WHAT TO READ NEXT IN YOUNG ADULT
OCTOBER 2025
by Sydney Spell
Welcome to Texas Reads YA! As a teen who loves to read YA, I sometimes have a hard time finding quality YA novels.
These novels both tell the story of two teenage boys finding each other against all odds and through some of the toughest times. They learn about themselves while discovering what it means to live life to the fullest.
There’s nothing remotely normal about seventeen-year-old Ethan-Matthew Cruz Canton’s life. His parents, journalists in Spain, were killed in a terrorist attack and now he’s living with his grandparents in San Antonio, attending his father’s high school for senior year. Narrated in the young man’s perceptive, witty voice, the novel opens with his plan to keep his head down, make it until June and then follow his parents’ footsteps to Northwestern University’s journalism program. But his idea to keep a low profile is quickly blown out of the water.
As Ethan-Matthew deals with incessant questions about his hyphenated name and his grief, he looks forward to the only “normal” thing available: writing for the school newspaper. He was set to be the editor at his high school in Spain, but now his story ideas are being ignored! With the encouragement and help of his new friends, he starts an alternative online newspaper to cover the overlooked students and staff. Things escalate, though, when he writes about a racist incident―instigated by the school’s mostly white, privileged student body―that turns violent!
Amidst all the drama, Ethan-Matthew suddenly and unexpectedly finds himself romantically involved with another boy, his cross-country teammate and best friend Reid.
The Closest Thing to a Normal Life is full of everything life is full of: grief, the path to finding yourself, love, and the chaos of being a teenager. It is fast paced and keeps you wanting to turn the next page. The book is placed in the real world context and does not shy away from the political and cultural effects on teenagers today.
Michael Méndez Guevara is a Mexican American writer and former high school English teacher. He has taught at schools where students lacked for nothing and went off to college at places like Princeton, Stanford, and Columbia, and he has also taught at schools where students relied on free breakfast and free lunch to eat, often worked to help support the family, and maybe considered community college. Regardless of who he taught, he wanted all his students to see themselves as writers who recognized the power of their individual stories.
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is real and painful and simply profound. The love story is beautiful and raw. The family dynamics are as close to real life as possible and they make you feel like a part of the family.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz was born in 1954 in his grandmother’s house in Old Picacho, a small farming village in the outskirts of Las Cruces, New Mexico in 1954. He is an associate professor in the MFA creative writing program at the University of Texas at El Paso, the only bilingual creative writing program in the country. Benjamin Sáenz is a novelist, poet, essayist and writer of children’s books.
Sydney Spell is a college freshman at UT Austin. She has enjoyed reading through adolescence and is a big fan of YA novels specifically.