Jeffrey Davies is a professional introvert and writer with imposter syndrome whose work spans the worlds of pop culture, books, music, feminism, and mental health. In addition to Book Riot, his writing has appeared on HuffPost, CBC Arts, Collider, Slant Magazine, PopMatters, and other places. Find him on his website and follow him on Instagram, Threads, or Bluesky.
Two teens must keep their working—and flirty—relationship a secret from their grandmas in this hilariously sweet rom com.
Jamie is happy to be the brains behind her grandmother BamBam’s social media stardom. It’s not easy though, and going to an influencers convention in Las Vegas is what she needs to get inspired.
That is, until BamBam learns that Buzzy, her rival granfluencer, is also attending with her influencer grandson, Ethan. Jamie refuses to hang out with the enemy, until she learns about a cash prize for best tourism video. A prize Ethan can help her win.
Social media has continued to change and evolve so much in just the last quarter-century that it’s no wonder it has come to dominate almost every facet of our modern everyday life. This is all the more true for teenagers and young adults, especially those who have come of age in a world of ever-shifting technology. I don’t really remember a time before the Internet existed, but during my formative years, it was still something you could log out of—which is to say we weren’t yet all so hyperconnected with instant Internet access in our pockets every day.
I was in high school when the age of Instagram began, and it’s been both a wild and jarring ride to see how far social media has come since then, for better and worse, in the lives of teenagers. So I researched the best YA titles centering around themes of social media, with some from the 2010s and some from the last few years. This feels like an important distinction to make, given the aforementioned changing nature of social media. What’s cool today will not be cool tomorrow, so be sure to at read this list as soon as you can!
I Hope This Doesn’t Find You by Ann Liang
Nobody would ever suspect someone like Sadie Wen of any wrongdoing. She’s the valedictorian, school captain, and the classic case of a pleasure to have in class. But beneath her perfect exterior, Sadie hides the everyday rage that accompanies being a teen girl and a human. In order to keep her fake smile plastered on her face all day at school, Sadie’s outlet for her true feelings is to put them into email drafts. She never sends them, of course. Sadie would truly never want to hurt anyone else’s feelings, but when you spend all day, every day trying to be perfect, your true self can’t stay hidden for long. She has the most contempt for her co-school captain, Julius Gong, whom she’s been competing against since they were little. So imagine Sadie’s panic when she finds out that all of her email drafts have been accidentally sent out… Within the span of a day, Sadie’s carefully crafted persona is ruined, and it’s all anyone can talk about on social media. She’s trapped in her own worst nightmare, until she learns that there’s one person who is pleased to finally meet the real Sadie: Julius.
Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia
One of the best YA books about fandom and social media to come out of the 2010s, Eliza and Her Monsters focuses on the eponymous Eliza Mirk. You probably don’t know her, but you definitely know her online alter-ego, LadyConstellation, the creator of the massively popular online comic series Monstrous Sea. Eliza can’t see herself ever enjoying real life as much as she enjoys her digital one, so she starts to give up on even trying to live in the real world. Everything changes, however, when she meets Wallace Warland, the most popular Monstrous Sea fanfiction writer in the fandom. She can’t ever let on that she’s LadyConstellation, so Eliza gets to know Wallace as herself, just a fellow fan. And for the first time in her life, Eliza starts to imagine a life beyond the one she’s created for herself online. But when her parents accidentally spill the beans on LadyConstellation’s true identity, everything starts to fall apart.
#Famous by Jilly Gagnon
In our increasingly digital modern world, things are pretty simple. Girl meets boy, girl takes a picture of boy and posts it on social media, boy becomes famous. Right? Well, as the two protagonists in #Famous are about to learn, nothing is ever that straightforward in life—and especially on social media. Told from two points of view, Rachel and Kyle are thrown into a newfound world of attention and instant gratification that will show them just how much social media fame comes at a price, one that will make them question just how much they like each other. And along the way, they might learn a thing or two about what it means to like people in real life and not on a phone screen.
He Said, She Said by Kwame Alexander
Things are going pretty well for Omar Smalls at the moment. He’s got a full scholarship to play football at the University of Miami, not to mention friends everywhere he looks and the attention of any girl he wants at the drop of a hat. He couldn’t be more different from Claudia Clarke, who feels like the only senior at West Charleston High who cares about investigative journalism, getting into Harvard, and the rates of poverty and teen pregnancy in her town. The last thing she needs is to waste a minute of her time on someone like Omar Smalls, but everything is about to change. When Claudia and Omar are thrust together by circumstance, they end up coming together to create one of the biggest social protests that this side of the Mississippi has ever seen, courtesy of some extra attention on social media. If only they could manage not to let their romantic tension ruin everything…
Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert
Bradley Graeme has worked hard to be the person he is today. A star football player, he’s learned how to manage his OCD symptoms, mostly, and even get the top grades in all of his classes. That is, except the ones that he shares with Celine Bangura, his ex-best friend. Celine is obsessed with conspiracy theories, having raked up a big following on social media with an audience always eager to hear her latest takes on the latest conspiracies. Yet her popularity online hasn’t translated into popularity in real life in the way that she hoped it would, which is why she remembers Bradley dropping her as a friend for a chance to join the in-crowd. Now they share nothing but petty grievances and an academic rivalry until Celine joins a survival skills course in the woods and finds Brad has joined, too. With a grand prize at stake, Celine and Brad must put aside their differences to work together. As they start to remember some of the good times in their friendship, they might begin to develop a new facet to their relationship, too.
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
One of the best introvert books of all time, Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl explores the very real relationship between being yourself online and being yourself in the real world. No one likes the Simon Snow book series quite like Cath. Everyone on earth loves Simon, but Cath’s love is different. She understands him like no one else does. She spends every free moment writing her fanfic stories about the series, Carry On, which gets thousands of clicks every time she posts a new chapter. Online, she’s Magicath, and lives in a world where everyone understands her. But Cath’s twin sister, Wren, is starting to lose interest in Simon and yearns for new experiences at the college where they are both about to attend. Cath struggles to find her footing in an unfamiliar new world… until she meets Levi. On paper, he’s everything Cath isn’t. And not only is she about to figure out just how much opposites attract, but that even though living in the real world comes at a cost, it’s worth it.
What are some of your favorite YA books about social media?
English (US) · 