10 most popular YA fantasy books
You can’t sit with these books.
They’re just too popular. They’d never be caught dead with a normie like you. They wear pink book jackets on Wednesdays, and someday one of them will make “fetch” catch on. But as long as none of the other New York Times bestsellers don’t catch on, I bet they’d let you crack open the pages at a sleepover. They’ve got popular book reputations to protect, so don’t go telling everyone. But if you’re really looking to namedrop the moves and shakers of the YA fantasy world, here are the 10 most popular YA fantasy book.
Iron Widow
Neon Genesis Evangelion meets Pacific Rim meets imperial China? Yes please. Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow is set in the mythical nation of Huaxia, a high tech place with a low standard of living. It’s hard to have nice things when every so often giant kaiju monsters rise up to destroy the infrastructure. In order to stop the mechanical alien menace, the powers that be pulled a page out of Attack On Titan‘s book and decided that BECOMING the monsters would solve the problem – and so the Chrysalises were born! Chrysalises are basically giant biomechanics robots piloted by boy/girl teams, except the girl usually ends up having to sacrifice her life in order for the machine to function. After a Chrysalis excursion claims the life of her sister, 18-year-old Zetian decides to become a pilot, and soon discovers that she is a rare Iron Widow, a female pilot with the power to claim the life of her male copilot. Considering a psychopathic ace male pilot was responsible for Zetian’s sis’s death, that’ll do Zetian just fine.
Six of Crows
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo is a YA crime caper that makes the Ocean’s Eleven crew look like a bunch of casuals. The plot begins with sticky fingered prodigy Kaz Brekker, who decides to one up his illustrious criminal record by going on the job to end all jobs: break into the Ice Court (frigid fantasy Fort Knox) and pilfer a dangerous drug that enhances the magical abilities of those who take it. Accompanied by a crew of spies, sharpshooters, and sorcerers, Kaz and friends attempt the heist of a lifetime. The book is set in the same universe (aka Grishaverse) as the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which also deserves a popularity head nod. But nothing more than a head nod, or the popular kids will think you look desperate.
The Cruel Prince
Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince is a dark romance revolving around Jude Duarte – a mortal girl who is taken to the realm of the fae after her parents are murdered. Sounding pretty Sarah J. Mass, I know, but while The Cruel Prince does indeed feature a steamy enemies to lovers romance between captive Jude and the dickish Prince Cardan, the action fades to black before things get too Ao3 smutty. Where the action really picks up is when the fae kingdom falls into political chaos as rival factions vie for power, and Jude realizes that the devils (or faeries) she knows might just be better than the devils she don’t.
Red Queen
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard is set in a society divided by a strict caste system. The Reds are forced to toil away their lives in service to the magical Silvers, who use their arcane talents to shape society into a comfortable oligarchy for the upper class. The plot follows Mare Barrow, a young Red who discovers that she’s the inheritor of a supernatural talents despite her non-metallic colored blood. Using her unheard of ability to control electrical currents, Mare is able to pass as a member of Silver high society, allowing her to join up with a secret Red rebellion force known as the Red Guard. In order to control the narrative, the Silvers that be have declared Mare to be a long lost princess, but should she step out of line, they’re willing to paint the walls with Mare’s decidedly un-silver colored blood. Nevertheless, Mare keeps on stepping.
An Ember In The Ashes
Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember In The Ashes is my Roman Empire. Inspired by Ancient Rome itself, the action takes place in the Martial Empire, a brutal and warlike society that demands its subjects to, well, totally subjugate themselves to the whims of the powerful. One of the many commoners forced to eke out a meager existence under military rule is Laia, a young woman who lives with her brother and grandparents in the armpit of the empire. After her brother is arrested for a high crime, Laia is offered a deal from a group of rebels: infiltrate the Empire’s finest military academy as a spy in return for her sibling’s safety. After meeting a soldier sympathetic to her cause within the walls of the brutal school, the pair serve as the flint and tinder for a spark that will cause the regime to burn.
Children of Blood and Bone
Set in a fantasy world inspired by West Africa, Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone is the story of two groups of people, the magically gifted diviners and the not so magically inclined kosidan. Jealous of the diviners’ power, the rutheless king of the kosidan discovered a way to shut their magic off for good. A decade later, the diviners are a shadow of their former glory, living under complete subjugation from the kosidan powers that be. Everything changes when two diviner kids end up rescuing a runaway kosidan princess with the power to return magic back to those from whom it was stolen. Armed with arcane knowledge well beyond their years, the trio embark on a quest to free the land from kosidan rule – as long as the kosidan king and his morally stunted son don’t end their journey first.
Six Crimson Cranes
While at first glance it’s easy to get this fantasy tale confused with Six of Crows (both titled after sextuplets of bird and all) Elizabeth Lim’s Six Crimson Cranes couldn’t be more distinct. Set in a fantasy world inspired by East Asia, the action centers around young princess Shiori’anma, whose evil stepmother turns Shoiri’s brothers into birds after the young royal sabotages her own wedding ceremony. Told that for every word she speaks one of her brothers will die, Shoiri is forced to embark on a silent quest to return her brothers back to their original forms. Lucky for Shoiri, her stepmother isn’t the only person in the royal family with magic, and the princess will have to use her budding supernatural abilities (as well as some help from a dragon and her ex-fiance) in order to save her kin.
The Book of Dust
After Phillip Pullman made fantasy history (and a few Catholic enemies) with the His Dark Materials trilogy, the author began work on a followup series that revisits Lyra Belacqua as a young adult. Well, a baby first, THEN a young adult. Beginning with Le Belle Sauvage, The Book of Dust series starts with the child of destiny still in diapers. Lyra Belacqua is the subject of a prophecy – the baby girl threatens to upend a precarious balance that a world ruling church known as The Magisterium can’t afford to upset. In order to throw Lyra’s enemies off her trail, the bouncing baby girl is entrusted to the care of eleven year old Malcolm Polstead, who is charged with delivering her to safety (which just so happens to lie downriver in a massive rainstorm.) After squirreling Lyra away in his titular canoe, young Malcom serves as the baby’s protector, a role a resumes decades later in the sequel when Lyra is all grown up.
Caraval
At its core, Stephanie Garber’s Caraval is the story of a theatre kid – one who will stop at nothing to see the show of a lifetime. Raised in the middle of nowhere (as many theatre kids are) young Scarlett Dragna dreams of escaping from her humdrum life and seeing the legendary Caraval, a famous gameshow where the audience is called to participate. After running away from with her sister Tella in order to see the show, Scarlett discovers that the newest installment of Caraval’s games are based around rescuing a kidnapped girl. As it turns out, that girl turns out to be Tella, who was spirited away by Caraval’s mysterious leader. With a combination of wits, bravery, and theatre kid pluck, young Scarlett must rescue her sister before the show’s five nights are up, and Tella is lost forever.
Legendborn
Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn is a magical realism story based around sixteen year old Bree Matthews who, like many YA protagonists, isn’t having a very good time. After her mother dies in a freak accident, Bree leaves her childhood home to live at the residential program for high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill. Bree thought that the horrors were over and she’d finally be able to readjust and heal… and then she saw a demon trying to feed off of her classmates. She’s soon introduced to the Legendborn, a group of monster hunters who style themselves after King Arthur and his Round Table. She soon joins the ranks of the demon slaying crew, and sets out on a quest to rid campus of the creatures of the night once and for all.
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