High School Summer Reading
Instructions
If you’re enrolled in CP English course for the 2025-2026 school year:
Choose 1 book from the A.S. King (visiting author) choice book list.
Choose 1 book from the choice book list.
If you’re enrolled in an Honors English course for the 2025-2026 school year:
Choose 1 book from the A.S. King (visiting author) choice book list.
Choose 2 books from the choice book list.
If you’re enrolled in an IB English course for the 2025-2026 school year:
Choose 1 book from the A.S. King (visiting author) choice book list.
Choose 1 book from the choice book list.
Read How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
Summer Reading Book Shop
VISITING AUTHOR
A.S. King
A.S. King has been called “One of the best Y.A. writers working today” by The New York Times Book Review and is one of YA fiction's most decorated. She is a two time Printz Medal for Dig and The Collectors. She is a former faculty member of several MFA writing programs and spends many months of the year traveling the country speaking to high school and university students, educators, and humans who care about the mental health of young people.
Pick the Lock
When she suddenly gains access to the files for a lifetime of security-camera videos -- her lifetime -- Jane, who lives and goes to school in a Victorian mansion while her mother tours the country, discovers nothing is normal about her toxic family.
The Collectors
Ed. by A.S. King
Centering around an unforgettable cast of characters and their strange and surprising collections. This anthology features contributions by such award-winning and best-selling authors as David Levithan and Jenny Torres Sanchez.
Dig
Five white teenage cousins who are struggling with the failures and racial ignorance of their dysfunctional parents and their wealthy grandparents, reunite for Easter.
Switch
Set in a parallel version of America where time has stopped, the novel tells the story of one teenage girl trying to untangle her toxic family's secrets--and maybe restart the world's clocks in the process.
Reality Boy
An emotionally damaged seventeen-year-old boy in Pennsylvania who was once an infamous reality television show star, meets a girl from another dysfunctional family, and she helps him out of his angry shell.
Choice Books
Graphic Novel
This Land is Our Land by Julio Anta
As high school student Jaime Reyes has begun to realize he and his border community in El Paso, Texas, are being used as pawns in the immigration debate, he finds an odd bug-like artifact and begins feeling different, even having surreal dreams showing the real danger are actual aliens known as the Reach.
Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang
Val is ready to give up on love. It's led to nothing but secrets and heartbreak, and she's pretty sure she's cursed—no one in her family, for generations, has ever had any luck with love. But then a chance encounter with a pair of cute lion dancers sparks something in Val. Is it real love? Could this be her chance to break the family curse? Or is she destined to live with a broken heart forever?
Bunt! by Ngozi Ukazu
Molly Bauer’s first year at PICA starts disastrously when her full-ride scholarship vanishes. However, a loophole in the financial aid documents offers hope: if Molly and nine other art students win a softball game, they’ll get a massive athletic scholarship. Can this ragtag team of artists pull it off?
Romance
Dungeons and Drama
When Riley takes her mom’s car without permission, she's grounded and stuck with the worst punishment: spending her after-school hours working at her dad’s game shop. Riley can't waste her time working when she has a musical to save, so she convinces Nathan—a nerdy teen employee—to cover her shifts and, in exchange, she’ll flirt with him to make his gamer-girl crush jealous.
The Getaway List by Emma Lord
Moving to NY for the summer, Riley reunites with childhood best friend Tom, the co-creator of The Getaway List that enumerates all the adventures they’ve wanted to do together, and discovers the biggest adventure of all as they work their way through the list: love.
Twlfth Knight by Alexene Farole Follmuth
Violet Reyes' favorite escape from the world is the MMORPG Twelfth Knight, but online spaces aren't exactly kind to girls like her. So Vi creates a masculine alter ego, Cesario. But when a football injury leads to popular classmate Jack Orsino to the world of Twelfth Knight, Vi is alarmed to discover their online alter egos--Cesario and Duke Orsino--are surprisingly well-matched.
Realistic
This Book Won't Burn by Samira Ahmed
After her dad abruptly abandons her family, Noor Khan is forced to start the last quarter of her senior year at a new school and plans to keep her head down until she discovers hundreds of books being removed from the library and speaks up to effect change.
What We Wish For by Melody Maysonet
Fifteen-year-old Layla Freeman likes to pretend her life is fine. Her mother is about to celebrate thirty days sober but they have moved into a homeless shelter. Layla hatches a plan to get help from her rich aunt and uncle. After her mom overdoses, she’s sent to rehab and Layla gets to move into her aunt and uncle’s mansion. Armed with new wealth, new relationships, and even a new mother figure, Layla thinks all her dreams have come true… but secrets have a way of coming out.
Twenty-Four Seconds From Now by Jason Reynolds
In a series of moments spanning two years, seventeen-year-old Neon navigates the progression of his relationship with Aria, culminating in a case of the jitters as the two intend to take the next big step in their relationship.
Mystery/Thriller/Horror
Going Dark by Melissa de la Cruz
When 19-year-old Josh returns from Rome without his budding influencer girlfriend Amelia, he immediately becomes a suspect in her disappearance, but as college sophomore and hacker Harper attempts to clear his name, she unearths secrets from both Josh and Amelia's past.
The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson
When her mother, who disappeared 16 years before, reappears while a true crime documentary about her case is being filmed, 18-year-old Bel, not buying her mom's unbelievable story about what happened to her, must uncover the real reason Rachel Price is back from the dead.
Looking for Smoke by K.A. Cobell
When a classmate is murdered during a traditional Blackfeet giveaway, Mara, Loren, Brody and Eli, the last people to see her alive, must take matters into their own hands and clear their names -- even though one of them may be the killer.
Long Stretch of Bad Dies by Mindy McGinnis
To earn the last credit she needs to graduate, Lydia Chass teams up with foul-mouthed Bristal Jamison to transform her listener-friendly local history podcast into a hard-hitting, truth-telling expose as they investigate an unsolved murder from their small town's past.
The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert
When her estranged best friend, Becca, goes missing, along with three other people, Nora follows coded messages Becca left for her to unravel, leading Nora to a legendary goddess who played a role in their own childhood games.
A Place for Vanishing by Ann Fraistat
Moving into her mother's childhood home for a fresh start, Libby, recently diagnosed with bipolar III, discovers the strangely beautiful house disguises a sinister past and the truth can be found in the eerie, bug-shaped masks hidden throughout the property.
Icarus by K. Ancrum
A thief who steals priceless art and replaces it with his father's impeccable forgeries while targeting Mr. Black, the man responsible for his mother's death, Icarus Gallagher is torn between family loyalty, revenge, escape and Mr. Black's son--the boy he's come to love.
Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Snow Globe by Soyoung Park
In a world of constant winter, only the citizens of the climate-controlled city of Snowglobe can escape the bitter cold—but this perfect society is hiding dark and dangerous secrets within its frozen heart.
The Luminaries by Susan Dennard
To reclaim her family's standing within the Luminaries, an ancient order standing between humanity and nightmares, Winnie must pass the hunter trials, entering a world of danger, lies and betrayal where she must protect her town, her family and her heart.
The Kill Factor by Ben Oliver
A contestant on a brand-new game show offering young criminals the chance at freedom and a cash prize by winning over viewers, Emerson desperately needs the money to save her family, but little does she know that winning is her only chance at survival because losing means death.
Dead Things Are Closer Than They Appear by Robin Wasley
During a magical apocalypse, which has unleashed monsters and murderers, ordinary teen Sid Spencer teams up with a ragtag crew of would-be heroes to save the world as she knows it and do something extraordinary.
All Better Now by Neal Shusterman
Three teens seek to unravel the truth behind conflicting agendas surrounding a deadly virus that could change humanity forever.
Historical Fiction
The Color of a Lie by Kim Johnson
In 1955, when his family, who passes for white, moves to an idyllic all-white suburban town, Calvin, who secretly makes friends across town, finds himself caught between two worlds when he discovers dark secrets about the white town and its inhabitants, which places his family in danger.
James by Percvial Everett
Reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view.
I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
Romania, 1989.
Amidst the tyrannical dictatorship, in a country governed by isolation and fear, Cristian is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer. He’s left with only two choices: betray everyone and everything he loves—or use his position to undermine the most notoriously evil dictator in Eastern Europe.
Non-Fiction
Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins
A simple, transformative approach to improving personal and professional relationships by shifting focus from controlling others to accepting them, offering science-backed strategies to reduce stress, enhance happiness, foster healthier connections, and empower individuals to prioritize their well-being and achieve personal fulfillment.
The House of my Mother by Shari Franke
From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing.
Choose Your Own Adventure!
Find your own book to read this summer. Just make sure it is considered a YA/Teen or Adult book.
OR
Read a book from the new Florida Teens Read List.
List Coming Soon*
If you have any questions about this, please email LC@nbps.org.