8 Relatable YA Books About Family

Leigh’s mother committed suicide after years of struggling with mental illness. Where was Leigh? In her best friend Axel’s basement, kissing him for the first time. As Leigh processes her grief, she pushes Axel away in guilt, even though it’s clear their relationship is important to her. When a mysterious bird keeps showing up in Leigh’s life, she’s convinced the bird is her mother.

Infused with magical realism, Pan’s novel takes us to Taiwan with Leigh, who receives a mysterious box she believes is from her mother and decides to visit her grandparents in an effort to understand her mother better. The box contains magical sticks of incense that, when burned, take Leigh directly into her family members’ memories, allowing her to understand her mother’s struggles over the years and to build her own richer relationships with her father and grandparents.

The process of learning about her mother helps Leigh to move on from her grief, and after weeks in Taiwan, gives her the bravery to face Axel again. We, and our students, can all relate to Leigh’s struggle to fully understand her parents, and it’s hard not to reflect on aspects of our own parents we don’t fully understand.

When Camino and Yahaira learn not only that their father died in a plane crash between New York and the Dominican Republic but that he had two families, their hearts are broken. Dealing with his death is bad enough, but having to wrestle with the fact that he isn’t the man they thought he was, that he had a secret life away from them, adds another layer of grief.

As the girls come to terms with their complex feelings, they must learn to navigate a world without their father. This means changing relationships with their mothers, new dangers without their father’s protection, and, for Camino, the threat of losing the opportunity to attend the local private school and one day make it to New York. When Yahaira travels to the Dominican Republic (against her mother’s wishes) for her father’s funeral, however, the girls learn that amidst their betrayal, there is also potential for a new family.

Acevedo’s novel in verse beautifully portrays the sisters’ experiences, and in the variety of topics it covers, we think your students will find something to relate to.

Chloe, who lives in the Philippines, is finally headed for college in America: she got off the waitlist at the University of Southern California, where she plans to study animation instead of staying in the Philippines to study business and take over the family restaurant.

But her aunt insists on planning a debut for Chloe’s eighteenth birthday, which means she needs escorts. Chloe just wants to ask family members to fill the roles, but her aunt and father set her up on a series of kaishao, or arranged dates, supposedly to help her find escorts for the party but ultimately in an effort to make her fall in love and stay close to home.

The novel is a lot of fun, and we think a lot of students will relate to Chloe’s overbearing and kind of eccentric family. They’ve got plenty of their own issues to work through, and Chloe finds herself getting closer to some of her “perfect” cousins as the summer unfolds. 

But the novel also perfectly captures that blend of excitement and anxiety our students feel the summer before they head off to college. They’re dying to leave, but what if they aren’t good enough? What if they miss home? What if they’re unhappy leaving their family and friends behind? And, in Chloe’s case, what happens if she falls in love with one of her kaishao boys?

At heart, Chloe’s love for her crazy family is key, and as we see them lean on each other in the book’s final chapters, we’re glad Chloe has them.

“What I tell you? Roses can bloom in the hardest conditions.”

We loved Thomas’s prequel to The Hate U Give, which tells the story of Starr Carter’s father Maverick, about to begin his senior year of high school when he learns he’s a teen father and the mother, needing a break, leaves the baby with him and disappears. Maverick is a reluctant member of the King Lords, a gang in Garden Heights, and he’s torn by his need for money, which he can get by selling drugs, and his cousin Dre’s desire to keep him safe and out of the drug scene.

As the novel continues, Maverick faces tragedy that only tightens the pressure on him, and he must decide whether he will be the kind of man the King Lords (and his imprisoned father) expect him to be, or the kind of man who is there for his son. 

We absolutely loved that this book presents a picture of a young man struggling to do the right thing in the face of overwhelming responsibility: we’ve read books about the struggles teen mothers face, and we’re glad to see this perspective as well. It also gives us enormous empathy for the complex situation many young men find themselves in when they seek the protection of a gang or turn to selling drugs: these are choices that often come from desperation, not a desire to cause trouble.

At its heart, this is a novel about all kinds of family: the family you’re born into, the family you create, the family loyalty demanded by the King Lords, and the larger family of a supportive community. We see the extent to which different families come around to support these teenagers who make mistakes and the pressure these different responsibilities place on our students who are in this situation themselves. The support Maverick receives from his parents and community is truly beautiful, and we’re rooting for him to bloom despite his hard circumstances.

This is definitely a book for older students, as it addresses topics that include sex, teen pregnancy, abortion, gang violence, and drug use, but these topics are handled with nuance and compassion.

We meet Andre Jackson on his ride home from juvenile detention. His probation officer is driving, and he’s wearing an ankle monitor that will tie him to his home for the next six months. All for a crime he didn’t commit: a couple classmates let him take the blame.

As Andre navigates probation, his parents’ disappointment (they don’t know he’s innocent), and reconnecting with friends, the days click down to March 2020, when, as we all know, COVID-19 will shut down the world. Shortly after, George Floyd is murdered, and Black Lives Matter protests sweep through the country.

It’s too much for Andre, and as he tries to figure out what happened to his friend Eric (one of the classmates he took the fall for) and win back his crush, Eric’s sister Sierra, the truth threatens to turn his world upside down.

Johnson deals with weighty topics, including juvenile incarceration and the experience of living through COVID and George Floyd’s murder as a Black teenager, and we think the events will hit home for many students.

But the thread that runs through the novel is, of course, family. Andre’s family loves and supports him, and he desperately wants to remove the looks of disappointment on their faces. The global events impact families, and the dynamics in Eric’s adoptive family play a significant role. And then there’s the notion of found families: Andre’s friends and community care for one another in ways that expand our idea of what family can look like.

Jay and Max have always been inseparable. The brothers, members of the Bribri people indigenous to Costa Rica, were born eleven months apart and do everything together. This includes brutally beating their school’s star soccer player, Luca, when they witness him harassing their cousin Nicole, who has roots in the Anishinaabe people of northeastern Minnesota.

The novel, which alternates between the two brothers’ perspectives (Jay in prose, Max in verse), begins with the brothers returning to school after the violent incident. As they attend counseling and navigate their classmates’ stares, they’re grateful they have each other to lean on. We quickly learn that the brothers also face regular abuse at home from their father, and over time, the abuse takes its toll and the brothers struggle to cope with everything.

Jay retreats into depression, feeling obligated to stay home and care for his mom, even if it means missing school; Max retreats into his art and a secret relationship with Melody, angry that his brother doesn’t seem to want to engage with the world.

Ultimately, the novel tells the story of the two brothers’ efforts to cope with the trauma they’ve experienced, the hurt they feel as they each go through this journey alone, and the healing they experience as they graduate from high school and realize that, perhaps, they will move into this next stage of their life as separate people. It’s a novel that highlights both the ways our families fail us and the ways we are permanently connected to them, and we think many students will relate to Jay and Max.

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Sure, we all know the story of Cinderella, mistreated by her cruel stepmother and stepsisters until a fairy godmother sends her to the ball where she meets Prince Charming. One lost glass slipper and a kingdom-wide search later, she’s enjoying her happily ever after.

But what if there’s more to the story? What if there’s depth and the possibility of redemption for the stepsisters? What happens after the fairy tale wedding?

Donnelly tackles these questions from the perspective of Isabelle, whom we meet just as her mother is pressuring her to cut off her own toes so the prince’s glass slipper will fit on her foot. It turns out Isabelle has spent her life “cutting off” all the parts of her that don’t quite fit: she was much happier riding horses and learning to sword fight with her childhood friend Felix than fulfilling the expectations for young women in her society.

And her sister Octavia would rather study math than learn traditional women’s hobbies. It turns out that the sisters’ cruelty to Ella stems from insecurity and jealousy, and we keep reading to see whether they’ll have a change of heart as the novel continues.

In the novel’s prologue, Chance and Fate have entered a bet, with Isabelle’s life at stake. The novel follows their efforts to influence Isabelle’s future, but when she meets a fairy godmother in the woods and makes her own deal in hopes of being pretty, it throws a wrench in Chance and Fate’s plans. Between the map that suggests Isabelle’s life is rapidly nearing its end and the advances of Volkmar, who has invaded France with his army and is killing everyone in his path, the suspense keeps us turning the pages.

We’re always game for a good fairy tale retelling, but this is ultimately a redemption story about sisters and women who are tired of making themselves “fit,” and we hope your students find Isabelle’s story empowering.

Another one we loved, Tian’s novel brings us into one summer in the lives of sisters Annalie and Margaret. The sisters are half-Chinese, but Annalie takes after her white father while Margaret takes after their Chinese mother. Annalie is just starting her summer job at the ice cream shop her crush frequents when her mother calls, insisting she come home. When she does, she finds someone has spray painted an ugly racial slur across their garage door. In a panic, she calls Margaret, about to begin a summer internship in New York, who comes home to their small town in Illinois, determined to figure out what happened and ensure the vandals are brought to justice.

The sisters clash all summer: Annalie wishes her sister would just let it go so people will stop paying attention to them, while Margaret doesn’t understand why her sister won’t get upset, insisting on calling the police, sharing their story with media outlets, and making a poster about anti-Asian racism for a local “Taste of Asia” fair.

Sure, there are some light moments (both sisters are tangled up in their own summer romance dramas), but there’s a lot to explore here about racism against Asian Americans, the conflict within the Asian community about how best to respond to racism, the pressures of interracial dating (especially when parents don’t approve), the differing experiences of those who appear Chinese and those who can blend in with the white community, the struggle to live up to a parent’s expectations, and conflict between sisters who fundamentally misunderstand one another. Tian’s novel is a powerful read that brings common but often unseen experiences to the page, and we can think of many of our own students who would appreciate it.

When her father asks why everything has to be so urgent, why she can’t take a step back to breathe, Avery Anderson’s mind spins into motion:

“I didn’t know how to tell him my whole life had felt urgent up until this point. And how could it not? What did he expect? I learned active shooter drills the same time I learned my ABCs, every summer was the hottest on record. The pandemic paused a majority of my high school years, and I’d been convinced the only way to make it up was to go, go, go full steam ahead. And now this. It was Mama Letty’s last days, and there wasn’t nearly enough time to make up everything I’d lost. Life was short. Everything was urgent, and who had time to breathe in all that?”

Avery’s reflection hit us hard: our students are growing up under so much pressure. It seems like the weight of the world is on their shoulders, as they navigate the universal tasks of growing into themselves, figure out who they want to be, and exist as members of families that are all too imperfect. Add in the additional pressures that can come with race, gender, and sexual orientation, and it’s far too much for one young person.

Avery and her parents move from Washington, DC, to Bardell, Georgia, just before Avery’s senior year in high school to care for Mama Letty, who is dying of cancer. Avery’s mother and Mama Letty have years of painful history between them. As Avery works to get to know her prickly grandmother, she uncovers a number of painful family secrets tied to the town’s racist history that threaten her new friendships with Simone Cole, the next-door-neighbor she finds herself attracted to, and Jade Oliver, the daughter of one of Bardell’s most prominent families.

Our hearts ached alongside Avery as she works to learn the truth about her family’s past, make up for lost time with Mama Letty, and figure out the future she wants for herself, and we think many of our students will find something to relate to in this story about the pain that can ripple through generations.

Note: There is one brief scene in the second half of the novel that may not be appropriate for younger readers.