Our Favorite YA Books of 2023

With 2024 approaching, a few of our YA librarians wanted to share some of their favorite books of this year. Perhaps they're your favorite too!

Em Tone

1. Akane-banashi, Vol. 1: On That Day by Yuki Suenaga: Shinta Arakawa wants nothing more than to pass his shin'uchi exam--the test that would make him a top-rank headliner and master storyteller in the traditional Japanese art of rakugo. Akane Osaki, his daughter and biggest fan, spies on him while he practices and learns his routines for herself. When rakugo master Issho Arakawa expels everyone after the exam with no explanation, a fire is lit inside Akane. From that day forth, she has had one goal--to avenge her father and prove his art was worthy of the title of shin'uch. 
2. Frieren : beyond journey's end. Vol. 1 by Kanehito Yamada (Adult manga): Elf mage Frieren and her courageous fellow adventurers have defeated the Demon King and brought peace to the land. But Frieren will long outlive the rest of her former party. How will she come to understand what life means to the people around her? Decades after their victory, the funeral of one her friends confronts Frieren with her own near immortality. Frieren sets out to fulfill the last wishes of her comrades and finds herself beginning a new adventure...

Jes Gafkowitz (That's me!)

1. Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian: Set against the backdrop of Tehran and Los Angeles, this sweeping intergenerational story, examining queer identity at the end of different decades, follows three boys in the same Iranian family as they each gain a new understanding of their history, culture--and themselves.
2. She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran: Seventeen-year-old bisexual Jade Nguyen is spending the summer in Vietnam at the French colonial house her estranged father is fixing up as a vacation rental, but unbeknownst to her family, the house and its ghosts have other plans.
3. We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds: Forced to move to Georgia to live with her hostile, terminally ill grandmother, 17-year-old Avery discovers that the racist history of this town is rooted in her family in ways she can’t even imagine, jeopardizing her newfound romance with her next-door neighbor, Simone. 

Rakisha Kearns-White

1. Hello, Melancholic! #1-3 by Yayoi Osawa: Asano Minato is a tall but stooping first-year in high school. Though she's a killer trombone player, she does everything she can to fade into the background. Despite her best efforts, Minato catches the attention of her bubbly and charismatic senpai Hibiki, who wants Minato to join the mysterious band she's forming at school. And she won't take no for an answer! Will Minato be able to let go of the past and play in a school band again? Can polar opposites harmonize through music? 
2. Luminary: A Magical Guide to Self-Care by Kate Scelsa: Self-care is not only necessary, it’s magical! Your road to self-care can be a mystical journey that leaves you feeling more confident, determined, and ready to accomplish all those bucket-list items and dreams you have scribbled in your journal. So why not start that journey now? 
3. Queer Ducks (and Other Animals): The Natural World of Animal Sexuality by Eliot Schrefer: Drawing on science, history, anthropology and sociology, this fascinating book explores same-sex sexual behavior in the animal world, putting to rest claims about the “unnaturalness” of queer behavior and showing that it is as natural as it is in our own species. 
4. True Beauty, Vol. 1 by Yaongyi: Once bullied for being perceived as ugly, young Jugyeong Lim uses online tutorials to transform into a beautiful popular girl. Caught in a love triangle between a mystery man and a bad boy, Jugyeong navigates high school and her personal life while her self-esteem, romantic life, and school life are constantly in flux.

Sarah Varenhorst

1. Beholder by Ryan La Sala: The only survivor of a NYC penthouse party massacre where dead bodies were arranged into disturbingly elegant sculpture, Athan becomes the prime suspect and, desperate to prove his innocence, must confront an ancient evil compelling its victims toward violence, chaos and self-destruction. 
2. Into the Light by Mark Oshiro: Seventeen-year-old queer adoptee Manny, now homeless, sets out to find his sister Elena, who is still enmeshed in Christ's Dominion, the community that abandoned him, but the journey is fraught with danger, as he is forced to confront the religious trauma from his past.
3. This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham: Ex-zombies living in Southern California, four best friends attend a musical festival in the desert, as a last hurrah before graduation, where they soon discover someone is drugging ghouls and reawakening their hunger for flesh and must work together to stop the carnage.