This is What it Feels Like by Rebecca Barrow
We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
It Goes Like This by Miel Moreland
Over You by Amy Reed
We Used to Be Friends by Amy Spalding
This is What it Feels Like by Rebecca Barrow
We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
It Goes Like This by Miel Moreland
Over You by Amy Reed
We Used to Be Friends by Amy Spalding
YA has so many great friendship books, but sometimes what you need is a really great friendship breakup book, and there’s none I’ve ever loved as much as Over You by Amy Reed. This was the first book to make me feel like a friendship ending can actually be the best way to discover yourself and who you are outside it in a way that makes clear moving on is the best thing for you, your mental health, and your life at large. It was a message I happened to need as I was reading it, and I hope it’s one that other people who need it find here as well. (It was also one of my first books with an on-page bisexual main character, whom I’ll mention as a content warning is outed.) As a bonus, Reed is a great author to know, as she has a number of queer books out (including Beautiful and The Nowhere Girls) and another one, The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World, out in July!
Max would follow Sadie anywhere, so when Sadie decides to ditch her problems and escape to Nebraska for the summer, it’s only natural for Max to go along. She is Sadie’s confidante, her protector, and her best friend. This summer will be all about them. This summer will be perfect.
But that’s before they meet Dylan.
Dylan is dangerous and intoxicating, and he awakens something in Max that she never knew existed. No matter how much she wants to, she can’t back away.
But Sadie has her own intensity, and has never allowed Max to become close with anyone else. And Max doesn’t know who she is without Sadie.
There are some problems you just can’t escape.
Buy it: Books-a-Million • Indiebound • Barnes & Noble • Amazon • Simon & Schuster
(For the purposes of this list, these are books set in worlds where Coming Out is a Thing.)
Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde
How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake
A&B by J.C. Lillis
Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee
Keeping Her Secret by Sarah Nicolas
Bonus: Coming in fall 2017, Top Ten by Katie Cotugno and They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
Bonus #2: Over You by Amy Reed‘s main character is out, but not in her new setting. Ditto the main character in Christina Lauren’s upcoming Autoboyography.