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From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun

Jacqueline Woodson · back to the book

What’s in it

Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.

24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

Every Day

David Levithan · 330 pages

Every morning A wakes in a different person's body, in a different person's life, learning over the years to never get too attached, until he wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon.

Identity FormationSexual OrientationComing of AgeCharacter-Driven
❤️

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

John Green, David Levithan · 331 pages

One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two teens—both named Will Grayson—are about to cross paths. As their worlds collide and intertwine, the Will Graysons find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, building toward romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history’s most fabulous high school musical.Hilarious, poignant, and deeply insightful, John Green and D

Identity FormationSexual OrientationComing of AgeCharacter-Driven
❤️

The Man Without a Face

Isabelle Holland · 157 pages

A fatherless fourteen-year-old boy develops an unusual relationship with the man living near his summer home who helps him prepare his entrance exams to boarding school.

Single MotherSexual OrientationComing of AgeCharacter-Driven
❤️

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Benjamin Alire Saenz · 368 pages

Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.

Identity FormationComing of AgeYoung AdultSexual Orientation
❤️

Little & Lion

Brandy Colbert · 341 pages

When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn't sure if she'll ever want to go back. LA is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support. But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new; the same girl h

Identity FormationComing of AgeSexual OrientationYoung Adult
❤️

The Beginning of Everything

Robyn Schneider · 352 pages

Identity FormationComing of AgeYoung AdultCharacter-Driven
❤️

Hero-type

Barry Lyga

Feeling awkward and ugly is only one reason sixteen-year-old Kevin is uncomfortable with the publicity surrounding his act of accidental heroism, but when a reporter photographs him apparently being unpatriotic, he steps into the limelight to encourage people to think about what the symbols of freedom really mean.

Identity FormationComing of AgeYoung AdultCharacter-Driven
❤️

Paper Towns

John Green · 320 pages

One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q's neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears.

Identity FormationComing of AgeYoung AdultEmotional
❤️

Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow

Faiza Guene · 179 pages

Struggling with an overworked mother, an absent father, and the challenges of life within the infamous Paradise projects of suburban Paris, fifteen-year-old French Muslim Doria endures a parade of social workers, experiences a first kiss, and assumes a philosophical outlook regarding her circumstances.

Single MotherIdentity FormationComing of AgeTeen Protagonist
❤️

Prep

Curtis Sittenfeld · 427 pages

Curtis Sittenfeld's debut novel, Prep, is an insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition.Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate famil

Coming of AgeIdentity FormationCharacter-DrivenYoung Adult
🙂

Girl Walking Backwards

Bett Williams · 242 pages

In Girl Walking Backwards, Skye wants what all teenagers want--to survive high school. She lives in Southern California, though, which is making that difficult. Her mother has fallen victim to the pseudo-New Age culture and insists on dragging her to consciousness-raising workshops and hypnotists. As if this weren't difficult enough, Skye falls in love with Jessica, a troubled gothic punk girl who

Identity FormationComing of AgeSexual OrientationYoung Adult
🙂

We Were Here

Matt de la Pena

The story of one boy and his journey to find himself.When it happened, Miguel was sent to Juvi. The judge gave him a year in a group home—said he had to write in a journal so some counselor could try to figure out how he thinks. The judge had no idea that he actually did Miguel a favor. Ever since it happened, his mom can't even look at him in the face. Any home besides his would be a better place

Coming of AgeYoung AdultTeen ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
🙂

Saving Francesca

Melina Marchetta · 243 pages

Sixteen-year-old Francesca could use her outspoken mother's help with the problems of being one of a handful of girls at a parochial school that has just turned coed, but her mother has suddenly become severely depressed.

Identity FormationComing of AgeYoung AdultCharacter-Driven
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That Summer

Sarah Dessen · 198 pages

During the summer of her divorced father's remarriage and her sister's wedding, fifteen-year-old Haven comes into her own by letting go of the myths of the past.

Identity FormationComing of AgeYoung AdultEmotional
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Liar & Spy

Rebecca Stead · 196 pages

When seventh grader Georges (the S is silent) moves into a Brooklyn apartment building, he meets Safer, a twelve-year-old coffee-drinking loner and self-appointed spy. Georges becomes Safer's first spy recruit. His assignment? Tracking the mysterious Mr. X, who lives in the apartment upstairs. But as Safer becomes more demanding, Georges starts to wonder: how far is too far to go for your only fri

Identity FormationComing of AgeCharacter-DrivenFirst Person Narrator
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The Book of Ruth

Jane Hamilton · 328 pages

"I learned slowly, that if you don't look at the world with perfect vision, you're bound to get yourself cooked." Having come within an inch of her life, Ruth Dahl is determined to take a good look at it - to figure out whether, in fact, she's to blame for the mess." Pegged the loser in a small-town family that doesn't have much going for it in the first place. Ruth grows up in the shadow of her

Single MotherComing of AgeCharacter-DrivenTeen Protagonist
🙂

The Catcher in the Rye

Jerome David Salinger · 277 pages

With the author's recent passing, the classic novel about young Holden Caulfield's disillusionment with the adult world and its phoniness will only rise in popularity--and controversy, since it is a favorite target of censors, who often cite profan

Identity FormationComing of AgeEmotionalTeen Protagonist
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Monster

Walter Dean Myers · 281 pages

While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

Identity FormationYoung AdultEmotionalTeen Protagonist
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Release

Patrick Ness

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeTeen ProtagonistYoung Adult
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Gather

Kenneth M. Cadow · 325 pages

Publisher Annotation: A resourceful teenager in rural Vermont struggles to hold on to the family home while his mom recovers from addiction in this striking debut novel.

Single MotherComing of AgeYoung AdultTeen Protagonist
🙂

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chbosky · 216 pages

Charlie writes letters to an unknown mail recipient, detailing his struggles with high school, family, and finding his place in the world. Full of beautiful quotes and written with such sincerity, this is a book that makes the reader reflect on their purpose in life, while simultaneously reminding us about the power music, friendships, and "feeling infinite" can have on our life. Read this book.

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeYoung AdultCharacter-Driven
🙂

X

Ilyasah Shabazz, Kekla Magoon · 360 pages

Co-written by Malcolm X's daughter, this riveting and revealing novel follows the formative years of the man whose words and actions shook the world. Malcolm Little's parents have always told him that he can achieve anything, but from what he can tell, that's a pack of lies--after all, his father's been murdered, his mother's been taken away, and his dreams of becoming a lawyer have gotten him la

Identity FormationComing of AgeCharacter-DrivenYoung Adult
🙂

Seraphina

Rachel Hartman · 465 pages

In a world where dragons and humans coexist in an uneasy truce and dragons can assume human form, Seraphina, whose mother died giving birth to her, grapples with her own identity amid magical secrets and royal scandals, while she struggles to accept and develop her extraordinary musical talents.

Identity FormationComing of AgeTeen ProtagonistYoung Adult
🙂

I am J

Cris Beam · 326 pages

J, who feels like a boy mistakenly born as a girl, runs away from his best friend who has rejected him and the parents he thinks do not understand him when he finally decides that it is time to be who he really is.

Identity FormationComing of AgeCharacter-DrivenYoung Adult
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