Here are the top 100 YA books to read.

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Today marks the beginning of a new year, and with a new year comes hundreds of new YA books. And before we start talking about them – and oh, we will; our debut author line-up for this year is spectacular – we thought we’d compile a list of what we think are the top 100 YA books to read.

We won’t call it the “best written YA books,” because best written is very subjective as to taste. We won’t call it the “bestselling YA books,” because that would cut out a lot of important texts, and a lot of books by amazing women and amazing authors of color, and we don’t want to do that. We won’t call it “the YA books with the biggest fandoms,” because some of those are objectively more poorly-edited and problematic books despite their popularity.

But we will call this the top 100 YA books – 100 YA books that we think are great and that we think you should read. Just in our opinion, of course. Because there are a lot of lists like that out there, and hey, they were missing a lot of great books – and including a lot of books that, whoops, weren’t YA at all!

This list groups entire series as one listing, or else Harry Potter and The Hunger Games would eat up ten spots. It also only includes titles that have been published before 2016, though there are upcoming titles that are phenomenal.


  1. the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
  2. the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
  3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
  4. Monster by Walter Dean Myers
  5. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
  6. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
  7. the Grisha series by Leigh Bardugo
  8. the Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer
  9. Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley
  10. Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour
  11. Liar by Justine Larbalestier
  12. the Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin
  13. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
  14. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
  15. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
  16. the His Dark Materials saga by Philip Pullman
  17. the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness
  18. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
  19. the Starbound trilogy by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
  20. the Bloody Jack series by L.A. Meyer
  21. the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
  22. the Graceling Realm series by Kristin Cashore
  23. Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
  24. More Than This by Patrick Ness
  25. Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick
  26. the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series by Laini Taylor
  27. Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner
  28. The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth
  29. Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
  30. The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider
  31. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
  32. Ask The Passengers by A.S. King
  33. Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden
  34. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
  35. the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas
  36. 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher
  37. Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst
  38. Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
  39. the Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr
  40. Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown
  41. Bone Gap by Laura Ruby
  42. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
  43. The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr
  44. Shine by Lauren Myracle
  45. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
  46. Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson
  47. the River of Time series by Lisa T. Bergren
  48. Blues for Zoey by Robert Paul Weston
  49. Ash by Malinda Lo
  50. Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon
  51. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
  52. Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go by Laura Rose Wagner
  53. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
  54. Fifteen by Beverly Clearly
  55. Deenie by Judy Blume
  56. the Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter
  57. The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
  58. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
  59. The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater
  60. Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
  61. Cracked Up To Be by Courtney Summers
  62. Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
  63. The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow
  64. How to Love by Katie Cotugno
  65. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
  66. Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
  67. More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
  68. I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson
  69. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
  70. The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma
  71. the Abhorsen series by Garth Nix
  72. the Lynburn Legacy by Sarah Rees Brennan
  73. All the Rage by Courtney Summers
  74. It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
  75. Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy
  76. To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie by Ellen Conford
  77. the Theatre Illuminata series by Lisa Mantchev
  78. the Alanna series by Tamora Pierce
  79. Orleans by Sherri L. Smith
  80. What We Left Behind by Robin Talley
  81. The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen
  82. She Is Not Invisible by Marcus Sedgwick
  83. Black Dove, White Raven by Elizabeth Wein
  84. Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz
  85. Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt
  86. The Curse Workers series by Holly Black
  87. The Lumatere Chronicles series by Melina Marchetta
  88. The Archived series by Victoria Schwab
  89. Hold Still by Nina Lacour
  90. the Rephaim series by Paula Weston
  91. the P.S. I Still Love You duology by Jenny Han
  92. the Eon series by Alison Goodman
  93. Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma
  94. Mistwood by Leah Cypess
  95. Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
  96. the Finishing School series by Gail Carriger
  97. Forever by Judy Blume
  98. Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older
  99. the Metamorphoses series by Sarah McCarry
  100. Court of Fives by Kate Elliott

What did we forget to include on the list? Sound off in the comments below!

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