YA Books Featuring Best Friends

There’s nothing quite like a best friend. The person who knows your secrets and stands by your side through life’s ups and downs. To celebrate National Best Friends Day, we’re highlighting some of our favorite YA books featuring best friends. From loyal lifelong bonds and found-family friendships to relationships that become messy or complicated, these stories showcase friendship in all its forms—including a few friendships that blossom into romance.

I Wanna Be Your Girl, Volume 4

By Umi Takase

Being in love with your best friend is hard enough but turns out, being a good friend can be even harder. Akira is ready to make up with Hime, and although Hime feels the same, she knows they need to talk about something more. She’s kept her love secret for too long. It’s time to tell the truth.

Live From the Afterlife

By Sarah Lariviere

Coming 06.16.26

Set in an alternate America that feels dangerously close to our own, a ghost, the boy she loves, and their friends pick up the pieces of a shattered rebellion–turning from violence to art. Fierce, fast-moving, and full of heart, it’s Feed meets Severance meets Fahrenheit 451.

We're a Bad Idea, Right?

By K. L. Walther

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The business of love gets messy when two best friends decide to fake a relationship in this uproarious and swoony novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Summer of Broken Rules.

As Long as You Loathe Me

By Swati Hegde

When a teen tries to get back at her ex-best friend for stealing her crush, she ends up unexpectedly rekindling their complicated friendship and discovers that it’s not just her pride on the line, it’s her heart too.

Bring down the cheerleader. Just don’t fall in love with her.

Love in Ruins

By Auriane Desombre

After a recent OCD diagnosis, a teen girl embarks on a trip to Greece with her best friend, when she meets a captivating local girl. As their relationship heats up under the Mediterranean sun, she learns to balance the needs of those she loves with that of her own heart.

Room to Breathe

By Kasie West

In this swoony young adult romance from the acclaimed author of Sunkissed, Indy and Beau’s friendship is shattered, but getting accidentally locked in a bathroom together just might be what’s needed to reconnect.