12 Young Adult Book Series That Start Good and Stay Good

Imagine the Revolutionary War turned out a little bit differently and the Americans selected George Washington as their first king rather than their first president. What would the American royal family look like in the 21st century?

A lot like the British royal family, it turns out: absolutely full of drama.

Beatrice is the heir to the throne. Her parents, naturally, want her to marry someone advantageous from one of the Dukedoms, but Beatrice is in love with Connor, her security guard. Princess Samantha is the wild one, making headlines left and right for her antics, and her twin, Prince Jefferson, is America’s heartthrob. Add in a few other key characters, like Daphne, Jefferson’s social-climbing girlfriend who is determined to be a princess, and Nina, the “commoner” who grew up as Samantha’s best friend and also has a huge crush on Jefferson, and you’re ready for a wild ride. 

There are deaths, accidents, and scandals aplenty in the four-book series (plus a prequel novella, which we can’t vouch for—experience has led us to avoid prequels, short story collections, retellings from alternate points of view, any books numbered with a “.5,” and plays that turn our beloved heroes into sad, middle-aged men as a general rule). We enjoyed the ride with these young royals all the way through the series’ conclusion in Reign.

Do two books count as a series? We’re counting it.

Khorram’s Darius the Great books are a delight. They introduce us to Darius, a “fractional Persian” (on his mom’s side) who loves nerdy stuff like Star Trek and tea, struggles to fit in at school and in his family, and battles depression. Darius is funny and likable, and he’s so easy to relate to in his awkwardness, even if we don’t share his exact struggles. In the first book, he goes to Iran to meet his grandparents and makes his first real friend, Sohrab; in the second book, he navigates his first boyfriend, Landon, and a changing relationship with his former bully, Chip Cusumano.

What we love most about the books is how real they feel. Darius, like most teenage boys, is awkward and trying to fit in even though he doesn’t have it all figured out yet. His depression is not presented as a moment of crisis but as a part of his life that he must manage. And his family’s efforts to show they love each other, even as broken and flawed people, are recognizable to all of us.

Since we’ve established that we’re counting two books as a series, we obviously had to include Dear Martin, which we had great success with in our standard-level sophomore class, and its sequel.

Dear Martin follows Justyce McAllister, who grew up in a troubled neighborhood but attends a private school, where he is on track to attend Yale. In the book’s first chapter, he tries to keep his ex-girlfriend from driving home from a party drunk and has a violent encounter with a police officer who assumes he is trying to take advantage of her. Justyce must grapple with the injustice he faces as a young Black man in America, and he writes letters to Martin Luther King, Jr. to process his frustrations as one of only a couple Black students at his school, especially when a devastating incident sparks racial tensions in his community.

Dear Justyce tells the story of a minor character in Dear Martin, Quan Banks, who is in prison for murdering a police officer, though he insists he didn’t do it. As he writes letters to Justyce (now in college) about his experience, we get to examine the injustices of America’s justice system, particularly for the Black men who fill its prisons in disproportionate numbers.

Both novels are important reads, particularly in our current cultural context, but they’re also just good stories that our students found relatable and engaging.

While the second and third books in this series are definitely not as good as the first one, we did want to read all the way to the end to find out what happens (especially since all three books are connected). We’re also including it here because even though Steph found the third book ridiculous, every student she’s talked to about the series loved it, so given that our audience is young adults and not 35–45-year-old teachers, we’re going to go ahead and include it.

In the first book, Pippa Fitz-Amobi, for her senior project, investigates the murder of a classmate, Andie Bell. Andie’s boyfriend, Sal Singh, was accused of the murder and, shortly after, committed suicide. Pippa isn’t convinced of his guilt, however, and joined by Sal’s brother, Ravi, starts her own investigation, only to discover that there’s more to the story. (Does this sound like Serial, by the way? The similarities are there, especially when Pippa starts a podcast in the second book.)

We can’t tell you what happens in Books 2 and 3 without major spoilers, but there are new mysteries for Pippa and Ravi to solve, all of which are connected to the events of Book 1. The story just doesn’t feel complete until you’ve read all of them.

The best thing about these books (besides the fact that they’re pretty good murder mysteries for teens) is that Jackson includes “artifacts” throughout each book—interview transcripts, maps, photos, podcast transcripts, calendar pages, emails. Not only does it make for a fun and unique reading experience, but it makes readers feel like they are part of the investigation right alongside Pippa.

We know, we’re not sharing any breaking news by recommending Collins’s blockbuster series (though based on Steph’s experience working with middle school students earlier this year, we actually cannot assume they’ve all read it). But it’s probably one of the frontrunners when we think of young adult book series that don’t disappoint.

If you’ve been living under a rock, Collins’s trilogy (plus prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) takes us to Panem, where as punishment for a rebellion against the Capitol decades ago, each of the 12 districts must send a young boy and girl to fight to the death in the Hunger Games, a deadly competition that is always the highlight of the year in the Capitol. For those who live in the Capitol, it’s a spectacle: there are interviews and bets, and the winners enjoy fame and luxury (and a hefty dose of post-traumatic stress disorder) for the rest of their lives.

In the first book, Katniss Everdeen volunteers as tribute from District 12 after her younger sister Prim is selected, and no spoilers from us, but this moment of self-sacrifice leads to a Hunger Games that has lasting consequences throughout Panem.

Steph’s always been torn between the first and second books as her favorite, and while she initially didn’t like the third book, she’s come to appreciate it more over time (the movie, quite honestly, helped). The prequel, while certainly not as good as the original trilogy, gives a fascinating look at the early years of the Hunger Games and the backstory of the villainous President Snow.

If your students haven’t tackled this series yet, it’s definitely one you’ll want to recommend.

While we haven’t read the most recent addition to the series, Rebel, we’ve long considered Lu’s original trilogy to be one of the standouts when it comes to series that don’t disappoint.

The first book tells the story of June and Day, who at first, couldn’t seem to be more opposite. June is the Republic’s prodigy, excelling on the Trial, the test that determines every citizen’s usefulness to the military, and is being groomed for an officer position. Day, however, is the Republic’s most wanted criminal, especially when he’s spotted at the scene of June’s brother Metias’s murder.

As June hunts Day down and he tries to stay out of her clutches while navigating the plague that ravages the Republic, we start to learn that (as always) things are not as they appear and, perhaps, June and Day might not be enemies after all. When things go awry, it spirals into the events of the later books in the series, which are just as satisfying as the first one.

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This may be one of Steph’s favorite series, and her 9th grade honors students devoured it just as eagerly as she did.

A mix of dystopia, science fiction, and fairy tale retellings, The Lunar Chronicles introduce us to Cinder, a cyborg in New Beijing who falls in love with the very handsome Prince Kai; Scarlet, a young French girl whose grandmother has a few secrets and who falls in love with a mysterious hybrid creature named Wolf; Cress, a young girl living in isolation in a spaceship pod (with very long hair and a cruel guardian, obviously); and Winter, the wicked Queen Levana’s stepdaughter.

We don’t want to spoil anything here, but the team (and their companions, including a flirtatious space pilot and an android named Iko) must navigate a letumosis plague; a threatened takeover of Earth by Queen Levana, the evil ruler of Luna; and the search for the missing Princess Selene of Luna. The twists and turns, lovable characters, and great banter kept us satisfied all the way to the series’ end.

The many series that make up the Rick Riordan mythology-verse are an utter delight, and our students love them. The original (and most beloved) series introduces Percy Jackson, a 12-year old with dyslexia and ADHD who learns he is a demigod, the son of Poseidon, and he’s been accused of stealing Zeus’s famous lightning bolt. If he wants to avoid punishment for this serious crime, he must go on a quest to find and return the lightning bolt.

His adventures take him to Camp Half-Blood, where he meets an entire community of demigods (including his soon-to-be best friends Grover, a satyr, and Annabeth, the daughter of Athena), and across the United States (since Mount Olympus moves along with the seat of Western civilization). Of course, as Percy investigates, he discovers there are much bigger forces at play, and the one novel launches into an entire series of adventures.

The newest book, The Chalice of the Gods, is just as much fun as the rest of the series. Percy is a senior in high school, and to get into New Rome University, he must get letters of recommendation from the gods. Naturally, this means more quests with Grover and Annabeth at his side. While appropriate for the middle grade students Riordan traditionally writes for, high school students who grew up with Percy will enjoy the story just as much (for both nostalgia’s sake and the updated 2020s references). We laughed out loud quite a few times (and there was a delightful Jane Eyre reference).

We will never apologize for recommending Han’s series about the love story between Lara Jean Song and Peter Kavinsky: not only is it a charming love story that our students couldn’t get enough of, but it stays charming throughout books two and three, a rare accomplishment in the young adult romance genre.

Each time Lara Jean has a crush on a boy, she writes him a love letter and stores it in a box in her closet. When someone mails the addressed letters to her crushes, Lara Jean is mortified, especially since her biggest crush (her neighbor, Josh) is (or, pretty quickly, was) . . . her older sister’s boyfriend. School lacrosse star Peter Kavinsky receives a letter, and in an effort to make his ex-girlfriend Genevieve jealous and avoid a run-in with Josh, he and Lara Jean end up kissing . . . which leads to a fake dating plan (and we all know how those go).

There is, of course, fallout from the fact that Peter isn’t the only one who receives a letter, and as Lara Jean faces up to the admission of her feelings and navigates the challenges of a real relationship, we watch to see if she and Peter will make it to graduation and beyond.

There are so many reasons we love Jason Reynolds’s Track series. First, it’s by Jason Reynolds. Second, it’s for middle schoolers, an age group that can be particularly tricky to recommend books for, falling as they do between middle grade and young adult books. Third (and most importantly), the kids just sound so real. Their voices, the family problems they wrestle with, the safe haven track offers them, the adult mentors who help them figure things out . . . our students relate to all of it and want to be friends with Ghost, Patty, Sunny, and Lu.

And it’s a sports book about track, moving away from the traditional football-basketball-baseball trio that often gets all the glory despite the fact that track teams are often the biggest on campus.

Ghost, Patty, Sunny, and Lu are all members of the Defenders, an elite track team that each of them needs in their life. Ghost is an excellent runner (a fact he learned when his father chased Ghost and his mother with a loaded gun), but he needs to learn to keep his anger under control or it’s going to get the best of him.

Patina’s mom lost both her legs to diabetes, so Patty and her little sister live with their aunt and uncle. As Patty tries to take care of her little sister, keep her grades up, and worry about her mom’s health, she has a lot to learn about being part of a team and relying on other people. We haven’t read Sunny and Lu yet, but we’ve met them in the other two books and can’t wait to hear their stories.

There are two ways to talk about this one as a series: the original trilogy focuses on one crime, and there are additional books that follow the same characters but focus on different mysteries. The original is far better than the standalone novels, but if your students loved the first three, they’ll be happy to spend more time with the characters.

Stevie Bell transfers in her junior year to Ellingham Academy, an elite private school where students are encouraged to explore personal passions and build their own curriculum. Stevie’s passion? Solving mysteries. She gets into Ellingham by declaring her desire to solve the mystery long associated with the academy: Albert Ellingham’s wife and daughter went missing in the 1930s, and the case was never solved. But when Stevie starts investigating, new murders start cropping up, suggesting someone is determined to keep the details of the original murder from reaching the public eye.

The mystery is good, the unusual private school setting is always a win, and Stevie’s group of friends are a delight. If your students loved A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, this is a great next recommendation for them.

This feels as ridiculous to recommend as Collins’s The Hunger Games (it’s like asking if you, as an English teacher, have ever considered recommending Harry Potter to your students), but when it comes to series that keep us eagerly turning pages from beginning to end, we’ve got to add Twilight to the list. 

Twilight took the young adult (and, let’s be honest, regular adult) world by storm in 2005, and we and our students were obsessed. The antics get utterly ridiculous the farther into the series we go, but we don’t even care, we just want to know what happens next.

Bella Swan is new to Forks, Washington, where she meets an unusual boy named Edward Cullen. He seems to loathe Bella at first, but we quickly learn that he is a vampire who is very attracted to her and trying to resist the feelings her scent produces in him. As Bella and Edward fall in love, we’re drawn into a saga of vampires, werewolves, and love triangles that kept us up late, dying to know what happens next.