Required Reading for the Full 'Let It Snow' Experience
More than a decade ago, three powerhouse YA authors published a collaborative novel that’s both a traditional romcom and a really innovative idea. Let It Snow is composed of three connected stories—written by John Green, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myracle—that follow small-town high-school seniors during an epic snowstorm one Christmas Eve.
Now their story is coming to Netflix, complemented by an all-start cast. There’s precedent, here: Green’s The Fault in Our Stars famously brought whole theaters-full of people to tears when it was made into a film in 2014.
After you read the original, check out a few more suggested novels by the three authors—and wait for the wave of YA book-to-screen adaptations to sweep up even more books in its swelling tide.
John Green
The Fault in Our Stars(2014)
Look, there’s really nowhere else to start with John Green. If you haven’t read this epic novel about two star-crossed teens looking for the meaning of life in the face of death, go now. Then watch the movie, cry your eyes out, and hug everyone in a five-mile radius.
Looking for Alaska(2005)
Green’s first novel traces the journey of teens at a prep school in rural Alabama. Alaska won the prestigious Printz Award in 2006, and it's also been challenged and banned numerous times, climbing to the no. 1 spot on the American Library Association’s list in 2015. It was also recently turned into a Hulu miniseries.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson(2010)
Try another collaboration between the YA greats: Green and David Levithan, whose body of work is just as deep and important. This book is lighter and funnier than TFiOS or Alaska, starting with its premise of two boys—one gay and one straight—both named Will Grayson, and the hilarity that ensues when their paths cross.
All of Green’s work in the NYPL catalog.
Maureen Johnson
13 Little Blue Envelopes (2006)
A great teen road-trip story in which good-girl Ginny travels all over Europe at the direction of her recently deceased aunt, via directions in a set of 13 letters. This moving, engaging, stylistically complex story doesn’t talk down to its teenage readers.
The Truly Devious series (2018-present)
Johnson often writes suspense, but this series introduces a great new character in the classic girl-detective tradition. In the first book, Stevie Bell is investigating two kidnappings (past and present) at a private Vermont boarding school; in the second, she’s back at home but trying to find her way back to the school.
Suite Scarlett (2009)
A New York City story about a fancy hotel, a family tradition, and four kids that have to hold the whole enterprise together. One reviewer called it an “utterly winning, madcap Manhattan farce.”
All of Johnson’s work in the NYPL catalog.
Lauren Myracle
The Infinite Moment of Us (2013)
One of Myracle’s sweeter, sexier, romantic books that doesn’t shy away from the details. It’s closer to the vein of the ttyl series that made Myracle a YA powerhouse in the early 2000s—and one of the examples of her frequently banned and challenged books.
Shine (2011)
It was dangerous for Patrick, Cat’s former best friend, to be gay in a small rural North Carolina town. After he’s viciously beaten and falls into a coma, Cat chases after answers and has to cope with her own violent past along the way. One of Myracle’s best and most realistic stories.
Fireworks: Four Summer Stories (2007)
A good book-end to Let It Snow! Myracle contributed one of these summer romance stories; the other three authors were Sarah Mlynowski, Erin Haft, and Niki Burnham.
All of Myracle’s work in the NYPL catalog.
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Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!