Stuff for the Teen Age, Biblio File

Love: In the Air, On the Page

With this week's celebration of Valentine's Day, love is in the air! Here are book recommendations that celebrate love in all its forms.
 

Everything Leads to You book cover

1. Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour

While working as a film production designer in Los Angeles, Emi Price finds a mysterious letter from a silver screen legend, leading her to Ava, a woman about to expand Emi's understanding of family, acceptance, and true romance.

 

 

 

 

 

To All the Boys I've Loved Before book cover

2. To All the boys I've loved before by Jenny Han

Lara Jean writes love letters to all the boys she has loved, and then hides them in a hatbox… until one day those letters are accidentally sent!

 

 

 

 

 

I Believe in a Thing Called Love book cover

3. I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo

Featured in NYPL's Best Books for Teens 2017! A disaster with romance, high school senior Desi Lee decides to tackle her flirting failures by watching Korean television dramas, where the hapless heroine always seems to end up in the arms of her true love by episode ten. It's a simple formula, and Desi is a quick study. She goes after moody artist Luca Drakos—utilizing boat rescues, love triangles, and staged car crashes.

 

 

 

Anna and the French Kiss book cover

4. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

When Anna's father sends her to an American boarding school in Paris for her senior year of high school, she reluctantly goes and meets a boy who becomes her best friend, in spite of the fact that they both want something more.


 

 

 

 

Our Own Private Universe book cover

5. Our own private universe by Robin Talley

Fifteen-year-old, bisexual Aki Simon is determined to live her life to the fullest. When she meets Christa during a summer church youth-group trip to Mexico, it seems like the perfect chance to realize first love.  
 




 

 

Eleanor & Park book cover

6. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

 

 

 

 

 

One Man Guy book cover

7. One Man Guy by Michael Barakiva

When Alek's high-achieving, Armenian-American parents send him to summer school, he thinks his summer is ruined. But then he meets Ethan, who opens his world in a series of truly unexpected ways.

 

 

 

 

 

If You Come Softly book cover

8. If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson

After meeting at private school in New York, fifteen-year-old Jeremiah, who is black and whose parents are separated, and Ellie, who is white and whose mother has twice abandoned her, fall in love and then try to cope with people's reactions.

 

 

 

 

 

The Weight of Feathers book cover

9. The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore

Although Lace Paloma knows all about the feud between the Palomas and the Corbeaus, she finds herself falling for Cluck Corbeau when he saves her life while both families are performing in the same town.

 

 

 

 

 

Everything Everything book cover

10. Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

The story of a teenage girl who's literally allergic to the outside world. When a new family moves in next door, she begins a complicated romance that challenges everything she's ever known. Now a major motion picture!  

 

 

 

 

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda book cover

11. Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Sixteen-year-old, not-so-openly-gay Simon Spier is blackmailed into playing wingman for his classmate or else his sexual identity—and that of his pen pal—will be revealed.

 

 

 

 

 

Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel book cover

12. Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan

High school junior Leila's Persian heritage already makes her different from her classmates at Armstead Academy, and if word got out that she liked girls, life would be twice as hard. But when a new girl, Saskia, shows up, Leila starts taking risks she never thought she would, especially when it appears the attraction between them is mutual. Leila struggles to sort out her growing feelings by confiding in her old friends.

 

 

 

The Love Interests book cover

13. The Love Interests by Cale Dietrich

In a secret organization that cultivates teenage spies, the stakes are high for two agents, Caden and Dylan, whose mission to compete for a girl destined for great power becomes complicated when Caden finds himself falling in love with his competition.

 

 

 

 

Ash book cover

14. Ash by Malinda Lo

In this variation on the Cinderella story, Ash grows up believing in the fairy realm that the king and his philosophers have sought to suppress—until one day she must choose between a handsome fairy cursed to love her and the King's Huntress whom she loves.