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The Soler sisters are supposed to be polished and poised in polite society, but they aren’t. Their grandmother, who has raised them, has not cared until now. She realizes that life will be especially difficult for two Latina girls if they can’t at least blend in with their manners and attitudes. Grandma is able to get both girls a spot at Alarie House, a prestigious and hard-to-get-into finishing school.

In one day, younger sister Isla has come back home. She cannot do it, and she cannot stand how fake everything is at Alarie. Older sister Renata, though, sticks it out and when she comes home months later, she is a completely different person. Isla sees Renata behaving with eerie politeness and pleasantness…and murderousness. The night Renata returns home, she also vanishes.

While Grandma does what she can to find Renata, Isla decides to go back to Alarie House and find out what’s going on there. But it is a demanding finishing school and it certainly isn’t going to simply tell Isla what’s going on.

This is a harrowing work of nonfiction about author Elvira’s life as a teenager in the border town of Laredo, Texas. At 14, she was given 24 hours to find $40,000; the drug cartels had her mother and that was the cost of her mother’s freedom.

Caught up in the Mexican Drug War, Elvira ends up in a dangerous juvenile detention facility. When she’s finally released, she’s bound and determined never to go back, and she works toward realizing her new dream: getting an athletic scholarship to get her out of Laredo. She is working her butt off to become as good as possible at track and field, including breaking into her school before the sun rises to get extra practice time in. Although she catches the attention of a highly decorated high school coach, his attention soon turns to more than her performance on the team. Now, at 17, Elvira is dealing with the pressure of being sexual with an adult man in his 30s—it’s a reality of young athletes in too many situations, especially those teen athletes who are from any marginalized background.

Though tough and tragic, Elvira succeeds in her journey, becoming the first in her family to go to college and a top-ranking hurdler.

This is an enemies-to-lovers romance set in the world of MMORPG.

Viola is over the fact that her friend thinks she needs to be more likable, that her campaign for a tabletop game was rejected, and that the person in the position of student body president—Jack—is annoying and too laid back, which makes her job as vice president so much harder than necessary. She finds stress relief and joy in the MMORPG called Twelfth Knight, even though that isn’t a particularly safe space for an outspoken, confident girl like her either. To solve this problem, she creates a masculine alter ego in the game and suddenly, she finds herself being respected a heck of a lot more.

So when Jack sustains an injury and has himself become sucked into the world of Twelfth Knight, Viola is surprised at how well-matched their two online egos are. The problem is, of course, they get along too well online and, well, Jack doesn’t know that her fake persona online is her.

This YA fantasy-in-verse has a protagonist who’s often overlooked, even among retellings. Arachne’s mother teaches her to weave and tells her stories of the gods and goddesses. The book also mentions concepts from ancient Greek drama: hubris (arrogance) and hamartia (a character’s tragic flaw). These become relevant to Arachne’s story when she says her tapestries are better than Athena’s. The details are vivid, and the subject and structure of this book are unique. Maybe skip this one if you have a strong phobia of spiders, though!

Historians think Spartan women had more freedom than women from other ancient Greek city-states and were taught to handle weapons. This allows Daphne to replace her brother in a competition, though she’s still one of the mothakes (outsiders). The goddess Artemis needs Daphne’s help. This novel is partly inspired by the story of Daphne and Apollo. In Roman poet Ovid’s version of the myth, Daphne was turned into a laurel tree to avoid being raped by Apollo. Many ancient myths, like this one, have fascinating potential for YA and feminist retellings.

This is a contemporary thriller inspired by the myth of Icarus and his inventor father, Daedalus. In the myth, Daedalus makes wax wings for Icarus, who flies too close to the sun. In this novel, Icarus’ father, Angus, is an art forger, and Icarus steals originals and replaces them with Angus’ imitations. As metaphors, the danger and arrogance of flying too near the sun fit the art heist premise perfectly. I also recommend Darling, Ancrum’s modern crime thriller that reimagines Peter Pan.