Celebrate Poetry With These 2025 YA Verse Novels

What IS love anyway? This anthology dives into the highs, lows, and everything in between when it comes to love in all of its forms. You’ll have stories here about romantic love, as well as platonic love, self-love to familial love. 

The verse anthology is cross-genre, so whatever your jam is in terms of genre, you’ll find something here. Oh, and it’s all written in verse–yes, that’s 12 short stories about love all in verse. Among the stories are one about two princes who fall in love, despite being from enemy Mesoamerican nations in the 15th century; a story about losing a beloved pet in the 1800s; and a myth about a sea-bound siren falling in love with a winged forest spirit. There are characters of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, and abilities throughout.

In early 17th century Rome, Carmela Tofana is eager to go behind the scenes of her mother’s apothecary. So when she’s finally invited back when she turns 16, Carmela begins to see that for every lovely potion concocted, there are others that aren’t especially pleasant. But it’s Aqua Tofana, one of the deadliest potions imaginable, that causes worry and fear for Carmela. It could kill them all if they’re not careful. . .and keeping it a secret will be tough.

It’s always worth celebrating when there’s a new McCullough book, and this one blends both her signature verse with prose.

Penny is estranged from her mother, who struggles with an opioid addiction. On the night of her 17th birthday, Penny’s mom sends her a text that completely upends her celebration. Penny is dropped into a labyrinth of her home and is forced to confront the past and present to understand and unpack the traumas of her youth.

This one is a mix of prose and poetry, as well as a story told in multiple timelines.

The women in Nell’s family have always been gifted–err, rather cursed–with some kind of magic when they turn 15. The magic is cool, but there’s always some kind of not-great side effect. Nell’s mom is a different age every single day, which means Nell often feels like she doesn’t have the mother she needs. Nell’s sister bleeds music and wants nothing more than to get the songs inside of her outside of her.

So when Nell wakes up and sees ladybugs lighting up her piano keys, she thinks she’s okay. But then come the other bugs, each seeming to connect to an emotion she’s feeling. Moths show up when she’s disappointed. Beetles, when she’s feeling judged. And then there are the wasps that arrive at the hint of Nell’s anger.

The only way Nell seems to be able to make the unpleasant creatures disappear is to lock her darker feelings inside. But is it a life if she can’t express what she’s truly feeling?

Kai is a good kid. Despite knowing that his relationships to others are about being the reliable one, being the strong one, being the well-behaved one, Kai has no idea who he is to himself.

This is made complicated as Kai prepares to finally come out at school. His best friend Matt, also queer, has to stay closeted for fear of what would happen were his parents to find out. Matt asks Kai to do the same so they can keep each other safe.

But Vass, Kai’s other bestie, is proudly and openly nonbinary. Vass thinks Matt is a bad influence on Kai, but Vass isn’t exactly objective–they’re crushing hard for Kai.

Kai finds a lot of solace in writing his thoughts out, but when what he hoped was private writing becomes, err, less private than he’d like, he’s in a tough position of having to decide whether he owns who he is or he keeps things quiet in order to protect himself and others.

Vida misses her best friend Adán now that she’s no longer living in Cuba. She finds a lot of solace in volunteering at a local wildlife rescue center, and she’s been working hard to establish her new life in Florida.

What Vida doesn’t know is Adán is in Florida, too. The transition for him has been extremely difficult, especially as he witnesses several major fights between his abuelo and papi.

Vida and Adán reconnect by accident, and the feelings that never quite settled in Cuba are reignited. But as much as they’re finding a lot of joy and companionship working together, there are many things that stand between the two of them fully opening up to and trusting one another.

Pernell is stuck in summer school. Again. It’s the third summer in a row. Nothing is new here. School is hard for him, and this is no different.

What is different is that Pernell has found a group of friends with whom he competes at lunch in impromptu rap battles. Pernell is good, and he knows that his ADHD actually helps him in the pursuit. His goal this summer is to reign supreme in the battle.

But despite his skills in front of his peers, everything else in his life is begging for more and more attention. If he doesn’t pull up his grades, he won’t graduate, and he’s already fighting pressures that exist outside of him for his identities.

Can he figure out a way to honor who he is, to survive–or thrive–during summer school, and even walk away the king of rap battles?

While all of the books on this list are verse novels, there’s one exception. That’s this book, which is a memoir in verse. It’s being compared to Laurie Halse Anderson and to Amber McBride and tackles several big, meaty topics, including sexual assault.

Only six weeks after beginning her freshman year in college, Jeannine is back at home. She’s suffered an unimaginable trauma at school and now, she’s working to heal. Much of the solace she finds is through reading the works of women writers, and it’s through them, she’s able to begin finding her own voice and path to sharing what exactly happened to her.

So when she enrolls in a local college after finding her footing again, Jeannine is once again pushed down by classmates and teachers who minimize what happened to her as no big deal. Rather than back down, though, Jeannine will use her voice, her writing, and inspiration to keep pushing forward and to keep telling her truth.

Matilda Young was a real woman in history known for being the youngest American suffragist to be arrested and imprisoned for picketing the White House. She was there demanding women’s voting rights. This book is a verse novel based on Young’s life.

Set against World War I, this work of historical fiction follows Matilda as she grows up in a home that has varying views on politics. Much as Matilda wanted to follow the radical path of her older sister, her fear oftentimes kept her back. The story follows as she finds her voice and her footing in the suffragist movement.

15-year-old Marisol is the daughter of a soucouyant. When the new moon arrives each month, Marisol sheds her skin and turns into a fireball, launched into the sky where she must sip from other people’s lives to sustain her own. That is really difficult in Brooklyn, where it seems the lights never dim and folks keep themselves locked inside at night. Marisol wishes she didn’t need to do this, but her mother kept her tied to their magical past.

Genevieve, 17, is dealing with a skin condition that, in addition to her new baby siblings, keeps her up all night long. There’s a hunger inside her that wants nothing more than to recall her estranged mother. But it’ll be a new nanny in her house that begins to show a link between Genevieve and Marisol and it goes far more than skin deep.

Yulieta Lopez has always been the dutiful one, the girl who always puts others before herself. But beneath the surface, she’s angry. She’s angry at the theater teacher who doesn’t like casting Black students in the play, angry at the way people on her school board are attacking her English teacher over the books she’s using, angry about having to keep quiet just to get through.

That anger can’t hold though, and Yulieta decides it’s time to do something. She and her friends begin an underground theater group and now the whole town is talking.

There’s no book cover and no formal description for Sawyerr’s next novel quite yet, but the announcement from Publishers Weekly promises a story about teen pregnancy and what it is to make a choice about one’s own body.

WestSide Roll is THE place in Indianapolis for Jaelyn Coleman and so many other teens. They live for Saturday night skating. It’s a place where Jaelyn feels fully herself, and she loves seeing her friends feeling themselves, too.

One night while skating, Jaelyn crashes into Trey. Literally. Trey happens to be one of the cutest boys she’s ever met, and it seems like he’s harboring some real feelings for her, too.

But everything starts to turn upside down as news hits that WestSide Roll will be closing. The neighborhood is gentrifying, and the skate place is the latest victim. Though Jaelyn’s been dealing with some tough stuff outside the rink–a distant best friend, an estranged father who keeps wanting to come back into her life–losing WestSide Roll might be the worst thing of all.

Diego Benevides is a good kid, and he’s working hard to get out of his neighborhood after high school. He’s also extremely trustworthy, which is why his mom lends Diego her car.

Diego’s bestie, Lawson, sells drugs. Diego is working as his driver, and as long as it’s weed, Diego figures he’ll be okay doing this. But it’s not long before Lawson starts dealing more than weed, putting both of their lives and futures into jeopardy.

This historical novel in verse is set in Ireland during the potato famine. It follows 16-year-old Nell, a scullery maid, as she finds herself falling in love with a British heir to the land.

It’s not a great time for such a romance, and the two have to hide their love. But things will be tough to hide as the times get harder and harder and Nell must do everything she can to keep her family alive.