Here are 100 books that Anna and the French Kiss fans have personally recommended if you like
Anna and the French Kiss.
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I’m a YA contemporary author that enjoys falling back into the realm of the teenager with all its newness, awkwardness, and angst. I grew up with the Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles, the genre that encapsulated and empowered the young adult voice. The coming-of-age story is so important because it molds the future of that character which in turn can mold the reader as well. What happens to a young person in their developing years will set the tone for their entire life. As a writer and a mother, I want to share stories that not only entertain but help young adults navigate difficult situations.
First off, it’s set in the 80s. This is my generation. No smartphones. No social media. Just pure teenage angst.
Mostly, I love the back-and-forth conversation and inner thoughts of Eleanor and Park. Rowell nails the authenticity of teens. Their strange humor and insecurities. I want to throw my arms around them and shelter them from the cruel bullies haunting them.
Rowell sucks you into their lives, and it feels so real and raw that you remember the wonder and horror of your own teenage years. The dialogue is rich in its realness, and the tender little moments between Eleanor and Park are precious.
'Reminded me not just what it's like to be young and in love, but what it's like to be young and in love with a book' John Green, author of The Fault in our Stars
Eleanor is the new girl in town, and she's never felt more alone. All mismatched clothes, mad red hair and chaotic home life, she couldn't stick out more if she tried.
Then she takes the seat on the bus next to Park. Quiet, careful and - in Eleanor's eyes - impossibly cool, Park's worked out that flying under the radar is the best way to…
I used to love dystopian books, but recently, I’ve become increasingly interested in hopeful narratives. I’ve been a climate activist in a couple of movements, and I care deeply about the world, but with all the challenges and negativity we are facing, it’s easy to fall into despair. That’s why I think stories that show cooperation, community, respect for nature and each other, working for a better world, and making it happen are so important. We need those stories to get inspired to act instead of thinking that we’re all doomed anyway. They are also healing—a refuge for a tormented mind.
This is such a beautiful, gentle and cozy book that I couldn’t put it down. In this story, people were left with no choice but to completely rebuild their society, and they did something wonderful.
This book is like a breath of fresh air, like a quiet, healing journey that doesn’t rely on action—it’s an exploration, a celebration of nature, and society, and connection. It touched me in a profound way. It made me go outside to check if it was raining and stand with my bare feet in the grass, enjoying the coldness and softness of the sensation.
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.
One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honour the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of 'what do people need?' is answered.
But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They're going to need to ask it a lot.
Ever since I penned my first romantic tale Will You Walk A Mile?, I've been enamored with the complexities of young love. For me, writing isn't just a profession; it's akin to breathing. I live to write and write for a living, with a special fondness for narratives that explore the highs and lows of teen romance and human emotion. I have been that ‘teen guy’ next door. That same teenage wonder for love stories that first sparked my passion for writing has stayed with me, maturing into a deeper understanding. to curate a list of teen novels that will tug at your heartstrings.
Honestly, this book crushed me, but in the most beautiful way possible.
It taught me that love can be found in the most unexpected places, even when faced with life's harshest realities. This narrative made me appreciate the small but significant moments in life, a lesson I try to convey in my own writing.
The beloved, #1 global bestseller by John Green, author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and Turtles All the Way Down
"John Green is one of the best writers alive." -E. Lockhart, #1 bestselling author of We Were Liars
"The greatest romance story of this decade." -Entertainment Weekly
#1 New York Times Bestseller * #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller * #1 USA Today Bestseller * #1 International Bestseller
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters…
A spy school for girls amidst Jane Austen’s high society.
Daughters of the Beau Monde who don’t fit London society’s strict mold are banished to Stranje House, where the headmistress trains these unusually gifted girls to enter the dangerous world of spies in the Napoleonic wars. #1 NYT bestselling author…
As a writer, I’ve always been drawn to exploring the teenage experience. Maybe that’s because my experiences in high school and college were rife with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows—everything was intensely beautiful and painful at once. That tension played a major role in my self-discovery process, and story-wise, it makes for a compelling character. But in a lot of literature, I find the depiction of teenage characters to be either sensationalized or infantilizing, melodramatic, or unconvincingly flat. When writing my own adolescent subjects in The Wayside, I turned often toward the rich, complex characters in the stories here.
Along with Anthropology of an American Girl, this is one of the books that made me want to become a writer. More specifically, it opened my eyes to what a writer can do with a teenage subject.
The story follows a prep-school student, Lee, but Sittenfeld handles her experience with all the nuance of “adult” subjects. I also admire how Sittenfeld captures the labyrinthine social politics of an elite boarding school and comments on class and race hierarchies without ever feeling didactic.
I think people mistake this book as YA—I certainly did when I first picked it up as a thirteen-year-old—but don’t be fooled by that candy-colored ribbon belt on the cover. This is as complex a novel as they come.
An insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition.
Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school’s glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel.…
As a kid, I’ve always loved reading romances, even if it meant spending my recesses in the library and reading through lunchtime. This resulted in my 6th-grade teacher giving me the weirdest look when she caught me reading a romance at school. When I started writing, I wrote a couple of different genres to test out, but YA contemporary romances were always the ones that stuck with me. I loved writing about the fluttery feelings of first love and the complexities of an uncertain future. It also helps that I met my husband, the love of my life, in high school so I’ll always have a soft spot for books that make me feel that way again.
I picked up A Taste for Love while I was browsing the aisles at Barnes and Noble and the description and gorgeous cover immediately caught my eye. Sometimes it is hard to rewrite a classic story and make it your own, but Jennifer Yen does it beautifully here. I completely forgot that it was a retelling of Pride and Prejudice as I was swept away in Liza’s life and all the laugh-out-loud antics of her family and friends. I’m also a huge fan of Top Chef so all the cooking in this book only made me hungry for more.
For fans of Jenny Han, Jane Austen, and The Great British Baking Show, A Taste for Love, is a delicious rom com about first love, familial expectations, and making the perfect bao.
To her friends, high school senior Liza Yang is nearly perfect. Smart, kind, and pretty, she dreams big and never shies away from a challenge. But to her mom, Liza is anything but. Compared to her older sister Jeannie, Liza is stubborn, rebellious, and worst of all, determined to push back against all of Mrs. Yang's traditional values, especially when it comes to dating.
As a kid, I’ve always loved reading romances, even if it meant spending my recesses in the library and reading through lunchtime. This resulted in my 6th-grade teacher giving me the weirdest look when she caught me reading a romance at school. When I started writing, I wrote a couple of different genres to test out, but YA contemporary romances were always the ones that stuck with me. I loved writing about the fluttery feelings of first love and the complexities of an uncertain future. It also helps that I met my husband, the love of my life, in high school so I’ll always have a soft spot for books that make me feel that way again.
My favorite genre to read and write is romance, but there are different levels to them. I got the honor to read Salaam, With Love before it came out and although the romance in here is more subtle and sweet, this book is definitely about loving yourself. About discovering who you are and being proud of where you’re from. Although our lives and cultures are different, I can definitely relate to Dua’s journey of self-discovery and was rooting for her every step of the way.
This heartfelt and humorous YA contemporary follows Dua, who spends the month of Ramadan making unexpected discoveries about family, faith, and first love.
"Beg beautifully crafts a comforting tale filled with fun characters and excellent Muslim representation.”--Aamna Qureshi, author of The Lady or the Lion
"[A] love letter to Islam, capturing all the wonderful nuances of faith and culture."--Adiba Jaigirdar, author of Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating
Being crammed into a house in Queens with her cousins is not how Dua envisions her trip to New York City. But here she is, spending the holy month of Ramadan…
Rom-coms have always been my favorite type of escapism. Give me all the witty banter, romantic tension, quirky characters, and – of course – the well-earned happily-ever-afters. Yes, humor is subjective, so there is a chance these YA books won’t have you roll-on-the-floor laughing like me, but I’m pretty sure they’ll inspire at least a chuckle from even the stoniest reader. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Would you let your family play matchmaker to help you get over a broken heart?
Ashley Elston's 10 Blind Dates is the perfect Christmas treat: delicious, warm, funny, escapist YA romance.
Sophie wants one thing for Christmas - time with her boyfriend Griffin. So when her parents plan a trip to visit her sister over the holiday, Sophie begs to be left behind with her grandparents and her boisterous extended family. But she and Griffin break up and she's devastated.
Sophie's grandmother, hating to see her so upset, devises a (not so) brilliant plan - to distract her from heartbreak.…
As a kid, I’ve always loved reading romances, even if it meant spending my recesses in the library and reading through lunchtime. This resulted in my 6th-grade teacher giving me the weirdest look when she caught me reading a romance at school. When I started writing, I wrote a couple of different genres to test out, but YA contemporary romances were always the ones that stuck with me. I loved writing about the fluttery feelings of first love and the complexities of an uncertain future. It also helps that I met my husband, the love of my life, in high school so I’ll always have a soft spot for books that make me feel that way again.
I have an odd fascination with zombies. Movies, shows, books, I love them all. I also know that I would never survive an actual zombie apocalypse because I have no survivor skills and my cardio sucks. Luckily, The Perfect Escape brings my love for all of that into a great YA rom-com. But it’s not all about the zombies and survival as the main characters, Nate and Kate, struggle with their own families and loves. It was a much deeper book than I expected, but it’s a great way to escape from your life for a few hours.
"Indeed the perfect escape from, well, pretty much everything."—SARAH HENNING, author of Throw Like a Girl and the Sea Witch duology
Love is a battlefield in this hysterical romantic comedy, perfect for fans of Jenny Han and teen romance books.
Nate Jae-Woo Kim wants to be rich. When one of his classmates offers Nate a ridiculous amount of money to commit grade fraud, he knows that taking the windfall would help support his prideful Korean family, but is compromising his integrity worth it?
Luck comes in the form of Kate Anderson, Nate's colleague at the zombie-themed escape room where he…
Ever since I penned my first romantic tale Will You Walk A Mile?, I've been enamored with the complexities of young love. For me, writing isn't just a profession; it's akin to breathing. I live to write and write for a living, with a special fondness for narratives that explore the highs and lows of teen romance and human emotion. I have been that ‘teen guy’ next door. That same teenage wonder for love stories that first sparked my passion for writing has stayed with me, maturing into a deeper understanding. to curate a list of teen novels that will tug at your heartstrings.
I adore this book because it reminds me of my own teenage years, filled with innocent crushes and the terror of being 'exposed.' It’s an emotional joyride that took me back to those sleepless nights wondering if my secret admirer ever knew how I felt.
Recommending this book feels like sharing a piece of my own journey through adolescence.
Now a Netflix feature film! Lara Jean keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her.
One for every boy she's ever loved.
When she writes, she can pour out her heart and soul and say all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only.
Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly Lara Jean's love life goes from imaginary to out of control!
The first book in the bestselling series by Jenny Han, which has been made into a NETFLIX feature film
Like many adults, I love a good YA story. YA books take us back to our younger days when we were stronger, faster, and likely better-looking, but also to the confusing transitional time of being a teenager. Mostly, I love reading and writing YA novels because despite being about hard topics–friendship, disease, toppling the patriarchy–they are hopeful. In this confusing, stressful world, we need a little optimism. With that in mind, I offer you five of my favorite YA books that I think adults will love, too.
Hands down, this is my favorite coming-of-age novel, written by Rainbow Rowell. Protagonist Cath copes with anxiety, family problems, and being away from home at college for the first time, but I loved this book because it plays with Harry Potter tropes, another book that appeals to adults as well as teens.
Cath is obsessed with a Harry Potter-like series called Simon Snow. Like Harry, Simon attends a school for magic and fights against evil, but he’s also in love with his roommate, a thinly veiled version of Draco Malfoy.
Cath not only reads all the Simon Snow books and dresses up in costumes for the movies, but she is also a devoted fan fiction writer. While Cath copes with her life and falls in love for the first time, it’s her queer Simon Snow fan fiction that kept me reading.
A love story by Rainbow Rowell, the New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor & Park.
Cath and Wren are identical twins, and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they're off to university and Wren's decided she doesn't want to be one half of a pair any more - she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It's not so easy for Cath. She's horribly shy and has always buried herself in the fan fiction she writes, where she always knows exactly what to say and can write a romance far more intense than…
