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Booklist Magazine

Youth Fiction

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Darkly. By Marisha Pessl.

Nov. 2024. 416p. Delacorte, $19.99 (9780593706558). Gr. 8–12.

The Willy Wonka of board games wants to know: What would you kill for? That’s the question Arcadia “Dia” Gannon has to answer to apply for the internship run by the estate of Louisiana Veda, a woman known for the creation of 28 unsettling board games called Darklys. In short order, Dia is awarded the internship and whisked off to a small, abandoned island near London with six other teens who are tasked to find the twenty-ninth Darkly. Very genre-aware, Dia is prepared for things to get weird, and they definitely get weirder. This atmospheric mystery is combined with terrifying sessions of an interactive Darkly that the interns are intermittently kidnapped to participate in. Dia’s character has depths that supporting characters lack, although those characters are multifaceted enough to still be substantial. Overall, Pessl set forth with an ambitious concept, and the result is thrilling, mysterious, and full of shocking twists through the very last page. —Austin Ferraro

Dead below Deck.

 By Jan Gangsei.

Nov. 2024. 336p. Harper, $19.99 (9780063310445). Gr. 9–12.

Maggie was supposed to take a glamorous cruise on a private yacht with best friend Giselle and friends Emi and Viv. In the end, it was definitely not. On the last night of the cruise, Giselle falls overboard, and it looks like Maggie pushed her. Maggie is pretty sure she didn’t do it, but her memory is foggy thanks to champagne. Determined to prove her innocence, she scours Giselle’s journal for clues and tries to piece together her memories of the past few days. Maggie never understood why she, the scholarship student at their prep school, was adopted by wealthy, popular Giselle and her cohort, but the answer might save her. The novel moves backward through the days of the cruise as Giselle’s journal moves forward, with Maggie and the reader discovering the truth simultaneously. Maggie’s first-person, present-tense narration is engaging and sympathetic, and though minor characters are less well-rounded, they are well absorbed into this plot-driven page-turner. —Donna Scanlon

Ex Marks the Spot.

By Gloria Chao.

Dec. 2024. 384p. Viking, paper, $12.99 (9780593692714). Gr. 9–12.

Gemma is ready to put high school behind her. After giving a lackluster valedictorian speech—a role she had to share with her exboyfriend Xander—she’s happy to close that chapter. A lawyer then unexpectedly shows up at Gemma’s home with a seemingly nonsensical letter from her late grandfather. It’s possible this letter from the grandfather she never knew contains a series of clues that will lead her to a secret inheritance. The only problem is, her grandfather died in Taiwan, with a family she never met, in a place she’s never visited. Despite her mother’s wishes, she applies to a program that brings Taiwanese American students to Taiwan; unfortunately, Xander will be there too. While the treasure hunt is an alluring aspect of the work, Gemma’s discovery of her culture will be what really pulls readers in. Chao’s descriptions of Taiwan are lush and vibrant, and she crafts a narrative that makes it easy to understand how Gemma would feel like a fish out of water. A beautiful story about discovering your roots and understanding the difficult choices adults make. —Amber Hayes

Flopping in a Winter Wonderland.

By Jason June.

Nov. 2024. 368p. Harper, $19.99 (9780063260085). Gr. 10–12.

Two teen boys who don’t believe in romance experience the magic of Christmas and fall in love. Aaron Merry is on his way to Winter Wonderland, an Alaskan island town where Christmas is year-round, in the hopes that 12 days of Christmas cheer will cure his brother’s heartbreak—until the cause of said heartbreak shows up as well. Kris Bright has spent all 18 years on the island, manufacturing cheer and angling to win his class’ Race, a competition to get a visitor to confess their love, so he can bring his uncle back to Winter Wonderland. The two boys literally collide and forge a harebrained scheme to keep Aaron’s brother away from his ex. As they coordinate shenanigans and sow chaos, their own guarded hearts start to melt for each other. Full of big feelings, quirky characters, and the perfect amount of warm fuzzies, June’s latest queer YA rom-com is sure to thaw even the coldest of hearts and will leave readers craving more romance in life and fiction. —Karis Rogerson

Heart-Shaped Lies.

By Elizabeth Agyemang.

Nov. 2024. 384p. Delacorte, $19.99 (9780593484494); paper, $12.99 (9780593484524). Gr. 9–12.

Agyemang (, 2022) makes her YA debut with a thriller exploring not only the effect of nonstop social-media scrolling but the fact that not everything posted is necessarily real. Famous social-media prankster Tommy Harding is known for his antics and occasionally dark jokes, but when he’s found out to be cheating on his girlfriend thanks to a social-media post,

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