The best YA books with male protagonists you wish you knew IRL

We all get stuck between our past and our future at some point. But how do we get unstuck? That’s what Cash Pruitt has to figure out.

He’s a fledgling poet from a small Tennessee town who was raised by his aging grandparents. But he gets the shot of a lifetime when his genius best friend, Delaney, gets him a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school in New England. Cash is the kind of person anyone would want on their side. He’s intensely loyal and willing to stand up for his friends no matter what. He leaves his hometown and moves up north so that Delaney has the support she needs to go after her dreams of a better life. It takes a special person to put others first like that.

I like Cash because he reminds me of the qualities of some of my best friends growing up. They were the kind of guys who would do anything for you. 

This is a story told from dual perspectives. Our male protagonist is Theodore Finch. He’s a rebel type, funny, and spontaneous. He goes after Violet Markey—our female first-person perspective—after discovering that she, too, is grappling with demons from her past. What I love about this book is how alive Theodore is as he walks the tightrope of death. While tragedy abounds in this story, you can sense a shaky joy in Theodore. His punk, fun-chasing exterior hides a vulnerable soul in search of love. 

I knew a lot of teen boys like him when I was in high school. Jennifer Niven did a remarkable job capturing the raw energy that Theodore zaps into the lives of those around him. Sometimes, there are people like Theodore who crash through our lives—people with a magic to them—that we wish we could hold onto. 

Cristian Florescu is a dreamer and an artist. He’s a seventeen-year-old living under the communist regime in Romania in the late 1980s. He’s up against incredible odds in a country where food and resources are scarce, and the government keeps its citizens under constant surveillance. Yet, his will for a better life drives him to stand up for his beliefs.

Bravery like Cristian’s will inspire anyone. He reminds me that youth bestows upon us some of our greatest characteristics: strength, hope, and determination. Who wouldn’t want someone like Cristian in their corner? 

Billy is a high school student who wants to enjoy his summer. The problem is that he is ordered by a judge to spend his summer working for Old Lady Baxter after damaging her property. Billy’s friends are convinced Old Lady Baxter killed a bunch of kids years ago and got away with it. They want Billy to find the evidence to prove her guilty. 

Billy is facing a test of loyalty in his search for his identity. Will he be the person his friends want him to be? Who does he want to be? He’s done his fair share of boneheaded things. But he’s also got a good heart buried somewhere in there. And I’m rooting for him.

Jonas is our youngest protagonist on the list. He is destined to be the receiver of memories in a futuristic utopian society. Those memories are to be passed down to him by an old man, the Giver.

Jonas lives in a society where people are innocent—innocent of emotion, pain, and suffering. He must lose his innocence to experience the joys and pains of humane experience. 

That’s a heavy responsibility. And it’s Jonas’ thoughtfulness and curiosity that draws me to him. He faces difficult ethical choices. His awakening is unique to the fictional world he inhabits, but it is universal in theme. His quest to gain knowledge, his willingness to question authority to get to the truth, and his ability to make tough choices to experience the depth of what it means to be human make him someone I would want in my corner.