Cosmopolitan List: 100 Best YA Novels of All Time

I was looking through my bookstagram feed yesterday and saw an account posts the Cosmopolitan list of 100 best YA novels of all time. I haven’t read a Cosmo magazine in years! But I thought this list was pretty good. Every title that is highlighted pink is one I’ve read! Anything in yellow is a movie I watched:

  • The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
  • Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian
  • A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi
  • It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
  • I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
  • Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram
  • Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray
  • Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor
  • We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson
  • Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
  • Sadie by Courtney Summers
  • Home Is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo
  • Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
  • When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
  • An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
  • The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass
  • Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
  • The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe
  • We Are Not Free by Traci Chee
  • Tweet Cute by Emma Lord
  • American Betiya by Anuradha D. Rajurkar
  • Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
  • The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
  • Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
  • Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar
  • Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
  • Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
  • Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A. S. King
  • I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver
  • Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard by Echo Brown
  • The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee
  • They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
  • When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
  • The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert
  • This Is My America by Kim Johnson
  • Legend by Marie Lu
  • If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
  • The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
  • Wilder Girls by Rory Power
  • Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
  • Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson
  • Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley
  • Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From by Jennifer De Leon
  • Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust
  • The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed
  • The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X. R. Pan
  • We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
  • They Wish They Were Us by Jessica Goodman
  • Radio Silence by Alice Oseman
  • Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
  • The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
  • Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles
  • Furia by Yamile Saied Méndez
  • I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
  • Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
  • Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
  • Every Day by David Levithan
  • A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow
  • Frankly in Love by David Yoon
  • If I Stay by Gayle Forman
  • One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus
  • If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan
  • A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey
  • Calling My Name by Liara Tamani
  • Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
  • The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar
  • Dear Martin by Nic Stone
  • Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
  • Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
  • The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
  • Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira
  • A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown
  • You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson
  • Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
  • The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
  • The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
  • Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert
  • Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow
  • The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  • The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe
  • Saving Savannah by Tonya Bolden
  • Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner
  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
  • Never Look Back by Lilliam Rivera
  • Forever… by Judy Blume
  • Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
  • The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith
  • American Street by Ibi Zoboi
  • Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
  • The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper
  • The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
  • How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
  • Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
  • Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
  • All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
  • To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
  • Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson
  • The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, by Ann Brashares
  • Five Feet Apart by Rachel Lippincott with Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis

Obviously there are so many books on here that I haven’t read and a bunch I wanted to read for Black History Month, which is being celebrated right now for the month of February. I can see that this list has way much more contemporary books than fantasy, with just a few fantasy books here and there. What do you think about this list? Have you read some of these?

~ Yolanda

7 thoughts on “Cosmopolitan List: 100 Best YA Novels of All Time

  1. That is a great list! You’ve already read a lot of them. Without double checking myself, I think I’ve only read 17 of them, but so many of the others are on my TBR.

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