Next Up: Coming of Age Books Releasing in 2024

As we near the end of the month, we can't help but think ahead to all the wonderful things 2024 has in store. It is the best part of a new year when you can look forward to all the new things and imagine how it will go. As we close out this month, during which we have focused on highlighting stories of change, transition, and growing up, we are excited for all the new stories and characters this new year will bring. Brimming with compelling narratives, fresh characters, and exhilarating journeys yet to be started, these new books are brimming with the essence of coming of age tales and are sure to delight readers of all kinds with their stories. Join us below to discover the fresh new voices and the long-established veterans making their marks this year within the genre. Who knows, maybe your next favorite read is just a short scroll away.

---

On The Horizon

The Atlas of Us by Kristin Dwyer

Published: January 9, 2024

Atlas James has lost her way.

In a last-ditch effort to pull her life together, she’s working on a community service program rehabbing trails in the Western Sierras. The only plus is that the days are so exhausting that Atlas might just be tired enough to forget that this was one of her dad’s favorite places in the world. Before cancer stole him from her life, that is.

Using real names is forbidden on the trail. So Atlas becomes Maps, and with her team—Books, Sugar, Junior, and King—she heads into the wilderness. As she sheds the lies she’s built up as walls to protect herself, she realizes that four strangers might know her better than anyone has before. And with the end of the trail racing to meet them, Maps is left counting down the days until she returns to her old life—without her new family, and without King, who’s become more than just a friend.

---

The Things We Didn't Know by Elba Iris Pérez

Release Date: February 6, 2024

The inaugural winner of Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us contest, Elba Iris Pérez’s lyrical, cross-cultural coming-of-age debut novel explores a young girl’s childhood between 1950s Puerto Rico and a small Massachusetts factory town.

Andrea Rodríguez is nine years old when her mother whisks her and her brother, Pablo, away from Woronoco, the tiny Massachusetts factory town that is the only home they’ve known. With no plan and no money, she leaves them with family in the mountainside villages of Puerto Rico and promises to return.

Months later, when Andrea and Pablo are brought back to Massachusetts, they find their hometown significantly changed. As they navigate the rifts between their family’s values and all-American culture and face the harsh realities of growing up, they must embrace both the triumphs and heartache that mark the journey to adulthood.

A heartfelt, evocative portrait of another side of life in 1950s America, The Things We Didn’t Know establishes Elba Iris Pérez as a sensational new literary voice.

---

In The Orbit of You by Ashley Schumacher

Release Date: March 19, 2024

In the Orbit of You is a YA story of enduring love from acclaimed author Ashley Schumacher, where a personality test reunites two friends and makes them second guess their careful plans.

It's been years since Nova Evans last saw Sam. She was too young then to understand why he had to move away―and what it had to do with the cuts and bruises he got from home and never wanted to talk about. All she knew is that they promised to find each other when they were older, something she thought was impossible thanks to her and her mom moving around constantly. Until she bumps into Sam in her new school, and realizes he has clearly forgotten their childhood promise.

Sam Jordan has a plan for his life: accept his college football scholarship, date his girlfriend Abigail, and―most importantly―hide how much he wants to do something, anything other than The Plan™ his parents and coaches have set before him. It doesn't matter if sometimes he finds himself thinking about the new girl he met in the cafeteria, a girl who reminds him of a past that hurts to remember.

When a school-wide personality test reveals Nova and Sam to be each others' top matches―not only that, but a match of 99%, the highest in the school―they begin to remember why they were such close friends, all those years ago. As well as the myriad of reasons this new-yet-familiar, magnetic, sparkling thing between them will never, ever work out.

In the Orbit of You is a story about the enduring and changing nature of friendship, of the strange struggle between who you are and who you want to be, and finding your voice after trauma.

---

Past Present Future by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Release Date: June 4, 2024

They fell for each other in just twenty-four hours. Now Rowan and Neil embark on a long-distance relationship during their first year of college in this romantic, dual points of view sequel to Today Tonight Tomorrow .

When longtime rivals Rowan Roth and Neil McNair confessed their feelings on the last day of senior year, they knew they’d only have a couple months together before they left for college. Now summer is over, and they’re determined to make their relationship work as they begin school in different states.

In Boston, Rowan is eager to be among other aspiring novelists, learning from a creative writing professor she adores. She’s just not sure why she suddenly can’t seem to find her voice.

In New York, Neil embraces the chaos of the city, clicking with a new friend group more easily than he anticipated. But when his past refuses to leave him alone, he doesn’t know how to handle his rapidly changing mental health—or how to talk about it with the girl he loves.

Over a year of late-night phone calls, weekend visits, and East Coast adventures, Rowan and Neil fall for each other again and again as they grapple with the uncertainty of their new lives. They’ve spent so many years at odds with each other—now that they’re finally on the same team, what does the future hold for them?

---

Twelfth Knight by Alexene Farol Follmuth

Release Date: June 6, 2024

Viola Reyes is annoyed.

Her painstakingly crafted tabletop game campaign was shot down, her best friend is suggesting she try being more “likable,” and school running back Jack Orsino is the most lackadaisical Student Body President she’s ever seen, which makes her job as VP that much harder. Vi’s favorite escape from the world is the MMORPG Twelfth Knight, but online spaces aren’t exactly kind to girls like her―girls who are extremely competent and have the swagger to prove it. So Vi creates a masculine alter ego, choosing to play as a knight named Cesario to create a safe haven for herself.

But when a football injury leads Jack Orsino to the world of Twelfth Knight, Vi is alarmed to discover their online alter egos―Cesario and Duke Orsino―are surprisingly well-matched.

As the long nights of game-play turn into discussions about life and love, Vi and Jack soon realise they’ve become more than just weapon-wielding characters in an online game. But Vi has been concealing her true identity from Jack, and Jack might just be falling for her offline…

---

Mysterious Ways by Wendy Wunder

Release Date: August 27, 2024

Seventeen-year-old Maya knows things. When she looks at someone, she instantly knows everything about them: their history, their private thoughts, their secret desires, their most tragic failures. She walks around with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Which is why she was sent to the Whispering Pines Psychiatric Facility, and also why starting at a new school is going to be such a challenge. Especially when Maya meets a guy she actually wants to be around, and must grapple with whether there’s such a thing as knowing too much.

---

A Look Ahead

In the spirit of "Next Up," we want to take a moment to remind you that our Official Review of the Busy Bee Book Club Book of the Month, Every Summer After by Carley Fortune, comes out this Wednesday, January 31, 2024. Following that, our February 2, 2024 post coming this Friday will introduce us to our new genre and Book of the Month! Our next book will surely delight us all with its (hint, hint) country charm.