If you're anything like me, at the beginning of each new year you carefully stalk Goodreads, Instagram, and the Internet, trying to feel out the hottest young adult books to hit the shelves. Who's going to be this year's Cinder and Kai? What world are you going to escape to when the world is too much? How many incredible YA books will I uncover?

Below, I've compiled a few drool-worthy 2017 YA books that are on top of my TBR ("to be read") pile. Get ready to start putting holds on some awesome YA narratives! 

Fantasy and Sci Fi

 

 

Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth 

From bestselling author of the Divergent series comes a new story about  a violent planet where everyone develops a unique power meant to shape the future. Akos and Cyra, youths from enemy nations, resent their gifts that render them vulnerable to others' control before they become unlikely survival partners.

Frostblood by Elly Blake

Seventeen-year-old Ruby is a Fireblood who must use her powers of heat and flame to help two Frostblood rebels overthrow a maniacal Frostblood king.

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

Perfect for fans of Morgenstern's The Night Circus! Believing that she will never be allowed to participate in the annual Caraval performance when her ruthless father arranges her marriage, Scarlett receives the invitation she has always dreamed of before her sister, Tella, is kidnapped by the show's mastermind organizer.

King's Cage by Victoria Aveyard

The third book in the Red Queen series finds Mare embarking on a psychological game of cat and mouse against her captor, King Maven, who is slowly losing his grip on reality and forcing Maven to make an impossible choice between her life and the fate of the growing revolution.

The Edge of Everything by Jeff Giles

Enduring a traumatic existence after their father's death and neighbors' disappearance, seventeen-year-old Zoe and her brother are rescued from an attack by a bounty hunter who has been sent to claim the soul of their tormenter, a situation that introduces them to a new world and questions about their fate.

Retellings

Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

Having heard tales of the beautiful but dangerous Goblin King all her life, Liesl infuses her musical compositions with her romantic dreams before the abduction of her sister forces her to journey to the Underground, where she faces an impossible choice. A retelling  of Labyrinth.

Roseblood by A.G. Howard

A tale inspired by The Phantom of the Opera follows the experiences of a talented but cursed young singer who bonds with a mysterious boy beside the opera house where she is hoping to discover a cure.

Mystery

City of Saints & Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson 

Sixteen-year-old Tina and two friends leave Kenya and slip into the Congo, from where she and her mother fled years before, seeking revenge for her mother's murder but uncovering startling secrets.

The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett by Chelsea Sedoti

Unable to resist the missing-persons case of Lizzie Lovett, misfit Hawthorn Creely formulates a theory that is disregarded as too absurd before Hawthorn immerses herself in the missing girl's life, taking Lizzie's job and boyfriend, to determine what happened. 

Contemporary

A List of Cages by Robin Roe 

Adam is assigned to track down Julian for the school psychologist, and when he discovers Julian is his long-lost foster brother he is happy to be reunited with him and determined to understand the secrets going on in Julian's life.

By Your Side by Kasie West 

Bibliophiles and romance-lovers alike will relish this one. Accidentally locked in the library, Autumn discovers that a local troublemaker, Dan, is locked in with her, a situation that leads to an unexpected connection as the pair overcome respective beliefs over vending-machine food and begrudging conversations.

The Inexplicable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Having believed he was happy with his place in the loving Mexican-American family he shares with his adoptive gay father, Sal turns angry and uncertain when his senior year arrives and he realizes that he wants to know more about his biological origins. By the author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.

American Street by Ibi Zoboi

An evocative and powerful coming-of-age story perfect for fans of Everything, Everything, Bone Gap, and All American Boys. In this stunning debut, Zoboi draws on her own experience as a young Haitian immigrant, infusing this lyrical exploration of America with magical realism and vodou culture. Separated from her detained mother after moving from Haiti to America, Fabiola struggles to navigate the home of her loud cousins and a new school on Detroit's gritty west side, where a surprising romance and a dangerous proposition challenge her ideas about freedom. 

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas 

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and already optioned for a film adaptation, this debut is heartbreaking and  topical while still authentically representative. Stuck between the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends, sixteen-year-old Starr Carter's world shatters when she becomes the only wittness of her unarmed best friend being shot by a white cop.  

LGBTQIA

Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley

Fifteen-year-old Aki Simon has a theory, and it's mostly about sex.  Aki already knows she's bisexual, even if, until now, it's mostly been hypothetical.  When Aki sets off with the church youth-group for the summer and meets Christa, it seems her theory is prime for the testing.  But how exactly do two girls have sex, anyway? And more important, how can you tell if you're in love? It's going to be a summer of testing theories--and the result may just be love.

​History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

The award-winning author of More Happy Than Not is back and at it again! Having lost his first boyfriend in a terrible accident, Griffin, a youth with OCD, forges a friendship with his lost love's ex-boyfriend, Jackson, who exhibits suspicious signs of guilt.

The You I've Never Known by Ellen Hopkins

In Hopkins' iconic verse and prose style comes a  heartwrenching novel  about the struggles of a girl who longs for a permanent home after years spent moving with her nomadic father, a situation that is shaped by a special friend and daunting revelations about the mother who abandoned her. 

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

Running back to college and shutting out everyone from her life in California after a traumatic summer that nobody else knows about, Marin is forced to confront what happened during a lonely, fateful winter break. 

Nonfiction

Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World by Kelly Jensen

Let's get the party started! Here We Are is a scrapbook-style teen guide to understanding what it really means to be a feminist. It’s packed with essays, lists, poems, comics, and illustrations from a diverse range of voices, including TV, film, and pop-culture celebrities and public figures such as ballet dancer Michaela DePrince and her sister Mia, politician Wendy Davis, as well as popular YA authors like Nova Ren Suma, Malinda Lo, Brandy Colbert, Courtney Summers, and many more. 

What 2017 YA book are you most excited for? Tell us in the comments section below.