Some contemporary works that might be interesting to readers who are looking to expand out of YA but aren’t sure where to start 🙂 Feel free to comment below if you have any recommendations!

Fiction – dark academia / gothic

• If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio
• Catherine House by Elizabeth Thomas
• The Likeness by Tana French
• Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Literary fiction (mostly about Asian-American diaspora, oops)

• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
• Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang
• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
• Chemistry by Weike Wang
• On Fragile Waves by E. Lily Yu
• Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Memoir

• Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu
• The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang

Poetry

• Oculus by Sally Wen Mao
• The Year of Blue Water by Yanyi
• Sympathetic Little Monster by Cameron Awkward-Rich

Romance

• Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
• One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston