WHAT TO READ NEXT IN YOUNG ADULT
MARCH 2026
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.
Love, Sivvy and Superfan both take different aspects of the trials of young adulthood. One struggles with identity specifically surrounding ideas of womanhood and success while the other struggles with classic issues of growing up and moving on.
Sylvia Plath knows she was born to be remembered. She loves learning, literature, and writing, especially poetry. The problem is, she’s coming of age in a time when women are expected to happily set aside their dreams for a husband and a home. Even in high school, Sylvia struggles to reconcile the societal expectations placed on women and the ambitions she has for a great career. She aches for a partner and a family, but she longs to become a poet, too. And she’s afraid she can’t have both.
Covering her high school and college years, and capturing her many highs and lows as she wrestled with her mental health and blazing talent, Love, Sivvy is a beautifully rendered portrait of one of the most incandescent poets of all time.
Love, Sivvy is a beautiful story written in prose that captures the story of Sylvia Plath. It is a lovely introduction to the life of Sylvia Plath and is a fast-paced read that will keep you reading.
R.L. Toalson writes books for everyone—kids, teens, adults, fiction lovers, poetry lovers, essay lovers. She loves running, reading, writing, and drinking peppermint green tea in her home in San Antonio, Texas, where she lives with her family.
Freshman Minnie is adrift at college in Austin, Texas, when she discovers a boy band called HOURglass and the online forums that worship them. She especially loves Halo, whose sharp edges feel somehow familiar. After a brief romance goes painfully awry, Minnie pours everything into her new fandom, clinging to each livestream and bonding with other fans online. But when a scandal threatens to expose Halo to harm, Minnie decides that she is the only one who can save him.
Except Halo’s secret is darker than anything the tabloids could imagine. Before he was a superstar heartthrob, he was a high school dropout haunted by a tragic accident. When he is recruited for HOURglass, it feels like a chance to become someone else. And when he is onstage in front of his fans, he can almost forget the horrors of his past—until one of those very fans threatens to destroy everything.
Superfan is an attention-gripping story that depicts the loneliness and fandoms that are typical of young adults going through transitions. The novel is funny, heartwarming, and leaves the reader wanting to root for both the characters.
Jenny Tinghui Zhang is a Texas-based Chinese-American writer and the author of Four Treasures of the Sky (forthcoming from Flatiron Books on April 5, 2022). She is a Kundiman fellow and graduate of the VONA/Voices and Tin House workshops.
Sydney Spell is a college freshman at UT Austin. She has enjoyed reading through adolescence and is a big fan of YA novels specifically.