Do you like dark, suspenseful, pulse-pounding books that make your hair raise and set your nerves on edge? Have you binged Stranger Things, Black Mirror, and You, and are left craving more? Well, my friends, do we have a list for you! The minds of Simon Teen have brainstormed and we’ve rounded up some of our most thrilling YA books that you’ll want to devour in one sitting.
After her private school is rocked by a gruesome murder, a teen tries to find the real killer and clear her brother’s name in this psychological thriller perfect for fans of The Taking of Jake Livingston and Ace of Spades.
The Taking of Jake Livingston meets Cemetery Boys in this YA ghost story about a Puerto Rican teen’s battle with a malevolent spirit targeting his apartment building and the all-too-real horrors of gentrification.
A Black teen desperate to regain her Ivy League acceptance enters an elite competition only to discover the stakes aren’t just high, they’re deadly, in this searing thriller that’s Ace of Spades meets Squid Game with a sprinkling of The Bachelor.
What starts off as a lighthearted competition to live without modern technology for a year turns into a fight for survival in this unputdownable young adult thriller by New York Times bestselling author Jarrod Shusterman and debut author Sofía Lapuente.
Danger is hard to resist in this sexy young adult thriller following a teen girl caught between all-too-human perils and the brutal natural elements in the mountains—from Becca Fitzpatrick, the New York Times bestselling author of the Hush, Hush saga.
I Killed Zoe Spanos meets The Cheerleaders in this “atmospheric and multi-layered mystery” (Kara Thomas, author of The Cheerleaders) about an island town with a history of unsolved deaths—and a girl desperate to uncover the mystery behind it all.
The Queen’s Gambit meets The Hunger Games in this novel about a teen girl whose abusive father teaches her the finer points of chess and hunting, all for his own sinister ends…drawn from the author’s own experiences.
I Know What You Did Last Summer meets The Haunting of Hill House in this atmospheric, eerie teen thriller following an estranged group of friends being haunted by their friend who died last summer.
In this dark academia young adult thriller for fans of The Female of the Species and People Like Us, a teen girl’s search for answers about her mother’s mysterious death leads to a powerful secret society at her new boarding school—and a dangerous game of revenge that will leave her forever changed.
Nothing says summer quite like a murder mystery thriller set in the Hamptons. Anna Cicconi is starting a summer job as a nanny in the hopes of getting a fresh start. But she bears an eerie resemblance to Zoe Spanos, a local girl that went missing over New Years. When Zoe’s body is found in a nearby lake, and Anna is charged with manslaughter. But something doesn’t quite add up...
From the author of I Killed Zoe Spanos comes a YA thriller in the vein of The White Lotus and Karen M. McManus’s The Cousins following a doomed family reunion at a posh Caribbean resort, where old grudges and dangerous secrets culminate in murder.