One of the fun things about the Cybils is how wide-ranging the reading is, even within a field that sounds relatively narrow. YA Fiction covers not just traditional contemporary novels, but also mysteries and historical fiction. Because of that, I’ve had the chance to read a ton of debut novels, covering ground in each of these genres. Here’s a quick look at three debuts I’ve read recently.

Deadly Cool by Gemma Halliday isn’t Halliday’s real debut novel, but it is her debut into the young adult field. Hartley’s day at school starts pretty crappy: she learns that her boyfriend Josh might be cheating on her. What else could explain the condom wrapper she found, seeing she and he aren’t sleeping together? Hartley’s determined to get to the bottom of this and find out whether the rumors of her boyfriend being with the Courtney Cline, one of the members of the school’s color guard.

But when she gets to Josh’s house later in the day to snoop out the story, she finds Courtney dead in his closet. What started as a bad day has turned out to be a heck of a lot worse than Hartley thought, and now she’s investigating murder.

Halliday’s mystery is fresh and funny. Hartley has a snarky voice, and the story has a bit of a noir vibe, reminiscent a bit of Heathers. It’s not going to please hard core mystery fans because the mystery itself is overall silly and the ending is more than a bit tell-y, but the ride to get to that point is really enjoyable. It’s a lighter read and one that will likely appeal to fans of the Gallagher Girls series and, as I’m told, fans of Veronica Mars. Halliday’s writing is enjoyable, and she kept me hooked from the first page. I liked Hartley a lot because she’s stubborn and hard-headed and she’s determined to get to the bottom of the murder (err, murders, as it turns out).

While it was a cheating boyfriend that set the story into motion, what worked for me was that the book was not ultimately about that at all. In fact, there was little romance or male-female romantic tension, aside from a few brief moments Hartley has with a boy named Chase, who actually ends up playing a role in a different manner. Hartley’s an independently strong female in the story, and she doesn’t spend days bemoaning the fact some girl took advantage of Josh, which is a trope I see far too often. Instead, she lets her feelings turn to actions. Yes, it’s a little over the top, but that’s what you get with this style and genre, and it’s meant to be a fun ride. I’m eager to read the second book next year.

Amy Fellner Dominy’s OyMG follows Ellie Taylor as she struggles to come to terms with discrimination heads on — religious discrimination, that is. She’s been accepted to the Christian Society Speech and Performance Arts summer camp, and it’s an opportunity for her to potentially earn scholarship money to better her education. She’s passionate about speech and eager to dive into the camp, but when she runs face to face with a director who openly and actively talks about her dislike for Jews, well, Ellie’s torn. She’s Jewish.

I think a lot of readers will relate to Ellie here, especially because it takes on a topic of discrimination I think a lot of teens tackle regularly. That’s not making light of religious discrimination, but the way it’s handled here is subtle and personal, and it’s done well. Ellie herself is a believable teen, and she’s one who many teens will relate to easily.

However, I had a hard time buying the concept of the book as a whole. Ellie’s family — her grandfather, in particular — are strongly Jewish, and we’re shown this immediately. When she drops the bomb that she wants to attend this speech camp at a Christian center, there’s little challenge to that decision. Her family questions it but never actually investigates it, and I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t put in their due diligence before sending her off. Had they done that, I suspect the entire story wouldn’t have taken off because they’d be aware of the problems that’d arise. Are these my adult sensibilities talking? Maybe. But I wanted this aspect to be handled a little better to make the chain of events stronger and more believable. The book will, no doubt, appeal to readers who not only have wondered who they are and where they fit in but also actually made strides toward figuring it out rather than getting caught up in the questions. It’s a quick and clean read, perfectly fine for older tween readers and the entire range of teen readers.

One of the more literary books, Brian Farrey’s With or Without You explores the lives of two gay boys who just graduated from high school. Evan, who tells the story, is open about his sexuality, and while his parents are aware he’s gay, he hasn’t been forthright in admitting to having a boyfriend, Erik, who he keeps a secret. Davis, Evan’s best friend, isn’t as open about his sexuality, partially because he and Evan have experiences violence because of who they are, and partially because he needs to figure out what he’s going to do now that his father’s kicking him out of his house (he is 18, after all). While Evan and Davis made a pact to one another to move to Chicago after their final summer of freedom, Erik throws a bit of a wrench into the plans when he tells Evan he’s taken an opportunity in California and slips him a plane ticket to join. Now Evan has to decide whether he wants to spend his life with his best friend and confidant or his boyfriend.

Farrey’s novel delves into the LGBTQ world, and it’s one I haven’t seen portrayed quite this way in ya fiction. It’s less a story of coming out and more a story of figuring out who you are AFTER you’ve come out and have made peace with the fact you have. Davis is not as comfortable as Evan is with his sexuality, and it ultimately causes a lot of chaos through the novel. Much of it isn’t pleasant or healthy, as it deals with a community within the LGBTQ world that believes AIDS is a badge of honor. I was disappointed with the wrap up in this story line because I didn’t believe Evan’s actions. There’s another secondary storyline wrapped up in Evan’s art work I felt wasn’t as strong as it could have been, as I found myself pulled out of the story when I read the descriptions of the meaning behind the art on his window pane.

When I finished With or Without You, I wasn’t quite sure if this is the sort of book teen readers would appreciate as much as maybe college age, 20-somethings would. I actually thought it’d be the kind of book those who fell in love with Blake Nelson’s Girl would appreciate because it had that sort of vibe and air to it — a compliment, not a critique. The longer I sat on this book though, thinking about the title and about the issues raised within it, the more I realize this book wasn’t set in today’s world. It was set in the 90s, like Nelson’s. It’s subtle, but it makes sense, even thinking about the reference in the title alone. For me, that complicated the novel and the target audience, as I don’t think the issues raised here will have quite the immediacy to today’s teens as it would to those who were teens a decade (or longer) ago. Not that there won’t be teens who read it, but it’ll be a smaller audience.