Sometimes life happens and it’s nice to reminisce or escape into a book and dive into the feeling of nostalgia. What better way to do that than with books that explore the problems, happy moments, and embarrassing experiences of young adult lives?
If you are looking to giggle about having a crush, first love, and the everyday struggles young adults usually deal with, you may enjoy reading Young Adult or “Slice of Life” reads. Some stories maintain a slow day-to-day routine-like story while some world-build and create a dystopian plot, others focus on the character’s coming-of-age story, and some have a wholesome romance guiding a smaller plot along.
This Pride Month, take some time to explore YA, Science Fiction, or Contemporary Romance reminiscent of Young Adult novels that explore wholesome, tragedy-free (although not without struggles and prejudice, but I tried very hard to find Queer Joy titles), inclusive LGBTQIA+ stories.
The list:
Successful TV Producer Dev Deshpande has spent his career creating perfect fairy tale endings for reality dating show Ever After even as his own love life crashes and burns off-screen. Then, the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw, who doesn’t believe in love, as its star. Charlie is a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date thirty women on national television. The more Dev fights to get Charlie to open up to the contestants, the more they begin to open up to each other, and it soon becomes clear who Charlie has better chemistry with.
Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan (Also available on Hoopla)
High school junior Leila’s Persian heritage already makes her different from her classmates at Armstead Academy, and if word got out that she liked girls life would be twice as hard, but when a new girl, Saskia, shows up, Leila starts to take risks she never thought she would, especially when it looks as if the attraction between them is mutual, so she struggles to sort out her growing feelings by confiding in her old friends.
What if everything you set yourself up to be was wrong? Frances has always been a study machine with one goal, elite university. Nothing will stand in her way; not friends, not a guilty secret — not even the person she is on the inside. But when Frances meets Aled, the shy genius behind her favourite podcast, she discovers a new freedom. He unlocks the door to Real Frances and for the first time she experiences true friendship, unafraid to be herself. Then the podcast goes viral…
Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers a bed, a chance to explore the galaxy, and some distance from her past. The crew is diverse: Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot; chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, the captain. They are offered a job tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet. It’s a lucrative job, but a host of unexpected mishaps force the crew to depend on each other.
Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who’s ever been chosen. That’s what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he’s probably right. Half the time, Simon can’t even make his wand work, and the other half, he starts something on fire. His mentor’s avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there’s a magic-eating monster running around, wearing Simon’s face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here. It’s their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon’s infuriating nemesis didn’t even bother to show up.
Theo Mori and Gabriel Moreno have always been at odds. Their parents own rival businesses–an Asian American café and a Puerto Rican bakery–and Gabi’s lack of coordination has cost their soccer team too many games to count. Stuck in the closet and scared to pursue his own dreams, Gabi sees his parents’ shop as his future. Stuck under the weight of his parents’ expectations, Theo’s best shot at leaving Vermont means first ensuring his parents’ livelihood is secure. So when a new fusion café threatens both shops, Theo and Gabi realize an unfortunate truth–they can only achieve their goals by working together to cook up an underground bakery operation and win back their customers. But can they put aside their differences long enough to save their parents’ shops or will the new feelings between them boil over?
With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, 28-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas to celebrate. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know, until she does exactly that. Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows and begins navigating the messiness that comes with adulthood.
Henry “Monty” Montague was bred to be a gentleman. His passions for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men, have earned the disapproval of his father. His quest for pleasures and vices have led to one last hedonistic hurrah as Monty, his best friend and crush Percy, and Monty’s sister Felicity begin a Grand Tour of Europe. When a reckless decision turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt, it calls into question everything Monty knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.
Five best friends spending the summer at Lumberjane scout camp–defeating yetis, three-eyed wolves, and giant falcons–what’s not to love?! Jo, April, Mal, Molly and Ripley are five best pals determined to have an awesome summer together, and they’re not gonna let any insane quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way!
When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius–his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There’s only one problem: Alex has a beef with an actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse. Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals.
A Man Called Ove meets The Good Place in Under the Whispering Door, a delightful queer love story from TJ Klune, author of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller The House in the Cerulean Sea. When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead. And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead. But even in death he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days. Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.
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Sasaki and Miyano by Shou Harusono – Available on ComicsPlus (free with your library card)
It all started like a typical old-school boys’ love plotline—bad-boy senior meets adorably awkward underclassman, one of them falls in love, and so on and so forth. But although Miyano is a self-proclaimed boys’ love expert, he hasn’t quite realized…he’s in one himself. Which means it’s up to Sasaki to make sure their story has a happily ever after…!
Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour – Available as an eBook on Libby
“I want you to do something with the place. Something epic.”
After being entrusted with her brother’s Los Angeles apartment for the summer as a graduation gift, Emi Price isn’t sure how to fulfill his one condition: that something great take place there while he’s gone. Emi may be a talented young production designer, already beginning to thrive in the competitive film industry, but she still feels like an average teen, floundering when it comes to romance. But when she and her best friend, Charlotte, discover a mysterious letter at the estate sale of a Hollywood film legend, Emi must move beyond the walls of her carefully crafted world to chase down the loose ends of a movie icon’s hidden life, leading her to uncover a decades’ old secret and the potential for something truly epic: love.
Not Your Sidekick and Not Your Villain by C.B. Lee – Series available on Hoopla
Sidekick Squad series – An exploration of superhero tropes through the lens of LGBTQ+ heroes who challenge traditional hero and villain roles. The series follow Jess Tran, Bell Broussard, Emma, and Abby.
Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee – Available as an eBook on Libby
Dylan Tang wants to win a Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake-making competition for teen chefs—in memory of his mom, and to bring much-needed publicity to his aunt’s struggling Chinese takeout in Brooklyn. Enter Theo Somers: charming, wealthy, with a smile that makes Dylan’s stomach do backflips. AKA a distraction. Their worlds are sun-and-moon apart, but Theo keeps showing up. He even convinces Dylan to be his fake date at a family wedding in the Hamptons. Their romance is supposed to be just pretend . . . but Dylan finds himself falling for Theo. For real. Then Theo’s relatives reveal their true colors—but with the mooncake contest looming, Dylan can’t risk being sidetracked by rich-people problems.
One Man Guy by Michael Barakiva – Available on Libby and Hoopla as an eAudiobook
Alek’s parents announce that he’ll be attending summer school in order to bring up his grades. Enter Ethan: confident, free-spirited, and irreverent (everything Alek wishes he were). When Ethan gets Alek to cut school and go to a Rufus Wainwright concert in New York City’s Central Park, Alek embarks on his first adventure outside the confines of his suburban New Jersey existence. He can’t believe a guy this cool wants to be his friend. And before long, it seems like Ethan wants to be more than friends.
The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun 
Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan (Also available on Hoopla)
The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
Sasaki and Miyano by Shou Harusono – Available on ComicsPlus (free with your library card)
Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour – Available as an eBook on Libby
Not Your Sidekick and Not Your Villain by C.B. Lee – Series available on Hoopla