The best books that make you remember what it was really like to be young

This book tells the dead-on truth about what it feels like to be a kid who can’t find a single place in the world where he feels like he belongs. I love, love, love James Sveck’s smart, funny, cynical voice and how it made me laugh and cry—sometimes simultaneously. I love how this book shows that even young people with every advantage can be lonely, unhappy, and unseen, too, and that, like everyone else, they have to make themselves vulnerable to change that is going to be painful. But that sounds so—ugh, what adults are always saying to kids. The truth is, I love this book because it’s honest and hilarious and I came to the end feeling like I knew James and had a real stake in his getting his act together.  

Over the course of two years, Frankie grows from a girl who gets lost in the background to one who gets so frustrated by being dismissed and underestimated by the boys at her school that she takes matters into her own hands, wreaking mischievous havoc to create change. I love how this book showcases the stubborn gender inequities of high school in hilarious yet profound ways. It’s got a little bit of everything: friendship, romance, rebellion, heartache—and excellent pranks. Grrrl Power!

The Lost Episodes of Revie Bryson is another book that will make you laugh and cry. What I love most about it is its wondering tone which makes me feel like I’m trying to figure out twelve-year-old Revie Bryson’s world right along with him. Why did his mother make up lost episodes of the Bible that made him feel like he just might be the second coming, why did she leave him and his dad in Paris, Indiana to pursue her dreams of Hollywood—and where is God, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be able to count on Him to make things right? 

A Chinese American teenager living in San Francisco’s China Town in the mid-fifties, Lily Hu has just begun to realize that she is a lesbian. She must struggle to keep this secret from her family, who want her to date a nice Chinese boy, and her childhood friend Shirley, who expects her to head the support group for her campaign for Miss China Town. But when a classmate introduces her to the Telegraph Club, she becomes enamored of Tommy Andrews, a “male impersonator,” and the secret becomes more and more difficult to keep. This honest, evocative novel brings a time and place to life, reminding us that life for those with the courage to be who they really are has never been easy.

The intense, sometimes obsessive nature of teenage friendship is brought vividly to life when Jamaica (Jam) Gallahue is sent to a therapeutic boarding school because she is unable to get over the death of her boyfriend. Along with four other students, she’s assigned to a special English class that will only study the work of Sylvia Plath. They are expected to read, keep a journal, and “look out for one another.” The five quickly become close, meeting to talk about their traumatic experiences in a safe, imaginary space they call Belzhar. As their stories unfold, the book barrels toward an ending that is shocking, heartbreaking, and absolutely right on. If there’s such a thing as an emotional thriller, Belzhar fills the bill.