YA-Young Adult Literature List
YA-Young Adult Fiction is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21. Distinct themes characterize YA fiction. The protagonist is usually portrayed by an adolescent and the conflicting story arcs center around conflicts in adolescence, fantasy, epic battles, supernatural forces, and, sometimes vampires, werewolves, and gothic characters.
Although some professors point to early 1800 for references to YA fiction, novels such as Catcher in the Rye and The Outsiders are generally considered as the archetypal YA books.
I asked a young blogger who concentrates on the genre to create a book list of YA titles. Her list and rating system is contained on the attached file.
You may want to save, print, and file this list for future reference, or check-out a couple of titles to read for you to read and consider.
Blogger’s Ratings Note:
* 1 star means they are popular, but I would personally not recommend them
** 2 stars means these are some of my FAVORITE books 🙂
TA BARRON – The Great Tree of Avalon series (Child of the Dark Prophecy, Shadows on the Stars, The Eternal Flame)
FRANK BEDDOR – The Looking Glass Wars series (The Looking Glass Wars, Seeing Redd, ArchEnemy)
*HOLLY BLACK – Modern Faerie Tales series (Tithe, Valiant, Ironside); White Cat (Curse Workers)
*PC CAST – House of Night series
TERA LYNN CHILDS – Oh My Gods & Forgive My Fins
CASSANDRA CLARE – Mortal Instruments trilogy (City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass)
**SUZANNE COLLINS – Hunger Games series (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire)
JAMES DASHNER – The Maze Runner
**BREE DESPAIN – The Dark Divine
JEANNE DUPRAU – the Books of Ember (City of Ember, The People of Sparks, The Prophet of Yonwood, The Diamond of Darkhold)
CORNELIA FUNKE – Inkeart series (Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath)
KAMI GARCIA & MARGARET STOHL – Beautiful Creatures
MICHAEL GRANT – Gone series (Gone, Hunger, Lies)
**SHANNON HALE – Books of Bayern (The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, Forest Born)
DIANNA WYNNE JONES – Howl’s Moving Castle (may be more “children’s fiction”, but still)
LESLEY LIVINGSTON – Wondrous Strange series (Wondrous Strange, Darklight)
**LISA MANGUM – the Hourglass Trilogy (The Hourglass Door, The Golden Spiral)
**LISA MANTCHEV – the Theatre Iluminata series (Eyes Like Stars, Perchance to Dream)
**JULIET MARILLER – Wildwood Dancing
*RICHELLE MEAD – Vampire Academy series
STEPHENIE MEYER – Twilight series (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn) <– don’t scowl, this is actually a pretty good series 🙂
PATRICK NESS – Chaos Walking series (The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, Monsters of Men)
ALYSON NOEL – Immortals series (Evermore, Blue Moon, Shadowland, Dark Flame)
**GARTH NIX – Abhorsen Trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen); Keys to the Kingdom series
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI – Inheritance series (Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr)
JAMES PATTERSON – Maximum Ride series (there’s a lot of them and I don’t know what each book is called)
SUSAN BETH PFEFFER – Last Survivors trilogy (Life as We Knew It, The Dead & Gone, This World We Live In)
**RICK RIORDAN – Percy Jackson & the Olympians series (The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, The Last Olympian)
(Riordan is also a Texas author, if that’s important)
JK ROWLING – Harry Potter series
*HOLLY BLACK – Modern Faerie Tales series (Tithe, Valiant, Ironside); White Cat (Curse Workers)
*PC CAST – House of Night series
TERA LYNN CHILDS – Oh My Gods & Forgive My Fins
CASSANDRA CLARE – Mortal Instruments trilogy (City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass)
**SUZANNE COLLINS – Hunger Games series (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire)
JAMES DASHNER – The Maze Runner
**BREE DESPAIN – The Dark Divine
JEANNE DUPRAU – the Books of Ember (City of Ember, The People of Sparks, The Prophet of Yonwood, The Diamond of Darkhold)
CORNELIA FUNKE – Inkeart series (Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath)
KAMI GARCIA & MARGARET STOHL – Beautiful Creatures
MICHAEL GRANT – Gone series (Gone, Hunger, Lies)
**SHANNON HALE – Books of Bayern (The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, Forest Born)
DIANNA WYNNE JONES – Howl’s Moving Castle (may be more “children’s fiction”, but still)
LESLEY LIVINGSTON – Wondrous Strange series (Wondrous Strange, Darklight)
**LISA MANGUM – the Hourglass Trilogy (The Hourglass Door, The Golden Spiral)
MICHAEL SCOTT – Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel (The Alchemyst, The Magician, The Sorceress, The Necromancer)
MAGGIE STIEFVATER – Wolves of Mercy Falls series (Shiver, Linger)
JONATHAN STROUD – The Bartimaeus Trilogy (The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem’s Eye, Ptolemy’s Gate)
SCOTT WESTERFELD – Uglies series (Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras)
MARKUS ZUZAK – I Am the Messenger; The Book Thief (“The Book Thief’ won like a gazillion awards and it’s really famous…haven’t read it yet though)
* 1 star means they are popular, but I would personally not recommend them
** 2 stars means these are some of my FAVORITE books 🙂
