New YA Book Releases This Week, June 5, 2025

I’m all in for this surreal survivalist story being compared to A.S. King.

Xavier Oaks is spending a week at the cabin with his dad and pregnant step mom. He’s not excited about it, but he’ll deal. It’s only a week, anyway.

Except when Xavier wakes up the next morning, the cabin has been moved. It’s somewhere else entirely. That’s when he, his dad, and his stepmom discover they’re inside of a dome. There’s no one around and no indication of what’s going on.

Three years later, another family arrives. Now, they’re even more confused and uncertain of what’s going on or how they may ever escape.

If the pitch “Our Flag Means Death meets The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue” rings any bells for you, you’ll put this one on your TBR ASAP.

Cas’s life rule is not to tell anyone. This applies to gender discomfort and to prophetic visions of death. When Cas broke this rule before, it ended a meaningful friendship with Remy.

Remy has dedicated years to researching the group that kidnapped her father. She’s gotten to know the dark magic that they practice, and she’s bound and determined to take the group down and get her father back. She’ll do it even if Cas tells her that that’s not what really happened to her father.

Despite knowing that Remy will never defy the church where she belongs, Finn cannot help but be in love with her. Remy’s church calls what their relationship could be a sin. Finn isn’t concerned, though. Finn’s committed a far worse sin by making a bargain with a deadly price.

Cas has had another vision, and now, the three of them are on a course that will require all of them to confront their secrets, as well as hidden and potentially deadly magic, in order to survive. But this course won’t just be about survival. It’ll be about being honest with who they each are so they can live their truest, most authentic lives, too.

Truyan Saigas–Tru–had no choice to become a con artist. She need to support her mother and two younger sisters in the wake of her father being lost to the sea. Tru’s gift is as an art forager, with the unique skill of painting the future. But no matter how hard she works, it’s not enough to pay back the gangsters demanding their due in light of her mother’s addiction to gambling.

Now, Tru has agreed to a marriage with the mysterious dragon lord. It’ll help her family survive and stave off the numerous questions about what really happened to her father. The issue? Tru will have to live with the dragon lord in an isolated palace deep beneath the sea.

She’s also being forced to help the dragon lord infiltrate the Dragon King’s inner circle. It’s a task that could leave both the moral and immortal worlds upended forever.

This one is a romantasy read inspired by the classic Beauty and the Beast.

Luce, Edie, Jane, and Nan took the boat out for one last swim in the river last summer, but only Nan came back from the trip. Nan has told everyone since that day that her three best friends vanished into thin air. She has no recollection of what transpired.

It’s been one year, and the town of Saltcedar is back at the river to commemorate the anniversary of the loss of three teens.

So it’s a surprise to everyone in town when Luce climbs out of the water . . . and it’s especially a shock to Nan, who killed Luce, right before she went on to kill Edie and Jane, too.

I read this book in one big gulp a few weeks ago, and it’s truly a perfect summer love story.

WestSide Roll is THE place in Indianapolis for Jaelyn Coleman and so many other teens. They live for Saturday night skating. It’s a place where Jaelyn feels fully herself, and she loves seeing her friends feeling themselves, too.

One night while skating, Jaelyn crashes into Trey. Literally. Trey happens to be one of the cutest boys she’s ever met, and it seems like he’s harboring some real feelings for her, too.

But everything starts to turn upside down as news hits that WestSide Roll will be closing. The neighborhood is gentrifying, and the skate place is the latest victim. Though Jaelyn’s been dealing with some tough stuff outside the rink–a distant best friend, an estranged father who keeps wanting to come back into her life–losing WestSide Roll might be the worst thing of all.

Hakeem attends Narcotics Anonymous. He’s doing it to keep away from his former addiction. Things have gotten even harder lately, though, since Hakeem’s best friend (and, truth be told, his long-time crush) Miles died by suicide. Hakeem is convinced he could have done something to help Miles and that tears him apart.

At Narcotics Anonymous, Hakeem takes a shine to Eliza. She’s the person who is there for him when Hakeem decides to call Miles’s old phone. It’s a shock to the system when Miles picks up and tells Hakeem that he didn’t kill himself. He was actually murdered.

Hakeem is determined to get an answer as to what actually happened to Miles. But it will be far from easy, especially as his relationship with Eliza starts to show Hakeem some of his own weaknesses and limitations.

In this social justice thriller, Calvin and his family are white-passing. They’ve lived in Chicago forever but a tragedy in the city forces them to move. The family goes to an all-white suburb that offers them everything imaginable. Calvin’s dad pressures everyone to conform to the standards set there, especially because they can pass. The problem is Calvin can’t in good conscious do it. He’s instead elected to make friends across down where he doesn’t have to perform as someone he is not. It doesn’t hurt he can see his crush there, either.

But Calvin is beginning to uncover dark secrets about this suburb. It’s not safe for him nor his family, and now, he feels compelled to push back against his dad’s wishes to keep nice in order to save them—and in order to be who he truly is.

For readers who love mental health narratives, takes on Japanese mythology, and a bent of quirk, this will be one to have on your TBR.

Machi prays at the altar of Japanese goddess of love Benzaiten. Machi asks to be turned into a robot vacuum, not expecting to be heard; Machi has been struggling to speak and struggling in school and therapy following her two best friends choosing to have nothing to do with her. She sees no reason to be human anymore.

Benzaiten doesn’t grant that prayer but does take Machi on an unbelievable adventure. As Machi meets the souls of the dead, which tend to flock toward Benzaiten, she begins to better understand and accept why it is she is human. While she is reminded of everything she has lost, it’s through her rerouted prayer that Machi discovers what it is to be happy, too.

Naya Morgan and Yana Bunpraserit are ex-best friends and outsiders in their small town. But they’ve been invited to be part of their high school’s exclusive society for recent graduates. It promises fun, connection, and more, starting with a yacht trip to Bermuda.

Naya and Yana are not excited to deal with [waves hands at their high school experience], and they’re skeptical of spending time together, but…it’s an epic trip. They’re going to take it.

Then on the trip, a classmate is killed. The body count is rising, and it’s clear there’s a murderer aboard. Yana and Naya don’t want to be friends again but they might need to do it in order to save their lives.

Wilhelmina graduated with the class of 2020. That means she began with a terrible presidential election in 2016 and ended with the pandemic shutting down schools before she could experience a graduation ceremony in 2020. She experienced a ton of personal losses during this time, too, and as a result of such upheaval, she’s elected to defer going to college. What she’ll do during this time, she’s not sure, but she cannot plow through like nothing has happened.

But magic is beginning to show up everywhere. She’s seeing weird flashes of whimsy, and while they don’t make sense when they appear, Wilhelmina is convinced they’re trying to send her a message. Now, she’s down the rabbit hole—heh—following a trail of elephants, birds, stale donuts, and more.