Galentine’s Day Books for Your BFF
Happy Galentine’s Day, NOVLers! We love love here at NOVL, and I don’t just mean romantic love. We love our friends, our family, our friends that feel like family, and of course our fur friends (literal puppy love!). We’re all about celebrating friendships today, whether it’s friends we’ve had forever, or the joy in making a new, unexpected friend. If you need some themed reading, here are a few stories of friendship, in all its forms, with all its many ups and downs:
Dropping Beats
Thirteen-year-old Growls (aka Shaun) is an aspiring (awful) rapper who hopes to enter this year’s Raptology competition with his best friend, Shanks (aka Zachariah). After all, what better way to land his crush (Tanisha) and get the respect he finally deserves than winning the contest and going viral? But when everything goes epically wrong, and Shanks goes MIA, Growls is terribly alone. But with patience, practice, and a little luck, he might just be able to win this competition and stage an equally epic comeback. It’s a hilarious and heartfelt story about family and friendship.
Heiress Takes All
by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka
Scorned in more ways than one, a former teen heiress attempts the ultimate revenge heist at her father’s luxury wedding in this funny and fast-paced romantic thriller. If you’re going to pull off the ultimate heist, you’re going to need a great group of friends. And with the help of an eclectic crew of high school students and one former teacher, Olivia has plotted her mid-nuptial heist down to the second. And when she’s done, “something borrowed” will be the understatement of the year.
Mismatched
by Anne Camlin, illustrated by Isadora Zeferino
In this delicious, queer graphic novel adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, Evan Horowitz has it all: beauty, brains, and a not-so-secret flair for matchmaking! But sometimes, you can get a little too involved in other people’s business, even your friends’. When Evan takes things a little too far, creating quite the web of drama, can he figure out how to save his friendships and his own chance at romance?
I Was Told There Would Be Romance
by Marie Arnold
For fans of Never Have I Ever and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before comes a hilarious and heartfelt novel about a young Haitian girl navigating high school, friendship, and crushes.Fifteen-year-old Fancy Augustine is a Haitian American girl with simple desires. She’d like to trade in her floppy, oversize boobs for cute, perky ones. She’d love a boyfriend. And she is desperate for an invite to the biggest event of the school year: Imani Park’s birthday party. When Fancy learns her BFF, Tilly, has received a coveted invite and has a secret boyfriend, she is (understandably) devastated and wholeheartedly determined to do whatever it takes to get her own happily ever after.
Lost in Taiwan
by Mark Crilley
It is NOT Paul’s idea to be in Taiwan with his brother Theo for two weeks. He has no interest. So when Paul ends up getting lost in an unfamiliar place with no friends, no brother, no GPS, he must figure out a way to get back to their apartment. But he soon realizes he might actually have more friends in Taiwan than he first thought.
Up All Night
edited by Laura Silverman
In the magical hours between sunrise and sunset, twisty mysteries, time-slip tales, and romance can find you. Anything is possible when the rest of the world is asleep. It’s a time for romance and adventure. For prom night and ghost hunts. It’s a time for breaking up, for falling in love—for finding yourself. It’s the perfect time to read thirteen short stories from bestselling authors.
Audre & Bash Are Just Friends
by Tia Williams
Sometimes friends are just friends. And sometimes just friends might actually be more than that. Two teens can’t forget they’re just friends in this sweet, funny, electrifying romance from New York Times bestselling author Tia Williams. Perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Nicola Yoon.