New YA Books This Week, May 28, 2025

Set in 1989 Soviet Estonia, this story follows 16-year-old Vik, who lives in a dangerous village with even more dangerous woods just beyond the village border. Soldiers wait for a moment of dissent from anyone, eager to take them out, while a spirit in the woods is equally eager to take anyone it can for its own.

Vik’s sister Anna disappeared five years ago. The spirit in the woods got her, and all Vik wants is for Anna to return. So when she does come back on the anniversary of her disappearance, Vik isn’t sure what to think. Is this real? Is it a joke?

It turns out that the Anna who is back isn’t the Anna who Vik knows. Vik needs to know what’s going on in the woods but doing so will be anything but safe nor easy.

The pitch for this one calls it “politically incisive folk horror.” It sounds fantastic.

If you’re looking for a queer time travel story, make this your stop.

Pocket is the town where anyone traveling through time stops. It’s not their final destination but a pleasant place along the way. Calisto calls Pocket home, though, and they love spending time in their grandmother’s shop. It’s filled with clothing used to fit travelers with costumes.

Fawkes has been traveling since he was young. When he finds himself in Pocket, he finally meets Calisto in person for the first time. Calisto has, however, appeared in visions Fawkes has had about the future, and it includes the two of them being chased by villains.

Together, Calisto and Fawkes must flee Pocket and travel through time in order to save Calisto’s beloved home town . . . and themselves.

If you love dystopian reads that tell an all-too-close-to-reality story, dig into this one.

A handful of the descendants of Death survived a brutal murder, and all of them are in hiding, including Crow. Crow has to hide their magic to stay alive and they’ve been successful so far, finding solace at the home of their uncles in one of the toughest parts of the city, the Shallows.

Crow may need to hide their magic, but this has made them an exceptionally good fighter in the city’s underground ring. So when Crow’s uncles are arrested for harboring the surviving children of Death, Crow finds themself in a position of needing to save their uncles. To do so, they’ll enter a gladiator like competition and come face to face with some of the city’s wealthiest and most powerful.

If they win, though, they’ll be granted one wish. That wish, of course, will help Crow set their uncles free. It will be anything but an easy battle.

When the book is described as “weird and revelatory” and the actual descriptive text is fairly not descriptive, it is hard not to want to pick the book up immediately to know what’s going on.

‘Wayne Le has been invited to take part in an adolescent health study by a local prestigious university. He’s game and thinks this will be something that his immigrant father will be proud of. His dad’s been struggling since mom left.

The study isn’t what it seems though. Now ‘Wayne, his bestie Kermit, and Jane, another participant, are sucked into world of conspiracies that are either going to unravel a massive government plot . . . or that are entirely made up inside their own heads.

It’s a story about growing up neurodivergent and BIPOC in a country that is anything but friendly to either (and a country that thrives on conspiracy related to anyone deemed Other).

So this one is pitched as Alien meets The Titanic and that means I’m all in.

Celeste is an apprentice engineer and really excited and proud of the work going into the maiden voyage of the Titan. The ship is on its way to Mars and she, onto her new life.

Dominic is less thrilled about the voyage. The Titan is his dad’s ship, and he’s been sent aboard, even though he doesn’t want to be there. He’d rather be in art school.

And just for fun, ancient aliens that were discovered under melted ice caps are also on board. They’re meant to be entertainment for the passengers. The problem is that someone has let them loose and there is now total chaos aboard The Titan.

Let’s take a moment here to appreciate this cover. The evil bunny figurine on an abandoned merry-go-round? Yes, please.

Whisperwood was a sprawling amusement park deep in Appalachia until 18 months ago. That’s when Virginia Strauss, matriarch of the family, shut the place down and subsequently watched the family fortune start to dry up.

For 17-year-old Frankie Strauss, the closure of the park wasn’t the end of the world. In fact, it’s a relief–maybe the corrupting influence of the family’s wealth will finally come to an end.

Then Virginia goes missing and Frankie starts to see that there is something much darker going on in her family. She’ll need to turn to the groundskeeper of the park to help her unravel the mystery, find her aunt, and figure out the secrets lurking in her family.

One year ago, River’s best friend Dylan died in a car accident. To make matters worse, River has to pass by a billboard every single day that reduces Dylan to a statistic–it’s one of those billboards reminding people not to text and drive.

So when River is caught vandalizing the billboard, he’s offered an opportunity (aka: blackmailed) to take part in a research study that is investigating what’s going on with kids who are “struggling socially.” He’s there now with Mavis, Dylan’s former girlfriend and River could not be less thrilled about this development.

But it doesn’t take long for River to start to build a bond with another group member named Nash. Those feelings start to grow intense, and it’s mutual. But now River wonders: is this study really about what it claims to be? As he discovers more about the purposes of the study, River might have to jeopardize a budding relationship to get the truth out there.

A teen girl and her younger sister are seeking asylum in the U.S. from El Salvador, where their lives are at great risk. When they make it across the border and are held in a detention facility, Marisol’s interview goes less well than she suspects and she worries her request will be denied. She uses a break in attention by the guards to run with her sister.

She’s then picked up by what seems like a nice woman who offers to help her get to New York, where she’s to meet a friend of the family who wants to help them. The woman informs Marisol she has an offer: the woman is actually a government employee and there’s a new procedure that needs a human test subject. The procedure will remove the traumas from someone suffering and give them to an otherwise healthy individual. Marisol can be the participant, in exchange for her asylum request.

Fearing deportation, Marisol agrees. There is so much to dig into this tightly written book about love, family, immigration, race, and grief. Originally published in 2019, it’s finally making its way into paperback and it could not be more timely.

It’s time for the senior class trip to Paris. Ruby is trying not to admit how much she likes Sean, while Sean is also crushing hard on Ruby but waiting for her to approach him first.
But that might not happen. Ruby’s best friend invites her and two other classmates to a party in the Parisian catacombs, one that her friend was invited to by a mysterious Parisian boy. The girls never make it to the party, though. Instead, they’re being chased by something sinister in the catacombs.
Will they be able to escape unharmed? That’s the problem: no one knows, and above ground, Sean is trying to find the four girls amid a media frenzy.