High school can be a tough experience, but almost everyone has been through it. There’s a lot to unpack in the four short years that take you from childhood to near adulthood. These authors get it and they have created on point, coming-of- age stories for all types of students.
Sleeping Freshman Never Lie by David Lubar
Starting high school is never easy. Seniors take your lunch money. Girls you’ve known forever are suddenly beautiful and unattainable. The guys you grew up with are drifting away. And you can never get enough sleep. Could there be a worse time for Scott’s mother to announce that she’s pregnant? Scott decides high school would be a lot less overwhelming if it came with a survival manual, so he begins to write down tips for his new sibling. Scott’s chronicle of his first year of bullies, romance, honors classes and brotherhood is laugh-out-loud funny and touchingly wise.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends, sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.
The Great American Whatever by Tim Federle
Sixteen-year-old Quinn Roberts is a smart aleck, Hollywood hopeful whose only worry used to be writing convincing dialogue for the movies he made with his sister Annabeth. Of course, that was all before Quinn stopped going to school, before his mom started sleeping on the sofa…and before the car accident that changed everything. Geoff, Quinn’s best friend insists it’s time that Quinn came out—at least from hibernation. Geoff drags Quinn to his first college party, where instead of nursing his pain, he meets a guy, a hot guy—and falls, hard. What follows is an upside-down week in which Quinn begins imagining his future as a screenplay that might actually have a happily-ever-after ending—if, that is, he can finally step back into the starring role of his own life story.
The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson
Andie has a plan. A top-tier medical school. Dad? Avoid him as much as possible. Friends? Palmer, Bri, and Toby—pretty much the most awesome people on the planet. Relationships? No one’s worth more than three weeks. So it’s no surprise that Andie has her summer all planned out too. Until a political scandal costs Andie her summer pre-med internship, and lands both she and Dad back in the same house together for the first time in years. Suddenly she’s doing things that aren’t Andie at all—working as a dog walker, doing an epic scavenger hunt with her dad, and maybe, letting the super cute Clark get closer than she expected. For every teen who think they can completely control their lives, this is a good reminder that sometimes life just happens.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he’s figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad? His strategy: remain at the periphery at all times. Keep an insanely low profile. Make mediocre films with the one person who is even sort of his friend, Earl. This plan works for exactly eight hours. Then Greg’s mom forces him to become friends with a girl who has cancer. This brings about the destruction of Greg’s entire life. Funny, honest, heart-breaking—this is an unforgettable novel.
