The best new YA books for the Easter break
Troubled teenage boys take centre stage in many of this spring’s best YA reads, writes Rachel Gray
If you’re looking for a fast-paced take on the school-based murder mystery genre, look no further than debut author Helen Price’s Kill Me Now (Chicken House, £8.99). School golden boy and heartthrob Riley seems to have it all, until he’s found dead. Suspicion quickly falls on Guy, the son of the local funeral director, who finds himself trapped in a web of lies. As more murders keep happening around Guy, he tries to untangle the mystery. More questions appear, and no one is quite as they seem. Tense, twisty, and set against the familiar backdrop of crushes, cliques, and classroom politics, this high school whodunnit delivers a gripping read from start to finish.
Another recently released thriller is Better the Devil by Erik J Brown (Hachette, £9.99). Following on from the 2022 hit All That’s Left in the World, this is another page-turning psychological thriller which keeps you hooked until the final page. A teenage boy who is running away from his parents and the conversion therapy they’re forcing him to take decides to take on the identity of a missing boy, Nate. However, what begins as a split-second decision to avoid arrest becomes more complicated when he is taken home to meet Nate’s family. There he encounters Miles, the cute, true-crime obsessed boy next door, who figures out that Nate isn’t who he claims to be. As they start to investigate what happened to the missing boy, the truth they begin to uncover turns increasingly dark and dangerous. A clever blend of true crime and first love, this novel is both gripping and emotional in equal measure.
Ghost Boys: The Graphic Novel by Jewell Parker Rhodes, illustrated by Setor Fiadzigbey (Hachette, £9.99) is an important and moving version of the 2018 novel of the same name. Twelve year old Jerome doesn’t get into trouble, he is quiet, thoughtful and looks after his little sister. But one day, while playing outside, he is shot by a police officer. Now a ghost, Jerome finds himself stuck on earth, forced to watch helplessly as his family mourn him and struggle to understand how this happened. He begins to notice other ghost boys, each with their own story of injustice, and their reasons for why they haven’t passed on. The book skilfully switches from past to present, revealing the reasons these boys are ghosts, and the systemic racism at the heart of their deaths. Fiadzigbey’s illustrations are striking, and it’s a compelling story.
Another recommendation featuring teenage boys is Big Words by Luke Palmer (Barrington Stoke, £7.99). In this dyslexia-friendly novel we meet Sam, the biggest and loudest boy in his friendship group and its unofficial leader. Sam makes the decisions and tells the others what to do. When his idea to sledge down a hill on a rusty old bonnet of a car leads to disaster for his friends, Sam faces some harsh truths. Is being the biggest and loudest the best way to be? Does this make him a good friend? This is a gritty yet deeply sensitive portrayal of male teenage friendships, and the pressures that come with it. With its accessible style and authentic, well-developed characters, Big Words packs a lot into its 120 pages.
The Call by Peadar Ó Guilín (David Fickling Books, £8.99) is a gripping and unsettling novel in which the magical, exiled Sidhe take brutal revenge on humanity. They kidnap every teenager and subject them to 24 hours of being hunted. No one knows when they will be taken, and only one in ten return alive. Humanity has created survival academies, and Nessa, fiercely determined, knows what she must do to stay alive. Originally published in 2016, this 10-year anniversary reissue is still a fresh read, full of Irish mythology and packed with gruesome body horror.
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