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Listopia > The Most Popular Young Adult Books on Goodreads
Looking for Young Adult novels and short story collections and anthologies with more than 100,000 ratings. mjf
Books with less than 100,000 ratings will be removed from this list.
So what makes a book a Young Adult book? That's a good question. For me it generally requires a young adult protagonist. But even that brings up the question of how old is a young adult? For books in the US it would seem to mean a teenager - whereby for the term, it should mean say 18 to 25. Which apparently now has its own category "New Adult". And another category for the slightly younger set "Middle Grade".
For purpose of this list, a book is considered young adult if it has been tagged as young adult or ya at least 1000 times.
Other Young Adult Lists:
Best Young Adult Books
Best Young Adult Fiction
Best Young Adult Realistic Novels
YA Dystopia Novels
The Most Deserving Newbery
Newbery Honor
Printz Award Winners and Honor Books
Young Adult Books by Year:
2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
Related Lists By Topic:
All, Anthropology, Astronomy, Autobiography, Biography, Biology, Botany, Children, Classics, Climate, Computer Science, Economics, Epic Fantasy, Fantasy, Genetics, Geology, Geography, Graphic Novels, History, Historical Fiction, Horror, Judaism, Language, Manga, Medicine, Middle School, Military Science Fiction, Music, Mysteries, Nature, New Adult, Non-Fiction, Pagan, Pandemic, Philosophy, Picture Books, Poetry, Politics, Productivity, Psychology, Racism, Romance, Science, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Software Architecture, Space Opera, Steampunk, Travel, Young Adult
Books with less than 100,000 ratings will be removed from this list.
So what makes a book a Young Adult book? That's a good question. For me it generally requires a young adult protagonist. But even that brings up the question of how old is a young adult? For books in the US it would seem to mean a teenager - whereby for the term, it should mean say 18 to 25. Which apparently now has its own category "New Adult". And another category for the slightly younger set "Middle Grade".
For purpose of this list, a book is considered young adult if it has been tagged as young adult or ya at least 1000 times.
Other Young Adult Lists:
Best Young Adult Books
Best Young Adult Fiction
Best Young Adult Realistic Novels
YA Dystopia Novels
The Most Deserving Newbery
Newbery Honor
Printz Award Winners and Honor Books
Young Adult Books by Year:
2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
Related Lists By Topic:
All, Anthropology, Astronomy, Autobiography, Biography, Biology, Botany, Children, Classics, Climate, Computer Science, Economics, Epic Fantasy, Fantasy, Genetics, Geology, Geography, Graphic Novels, History, Historical Fiction, Horror, Judaism, Language, Manga, Medicine, Middle School, Military Science Fiction, Music, Mysteries, Nature, New Adult, Non-Fiction, Pagan, Pandemic, Philosophy, Picture Books, Poetry, Politics, Productivity, Psychology, Racism, Romance, Science, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Software Architecture, Space Opera, Steampunk, Travel, Young Adult
392 books ·
125 voters ·
list created October 31st, 2015
by Mitchell Friedman (votes) .
Mitchell
11161 books
172 friends
172 friends
Jacob
1657 books
218 friends
218 friends
Jason
7378 books
222 friends
222 friends
drowningmermaid
6562 books
230 friends
230 friends
Acacia
2991 books
75 friends
75 friends
~~~N~~~
8749 books
68 friends
68 friends
Amber
858 books
16 friends
16 friends
Margo
357 books
2 friends
2 friends
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drowningmermaid wrote: ""For books in the US it would seem to mean a teenager - whereby for the term, it should mean say 18 to 25."Hang on... it seems to me there are two separate categories we're talking about here. "Y..."
I'm just saying that the term young adult has the wrong meaning. Which is why we'd end up having to add "new adult", which isn't a category that I tend to think of.
The whole thing confuses me. Neither category existed when I was those ages! (We read whatever we felt like, and it worked surprisingly well.)
"Young adult" has been around since the 70s, for years there wasn't a bad title w/the Fawcett Juniper imprint. What surprises me about this list is there are only a half-dozen i've not read that i want to.
And i would add Romeo and Juliet.
YA and NA are both labels that came from marketing terms. "Young Adult" gradually replaced the old name, the more clinical but more descriptive term "Adolescent Literature." (Again, marketing at work: as a teen, would you have rather browsed a bookstore section labeled "Young Adult" or one labeled "Adolescent Lit"?)New Adult as a name seems to me to be a shameless marketing attempt to create buzz where no additional buzz is needed. In our culture, new=good for most folks. And "new" is also meant to appeal to readers who perceive the "young" in "young adult" as judgmental or pejorative. (Who you callin' young?!)
lucky little cat wrote: "YA and NA are both labels that came from marketing terms. "Young Adult" gradually replaced the old name, the more clinical but more descriptive term "Adolescent Literature." (Again, marketing at wo..."I thought that "new adult" meant it was supposed to (possibly) have sex in it. Between consenting 18-year-olds, that is.
Very amused to see a call out to this list at https://bookriot.com/highest-rated-books-on-goodreads/
I have a theory that as the demographic that purchases books has changed-- from primarily "adults" to school-age youths-- you see more books that appeal both to adults and to YA. And more publishers seeking to market books as YA. I notice the trend since "Harry Potter" which started clearly YA but got grittier... Now YA seems to be "the" market, whereas books like Huckleberry Finn were all marketed as as adult books.
I tightened up the list criteria to just require 100,000 ratings and to be shelved as young adult or ya at least 1000 times.I also removed a bunch of books with considerably less than 100,000 ratings as well as adding a bunch of books to this list.
Don't read Matched, the author plagiarized the world from The Giver
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Anyone can add books to this list.
Hang on... it seems to me there are two separate categories we're talking about here. "Young Adult" generally refers to "teenager" whereas 18-25 usually is listed under a category that didn't exist when I was growing up, called "New Adult."