What we look for in books for teens
Three things. A voice that does not talk down. A problem worth caring about. An ending that does not lie. Almost everything else (genre, page count, cover art, what your English teacher thinks) is negotiable.
We do not separate YA-marketed books from adult books for this list. Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is YA-marketed and one of the best novels of its decade for any reader. Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle is adult-marketed and one of the best teen coming-of-age books of the last fifty years. The label on the spine matters less than the reader on the other side of the page.
For teens who want to argue about books
Pick something with moral edges. The Blade Itself (Joe Abercrombie) for the grimdark argument. The End of Everything (Megan Abbott) for the suburban-disappearance dread. Reservation Blues (Sherman Alexie) for the question of who gets to tell whose story. Any of these will get a fifteen-year-old genuinely thinking.
For teens who do not like reading
Lee Child's Make Me. Andrew Gross's 15 Seconds. Both are commercial thrillers engineered to keep pages turning, neither talks down, both have enough actual texture to reward attention. We have given Make Me to genuinely reluctant teen readers and watched them finish it in two days.
For older teens (16-17) ready for adult literary fiction
Michael Cunningham's The Hours. Douglas Coupland's Microserfs. Both are demanding but not punishing, both reward close reading, both are the kind of book that turns a sixteen-year-old into the kind of person who reads literary fiction at twenty-five. Start with Microserfs if comedy helps; start with The Hours if patience is already there.