Not sure where to start with the shortlist for the Readings Young Adult prize? Our Kids bookseller and one of this year's judges, Alicia, has great suggestions to help you find the perfect book for your next read.

Please note, this blog post discusses books that deal with racism, homophobia and sexual assault.

While the plots of these two books might be different, they share many similarities both in worldbuilding and themes. Spider and her Demons follows Zhi, a normal girl trying to survive high school . . . while hiding the fact that she is half spider-demon. Zhi is not the only supernatural being in this world, in fact a number of characters would fit right at home in Miss Peregrine’s school. While there is no magical school in Spider and her Demons, themes of identity, love and found family run strong.

If you like the bizarre paranormal aspect of Miss Peregrine’s home for Peculiar Children, as well as the emphasis of embracing who you are and making your own family, you will like Spider and her Demons.

These two books have a lot in common. They may concern different groups of people, on completely different continents, but these two hard hitting YA contemporaries explore very similar issues. The Hate U Give dives into the racism and oppression faced by African American people, particularly at the hands of their justice system, and We Didn’t Think It Through tackles similar issues faced by First Nations people in Australia. In We Didn’t Think It Through, we see the discrimination both the main character, and those around him, face at the hands of the justice system, child protective services and even their own neighbours.

If The Hate U Give was a powerful read for you, I think you will have a similar experience reading We Didn’t Think It Through. 

Enemies to lovers? Check.

Beauty and the Beast retelling? Check.

A morally grey love interest? Check.

A Curse of Salt is a pirate themed romantasy book – follow Ria, a young girl who chooses to leave her home with the crew of the notorious Heartless King in order to protect her family. Just like Feyre, Ria is thrust into a world of magic and intrigue that she doesn’t trust, and has to adapt while slowly falling for the dark and mysterious Heartless King. While pirates and the fae are certainly not the same thing, both these books’ settings have a very similar whimsical yet sinister feel to them.

So, if you enjoyed A Court of Thorns and Roses (or really Romantasy in general), I think you will enjoy A Curse of Salt. 

The set up for these two books is incredibly similar; at a high school party a teenage girl is raped. What follows is a dissection of the psychological and social damage that such an event inflicts. Speak explores this narrative from the perspective of the girl who was assaulted, while Blind Spot explores it from the perspective of a bystander. In Blind Spot, the main character Dale walks in on an incredibly drunk girl being undressed by some guys, and instead of stopping them, he runs away. Over the course of the book, you see Dale reckon with his actions, as well as other people’s responses to the events.

If you are interested in seeing the events of Speak from another perspective, Blind Spot is the right book for you. 

Overcoming trauma is a challenging theme for any book to explore, but both Birdy and We Are Okay do just that. We Are Okay follows the journey of Marin, who flees to New York and cuts off contact with everyone in her old life after the death of her grandfather. Similarly in Birdy, Maddy’s family moves to a new town in order to give her a new start after a traumatic incident that has left her with selective mutism. In this new town Maddy meets Alice, a woman whose daughter disappeared five years ago and who is also unable to move on. Both stories follow the main characters as they learn to heal and move on from the past, with the help of people who care about them. 

Both A Way Home and I Wish You All the Best, explore what it means to be a teenager trying to find your way in a world that seems set against you. Ben, the protagonist of I Wish You All the Best, is kicked out of home by their parents after coming out as non-binary, whereas Grace in A Way Home is currently homeless due to her mother’s mental illness. While the struggles Grace and Ben face as individuals differ, both books explore the difficulties of finding a safe place to simply exist. They both face struggles with mental health, verbal and physical abuse, and their families.

A Way Home and I Wish You All the Best both demonstrate how the family you choose is more important than the family you were born with, and are brimming with love, friendship and compassion.