Must Read YA Books Autumn-Winter 2021
My Must Read YA Books Autumn-Winter 2021
It’s officially my favourite time of year, again! Goodbye summer-hot nights and the scent of suncream – and welcome back Autumn! I am so excited for cosier nights, candle-lit reading afternoons and warm drinks. To make it all that much better? We need some epic new releases! I’ve luckily been looking out for some of my most-wanted over the last few months, compiling them into this list of in my opinion, must reads this year!
Fools In Love: Fresh Twists on Romantic Tales
by Rebecca Podos, Laura Silverman, Ashley Herring Blake, Rebecca Barrow, Gloria Chao, Sara Farizan, Lilliam Rivera, Natasha Ngan, Hannah Moskowitz, Claire Kann, Laura Silverman, Amy Spalding, Rebecca Kim Wells, Julian Winters, Mason Deaver
Join fifteen bestselling, award-winning, and up-and-coming authors as they reimagine some of the most popular tropes in the romance genre.
Fake relationships. Enemies to lovers. Love triangles and best friends, mistaken identities and missed connections. This collection of genre-bending and original stories celebrates how love always finds a way, featuring powerful flora, a superhero and his nemesis, a fantastical sled race through snow-capped mountains, a golf tournament, the wrong ride-share, and even the end of the world.
Why I want to read: I’m so excited to read this one because it reminds me of Meet Cute. This sounds right up my street and I can’t wait to delve into a collection of stories by so many incredible authors!
You’ll Be the Death of Me
From the author of One of Us Is Lying comes a brand-new pulse-pounding thriller. It’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with murder when three old friends relive an epic ditch day, and it goes horribly–and fatally–wrong.
Ivy, Mateo, and Cal used to be close. Now all they have in common is Carlton High and the beginning of a very bad day.
Type A Ivy lost a student council election to the class clown, and now she has to face the school, humiliated. Heartthrob Mateo is burned out–he’s been working two jobs since his family’s business failed. And outsider Cal just got stood up . . . again.
So when Cal pulls into campus late for class and runs into Ivy and Mateo, it seems like the perfect opportunity to turn a bad day around. They’ll ditch and go into the city. Just the three of them, like old times. Except they’ve barely left the parking lot before they run out of things to say . . .
. . . until they spot another Carlton High student skipping school–and follow him to the scene of his own murder. In one chance move, their day turns from dull to deadly. And it’s about to get worse.
It turns out Ivy, Mateo, and Cal still have some things in common. They all have a connection to the dead kid. And they’re all hiding something.
Now they’re all wondering–could it be that their chance reconnection wasn’t by chance after all?
Why I Want To Read: How twisty and brilliant does this one sound? It’s perfect for those Halloween nights when you want something thrilling to keep you up at night!
So, This Is Christmas
Sarah Dessen meets Let It Snow in this new YA Christmas romance!
When Finley Brown returned to her hometown of Christmas, Oklahoma, from boarding school, she expected to find it just as she left it. Christmas hasn’t changed much in her sixteen years. But instead she returns to find that her best friend is dating her ex-boyfriend, her parents have separated, and her archnemesis got a job working at her grandmother’s inn. And she certainly didn’t expect to find the boy she may or may not have tricked into believing that Christmas was an idyllic holiday paradise on her grandmother’s doorstep. It’s up to Finley to make sure he gets the Christmas he was promised. This is Finley’s Christmas. It’s about home and family and friends and finding her place, and along the way she also finds the best Christmas present of all: love.
Why I Want To Read: I’m a sucker for YA Christmas reads. I don’t know why, but they just hold this really sentimental place in my heart (and bookshelf.) This stunning book looks like it’ll fit right in with my winter favourites.
Bad Girls Never Say Die
From the acclaimed author of Moxie comes a gripping gender-flipped reimagining of The Outsiders that explores the deep bonds of female friendship and what it takes to be a “bad girl.”
1964. Houston, Texas.
Evie Barnes is a bad girl. So are all her friends. They’re the sort who wear bold makeup, laugh too loud, and run around with boys. Most of all, they protect their own against the world. So when Evie is saved from the unimaginable by a good girl from the “right” side of the tracks, every rule she’s always lived by is called into question. Now she must redefine what it means to be a bad girl and rethink everything she knew about loyalty.
In this riveting story of murder, secrets, and tragedy, Jennifer Mathieu reimagines S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders from a female perspective. Bad Girls Never Say Die has all the drama and heartache of that teen classic, but with a feminist take just right for our times.
Why I Want To Read: Jennifer has been a recent favourite of mine ever since Moxie came on the scene. This sounds like no exception – I think it’ll make perfect reading for those darker nights when you want something gritty to keep you company.
The Pick-Up
When Mari hails a rideshare to a music festival, the last thing she expects is for the car to pick up a gorgeous guy along the way. Mari doesn’t believe in dating–it can only end with a broken heart. Besides, she’s only staying at her dad’s house in Chicago for the weekend. How close can you get to a guy in three days?
TJ wants to study art in college, but his family’s expectations cast a long shadow over his dreams. When he meets Mari in the back of a rideshare, he feels alive for the first time in a long time.
Mari and TJ enter the festival together and share an electric moment but get separated in a crowd with seemingly no way to find each other. When fate reunites them (with a little help from a viral hashtag), they’ll have to decide: was it love at first sight, or the start of nothing more than a weekend fling?
Why I Want To Read: Anyone that knows me knows that Miranda is one of my favourite authors, and has been from the very start of my love of reading. Her incredible story-worlds never fail to make me want to instant-buy any book she puts out.
Never Saw You Coming
by Erin Hahn
Raised by conservative parents, 18-year-old Meg Hennessey just found out her entire childhood was a lie. Instead of taking a gap year before college to find herself, she ends up traveling north to meet what’s left of the family she never knew existed.
While there, she meets Micah Allen, a former pastor’s kid whose dad ended up in prison, leaving Micah with his own complicated relationship about the church. The clock is ticking on Pastor Allen’s probation hearing and Micah, now 19, feels the pressure to forgive – even when he can’t possibly forget.
As Meg and Micah grow closer, they are confronted with the heavy flutterings of first love and all the complications it brings. Together, they must navigate the sometimes-painful process of cutting ties with childhood beliefs as they build toward something truer and straight from the heart.
In Erin Hahn’s Never Saw You Coming, sometimes it takes a leap of faith to find yourself.
Why I Want To Read: After reading a snippet of Erin’s writing in another novel – Together, Apart – I fell in love with her writing style. Ever since I saw this book pop up on my Goodreads timeline, I’ve wanted to read it so badly. Rest assured, I’ll be hitting add to cart very soon!
The Holiday Switch
by Tif Marcelo
A paperback original romance about a bookish Filipino-American girl who crosses paths with the innkeeper’s aggravating nephew–but when they accidentally switch phones, their newly discovered secrets draw them together.
Lila Castro is ready to take on her last winter break of high school. The snow is plentiful, the mood is full of holiday cheer, and she’s earning extra cash working at the cozy local inn. But her perfect holiday plans crash to a halt when her boss’s frustratingly cute nephew, Teddy Veracruz, becomes her coworker. When they accidentally switch phones one afternoon, they both realize they’ve been hiding things from each other. Will their secrets–and a dash of holiday spirit–bring them closer to love?
Underlined is a line of totally addictive romance, thriller, and horror paperback original titles coming to you fast and furious each month. Enjoy everything you want to read the way you want to read it.
Why I Want To Read: Another holiday-themed YA read? SIGN ME UP! I am so excited for this one. There’s something about it that screams movie-like, and I can definitely see it becoming one!
When We Were Them
When they were fifteen, Willa, Luz, and Britton had a friendship that was everything.
When they were sixteen, they stood by one another no matter what.
When they were seventeen, they went through the worst.
And when they were eighteen, Willa ruined it all.
Now, the week of graduation, Willa is left with only a memory box filled with symbols of the friendship she has nearly destroyed: A book of pranks. Corsages from a nightmarish homecoming. A greasy pizza menu. Greeting cards with words that mean the world… It’s enough to make Willa wonder how anything could tear her, Luz, and Britton apart. But as Willa revisits the moments when she and her friends leaned on one another, she can’t avoid the moments they leaned so hard, their friendship began to crack.
As Willa tries to find a way back to Luz and Britton, she must confront the why of her betrayal and answer a question she never saw coming: Who is she, without them?
Why I Want To Read: I’ve saved the best for last! Or, better known, as the book I want to read the most this new season. I love YA friendship novels. Something about them speaks to my past teenage self, the emotions of trivial fights and memories sparking something alike with the premise of When We Were Them. This will be the first book I buy next!
Are any of the books on my A/W TBR on yours?
What do you want to read the most this year?
Let me know in the comments or on twitter @LittleMemoirs!
happy reading!
