YA Novels with Coming-of-Age Themes

Hazel Grace Lancaster has thyroid cancer, while Augustus Waters has osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer.

Starr Carter is the 16-year-old protagonist of The Hate U Give, who witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood friend Khalil Harris by a police officer.

Eleanor and Park attend Omaha Central High School in Nebraska.

Simon Spier is the protagonist of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, a gay high school student who struggles with coming out to his friends and family.

Junior lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington state.

Noah Gardner is the protagonist of I'll Give You the Sun, a novel that follows his relationship with his twin sister Jude St. Francis.

Natasha Kingsley is the Jamaican-American protagonist of The Sun Is Also a Star, who moves to New York City to live with her family.

Melinda Sordino is the protagonist of Speak, a novel that follows her struggles with high school after being raped at a party.

Liesel Meminger is the young girl who narrates The Book Thief, a novel set in Nazi Germany.

Charlie Kelmeckis is the protagonist of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a novel that follows his experiences as a freshman in high school.

Miles Halter attends Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama in Looking for Alaska.

Jonas is the protagonist of The Giver, a novel set in a dystopian society where everyone is assigned a role and there is no freedom.

Ponyboy Curtis and his friends belong to the Greasers, a gang of working-class teenagers in The Outsiders.

Scout Finch is the protagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel that follows her experiences growing up in the American South during the 1930s.

Holden Caulfield is the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, a novel that follows his experiences after being expelled from Pencey Prep.