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Browse: Home / coming of age stories

coming of age stories

Jun

17

2025

Beyond Teen Fiction: High School Novels for Adult Readers

From LitHub: Miriam Gershow Recommends Zoe Heller, Emily St. James, Jim Shepherd and More I am a writer living comfortably in middle age, embracing every gray hair, shopping the Eileen Fisher racks with glee, and yet I’m obsessed with high school. My new novel, Closer, takes place in and around a public high school in fictional Horace, …

Jun

16

2025

Nimona by ND Stevenson

This is my all-time favorite graphic novel– it’s the perfect blend of funny, heartfelt, and subversive. I cannot recommend it enough. If you haven’t read it, you’re in for a treat! –Jess, Powell’s on Hawthorne, Portland, OR Last week, during Portland Book Week, booksellers, authors, illustrators, and publishing folk from around the country gathered in …

Mar

21

2025

Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch

What do you get when you cross a grumpy old vengeful pony with a murder mystery targeting his former owner, Penny? A laugh-out-loud and heartfelt adventure you won’t want to put down. Don’t like horses? No problem! Pony will still worm his grumpy little way into your heart. –Melissa, Trail’s End Bookstore, Winthrop, WA Load …

Sep

9

2024

Stay True by Hua Hsu 

Hua Hsu’s story perfectly balances being deeply personal and resonating with anyone who reads it. About friendship, nostalgia, identity and the desperate ways in which we try to preserve the past, Stay True is heartbreaking and deeply relatable to those struggling with loss in any form, whether it be loss of youth, loss of self, …

Apr

9

2024

A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest by OR Author Charlie J. Stephens

“In prose drenched with awe, Charlie J. Stephens’ tender novel takes a child’s perspective on the pains of being poor in rural Oregon. Knowing that children like Smokey are cast as furniture in the house of adult desires, immobile and without needs, A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest begs us to take them seriously.” —FOREWORD REVIEWS, starred review In …

Jan

23

2024

An Original Essay by 2024 PNBA Book Award Winner Kim Spencer

I grew up reading Judy Blume and the Sweet Valley High series. Book after book, I never saw anyone on the page who resembled me or had similar family experiences. What’s worse—I didn’t notice. Then, in my early twenties, I attended a Native College where I was assigned to read novels by Indigenous authors. Wow, …

Jul

14

2023

Celebrate International Nonbinary People’s Day (July 14)

Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything by Justine Pucella Winans I loved every page of this compelling, funny, suspenseful book. Imagine “Rear Window” meets a queer, teen version of “The Lovebirds.” Bianca is endearingly awkward and charmingly honest as a narrator and character, and the good people who enter and stay in Bianca’s orbit are …

Jun

9

2023

All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews

One of the best novels I read this year. A beautiful story about trauma, family expectations, love and found family. Story unfolds in a way where every character feels real. Makes you want to call your friends, grab a drink and catch up. Loved Loved Loved!!! –Rosa, Third Place Books, Seattle, WA  Get books you love …

May

12

2023

Garlic and the Witch by Bree Paulsen

When you’re a garlic raised by a witch, you are definitely not sure you want to be a human. But with friends around you, it’s okay to grow and change. Absolutely cozy, this is a great and super creative graphic novel. –Laura DeLaney, Rediscovered Bookshop, Boise and Caldwell, ID Meet unexpected characters at Rediscovered Books …

Feb

4

2022

1

remark

On Writing for the Troublemakers: An Original Essay by 2022 PNBA Award Winner Emilly Prado

Tupac Shakur’s poetry collection, The Rose that Grew from Concrete, and the safety of a diary were my entries into becoming a writer. For the entirety of middle school and the first half of high school, I was the kid who came into class late while cracking jokes or quips and sat in the back …

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