The YA Book Log

New YA books to check out

Don’t miss out on some of these new and exciting YA reads.

THE LADY ROGUE BY JENN BENNETT

Theodora has spent her life longing to become a  treasure hunter like her father. She’s read every book in his library, is full of ambition, and has the knowledge to back it up. But instead of her, he’s chosen Theodora’s ex, Huck Gallagher, to be his protégé. But when her father goes missing, Huck come to Theodora for help in finding him. Their search takes them to the Carpathian Mountains in Romania as they uncover her father’s secret research into a magical ring that supposedly belonged to Vlad the Impaler—the inspiration for Dracula—himself. But with a dangerous occult society also searching for the ring, Huck and Theodora will have to work harder and faster than ever before if the want to escape with not only the treasure but also their lives.

SIX GOODBYES WE NEVER SAID BY CANDACE GANGER

The last thing Naima Rodriguez wants is your sympathy as she grieves for her father, a fallen Marine. Everyone wants her to try to remember him “as he was” to help manage her OCD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, but Naima just wants to be left alone. Then she meets Dew, a boy struggling with a surge of new anxieties after the loss of both his parents. He could really use a friend. And even if Naima won’t admit it, she could too. It’s not a love story—maybe not even a like story—but between the two of them maybe Naima and Dew can figure out some way to cope with unimaginable loss.

AMERICAN ROYALS BY KATHARINE MCGEE

What if George Washington hadn’t turned down the monarchy? What if the United States of America had a royal family of its own? Meet the Washingtons, America’s royals. There’s Princess Beatrice, the heir apparent, and her wild twin siblings, Samantha and Jefferson, always at the heart of some scandal. But with a stringent social hierarchy, strict royal expectations, and tangled love lives, the three siblings—along with Sam’s best friend and Jeff’s ex—have to ask themselves what they’re willing to do—and what they’re willing to sacrifice—to be American royals.

SLAY BY BRITTNEY MORRIS

By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the “downfall of the Black man.”
But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?

DEAR HAITI, LOVE ALAINE BY MAIKA MOULITE AND MARITZA MOULITE

Seventeen-year-old Alaine, a Haitian American from Miami, finds herself shipped off to Haiti after a school report gone disastrously awry. Now she has to write a report in what her school is calling a “spring volunteer immersion project,” working for her Tati Estelle’s new nonprofit. But between flirting with Estelle’s cute new intern, actually getting to spend some time with her mother, and learning more about her family’s history, maybe a trip to Haiti is exactly what she needs.

FRANKLY IN LOVE BY DAVID YOON

As far as Frank Li’s parents are concerned, there’s only one rule when it comes to romance: “Date Korean.” Which makes things complicated when he falls for Britt Means, who just so happens to be white. Fortunately, his classmate Joy Song is in a similar predicament so they come to an agreement: pretend to date each other to keep their parents happy. The only problem is, the more Frank and Joy spend time together, the more he begins to wonder if he’s ever really understood love at all.