Fiction for Teens - Ages 14 and Older

Chicago Public Library recommends the following books as the very best fiction published in 2012 for teens in high school. For more ideas of outstanding things to read, please check out Teen Volume Reads, browse the Teen Volume collection at your neighborhood library and ask your librarian for assistance. Read, Learn, Discover!

Ask the Passengers
By A.S. King
Little, Brown
Astrid knows there are plenty of secrets in Unity Valley, her supposedly perfect suburban town, starting with the one she can barely admit to herself.
Audiobook | eAudiobook

Beneath a Meth Moon
By Jacqueline Woodson
Nancy Paulsen
Laurel is starting over after the painful loss of Mama and Grandma when she meets T-Boom and the white powder he offers takes away her sadness, but a young painter named Moses hopes she’ll recognize the spring still left inside her before it’s too late.

Bitterblue
By Kristin Cashore
Dial
Bitterblue goes undercover to learn more about her kingdom and in do so, finds the courage to rule with the heart and mind of a true queen.

The Book of Blood and Shadow
By Robin Wasserman
Knopf
Nora never imagined that her senior year internship translating 15th century Latin would lead to her best friend’s murder and a mysterious adventure through Europe.
eAudiobook | eBook

The Brides of Rollrock Island
By Margo Lanagan
Knopf
Is Rollrock Island blessed or cursed? That depends on your opinion of the captive seal-wive; beautiful women who emerge from the bodies of seals and are trapped by the men who love them.

Bushman Lives!
By Daniel Pinkwater, illustrated by Calef Brown
HMH
Harold enrolls in a drawing class, and wanders through 1950’s Chicago meeting unique characters who inspire him to improve his art.

Chopsticks
By Jessica Anthony & Rodrigo Corral
Razorbill
What happened before Glory disappeared? Find out about her relationship with her new neighbor Frank and how that changed her life in this utterly unique and visual novel told in photographs and created objects.

Code Name Verity
By Elizabeth Wein
Hyperion
Secret agent “Verity” has been captured by the Germans and forced to confess, but not one to break under pressure she tells stories of her pilot friend with attitude and just enough information to keep the Germans coming back for more.

Croak
By Gina Damico
Graphia
Lex is surprised to find that her Uncle Mort’s “farm,” where she is sent as punishment, is really Croak, a town where teens learn the secrets of reaping souls and sending folks on their way to the Afterlife.

The Difference Between You and Me
By Madeleine George
Viking
Every Tuesday, complete opposites Jesse and Emily share passionate and secret “private time,” but Jesse wishes their relationship could be out in the open. When they find themselves on opposite sides of a school issue, keeping their relationship a secret may finally tear them apart.

The Disenchantments
By Nina LaCour
Dutton
Colby was sure he and his best friend Bev knew where they were headed after graduation—a tour with terrible band The Disenchantments and then an open-ended European adventure—until Bev throws a wrench into the plans by deciding to go to college instead.

The Diviners
By Libba Bray
Little, Brown
Not long after Naughty John Hobbes is summoned through a Ouija board at a flapper party, Evie O’Neill is sent off to live in New York City where dark magic, evil, and a serial “Pentacle” killer are on the loose.
Audiobook | eAudiobook

Every Day
By David Levithan
Knopf
It never bothers “A” to wake up in a different body each day . . . that is, until “A” wakes up in Justin’s and meets his girlfriend Rhiannon.
Audiobook | eAudiobook | eBook

The Fault in Our Stars
By John Green
Dutton
Terminally ill Hazel is barely grasping onto what little life she has when she meets Augustus Waters who just may be able to prove to her that there is more to life than dying.
Audiobook

Graffiti Moon
By Cath Crowley
Knopf
Lucy will do anything to find Shadow, a graffiti artist whose work electrifies her, even if it means spending the night with Ed, the worst date of her high school life.
Audiobook |eBook

Grave Mercy
By Robin Lafevers
HMH
Marked by the God of Death at birth, Ismae falls in with a group of assassin nuns, but when a threat is found against the crown, she must use more than her killing skills to find the true threat.
Audiobook

Never Fall Down
By Patricia McCormick
Balzer & Bray
Arn is just a kid when the Khmer Rouge comes to power in Cambodia, but he has to grow up quickly and draw on all of his courage to stay alive in this turbulent, violent time.
eBook

No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller
By Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
Carolrhoda
Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son” poem describes challenges this special bookseller overcame to open a Harlem bookstore celebrating African American writers and ideas and this fictionalized biography tells his inspiring story of perseverance and change.
eBook

October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard
By Lesléa Newman
Candlewick
Sixty-eight poems depict the imagined perspectives of people, places, and things surrounding the real-life murder of Matthew Shepard.

Personal Effects
By E.M. Kokie
Candlewick
Matt thought they were close, but when T.J.’s photos and letters come home from Iraq, it’s like looking at the effects of a stranger, so Matt sets out to discover the people and untold story of his brother’s past.
Audiobook | eBook

Pinned
By Sharon G. Flake
Scholastic
Autumn, the sole female member of the Beacon Academy wrestling team, is determined to make the team captain, Adonis, her boyfriend.
Audiobook | eAudiobook

The Princesses of Iowa
By M. Molly Backes
Candlewick
Paige returns to the aftermath of the drunk driving accident that got her sent away for the summer.
eBook

Seraphina
By Rachel Hartman
Random House
Caught between the tension of humans and dragons, half-breed Seraphina uses her insight and visions to find the truth behind the murder that has disrupted the plans for the court anniversary celebration.
Audiobook | eAudiobook | eBook

The Shadow Society
By Marie Rutkoski
FSG
Darcy Jones, left outside a Chicago firehouse at age 5, knows nothing of her past and wonders if the Shadow Society under Graceland Cemetery has the answers?

Starters
By Lissa Price
Delacorte
A neurochip is all that separates Callie’s consciousness from that of the elderly woman renting her body to relive her youth, but what if the chip doesn’t do its job?
eAudiobook |eBook