New YA Comics and Nonfiction for September 2025

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Nell is a rebellious Irish teen who feels like no one in her life really understands her. In most ways, she’s fine with this. It means she can pursue her life on her own terms.

But when Nell is suspended from school and sent from her home to live with an aunt and uncle she’s never met, it becomes clear that there’s something bigger going on. Nell, it turns out, is part of a generational blood ritual. To save herself, she must confront the dangerous and violent cycle that’s played out for generations.

Ready for the next Ukazu comic? This one is coming in with a massive print run, too, meaning you’ll be seeing it far and wide in the coming months.

Chi-Chi Ekeh finds herself falling for the rich white boys at the school where she is a Black scholarship student. There’s no way any of them will ever return her feelings. She’s proven right when Flip Henderson, the school’s most popular boy, publicly humiliates her following her private promposal video to him.

Then the two wake up and find they’ve switched bodies. Chi-Chi is now Flip and Flip, Chi-Chi. It’s a crash course for both of them in living very different experiences. As their senior year goes on longer and longer, the two of them strike up a surprising friendship . . . and they begin to wonder where and how they can ever return to their own bodies and lives.

If you like horror that thoughtfully explores mental illness, look no further.

Noah returned from Bible camp to discover that his secret boyfriend Alex has disappeared. He’s now angry that he left at all. Enter Sky, who is bound and determined to find her best friend Alex and enter Izzy, who wishes she’d said something to her boyfriend Jamie, Alex’s twin brother, about how weird Alex had been acting.

Jamie directs much of his anger about Alex’s disappearance to his mother Desdemona. He’s angry he didn’t notice Alex acting strange and angry that Alex just disappeared.

But there’s more to all of these stories and more to Alex not being around. Slowly, Jamie begins to piece together that his mother’s history may have a role in what’s happening with Alex and engaging with her ghost may be the key to finding and understanding his brother.

Alex Wilson grew up in Indigo Harbor, a town along the seaside, but she hasn’t been back in a long time. But she’s forced to return when her grandmother dies, and Alex brings her best friend Grim along with her to help with everything following grandma’s death.

What Alex doesn’t remember is how strange Indigo Harbor is. It’s a world of the fantastical. Among those strange things? A woman named Elizabeth whose name keeps popping up everywhere and who seems to have some kind of connection to her grandmother.

Sorting through her grandmother’s things and reconnecting with her own history at Indigo Harbor unlocks a lot of memories and grief for Alex. But as she sorts through those things, she’s also desperate to figure out who Elizabeth is and what connection the two of them have.

This one’s compared to The Dark Matter of Mona Starr, Girl From the Sea, and The Magic Fish, all of which tackle grief through a little bit of magic and the fantastic. it sounds great.

This book contains the real history of the Guatemalan Civil War and Leon’s own immigration experience to shed light into a moment that many in the US may know little or nothing about.

It’s 2013 in Maryland, and brothers Leon and Charlie are unaware of the life their mother lived before settling in America. But as Leon tunes into the genocide trial of Efrain Rios Montt, he begins to ask his mom questions. At first, she refuses to share anything. But slowly, Clara begins to open up about her experiences.

The story then takes readers back to Clara’s youth in Peten, Guatemala, in 1982. She and her sister Elena have heard about the war in their country but it feels so far away from their small town. So when the fight shows up at their front door, the sisters find themselves separated as they flee. Will they ever reconnect again?

Readers who love Heartstopper will want to add this to their TBR.

Kang Dae is quiet and introverted. He prefers to spend time alone in his apartment. When outgoing and energetic Bo Seon moves into the complex, Kang Dae is annoyed. But it doesn’t take long before he’s charmed by Bo Seon and they become closer and closer.

What emerges between the two besties is something more than friendship, though. It’s romantic. This is rough for both of them, as neither has had a great relationship before and that trauma may get in the way of their budding feelings. It might be too hard for them to resist giving it a go, though, even if they fear for the worst.

Sarah and Angelina Grimké were girls of privilege who had everything they could ever want as they grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. But unlike others at the time, the sisters didn’t want to sit idly by as they watched slavery and injustice happen all around them.

This is the story of how two girls, driven by a sense of compassion and their faith, stepped up to push back against slavery in the early 19th century in an era where such actions–especially by girls and women–was met with anger and violence.

One of the better-known book banning situations from the last half decade occurred in York, Pennsylvania, schools. In two different years, the school board removed swaths of books from the district, deeming the topics of diversity and inclusivity inappropriate for students to access.

In both situations, students involved in the school’s anti-racist club, pushed back. They protested and succeeded in seeing those books returned. . .both times.

This is their story from their perspective, as well as a guide to how other students can step up and make change in their own community.

This is the third entry in a series of pictorial memoirs about Yelchin and his youth. We’ve entered into his teen years, and now, we watch as the author/creator struggles to find a creative future under Russia’s KGB. So when he meets an American woman by chance and they hit it off, he sees an opportunity to open up with his art again. He needs to leave Russia and head overseas.

There’s a big threat, though, and that’s being drafted and forced to fight in Afghanistan. Yelchin does something drastic, and as a result, finds himself in a mental institution.

While this memoir tackles big, meaty themes, it’s done with dark humor–and with the knowledge of what the author/creator’s outcome will look like.

Last but not least, this is a work of nonfiction that I preordered on audio nearly a year ago because I’m so excited about it. Heiligman does some of my favorite YA nonfiction and Emma Goldman has not yet had enough time in the spotlight for young readers.

Goldman’s critics called her a loudmouth troublemaker. She called herself a radical freethinker and anarchist. This is the story of Goldman’s arrival in America after being born in Lithuania to a father who rejected her because she was not the son he’d so desperately wanted. It’s a story of the hypocrisy of American democracy and the lengths some will go in pursuit of change.