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We have made our way to final days of February, meaning we are two months through 2025. I don’t know about your experience, but this has been the slowest year ever—but perhaps it feels that way every year around this time, as at least here in the upper midwest, it’s still cold and dreary more days than not.
For the first time in a long time, though, this year has started off being so fantastic in terms of reading. I usually struggle to find a groove, and ever since COVID—which is also when I was pregnant and had a newborn—my reading life in general has not been particularly big or broad. But this year, it does feel like I’ve been reading a LOT more and spending more time with books, period. It is one big light in the dark.
If you are looking for your next great read, you’re in luck. It’s your weekly roundup of new YA releases, and even though the release roster is a little lighter, thanks to a slower period in publishing land, it’s got something for everyone (and it’ll give you a minute to breathe before publishing goes warp speed the next couple of months!).
Like recent weeks, the diversity in the highlighted books doesn’t represent the breadth of stories in YA more broadly. This is in part because there are several continuing series books listed below and because this roundup doesn’t include the new hardcover or comic releases covered last week. As usual, I’ve pulled out series books into separate lists below the called out titles. This is to help alleviate potential spoilers for mid-series releases.
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Hardcover YA Releases
The Otherwhere Post by Emily J. Taylor
If you’re a fan of dark academia, fantasy, and magic, you’ll love this standalone release.
Maeve Abenthy lost everything seven years ago. She’s been living under a fake name, moving constantly, as she’s trying to avoid being connected to her father’s history of crimes. So when Maeve gets a mysterious letter with the phrase “your father was innocent,” she knows she needs to figure out where it came from and what it means.
She takes an apprenticeship with the Otherwhere Post. There, she’ll learn the dangerous and magical art of scriptomancy, which allows for enchanting letters and sending them to other worlds. Maeve can’t outrun her past or her father, though, and the more she begins to discover about him, the more worried she becomes about her identity and the secrets she’s keeping.
As she begins to unravel her father’s secrets through the apprenticeship, she’s begun to receive threats herself to stop investigating…and her mentor is well aware she’s hiding something from him, too.
The Wildest Things by Andrea Hannah
A sapphic Snow White retelling? Count me all the way in.
Twenty years after she bit the apple that killed her, Snow White wakes up to her glass coffin shattered and a world that looks nothing like what she left. The once lush land is now blighted, with mutated creatures to her left and her right.
Snow White will now set out on a journey to restore her beloved home back to its beauty. But it’s a journey that won’t be easy, especially as the Queen plans to do any and everything she can to take Snow White down.
Unlock The Dark by Sasa Hawk
Elia’s got conjuring abilities. That, when paired with her father’s magic, lets her open paths up to any location. The thing is, her dad is dying and she needs to keep him alive in order to siphon his magic so she can provide for her siblings once he does pass. So when the god of death punishes Elia by claiming her youngest brother as his servant, she’s now got to save him, too.
Trys is a prince and he offers Elia a commission: help him locate a legendary scroll, and in return, he’ll marry her and provide for all of her siblings for the rest of their lives.
Elia is desperate and takes the mission. Now she and Trys are on a journey together and, well, find themselves falling for each other, too. But when Trys finds the scroll, he’s transformed into a monster, and Elia must use the power she’s been holding on to to save him, to save her family, and to save herself.
New Series Books Out in Hardcover This Week:
Paperback YA Releases
Dead Things Are Closer Than They Appear by Robin Wasley
Sid Spencer is the most average, boringly average, teenager to exist. At least that’s the metric in the town where she lives, which is a tourist trap built on top of a fault line that seals a whole magical world beneath it. Sid’s currently just trying to get through being one of the only Asian teens in town, her friends choosing to date one another and dump her along the way, and more.
So when someone kills one of the Guardians who protects the city’s seal, magic is unearthed. But not all magic is good, and the roving hoards of monsters are being lead around by the person responsible for breaking the seal.
Sid soon discovers her brother is involved in the magical break, and despite her otherwise ordinary life, she knows she’ has to step up and help reverse course. If she doesn’t, her entire town—and her entire life, period—may be forever gone.
It’s anything but an ordinary apocalypse, but it might be the otherwise ordinary girl who helps put an end to it.
Plan A by Deb Caletti
Ivy is pregnant. This is not a good position to be in for most teenagers, but it’s especially not good in small town Texas where abortion isn’t an option and where she can easily become the subject of unmitigated harassment and judgment. So now instead of spending the summer as she planned, Ivy and her boyfriend Lorenzo are going to take the wildest road trip of their lives. They’re heading to Rome, Oregon, where Ivy can be with her grandmother and legally obtain an abortion.
Along the way, the couple will make the best of a bad situation. There will be diners, drive ins, and dives, and there will be plenty of discovery about what it is to be pregnant in a country hellbent on destroying reproductive rights.
Whew. I love a Deb Caletti book, and this one sounds like it is very much Of This Moment.
The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert
Four people disappeared in a small town on one winter’s night. Among them is Becca, Nora’s best friend. Nora wants to get to the bottom of the disappearances and know what really happened to Becca. But as she explores a series of coded messages Becca left behind, Nora starts to unravel a dark secret from her town’s history. It’s about local lore and a legendary goddess who seemed like an innocent part of a childhood game…but who may be the one making the last move.
New Series Books Out in Paperback This Week:
