Sabina Khan’s YA debut sends a closeted Bengali American Muslim teen from Seattle to Bangladesh. Readers call it important and moving, and they also call the writing flat. Here’s what the evidence says.
Dahlia Adler’s bi YA summer romance gives a questioning heroine real care and a warm summer with Jasmine, but its love triangle runs on miscommunication. Our evidence-led review.
Sara Farizan’s Lambda-winning debut sets a forbidden first love in Tehran. Our evidence-led review: a vital premise and setting, held back by a thin, one-sided romance and a bittersweet ending.
A warm, closed-door college basketball coming-of-age romance and a direct sequel to Sunflower — loved by series fans, low on tension, and sweeter than its blurb suggests.
A tender ownvoices sapphic YA romance with an autistic heroine and sweet heat, rated almost entirely by a launch circle close to the author.
Sara Farizan’s 2014 Iranian American coming-out YA has a narrator readers adore and a loud minority report on how it treats bisexuality. Our evidence-led review.
A sweet, low-stakes senior-year crush romance with no coming-out trauma — warm and gently funny, but held back by a thin cast and an abrupt ending.
A Black bisexual teen throws herself a coming-out party in Camryn Garrett’s warm YA rom-com. Here is what 2,500+ readers say about the joy, the money story and the narrator who splits them.
A warm, faith-positive sapphic YA first-love story set in small-town Georgia, held back by an overlong deception plot and a side character many critics call ableist.
A witchy New Orleans debut with a much-loved family coven and a Black bisexual heroine, undercut by a thin romance and a political plot the synopsis never mentions.