All of the books covered here fall under the YA fiction genre. They might also fall into other categories as well so please look at the tags categories.
Read on to find the slice-of-life reality you can sink your teeth into.
Radio Silence
Title: Radio Silence
Author: Alice Oseman
Review: 8/10
Synopsis: Frances Janvier spends most of her time studying.
Everyone knows Aled Last as that quiet boy who gets straight As.
You probably think that they are going to fall in love or something. Since he is a boy and she is a girl.
They don’t. They make a podcast.
In a world determined to shut them up, knock them down, and set them on a cookie cutter life path, Frances and Aled struggle to find their voices over the course of one life-changing year. Will they have the courage to show everyone who they really are? Or will they be met with radio silence?
Loveless
Title: Loveless
Author: Alice Oseman
Review: 8/10
Synopsis: It was all sinking in. Id never had a crush on anyone. No boys, no girls, not a single person I had ever met. What did that mean Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush, but as a fanfic-obsessed romantic she’s sure shell find her person one day.
As she starts university with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a whole new town far from home, Georgia’s ready to find romance, and with her outgoing roommate on her side and a place in the Shakespeare Society, her teenage dream is in sight.
But when her romance plan wreaks havoc amongst her friends, Georgia ends up in her own comedy of errors, and she starts to question why love seems so easy for other people but not for her.
With new terms thrown at her asexual, aromantic, Georgia is more uncertain about her feelings than ever. Is she destined to remain loveless or has she been looking for the wrong thing all along?
The Hate U Give
Title: The Hate U Give
Author: Angie Thomas
Review: 8/10
Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.