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Contemporary YA Fiction in Alternative Formats Book List

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Looking to read a book written in an alternative format? I’ve got you covered. Here are a host of recently published contemporary YA titles written in an alternative format. I’ve included epistolary, verse, and multiple point of view books in this list. None of these books are published after 2010, and all descriptions come from WorldCat. I’ve kept it to one book per author, since some authors choose to write multiple books in an alternative format. 

This is obviously not a comprehensive list, so feel free to add any additional titles in the comments.

The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder (verse): Sixteen-year-old Amber, hoping to spend one perfect day alone at the beach before her world is turned upside down, meets and feels a strong connection to Cade, who is looking for his own escape, for a very different reason.

Cracked by KM Walton (multiple POV): When Bull Mastrick and Victor Konig wind up in the same psychiatric ward at age sixteen, each recalls and relates in group therapy the bullying relationship they have had since kindergarten, but also facts about themselves and their families that reveal they have much in common.

Crazy by Amy Reed (epistolary and multiple POV): Connor and Izzy, two teens who met at a summer art camp in the Pacific Northwest where they were counsellors, share a series of emails in which they confide in one another, eventally causing Connor to become worried when he realizes that Izzy’s emotional highs and lows are too extreme.

Getting Somewhere by Beth Neff (multiple POV): Four teenaged girls participating in a progressive juvenile detention facility on a farm have their lives changed by the experience.

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley (multiple POV): Told in alternating voices, an all-night adventure featuring Lucy, who is determined to find an elusive graffiti artist named Shadow, and Ed, the last person Lucy wants to spend time with, except for the fact that he may know how to find Shadow.

The List by Siobhan Vivian (multiple POV): Every year at Mount Washington High School somebody posts a list of the prettiest and ugliest girls from each grade–this is the story of eight girls, freshman to senior, and how they are affected by the list.

34 Pieces of You by Carmen Rodrigues (multiple POV): After Ellie dies of a drug overdose, her brother, her best friend, and her best friend’s sister face painful secrets of their own when they try to uncover the truth about Ellie’s death.

The Children and the Wolves by Adam Rapp (multiple POV): Abducted by teen genius Bounce and her drifter friends Wiggins and Orange, three-year-old Frog seems content to eat cereal and play a video game about wolves all day–a game that parallels the reality around her–until Wiggins is overcome by guilt and tension and takes action.

Tilt by Ellen Hopkins (verse and multiple POV): Three teens, connected by their parents’ bad choices, tell in their own voices of their lives and loves as Shane finds his first boyfriend, Mikayla discovers that love can be pushed too far, and Harley loses herself in her quest for new experiences.

My Book of Life by Angel by Martine Leavitt (verse): 16-year-old Angel struggles to free herself from the trap of prostitution in which she is caught.

Pieces of Us by Margie Gelbwasser (multiple POV): Four teenagers from two families–sisters Katie and Julie and brothers Alex and Kyle–meet every summer at a lakeside community in upstate New York, where they escape their everyday lives and hide disturbing secrets.

How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr (multiple POV): Told from their own viewpoints, seventeen-year-old Jill, in grief over the loss of her father, and Mandy, nearly nineteen, are thrown together when Jill’s mother agrees to adopt Mandy’s unborn child but nothing turns out as they had anticipated.

The Absolute Value of -1 by Steve Brezenoff (multiple POV): Three teenagers relate their experiences as they try to cope with problems in school and at home by smoking, drinking, using drugs, and running track.

Audition by Stasia Ward Kehoe (verse): When sixteen-year-old Sara, from a small Vermont town, wins a scholarship to study ballet in New Jersey, her ambivalence about her future increases even as her dancing improves.

Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters by Natalie Standiford (multiple POV): Upon learning on Christmas Day that their rich and imperious grandmother may soon die and disown the family unless the one who offended her deeply will confess, each of the three Sullivan sisters sets down her offenses on paper.

Displacement by Thalia Chaltas (verse): After tragedy strikes her family, Vera runs away to a small desert town where she tries unsuccessfully to forget her grief and sorrow.

Exposed by Kimberly Marcus (verse): High school senior Liz, a gifted photographer, can no longer see things clearly after her best friend accuses Liz’s older brother of a terrible crime.

Leverage by Joshua Cohen (multiple POV): High school sophomore Danny excels at gymnastics but is bullied, like the rest of the gymnasts, by members of the football team, until an emotionally and physically scarred new student joins the football team and forms an unlikely friendship with Danny.

LIE by Caroline Bock (multiple POV): Told in several voices, a group of Long Island high school seniors conspire to protect eighteen-year-old Jimmy after he brutally assaults two Salvadoran immigrants, until they begin to see the moral implications of Jimmy’s actions and the consequences of being loyal to a violent bully.

Orchards by Holly Thompson (verse): Sent to Japan for the summer after an eighth-grade classmate’s suicide, half-Japanese, half-Jewish Kana Goldberg tries to fit in with relatives she barely knows and reflects on the guilt she feels over the tragedy back home.

Rival by Sara Bennett-Wealer (multiple POV): Two high school rivals compete in a prestigious singing competition while reflecting on the events that turned them from close friends to enemies the year before.

Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs by Ron Koertge (verse): Fourteen-year-old Kevin Boland, poet and first baseman, is torn between his cute girlfriend Mira and Amy, who is funny, plays Chopin on the piano, and is also a poet.

Tweet Heart by Elizabeth Rudnik (Tweets, emails, blogs): Lottie wants to help her friend Claire find love, and Claire thinks that she is on the right track when her crush starts following her on Twitter, while Will hides his crush on her and a mutual friend tries to get them together.

Unlocked by Ryan G Van Cleave (verse): While trying to impress a beautiful, unattainable classmate, fourteen-year-old Andy discovers that a fellow social outcast may be planning an act of school violence.

Waiting by Carol Lynch Williams (verse): As the tragic death of her older brother devastates the family, teenaged London struggles to find redemption and finds herself torn between her brother’s best friend and a handsome new boy in town.

You Are Not Here by Samantha Schutz (Verse): Annaleah’s grief over the tragic death of seventeen-year-old Brian is compounded by the fact that her friends did not like him, while his friends and both of their families knew nothing of their intimate relationship.

Guest Post: Lisa Schroeder on Alternate Formats in Contemporary YA Fiction

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Alternative Formats in Contemporary YA by Lisa Schroeder




Some things in life are exact. Baking great grandpa’s favorite cookies from a recipe that’s been passed down through generations. Planting bulbs in the fall so you’ll have flowers that bloom in the spring. Balancing a checkbook. Writing, however, is not one of these tasks where there is a step-by-step process that gets you guaranteed results. Creativity does not like guidelines. It does not want to have a “right” way and a “wrong” way. Instead, it wants a thousand possibilities, at least.


That’s the beauty of writing, really. It is an art, like painting or making music or sculpting clay. Would anyone ever say to an art student – you must draw with a black pencil? Or to a musician – you must play with a piano?

And although writers aren’t told there is only one way to write a novel, I think it can be a difficult decision to do something outside of the norm.
Sometimes, however, an author feels strongly that a story would be better served by something other than one point of view, or a straight timeline, or traditional chapters, and so, she chooses to take the path less traveled.

I think we see alternative formats in contemporary YA especially because in today’s world, many teens don’t want a “right” way and a “wrong” way to live. Whether it’s their interests, their sexuality, or even their world views, things often aren’t black and white. There are choices. Sometimes, lots of choices, and so, it makes sense to me that contemporary young adult novels would push the boundaries, not only in exploring tough topics, but also in exploring different formats for the storytelling itself.

As the author of four verse novels for teens, I get asked over and over again, why? Why write in verse? I have given different answers over the years. Sometimes I say it’s because it creates an atmosphere I can’t get with prose. Sometimes I say it’s because it gets at the heart of the emotional story. And sometimes I say, because that’s the way the story wanted to be told.

The truth is, I don’t even think about why I’m doing it, really. All I’m doing is trying to tell the story that is in my heart the best way I can. If a story wants to be told in a sparse, poetic way, then I’m going to honor the story and tell it the way it wants to be told. Some people are turned off by this format, some think it’s a stupid gimmick, some think it’s not poetry at all, some HATE VERSE NOVELS WITH ALL THE CAPITAL LETTERS IN THE WORLD. I know these things all too well. But I also know that every week I get letters and e-mails from teens who say, “I usually hate to read, but I love your books…”

I think it’s important for people, and adults especially, to not be too quick to judge the alternative formats we see in YA novels. These alternative formats speak to the way teens live and communicate. As YA author Stasia Kehoe said in this great blog post (http://swardkehoe.blogspot.com/search/label/verse novels), “I live in a world of Twitter (haiku?), of texts from my teens, of vlogs and cartoons, of compact little Facebook status reports. I live in a world of cool fonts and snarky signage. I live in a world of rap music and catchy advertising slogans.”

Shouldn’t contemporary YA authors be allowed to play with their stories the way teens love to play with words and images on tumblr? Because when an alternative format works, it can really make an impact.

One of the books my now 15 YO reluctant reader son read and enjoyed last year was CRACKED by K.M. Walton. CRACKED is a book with two points of view, Victor and Bull. Whenever an author decides to do more than one point of view, she’s taking a risk, because the reader is going to want a good reason for doing so. In this case, it works well, because Victor is the victim and Bull is the bully. It’s fascinating to see things from Bull’s viewpoint, to see how he came to be the way he is.

I recently read Matt de la Pena’s novel I WILL SAVE YOU, and Matt chose to tell the story by alternating between the past and present day, something I do as well in my upcoming novel FALLING FOR YOU. There’s a lot of tension in a book written this way, but that’s why it’s so great. At least I think so. Others may become frustrated and want to throw the book across the room. Only certain stories are going to work this way, and the reader has to put a lot of trust in the author, because answers to questions don’t come for a long time about what exactly is going on. The whole time the reader is thinking, the payoff better be worth it. I thought the ending to I WILL SAVE YOU was brilliant, and I didn’t see it coming.

Every time an author writes a novel in an alternative format, he/she is taking a risk. There is more to pick apart. There is more to criticize. “It would have been better in regular prose” some people say about my verse novels. Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll never know, because I chose my path and I followed it and it got me to the end of something I was proud of and something I was happy to share with others.

It’s not always easy being the author who does something different. But writing a novel is never easy. We do it the way we choose to because our creativity whispers to us, I like this. Keep going. If there is one voice the author must listen to above all else, it is that one.

As readers, I say let’s be glad there are choices. Let’s be thankful we have authors willing to take risks. And most of all, let’s celebrate and respect differences.
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Lisa Schroeder is the author of five YA novels, all with Simon Pulse, including THE DAY BEFORE, a contemporary novel which was a 2012 Oregon Book Award finalist and a 2012 ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers. Realistic teen fiction is on her list of favorite things, right up there with cupcakes and the TV show Friday Night Lights. Look for her new contemporary YA, FALLING FOR YOU, coming 1/1/13. You can find her on the web atwww.lisaschroederbooks.com and on twitter at @lisa_schroeder.