August Book Recommendations: Young Adult

Thinking about creating a new reading list or simply looking for some new books to read, we've got your back. Our team has created a booklist based on their recent reads and compiled them here for you to view. Enjoy!

Top Five Young Adult Books:

1. Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado: Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat. People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it's hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn't help. Everyone in the world has ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-face, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter. But there's one person who's always in Charlie's corner: her best friend, Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing--he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her? Because it's time, people did. A sensitive, funny, and painfully honest coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships with our parents, bodies, cultures, and ourselves.

2. Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo: The Demon King. As Fjerda''s massive army prepares to invade, Nikolai Lantsov will summon every bit of his ingenuity and charm-and even the monster within-to win this fight. But a dark threat looms that cannot be defeated by a young king's gift for the impossible—the Stormwitch. Zoya Nazyalensky has lost too much to war. She saw her mentor die and her worst enemy resurrected, and she refuses to bury another friend. Now duty demands she embrace her powers to become the weapon her country needs. No matter the cost.The Queen of Mourning. Deep undercover, Nina Zenik risks discovery and death as she wages war on Fjerda from inside its capital. But her desire for revenge may cost her country its chance at freedom and Nina the chance to heal her grieving heart. King. General. Spy. Together they must find a way to forge a future in the darkness. Or watch a nation fall.

3. Pumpkin by Julie Murphy: Waylon Russell Brewer is a fat, openly gay boy stuck in the small West Texas town of Clover City. He plans to bide his time until he can graduate, move to Austin with his twin sister, Clementine, and finally go Full Waylon so that he can live his Julie-the-hills-are-alive-with-the-sound-of-music-Andrews truth. So when Clementine deviates from their master plan right after Waylon gets dumped, he throws caution to the wind and creates an audition tape for his favourite TV drag show, Fiercest of Them All. What he doesn’t count on is the tape getting accidentally shared with the entire school. . . . As a result, Waylon is nominated for prom queen as a joke. Unfortunately, Clem’s girlfriend, Hannah Perez, also receives a joke nomination for prom king. So Waylon and Hannah decide there’s only one thing to do: run—and leave high school with a bang. A very glittery bang. Along the way, Waylon discovers that there is a lot more to running for prom court than campaign posters and plastic crowns, especially when he has to spend so much time with the very cute and infuriating prom king nominee Tucker Watson. Waylon will need to learn that the best plan for tomorrow is living for today . . . especially with the help of some fellow queens...

4. When You Get The Chance by Tom Ryan: Mark and Talia are both queer, but they soon realize that's about all they have in common, other than the fact that they'd both prefer to be in Toronto. Talia is desperate to see her high school sweetheart Erin, who's barely been in touch since leaving to spend the summer working at a coffee shop in the Gay Village. On the other hand, Mark is just looking for some fun, and Toronto Pride seems like the perfect place to find it. When a series of complications throws everything up in the air, Mark and Talia—with Mark's little sister Paige in tow—decide to hit the road for Toronto. With a bit of luck and some help from a series of unexpected new friends, they might make it to the big city and find what they're looking for. That is if they can figure out how to start seeing things through each other's eyes.

5. Treaty Words: For As Long As The River Flows by Aimée Craft: On the banks of the river that have been Mishomis’s home his whole life, he teaches his granddaughter to listen—to hear both the sounds and the silences, and so to learn her place in Creation. Most importantly, he teaches her about treaties—the bonds of reciprocity and renewal that endure for as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the rivers flow. Accompanied by beautiful illustrations by Luke Swinson and an author’s note at the end, Aimée Craft affirms the importance of understanding an Indigenous perspective on treaties in this evocative book essential for readers of all ages.