Showing titles in Coming of Age

A wry, tender and funny debut novel about art and love – and how the act of seeing lies at the heart of both. All Ellie Robertson has wanted to be since childhood is a painter: after all, that’s the easiest way to speak without actually having to say anything. But now she’s turning thirty...

A THEM AND BOOK RIOT BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR The “best woman” in her brother’s wedding tells a little white lie in her quest to get the girl—her lifelong crush and the maid of honor—in this wildly entertaining debut novel about bad decisions and life’s messiest transitions...

In 1990, Vijay and Indu leave India for Australia, seeking a better life for their family. But the move isn’t easy on anyone. Not gentle Indu who becomes disconnected from her family and her life; nor the ambitious Vijay, who finds himself unmoored in a culture he doesn’t understand. At the...

"Girls Girls Girls floored me. . . . It's completely extraordinary." —Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich A vibrant queer Jewish debut "teeming with heart, angst, love, and self discovery" (Emily Austin) about a young woman who, caught between the expectations of...

Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Fiction One of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2025 “[A] gay, literary Sliding Doors.” —Autostraddle “Heartbreaking and not to be forgotten.” —USA Today, “Best Books of the Year” A breathtaking, will-they-won’t-they love story...

A stunning novel from the acclaimed young Irish poet Seán Hewitt, a luminous and intensely evocative portrayal of two teeneagers bonding with each other over one heady, transformative year. "[Open, Heaven] is a searching novel orbiting pleasure, loss, and the ecstatic release of both; which is...

LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST A vibrant and intimate novel about growing up, first love, and all the joy and heartbreak of competitive high school basketball, from the Lambda Literary Award–winning author of I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself “Deeply affecting . . . Crane’s writing...

LAUGH NOW. CRY LATER. Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere... It’s London, 2014, and Hal Lancaster, son and heir of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, is in a holding pattern: his mother is dead, his father is dying or remarrying or both, his siblings are fighting, his internship is pointless...

A 2025 Lamda Literary Award finalist Longlisted for The Center For Fiction's 2024 First Novel Prize Named a Best Book of 2024 by Elle, Vogue, and Debutiful “This new novel is a real heart-squeezer. Beautiful, one of a kind and perfectly titled.” —Matt Berninger, The National...

A BBC BEST BOOK OF 2024 A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK Moonlight meets Purple Hibiscus in this coming of age novel about self-acceptance, sexual awakening, and first love set in a Nigeria on the verge of criminalizing same-sex relationships “Chukwuebuka Ibeh’s writing has a certain delicacy...

From the author of Wild Things comes a heartwarming and relatable queer coming of age story about an isolated young woman whose artistic celebration of her pet chinchilla suddenly launches her into the professional art world, reality TV fame, and first love. "Brilliantly and truthfully rendered...

FINALIST FOR THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY YOUNG LIONS FICTION AWARD NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND KIRKUS REVIEWS A novel by a brilliant new voice, Hombrecito is a queer coming-of-age story about a young immigrant’s complex relationships with his mother and his motherland In this...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST Two young housemates embark on a road trip to discover themselves in this “exceptional, keenly observed meditation on art and love” (People) in a fractured America, by the award-winning author of The Third Rainbow Girl “Tender...

An extraordinary, gloriously uplifting novel about the power of friendship and the puzzling ties that bind us Clayton Stumper might be in his twenties, but he dresses like your grandpa and fusses like your aunt. Abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by...

"Achingly and beautifully etched. . . Washington is a generous and gentle writer, with a profound capacity to face the cruelty and pain of contemporary American life while simultaneously offering his characters—and readers—an expansive space for self-forgiveness, hope, and nourishment...

“[A] masterful debut . . . a novel of survival and longing and love, and in many ways a modern portrait of an artist as a young man . . . a book written for us, we Iranian Americans whom you don’t often hear about.”—Porochista Khakpour, The Washington Post (Best Books of the Year) “A...

A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR An engrossing, page-turning story about an introverted student and the mysterious older woman whose unexpected interest in her sparks an insidious, all-consuming love affair. Eighteen-year-old Natalie has just arrived for her first year of university in...

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A USA TODAY BESTSELLER A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three “O'Donoghue deepens the familiar coming-of-age premise with riveting moral complications." —People "If...

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD “This exquisite debut wrestles with gender, siblinghood, family, and what it means to be Muslim in America—all through the lens of love.”—Time “Haunting . . . a knife-sharp story of self-discovery.”—People WINNER OF THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE...

2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST ONE OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES' TOP 5 FICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF TIME AND SLATE'S TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR Named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by NPR, Vogue, Vulture, BuzzFeed, Harper's Bazaar, and more “One of the buzziest, most human novels of the...