Here are 100 books that The Perfect Escape fans have personally recommended if you like
The Perfect Escape.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Ever since I penned my first romantic tale Will You Walk A Mile?, I've been enamored with the complexities of young love. For me, writing isn't just a profession; it's akin to breathing. I live to write and write for a living, with a special fondness for narratives that explore the highs and lows of teen romance and human emotion. I have been that ‘teen guy’ next door. That same teenage wonder for love stories that first sparked my passion for writing has stayed with me, maturing into a deeper understanding. to curate a list of teen novels that will tug at your heartstrings.
The romance between Anna and Étienne had me captivated.
It spoke to the part of me that believes in the unpredictability of love. I found myself rooting for them like they were my real-life friends. The Parisian backdrop only intensified my love for this book, tapping into my own memories of youthful, globe-trotting romances.
Can Anna find love in the City of Light? Anna is happy in Atlanta. She has a loyal best friend and a crush on her co-worker at the movie theatre, who is just starting to return her affection. So she's less than thrilled when her father decides to send her to a boarding school in Paris for her senior year. But despite not speaking a word of French, Anna meets some cool new people, including the handsome Etieene St. Clair, who quickly becomes her best friend. Unfortunately, he's taken - and Anna might be, too. Will a year of romantic…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
As a kid, I’ve always loved reading romances, even if it meant spending my recesses in the library and reading through lunchtime. This resulted in my 6th-grade teacher giving me the weirdest look when she caught me reading a romance at school. When I started writing, I wrote a couple of different genres to test out, but YA contemporary romances were always the ones that stuck with me. I loved writing about the fluttery feelings of first love and the complexities of an uncertain future. It also helps that I met my husband, the love of my life, in high school so I’ll always have a soft spot for books that make me feel that way again.
I picked up A Taste for Love while I was browsing the aisles at Barnes and Noble and the description and gorgeous cover immediately caught my eye. Sometimes it is hard to rewrite a classic story and make it your own, but Jennifer Yen does it beautifully here. I completely forgot that it was a retelling of Pride and Prejudice as I was swept away in Liza’s life and all the laugh-out-loud antics of her family and friends. I’m also a huge fan of Top Chef so all the cooking in this book only made me hungry for more.
For fans of Jenny Han, Jane Austen, and The Great British Baking Show, A Taste for Love, is a delicious rom com about first love, familial expectations, and making the perfect bao.
To her friends, high school senior Liza Yang is nearly perfect. Smart, kind, and pretty, she dreams big and never shies away from a challenge. But to her mom, Liza is anything but. Compared to her older sister Jeannie, Liza is stubborn, rebellious, and worst of all, determined to push back against all of Mrs. Yang's traditional values, especially when it comes to dating.
As a kid, I’ve always loved reading romances, even if it meant spending my recesses in the library and reading through lunchtime. This resulted in my 6th-grade teacher giving me the weirdest look when she caught me reading a romance at school. When I started writing, I wrote a couple of different genres to test out, but YA contemporary romances were always the ones that stuck with me. I loved writing about the fluttery feelings of first love and the complexities of an uncertain future. It also helps that I met my husband, the love of my life, in high school so I’ll always have a soft spot for books that make me feel that way again.
My favorite genre to read and write is romance, but there are different levels to them. I got the honor to read Salaam, With Love before it came out and although the romance in here is more subtle and sweet, this book is definitely about loving yourself. About discovering who you are and being proud of where you’re from. Although our lives and cultures are different, I can definitely relate to Dua’s journey of self-discovery and was rooting for her every step of the way.
This heartfelt and humorous YA contemporary follows Dua, who spends the month of Ramadan making unexpected discoveries about family, faith, and first love.
"Beg beautifully crafts a comforting tale filled with fun characters and excellent Muslim representation.”--Aamna Qureshi, author of The Lady or the Lion
"[A] love letter to Islam, capturing all the wonderful nuances of faith and culture."--Adiba Jaigirdar, author of Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating
Being crammed into a house in Queens with her cousins is not how Dua envisions her trip to New York City. But here she is, spending the holy month of Ramadan…
Jake Sledge, a rugged ex-cop turned private eye, teams up with his colossal partner Bobo to navigate the gritty streets of River City.
A murdered lawyer drags them into a web of political intrigue, neo-Nazi thugs, and bloody showdowns. With sharp wit and hard-hitting action, Jake tackles scumbags the only…
Rom-coms have always been my favorite type of escapism. Give me all the witty banter, romantic tension, quirky characters, and – of course – the well-earned happily-ever-afters. Yes, humor is subjective, so there is a chance these YA books won’t have you roll-on-the-floor laughing like me, but I’m pretty sure they’ll inspire at least a chuckle from even the stoniest reader. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Would you let your family play matchmaker to help you get over a broken heart?
Ashley Elston's 10 Blind Dates is the perfect Christmas treat: delicious, warm, funny, escapist YA romance.
Sophie wants one thing for Christmas - time with her boyfriend Griffin. So when her parents plan a trip to visit her sister over the holiday, Sophie begs to be left behind with her grandparents and her boisterous extended family. But she and Griffin break up and she's devastated.
Sophie's grandmother, hating to see her so upset, devises a (not so) brilliant plan - to distract her from heartbreak.…
As well as being a novelist, I am also a script editor for film and TV. I specialise in thriller narratives and big themes in screenwriting, so it's no accident I am drawn to them in fiction too. Dystopian worlds offer such a rich backdrop for the BIG questions and observations. By putting new societies and threats under the microscope in stories, it can hold a mirror up to what's going on in real life. I think of dystopian novels as being akin to the canaries in the coal mine: they are not only cathartic, they sound the warning bell on where we are going as a society ourselves.
I love this book because of Katniss Everdeen's depth. She’s not just another “kickass hottie”, she’s complex, with a powerful character arc driven by a deep sense of responsibility.
The book’s commentary on mental health and Katniss' parentification resonated with me personally. The story world of all the districts and President Snow's iron grip on them is well-drawn and has parallels to our own, too.
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. But Katniss has been close to death before - and survival, for her, is second nature. The Hunger Games is a searing novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to our present. Welcome to the deadliest reality TV show ever...
I’m an author of Young Adult Fantasy fiction. When my oldest was six, I started reading Harry Potter to him. It was such a bonding experience that we both cherish. We still talk about the stories, even though he's all grown up and lives away from me most of the time. The thing about fantasy is that stories set in worlds or with people that don’t actually exist make it easier for us to swallow deep meanings, storylines with which we can identify, and that crawl deep down into our souls and nest there. It’s not just about escaping into a fantasy world, but about finding human experience in otherworldly situations and characters.
You know that question about being stranded on a desert island with only one other person and a spaceship? Oh, wait. I think that’s supposed to be a sunken ship. This story has a bit of a similar feel, only instead of an island, it’s a deserted planet, and no one is coming to save Lilac and Tarver—so they have to save themselves instead. This one is a good mix of the rich-girl/poor-boy dynamic, (think Pretty in Pink, flip-flopped) with a hint of mystery, all in the style of Survivor. The depth of feeling is strong in this one.
"One of the most intense, thrilling, and achingly beautiful stories I've ever read."--Marie Lu, New York Times best-selling author of the Legend trilogy
The first in the New York Times bestselling author duo Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner's sweeping science fiction trilogy, These Broken Stars is a timeless love story about hope and survival in the face of unthinkable odds.
It's a night like any other on board the Icarus. Then, catastrophe strikes: the massive luxury spaceliner is yanked out of hyperspace and plummets into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen are the only survivors.
Caroline Herschel has always lived in the shadows. Beholden to her wildly popular older brother, William, who rescued her from servitude, she's worked hard to build a life for herself – one where she can go unnoticed and repay the debt she believes she owes him. But when her brother…
I write historical YA in verse—pretty much the niche of the niche. Before I was published, I spent many years writing and querying various YA projects in prose, but it wasn’t until I decided to try a project in verse that I really found my groove. Nowadays, everything I write falls under that same (small) umbrella, so I really looked to novels like the ones here to learn from the best. These days, I still love reading YA historicals and anything in verse, but YA historicals in verse remain forever my favorite.
Your Heart, My Sky is a gorgeous book set on the island of Cuba during a terrible period of starvation in the 1990s. The points of view of two young lovers and a stray dog work together to paint a full picture of both the bleak situation and their heightened emotions during this desperate time.
I found the romance to be the perfect bright spot as the protagonists and their families struggle to survive on the island they love. As always, Engle’s poetry sings as the perfect vehicle for this very personal story that YA fans will surely devour.
Acclaimed author Margarita Engle tells a “deeply felt and engrossing” (Horn Book Magazine) story of love in a time of hunger inspired by her own family’s struggles during a dark period in Cuba’s history.
The people of Cuba are living in el período especial en tiempos de paz—the special period in times of peace. That’s what the government insists that this era must be called, but the reality behind these words is starvation.
Liana is struggling to find enough to eat. Yet hunger has also made her brave: she finds the courage to skip a summer of so-called volunteer farm…
My mom always read creepy paperbacks and left them around for me to gawk at the covers but not actually able to read the words inside. I probably started with all the Nancy Drew mysteries and then switched to Stephen King (Carrie, The Shining, Misery, etc.), Flowers in the Attic books by V.C. Andrews, Jaws by Peter Benchley, and anything I could get my hands on! I’m a devoted fan of all creepy and scary books! I’ve never been bored reading this genre, whether it’s adult or YA and that is what I think reluctant readers need–creepy page-turners!
This book is creepy! When girls are sixteen they are sent away for a year, into the woods, to get rid of their ‘magic’. It is called their Grace Year, and it is very extreme, and nothing fun about it. This story has a creepy atmosphere, and creepy old men trying to choose their innocent teenage brides (if those brides make it back from the journey!). There are some sick and twisted death scenes, and romance, which of course I love a little romance in all the creepy stories I read.
The Instant New York Times Bestseller! Kim Liggett's The Grace Year is a speculative thriller in the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Power.
Survive the year.
No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.
In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can…
I used to be afraid of the thriller section, assuming it was synonymous with horror. It took me until my 30s to register that I’d been reading thrillers for years without realising it. Tomorrow When the War Began, the Hunger Games, A Wrinkle in Time, The Darkest Minds, Mortal Engines: they’re all big loves. I’ve come to realise that thriller basically just means heart-pumping. There’s something about a book keeping you on the edge of your seat, desperate to turn the page and find out what happens next.
I was in a reading slump when I read this book, and it jump-started my love of reading again. I was genuinely impressed by the cleverly woven descent of Coriolanus Snow’s mind into the evil President Snow we witness in the Hunger Games trilogy (plus all the easter eggs along the way). This book was so good I read it twice back-to-back.
Ambition will fuel him.Competition will drive him.But power has its price.
It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute. The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District…
Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…
I’m a thrill seeker when it comes to reading, and I want to be so immersed in a story that I have to read it in one sitting and then can be completely taken by surprise by a plot twist. It was extremely hard to pick only five titles, so to narrow it down, I 1) made an attempt to pick from a few different sub-genres and, 2) stipulated that Agatha Christie could populate the entire list. All of these titles blend wonderful writing with great twists, and I hope you enjoy them. I did my best to avoid spoilers in the descriptions, although by being on this list, it’s a little bit of a spoiler…
I know, I know…’What about Sixth Sense’? That’s usually the Stephen King book people remember when they think of plot twists. It was great, but this one is by far my favorite King novel. It’s got multiple twists, starting with one near the beginning, where you quickly realize you’re not reading the kind of story you thought you were reading.
Then there’s a more traditional twist near the end. And in between King displays his special genius, immersing the reader in a character’s slow, steady descent into madness. I finished it in a single session, and after thirty years can still remember sitting there long after it was over, just staring at the wall.
In this #1 national bestseller, “master storyteller” (Houston Chronicle) Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, tells the tale of the contestants of a grueling walking competition where there can only be one winner—the one that survives.
“I give my congratulations to the winner among your number, and my acknowledgements of valor to the losers.”
Against the wishes of his mother, sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty is about to compete in the annual grueling match of stamina and wits known as The Long Walk. One hundred boys must keep a steady pace of four miles per hour without ever stopping...with the winner being…
