Our list of favorite forthcoming 2016 teen titles collected all in one place, just for you and your teen patrons is finally here. In addition to the always-exciting selection from Griffin Teen (including new books from David Levithan and Stephanie Perkins), keep an eye out for YA debuts IF I WAS YOUR GIRL and AMERICAN GIRLS from Flatiron Books.

But first, make sure that you’re pre-approved on Edelweiss to download all of our available e-galleys. Click here to find out how to be whitelisted.

You can also view our Edelweiss collection of Books for Teens 2016 titles here.

Our super-cool “Books for Teens Twenty-SixTEEN” poster is now available!

You’re in for a treat because this year’s poster is double-sided—flip it over and color your own CARRY ON  book jacket! Click here to download a copy or email us to request a hard copy (don’t forget to include your mailing address).
Now on to the books, starting with Flatiron YA!

IF I WAS YOUR GIRL by Meredith Russo
**TWO STARRED REVIEWS** Amanda Hardy is the new girl in school in Lambertville, Tennessee. Like anyone else, she wants to make friends and fit in, but she has a secret. When she meets sweet, easygoing Grant, she can’t help but let him in. As they spend more time together, she finds herself yearning to share with Grant everything about herself, including her past. But Amanda’s terrified that once she tells the truth, no one will be able to see past it. Because the secret that Amanda’s been keeping? At her old school, she used to be Andrew.

“Russo has written a story that many trans teens—and adults—have been wanting: a sweet, believable romance that stokes the fires of hope without devolving into saccharine perfection or horrific tragedy. Above all, this is a necessary, universal story about feeling different and enduring prejudices, and it’s full of love, hope, engaging writing, and truth.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“In an illuminating debut guided by hope and overwhelming kindness, Russo demonstrates the challenges teens face in finding ‘the truest version’ of themselves.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review

AMERICAN GIRLS by Allison Umminger
***THREE STARRED REVIEWS!*** When fifteen-year-old Anna “borrows” her family’s credit card and runs away to L.A. to crash with her half-sister, she has to work to pay her way home. Her sister’s creepy ex-boyfriend hires Anna for a seriously macabre research project for his indie film: to research the murderous Manson girls. This is not quite the summer Anna had in mind, but it may just be the one that she needs to understand and accept her family, and herself, in a new way.

“Setting her tale against the glittery, gritty backdrop of modern-day Los Angeles, the author deftly weaves together multiple story strands to create a razor-sharp commentary on our culture, observed with keen wit from the perspective of one honest and complex American girl. An insightful, original take on the coming-of-age story, this novel plumbs the depths of American culture to arrive at a poignant emotional truth.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Debut author Umminger’s humor is biting (“My family was clearly the place where optimism went to die”), yet it reveals richly complicated relationships among mothers, daughters, and sisters. Umminger crafts a Los Angeles both glittering and soulless, leading to Anna’s realization that she may have more in common with the Manson girls than she thought, but it’s the choices she makes that set her apart.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Bittersweet and true, Anna’s journey to self-discovery is one that should be widely read.” — Booklist, starred review

CARRY ON by Rainbow Rowell
A 2016 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection!  Rainbow Rowell continues to break boundaries with CARRY ON, an epic fantasy following the triumphs and heartaches of Simon and Baz from her beloved bestseller FANGIRL.

“A brilliantly addictive, genuinely romantic story… It’s as if Rowell turned the Harry Potter books inside out, and is showing us the marvelous, subversive stuffing inside.” — Time Magazine

“With rock-solid worldbuilding, a sweet and believable romance subplot, and satisfying ending, CARRY ON is a monumentally enjoyable reading experience. Hand this to fans of Rowell, Harry Potter, love stories, and magic.”
— School Library Journal, starred review

“…irresistible and surprisingly tender, but the true strength here is the characterizations… Stock up on copies—this one begs to be reread.”
— Booklist, starred review

“…this book can be read as a tribute to Harry Potter and Lev Grossman’s Magicians series, and it’s a sterling example of how to use genre conventions to create something new. The funny, wised-up dialogue, the tumultuous, sweet, and sexy love story is grade-A Rowell…readers will find [this] almost impossible to put down. — Publishers Weekly, starred review

BREAKAWAY by Kat Spears
Also available in trade paperback
A 2016 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Nominee! From the author of the YALSA 2015 Best Fiction for Young Adults pick, SWAY (now available in trade paperback), comes a new novel that asks the question: when a group of four best friends begins to drift apart, what will it take to bring them back together? BREAKAWAY received two starred reviews, including this one from Booklist: “A painfully honest and powerful depiction of the changing nature of friendships in the face of hardship and an exploration of what it means ‘to be human and alive.’”

THE BOY WHO KILLED GRANT PARKER by Kat Spears
Ages 13 to 18
From the author of the YALSA 2015 Best Fiction for Young Adults pick, SWAY, comes a high stakes contemporary story of a city teen who moves to a small town and finds himself head to head with the local bully.

DREAM THINGS TRUE by Marie Marquardt
A 2016 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers Nominee! A modern-day Romeo and Juliet story in which a wealthy Southern boy falls in love with an undocumented Mexican girl and together face their hostile Georgia town. “Readers seeking a star-crossed love story with a twist won’t be disappointed.” — Publishers Weekly

THE WEIGHT OF FEATHERS by Anna-Marie McLemore
A 2016 YALSA Morris Award Finalist & Best Fiction for Young Adults selection! The Night Circus meets Romeo and Juliet in this stunning young adult novel about two teens from rival traveling performer families who fall in love despite the almost impossible odds against them. “McLemore’s prose is ethereal and beguiling… The enchanting setup and the forbidden romance that blooms…will quickly draw readers in, along with the steady unspooling of the families’ history and mutual suspicions in this promising first novel.” — Publishers Weekly

THE WEIGHT OF FEATHERS by Anna-Marie McLemore (ages 14-18) will be available in trade paperback on September 26, 2017.

WHEN THE MOON WAS OURS by Anna-Marie McLemore
Longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and three starred reviews! From Morris Award finalist Anna-Marie McLemore comes a second stunning novel tinged with magic, about a girl with roses that grow from her wrist who happens to be hiding the truth, a boy with past secrets who paints moons and hangs them in trees, and four sisters rumored to be witches, who could ruin them both. “With luminous prose infused with Latino folklore and magical realism, this mixes fairy-tale ingredients with the elegance of a love story, with all of it rooted in a deeply real sense of humanity. Lovely, necessary, and true.”
— Booklist, starred review 

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