21 exciting new YA book releases arriving in the summer of 2021

Summer is almost here – and this year, the prospect feels more tantalizing than ever. After over a year of pandemic living, some hope is finally on the horizon as increasing numbers of people get vaccinated around the U.S. and the world. Maybe, by the time the weather turns sultry, we’ll be able to finally sit poolside with a drink and a good book and feel something vaguely like normal again. Okay, maybe not normal, but closer than we’ve been in a long, long time.

Thankfully, the world of publishing seems to know that we’re going to need a lot of new reading material this summer. Thanks to the pandemic, a lot of titles have seen their release dates shuffled around over the past year, but are now finally making their way to our shelves.

There are buzzy debuts like Rachel Griffith’s The Nature of Witches, Alex’s Nedd’s Don’t Hate the Player, and Nghi Vo’s The Chosen and the Beautiful, as well as new titles from favorite authors like Nicola Yoon (Instructions for Dancing) and Kalynn Bayron (This Poison Heart).

And that’s not even mentioning the multiple big-deal sequels coming this summer, like Sarah Henning’s The Queen Will BetrayYou, Rainbow Rowell’s Any Way the Wind Blows, and Kiera Cass’s The Betrayed. Truly, there will be something for every type of reader, whether you like contemporary romance, exciting fantasies, or straight-up horror.

We’ve got 21 YA book releases that are worth your time this summer

Here are our picks for 21 of our most anticipated YA book releases that will hit shelves in the summer of 2021 (for the technically minded among us, that means from June through August.). Let us know if you’re looking forward to any of them – and we can’t wait to talk about all of them once they arrive!