Photo credit: Camdiluv <3
Dream Factory by Brad Barkley
When the character actors at Disney World go on strike, the teens hired as replacements learn that it isn’t exactly the Happiest Place on Earth. Ella gets to be Cinderella, simply because the shoe fits. It should be a dream come true, but Ella no longer believes in dreams. Luke is a fur character, Dale the chipmunk. Chip is played by his girlfriend, Cassie, who is perfect in every way. Why, then, does Luke find himself more drawn to imperfect things like the theme park’s Phantom? A team-building scavenger hunt brings Luke and Ella together. As they uncover the Magic Kingdom’s treasures, they discover an undeniable magic between them.
Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway
While trying to score a date with her cute co-worker at the Scooper Dooper, sixteen-year-old Audrey gains unwanted fame and celebrity status when her ex-boyfriend, a rock musician, records a breakup song about her that soars to the top of the Billboard charts.
The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd
It’s Dade’s last summer at home. He has a crappy job at Food World, a “boyfriend” who won’t publicly acknowledge his existence (maybe because Pablo also has a girlfriend), and parents on the verge of a divorce. College is Dade’s shining beacon of possibility, a horizon to keep him from floating away. Then he meets the mysterious Alex Kincaid. Falling in real love finally lets Dade come out of the closet and, ironically, ignites a ruthless passion in Pablo. But just when true happiness has set in, tragedy shatters the dreamy curtain of summer, and Dade will use every ounce of strength he’s gained to break from his past and start fresh with the future.
How to be Popular by Meg Cabot
After the Super Big Gulp incident, Steph Landry, now known as the town screw-up, discovers a little book called “How to Be Popular,” which propels her into a world of popularity with hilarious–and romantic–results.
Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares
by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
A story told in the alternating voices of Dash and Lily, two sixteen-year-olds carry on a wintry scavenger hunt at Christmastime in New York, neither knowing quite what–or who–they will find.
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
High school student Nick O’Leary, member of a rock band, meets college-bound Norah Silverberg and asks her to be his girlfriend for five minutes in order to avoid his ex-sweetheart.
Love, Inc. by Yvonne Collins
When three fifteen-year-old Austin, Texas, girls who met in group therapy discover that they are all dating the same boy, they first get revenge and then start a wildly successful relationship consulting business.
Sixteenth Summer by Michelle Dalton
Dreading another tourist-laden summer in the Georgia beach town where she lives year round, Anna falls head over heels in love with a visitor from New York and embarks on a near-perfect summer that she fears will end in heartbreak when he returns home at the end of the season.
The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg
Fed up with boys and the way they have treated her and her friends, high school junior Penny Lane–named after the Beatles song–forms a club whose members vow to stop dating, but the repercussions are surprising.Fed up with boys and the way they have treated her and her friends, high school junior Penny Lane–named after the Beatles song–forms a club whose members vow to stop dating, but the repercussions are surprising.
The View From The Top
by Hillary Frank
Eighteen-year-old Anabelle’s last few months in her coastal hometown are bittersweet. Instead of the quiet precollege summer she expects, Anabelle makes some surprising discoveries about herself as she navigates romantic entanglements and changing friendships. Through shifting points of view in seven interconnected stories, we glimpse the limits of how well her friends really know Anabelle . . . and how little she grasps about the way they see her.
Stray by Stacey Goldblatt
Natalie’s mother, a veterinarian with a dogs-only practice, has the sixteen-year-old on such a short leash that, when the teenaged son of her old school friend comes to stay with them for the summer, Natalie is tempted to break her mother’s rules and follow her own instincts for a change.
Stay With Me by Paul Griffin 
Fifteen-year-olds Mack, a high school drop-out but a genius with dogs, and Céce, who hopes to use her intelligence to avoid a life like her mother’s, meet and fall in love at the restaurant where they both work, but when Mack lands in prison he pushes Céce away and only a one-eared pit-bull can keep them together.
The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
Belly’s never been the kind of girl that things happen to. Year after year, she’s spent her summers at the beach house with Conrad and Jeremiah. The boys never noticed Belly noticing them. And every summer she hoped it would be different. This time, it was. But the summer Belly turned pretty was the summer that changed everything. For better, and for worse.
The Big Crunch by Pete Hautman
June is starting at her sixth school in four years when she meets Wes, who has just broken up with a girlfriend, and although they do not share an instant or intense connection, attraction turns to love and they wonder where it will lead.
Breathing by Cheryl Herbsman
Savannah would be happy to spend the summer in her coastal Carolina town working at the library and lying in a hammock reading her beloved romance novels. But then she meets Jackson. Once they lock eyes, she’s convinced he’s the one her true love, her soul mate, a boy different from all the rest. And at first it looks like Savannah is right. Jackson abides by her mama’s strict rules, and stays by her side during a hospitalization for severe asthma, which Savannah becomes convinced is only improving because Jackson is there. But when he’s called away to help his family and seems uncertain about returning Savannah has to learn to breathe on her own, both literally and figuratively.
A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner
As she tries to sort out her feelings of love, seventeen-year-old Cass, a spunky math genius with an introverted streak, finds a way to memorialize her dead best friend.
The Treasure Map of Boys: Noel, Jackson, Finn, Hutch, Gideon, and me, Ruby Oliver by E. Lockhart
Ruby is back at Tate Prep, and it’s her thirty-seventh week in the state of Noboyfriend. Her panic attacks are bad, her love life is even worse, and what’s more: Noel is writing her notes, Jackson is giving her frogs, Gideon is helping her cook, and Finn is making her brownies. Rumors are flying, and Ruby’s already-sucky reputation is heading downhill. Not only that, she’s also: running a bake sale, learning the secrets of heavymetal therapy, encountering some seriously smelly feet, defending the rights of pygmy goats, and bodyguarding Noel from unwanted advances.
Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto by Eric Luper
Seth Baumgartner just had the worst day of his life. His girlfriend dumped him (at Applebee’s), he spied his father on a date with a woman who is not his mother (also at Applebee’s!), and he lost his fourth job of the year. It’s like every relationship he cares about is imploding, and he can’t figure out what’s going on.
To find answers, Seth decides to start an anonymous podcast called The Love Manifesto, exploring “what love is, why love is, and why we’re stupid enough to keep going back for more.” Things start looking up when Seth gets a job at a golf club with his hilarious and smut-minded best friend, Dimitri, and Dimitri’s sister, Audrey. With their help, Seth tracks down his father’s mystery date, hits the most infamous bogey in the history of golf, and discovers that sometimes love means eating the worst chicken-salad sandwich you can ever imagine.
The Smile by Donna Jo Napoli
Believing herself too plain to be loved, Elisabetta’s life is changed when she is noticed by the famous artist Leonardo da Vinci while on a trip to Florence, but after falling in love with a member of the Medici clan, unexpected danger and heartache soon disrupt her young life once again.
True Love, The Sphinx, and Other Unsolvable Riddles
: A Comedy in Four Voices by Tyne O’Connell
Told from four different points of view, two American boys go on a field trip to Egypt where they meet two British gals who aren’t easy to please, but through a series of mistakes and miscommunication, new friendship and love finds a way of coming to the surface throughout their travels in a land of ancient culture and modern beauty.
Playing Hurt by Holly Schindler
Chelsea Keyes, a high school basketball star whose promising career has been cut short by a terrible accident on the court, and Clint Morgan, a nineteen-year-old ex-hockey player who gave up his sport following a game-related tragedy, meet at a Minnesota lake resort and find themselves drawn together by the losses they have suffered.
This list was created by Becca Boland, Young Adult Librarian, and Laura Bos from the Hinsdale Public Library.
