Tween Book Buying Guide for the Holidays- Romantics

So many of my girls are romantics at heart. They love reading love stories and I spend a lot of time finding appropriate teen romance novels.

Shug is a perennial favorite. Annemarie, nicknamed Shug, has a pretty tough life. She has a beautiful, popular older sister who gets all the attention, an alcoholic mother, and a father who’s always on business trips. On top of all of that, she has developed a huge crush on Mark, her best friend. My girls have fallen in love with this one!

Stargirl is another popular choice (and one of my personal favorites!) Stargirl reminds me a lot of Spinelli’s Maniac Magee. More than just a first love story, it deals with nonconformity and the perils of popularity. There’s even a Stargirl Journal!

3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows has slowly been gaining ground with my girls. The story of three lifelong best friends who are beginning to grow apart in 8th grade, they are spending the summer apart dealing with divorce, new surroundings, and, of course, boys!

Sarah Dessen is practically sacred among my girls. One of her most popular novels is The Truth About Forever. Macy has suddenly turned into the good girl- straight A’s, punctual, helpful. She’s trying to convince herself and the world that she ok even though her Dad died. Then she gets a job at Wish Catering. It’s run by pregnant, forgetful Delia with help from her nephews, Bert and Wes, and her neighbors Kristy and Monica. Macy falls in love with gorgeous Wes…..and her perfect life is changed forever.

The Indigo Notebook is part adventure, part romance. Zeeta’s mother loves moving and they have lived all over the world. When she moves the family to Ecuador, Zeeta is determined to make her settle down. She enlists the help of some vendors in the market to set her mother up on dates but ends up meeting an intriguing boy herself.