Top Ten Teen Books

Posted on March 12, 2021

by Jozlyn H

2020 Teen Top 10

Every year, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) releases a list of the top 10 books of that year. This is a “Top Ten” Teen choice list where teens nominate and chose their favorite books of the previous year. Teens across the country are encouraged to nominate their favorite book with this nomination form. The winners are announced during National Library Week (April 4-10, 2021).

Last year’s favorites (books that were published in 2019) were voted in on National Library Week in April 2020. Here are 2020’s most favorite young adult titles.

Don’t forget to submit a nomination for your favorite young adult book!

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Cover of Wayward Son

Wayward Son

eAudiobook   |   eBook Text

With Wayward Son, Rainbow Rowell has written a book for everyone who ever wondered what happened to the Chosen One after he saved the day. And a book for everyone who was ever more curious about the second kiss than the first. It’s another helping of sour cherry scones with an absolutely decadent amount of butter.

Cover of Pumpkin Heads

Pumpkin Heads

eBook

Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends. Every autumn, all through high school, they’ve worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world. But this year is different―Josiah and Deja are finally seniors, and this is their last season at the pumpkin patch. Josiah’s ready to spend the whole night feeling melancholy about it. Deja isn’t ready to let him. She’s got a plan: What if their last shift was an adventure?

Cover of With the Fire on High

With the Fire on High

eBook Text   |   eAudiobook   |   hoopla eAudiobook   |   hoopla eBook

@acevedowrites is a poet whose words are just as filling as the food that her character Emoni (a young mother) makes. Emoni is navigating her senior year of high school with Babygirl and ‘Buela in her corner. When a culinary class is offered, she hesitates to pursue her passion of cooking, wondering if she should choose a more stable path to support her family. This story lyrically explores intergenerational families, choosing one’s passion, and so many mouth-watering meals. The audiobook allows you to soak in the rhythm of Acevedo’s writing.

Cover of Aurora Rising

Aurora Rising

eAudiobook   |   eBook Text

The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.

Cover of Broken Throne: A Red Queen Collection

Broken Throne: A Red Queen Collection

eAudiobook   |   eBook Text   |   hoopla Audiobook   |   hoopla eBook

Return once more to the deadly and dazzling world of Red Queen in Broken Throne, a beautifully designed, must-have companion to the chart-topping series. This gorgeously designed package features three brand-new novellas, two previously published novellas, Steel Scars and Queen Song, and never-before-seen maps, flags, bonus scenes, journal entries, and much more exclusive content.

Cover of We Hunt the Flame

We Hunt the Flame

eAudiobook   |   eBook Text

Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the sultan. Both Zafira and Nasir are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya–but neither wants to be. War is brewing. When Zafira embarks on a quest to uncover a lost artifact that can restore magic to her suffering world and stop the Arz, Nasir is sent by the sultan on a similar mission: retrieve the artifact and kill the Hunter. But an ancient evil stirs as their journey unfolds–and the prize they seek may pose a threat greater than either can imagine.

Cover of Lovely War

Lovely War

eAudiobook   |   eBook Text

It’s 1917, and World War I is at its zenith when two star crossed loves meet and are separated by the war. Thirty years after these four lovers’ fates collide, the Greek goddess Aphrodite tells their stories to her husband, Hephaestus, and her lover, Ares, in a luxe Manhattan hotel room at the height of World War II. She seeks to answer the age-old question: Why are Love and War eternally drawn to one another? But her quest for a conclusion that will satisfy her jealous husband uncovers a multi-threaded tale of prejudice, trauma, and music and reveals that War is no match for the power of Love.

Cover of Wilder Girls

Wilder Girls

eAudiobook   |   eBook Text

It’s been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty’s life out from under her. It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything. But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence.

Cover of The Memory Thief

The Memory Thief

eAudiobook   |   eBook Text   |   hoopla eAudiobooks   |   hoopla eBook

In the city of Craewick, memories reign. The power-obsessed ruler of the city, Madame, has cultivated a society in which memories are currency, citizens are divided by ability, and Gifted individuals can take memories from others through touch as they please. To prove her allegiance to the Shadows and rescue her mother, Etta must steal a memorized map a prison. So, she sets out on a journey in which she faces startling attacks, unexpected romance, and, above all, her own past in order to set things right in her world.

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