Young adult fiction highlights for January!

Start your year off with a stack of new releases to help you smash through your 2022 reading goal and stay ahead of the game (or, if you’re not overly competitive like me, just to enjoy a few great books before the year really kicks in).

With exciting sequels like Beyond the End of the World by by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner and Here’s to Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli, alongside a dazzling fantasy standalone from Roshani Chokshi with Once More Upon a Time and a fantastic debut full of dark magic in Leslie Vedder’s The Bone Spindle, my new year’s goal to read more in 2022 is looking super achievable right now.

Happy reading!

Beyond the End of the World (The Other Side of the Sky: Book 2) by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

Both Nimh and her enemy, Inshara, have been sent to the cloudlands. Above, Nimh has no memory of her past, only an aching, undying certainty that she has left something – someone – behind. But while she struggles to recall her identity, an impostor wields her name with deadly purpose. Below, North looks to the sky, desperate to join the ones he loves and return to his world. But with only a traitor willing to help him, and others clamouring for him to take Nimh’s place, the journey seems more impossible than ever.

Here’s to Us (What if it’s Us: Book 2) by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli

Ben has spent his first year of college working on his fantasy manuscript with his writing partner Mario, who is a great Spanish tutor, and an even better kisser. So why can’t he stop thinking about the fact that Arthur’s back in town two years after they called it quits? Arthur is in New York for a dream internship on Broadway, with a boyfriend back at home that he couldn’t be happier with. But when he comes upon Ben cuddled up with a mystery boy, he starts to wonder if his feelings for Ben ever truly went away.

Youngbloods (Imposters: Book 4) by Scott Westerfeld

Frey has spent her life in a family of deceivers, a stand-in for her sister, manipulated at her father’s command. Free from them at last, she is finding her own voice – and using it to question everything her family stood for. Tally was once the most famous rebel in the world. But for over a decade, she’s kept to the shadows, allowing her myth to grow even as she receded. Now she sees that the revolution she led has not created a stable world. As the world is propelled further into conflict and conspiracy, Frey and Tally join forces to put a check on the people in power, while still trying to understand their own power and where it belongs.

Once More Upon a Time by Roshani Chokshi

Imelda and Ambrose have forgotten why they got together in the first place. After a whirlwind courtship and a fairy-tale wedding, they embark on life together as royalty of Loves Keep. But when Imelda is in trouble, Ambrose sacrifices their love to save her life, little knowing that the loss of their love will jeopardise the entire kingdom …

Serendipity: Ten Romantic Tropes, Transformed, edited by Marissa Meyer

From stories of first love, unrequited love, love that surprises, love that’s been there all along, 10 of the brightest and award-winning authors writing YA have taken on some of your favourite romantic tropes, embracing them and turning them on their heads. Readers will fall for this collection of stories that celebrate love at its most humorous, inclusive, heart-expanding, and serendipitous.

The Bone Spindle by Leslie Vedder

Filore, a treasure hunter with a knack for riddles, is busy running from her own deadly curse, when she pricks her finger on a spindle. Bound to the sleeping prince Briar Rose with the spindle’s magic – and chosen as the only person who can wake him – Fi is stuck with the prince’s ghost until she can break his ancient curse and save his kingdom.

At the End of Everything by Marieke Nijkamp

The Hope Juvenile Treatment Center is ironically named. No one has hope for the teenagers who have been exiled there; the world barely acknowledges that they exist. Then the guards at Hope start acting strange. And one day…they don’t show up. At first, the teens are thrilled. But when they band together to make a break from the facility, they encounter soldiers outside the gates. There’s a rapidly spreading infectious disease outside, and no one can leave their houses or travel without a permit. Which means that they’re stuck at Hope for good. And this time, no one is watching out for them at all.

When The World Was Ours by Liz Kessler

Vienna, 1936. Elsa, Leo and Max have always been best friends, a special team of three. Then the Nazis come. As a growing darkness descends around them, Leo and Elsa run for their lives, taking two very different paths across Europe. And Max, once their closest friend, now becomes the enemy as he is drawn into the Hitler Youth. Will the friends ever find their way back to each other? Will they want to?

How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao

Nancy Luo is shocked when her former best friend, Jamie Ruan, top-ranked junior at Sinclair Prep, goes missing, and then is found dead. Nancy is even more shocked when word starts to spread that she and her friends–Krystal, Akil, and Alexander–are the prime suspects, thanks to “the Proctor,” someone anonymously incriminating them via the school’s social media app.

Warriors of Wing and Flame (Sisters of Shadow and Light: Book 2) by Sara B. Larson

The doorway between the magical world of the Paladin and the human world where sisters Zuhra and Inara grew up in isolation is open once more. But the joyous reunion with their Paladin father is shattered when a treacherous sorcerer attacks Inara, stealing her power for himself. Now nearly invincible and determined to rule over both Paladin and human alike, he will let nothing stand in his way.

Dead Lucky by Andreina Cordani

Ed, Maxine, Leni, Xav. They are the influencers, the lucky ones. Gifted, gilded people who have everything – fame, respect, adulation, more freebies than they can ever unbox. Their lives, loves and feuds are shared with millions of fans on the streaming platform PlayMii, and they are living the dream. But it’s broken Ed’s heart. It’s crushing Maxine. It’s destroying Leni’s friendships. And it’s gone to Xav’s head. Then, a masked figure walks into Xav’s apartment and murders him on camera.

The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino

When Tess and Eliot stumble upon an ancient book hidden in a secret tunnel beneath their school library, they accidentally release a devil from his book-bound prison, and he’ll stop at nothing to stay free. He’ll manipulate all the ink in the library books to do his bidding, he’ll murder in the stacks, and he’ll bleed into every inch of Tess’s life until his freedom is permanent. Forced to work together, Tess and Eliot have to find a way to re-trap the devil before he kills everyone they know and love, including, increasingly, each other.

The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl

After the mysterious death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki, and Rory are the talk of their elite school, Grimrose Academie. The police ruled Ariane’s death as a suicide, but the trio are determined to find out what really happened. When Nani Eszes arrives as their newest roommate, it sets into motion a series of events that no one could have predicted. As the girls retrace their friend’s final days, they discover a dark secret about Grimrose: Ariane wasn’t the first dead girl.

Which young adult book coming in January 2022 are you looking forward to reading the most?

Tell us below in the comments!

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Eden Samuel