.
Edition source: Hachette Children's Group paperback, 2 June 2016, 512 pages, interest age from 12; £9.99, usually dispatched within six days at Foyles on 15 October 2026. ISBN 9781780622286.
If you want a mystery or thriller
A British whodunit and an American psychological thriller. We Were Liars is the one book both searches returned.
3. A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, Holly Jackson (2019)
Mystery · a teenager reopens a closed murder case · Readability: easy, long
For her school project, Pippa Fitz-Amobi reopens the case of Andie Bell, a girl from her small town of Little Kilton who disappeared five years earlier. Everyone believes Andie's boyfriend, Sal Singh, killed her and then himself; Pip does not. The story is told partly through her project log, interview transcripts and notes, so you can work through the clues with her. Differs: the only British book here and the most like a puzzle; it touches on drugs and sexual assault. It is the first of a trilogy, and the BBC adapted it in 2024.
Edition source: HarperCollins paperback, 2 May 2019, 448 pages; £9.99, usually dispatched within three to five days at Foyles on 15 October 2026. ISBN 9781405293181.
4. We Were Liars, E. Lockhart (2014)
Psychological thriller · a family secret and a lost memory · Readability: easy, short
Cadence Sinclair Eastman spends every summer on her rich family's private island off Massachusetts with two of her cousins and a family friend: the four of them are the Liars. After an accident in her fifteenth summer she cannot remember what happened, and two years later she goes back to find out. Differs: the shortest of the thrillers, written in clipped, broken-up prose, and it turns on a twist best met without warning. Lockhart later wrote a prequel, Family of Liars.
Edition source: Hot Key Books paperback, 15 May 2014, 256 pages, interest age from 13; £8.99, usually dispatched within one to two days at Foyles on 15 October 2026 (a 2025 Hot Key paperback, ISBN 9781471418761, was also available). ISBN 9781471403989.
If you want a love story
The first search's romance pick, and the one it described as a love story that drives the self-discovery rather than rewarding it.
5. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Sáenz (2012)
Romance and coming of age · two Mexican American boys in 1980s Texas · Readability: easy, mid-length
In El Paso in 1987, fifteen-year-old Aristotle Mendoza, angry and solitary, with an older brother in prison whom nobody at home will talk about, meets Dante Quintana at the swimming pool. Over two summers their friendship turns into the thing Ari can least admit to himself. Differs: the quietest book here, told almost entirely through conversations with family and each other; it won the Stonewall Book Award and a Printz Honor. It includes a violent homophobic attack. A sequel, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World, followed in 2021.
Edition source: Simon & Schuster paperback, 27 May 2021, 368 pages; £8.99, usually dispatched within three to five days at Foyles on 15 October 2026. ISBN 9781398505247.
If you want a story about growing up
The first search returned two modern classics about a first year of high school after trauma. We chose this one; the honest bit says why.
6. Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson (1999)
Contemporary · a first year of high school after an assault · Readability: easy, short
Melinda Sordino starts high school as an outcast: she called the police to an end-of-summer party, and no one knows why. She has almost stopped speaking. Over one school year, partly through an art project, she works her way towards saying what happened to her that night: she was raped by an older student. Differs: the most serious book here, but written in short, dry and often funny sections; the assault is central to the book but not described graphically. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and is widely taught.
Edition source: Hachette Children's Group paperback, 20 March 2008, 240 pages, interest age from 12; £9.99, usually dispatched within six days at Foyles on 15 October 2026 (a graphic novel version, Speak: The Graphic Novel, was also available). ISBN 9780340950777.
The editions behind these choices
The ISBN beside each book is a UK paperback that Foyles sells, and each source link is that Foyles page, read on 15 October 2026; prices and dispatch times are what those pages showed that day, and they change. All six were orderable. Six of Crows and Speak took up to six days to dispatch, and A Good Girl's Guide to Murder and Aristotle and Dante three to five. Foyles lists A Good Girl's Guide to Murder under HarperCollins; it first appeared in Britain from Electric Monkey.
The honest bit
Every book here came from one of the two searches shown at the foot of the page. We did not add any of our own, so there are gaps you might expect to be filled: nothing here is newer than 2019, only one book is British, and there is no fantasy romance. The second search was asked for books from the 2010s and 2020s and returned only one from the 2020s, which is not a YA book.
Two of the eleven different books the searches returned failed our checks and are not on the page. The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake (2020) is an adult fantasy, published in Britain by Pan Macmillan, not a young adult novel. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness is a genuine YA novel, but the search dated it 2001 when it was first published in 2015, and called it a UK story when it is set in America; we leave out picks the search gets wrong in that way rather than quietly correcting them.
Three more are genuine YA books, correctly dated, and left out only for space. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999) covers much the same ground as Speak, a withdrawn narrator's first year of high school after trauma, so we kept one. Carry On (2015) by Rainbow Rowell is a fantasy romance that grew out of her earlier novel Fangirl. American Born Chinese (2006) by Gene Luen Yang is a graphic novel about growing up Chinese American, and it is the one we would add first.
The searches made small mistakes, all left visible in the results at the foot: Sáenz's name lost its accent, and two descriptions in the second search included the engine's own internal wording, saying a book was a perfect fit for the axis. We Were Liars came back from both searches.
Questions
What is a good YA book to start with?
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins if you want a fast, gripping story; A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson if you like a mystery you can solve along the way; or Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz for a quiet love story. All three were on sale at Foyles on 15 October 2026.
What age are YA books for?
Young adult fiction is written mainly for teenagers, roughly 12 or 13 to 18, and it is read widely by adults too. Where Foyles gives an interest age for the six books here it is from 12 (Six of Crows, Speak) or from 13 (We Were Liars). Several of the six deal with violence or sexual assault, which is noted in each description below.
Are there any British YA books on this list?
One: A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson, set in a small English town and first published in 2019. The other five are American. The second search was asked to include UK authors, and the other British-based pick it offered, Patrick Ness's The Rest of Us Just Live Here, came back with the wrong publication year and is set in America, so it is not on the page; the honest bit says more.
Highstreett's book search knows the YA shelf well: every book the first search returned was a real YA novel, correctly credited and dated, though the second search offered one adult book and misdated another. Describe what you want next, such as a YA fantasy with a heist or a mystery set in Britain, and it will look for you.
Describe the book you want next
Books like Sunrise on the Reaping: for readers who finish The Hunger Games and want more like it.
Best fantasy books of 2026: for adult fantasy after Six of Crows.
How this list was made: the searches
Every Highstreett book search this page was built from, with every book each one returned, exactly as it came back.
Search 1: “the best YA novels for readers aged 13 to 18 and adults who read young adult fiction: standout young adult books across fantasy, romance, thriller and mystery, and contemporary coming-of-age”
Run 15 October 2026 at 12:38 BST · See this result
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky (1999)
- Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson (1999)
- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz (2012)
- We Were Liars, E. Lockhart (2014)
- The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (2008)
- American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang (2006)
Editor’s verdict: Four of these six are on the page; the verdict on this search is in the first search block above.
Search 2: “more of the best young adult novels for teenagers: YA fantasy, YA romance and YA mystery or thriller books from the 2010s and 2020s that teens and adult readers of YA rate highly, including UK authors”
Run 15 October 2026 at 12:39 BST · See this result
- Carry On: The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow, Rainbow Rowell (2015)
- The Atlas Six, Olivie Blake (2020)
- Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo (2015)
- A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, Holly Jackson (2019)
- We Were Liars, E. Lockhart (2014)
- The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness (2001)
Editor’s verdict: A weaker second search. It did bring the fantasy and the British mystery the first one missed, Six of Crows and A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, and both are on this page, with We Were Liars again. But two of its six failed our checks: The Atlas Six is an adult novel, not YA, and The Rest of Us Just Live Here was first published in 2015, not 2001, and is set in America, though the search called it a UK story. Two of its descriptions also included the engine's internal wording. Carry On is real and correctly dated but not on the page; the honest bit says why. The run started at 12:39 UK time and the result is shown unedited.
How the comparison was bounded
We did not compare this list with other published lists of the best YA books. The six come only from the two Highstreett searches shown below, checked against Foyles; the page makes no claim about how often these books appear elsewhere.