Coming Of Age Novels...

Who I Want To Be When I Grow Up…

From the time I started reading from the grown-up section of the library, I have devoured as many coming of age novels as I could get my hands on. Ironic? Maybe not.

Coming of age stories are not just for the young…they resonate at all ages and stages of a life, and to this day I hold a reverence for these narratives. It’s been proven across centuries that they are rich fodder for good literature.

My hunger wasn’t for the stories of obsessing over a first crush or discovering how valuable friendships could be or wondering if it was remotely possible to fulfill my dreams. My hunger was for unleashing my hidden superpowers, for being the sole person capable of saving the world from evil, for being chosen for a higher purpose. For seeing things and doing things that adults couldn’t begin to fathom.

We have all had the sense of being an outsider, regardless of our background or circumstances. And reading a coming-of-age novel is a reminder that no matter how old we are, we are always struggling to find our way. It’s presumed that once someone has reached adulthood, they have become themselves. They finally have their shit together. But look around you…is that really the case?

Gathered for you here are writers whose books will dig right into your soul and get at the very heart of what you're feeling. These might not be typical coming-of-age stories and maybe that’s for the best. These one’s will leave a mark, in one way or another.

The Rebels, Warriors & Rockstars…

The Institute – Stephen King

Luke wakes up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there is no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents. That’s the point at which I stopped reading any description of this book. In my head I am imagining Stephen King meets the X-Men. Mind. Blown. This magnificent book is bursting at the seams with malevolence, brilliantly terrifying and cunning characters, and an impending battle for good versus evil. This King at his best; sleepy small-town setting that is seething with something beneath the surface, adults at war with their demons and a boy who will make your heart ache as he tries to save the day.

All The Colours Of The Dark – Chris Whitaker

1975 is a time of change in America, and in smalltown Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges. Patch, a local boy who saves the girl but in doing so, risks himself. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy is finer than they could have imagined. A book that melds together a missing person story, a serial killer story and a love story in ways that are as amazing as they are haunting. This standout writer knows how to deliver a crime novel with a huge beating heart.

Treasure Hunters Club – Tom Ryan

Peter, Dandy & Cass have never met, but they are on a collision course to solve the mystery of Maple Bay. For nearly a century, tourists have ventured to the idyllic town in search of pirate treasure, though locals know there’s more than just gold buried in the sand. Hidden coves and buried bodies. Ornate mansion and dark family lore. A legendary pirate ship and rumors of gold. A fabulous and fun adventure with a twist that will leave you gob smacked!

Saturday Night Ghost Club – Craig Davidson

When growing up in 1980s Niagara Falls, a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place, one of Jake's closest confidantes was his uncle Calvin, a sweet but eccentric misfit enamored of occult artefacts and outlandish conspiracy theories. The summer Jake turned twelve, Calvin invited him to join the "Saturday Night Ghost Club", a seemingly light-hearted project to investigate some of the areas more macabre urban myths. Over the course of that life-altering summer, Jake not only met his lifelong best friend and began to imagine his own future, but he also came to realize that his uncle's preoccupation with chilling legends sprang from something so painful, and buried so deep, that Calvin himself was unaware of the source. A book that both stabs and breaks your heart!

The Pallbearers Club – Paul Tremblay

Art is so NOT cool. He’s a seventeen-year-old loner who listens to hair metal while longing for friends. None of that deters him from starting the Pallbearers Club, where volunteers can provide this service for poorly funded funerals. Art is thrilled that his secret crush thinks it’s cool! But when she shows up with her Polaroid to take pictures of the corpses, that’s only the tip of the iceberg of how weird things are about to get. The terror will sneak up on you, Tremblay is a master at that.

Moonbound – Robin Sloan

It is eleven thousand years from now. A lot has happened and yet a lot is still very familiar. Ariel is a boy in small town under a wizards rule and like many adventurers before him, he is called to explore the unimaginable. When he gets the mission to save the girl, he doesn’t think twice. Along the way he discovers a record keeping artificial intelligence that carries with it the perspective of the whole of human history. An epic quest as only this author could conceive it; and he’s only just begun. Wildly imaginative and ingenious.

The Talisman – Stephen King & Peter Straub

Jack Sawyer, twelve years old, is about to begin a most fantastic journey, a terrifying quest for the mystical Talisman, the only thing that can save Jack’s dying mother. But to reach his goal, Jack must make his way not only across the country, but also through the wondrous and menacing parallel world of the Territories. In the Territories, Jack finds another realm, where a life can be snuffed out instantly in the struggle between good and evil. Here Jack discovers “Twinners,” reflections of the people he knows on earth, most notably Queen Laura, the Twinner of Jack’s own mother. As Jack “flips” between worlds, making his way toward the Talisman, a sequence of heart-stopping encounters challenges him at every step. A good, sprawling adventure epic! Villains, heroes, savagery and comic relief all in one.

I Woke Up Dead At The Mall – Judy Sheehan

When you’re sixteen, you have your whole life ahead of you. Unless you’re Sarah. Not to give anything away, but . . . she’s dead. Murdered, in fact. Sarah’s murder is shocking because she couldn’t be any more average. No enemies. No risky behavior. She’s just the girl on the sidelines. It looks like her afterlife, on the other hand, will be pretty exciting. Sarah has woken up dead at the Mall of America and with the help of her death coach, she must learn to move on, or she could meet a fate totally worse than death: becoming a mall walker. Irreverent and whip smart look at growing up, but not growing old!

Lullabies For Little Criminals – Heather O’Neill

Baby, all of thirteen years old, is lost in the moments between childhood and the strange pull of the adult world. Her mother is dead, and her father is always on the lookout for his next score. She takes vivid delight in the scrappy bits of happiness and beauty that find their way to her and moves through the threat of the streets confidently. Soon, though, a hazard emerges that is bigger than even her hard-won survival skills can handle. Alphonse, the local pimp, has his eye on her for his new girl. At the same time, a tender and naively passionate friendship unfolds with a boy from her class at school. She understands that her salvation must be her own invention. Brilliantly written, with passages that will make you laugh out loud and others that will stop your heart.

The Faint Of Heart – Kerilynn Wilson

Not that long ago, the Scientist discovered that all sadness, anxiety, and anger disappeared when you removed your heart. And that's all it took. Soon enough, the hospital had lines out the door, even though the procedure numbed the good feelings too. Everyone did it. Everyone except high school student June. But now the pressure, loneliness, and heartache are mounting, and it’s becoming harder and harder to be the only one with a heart. When she comes across an abandoned heart in a jar, she may have a solution to her problems. A vibrant and wonderful story!

The Only Girl In Town – Ally Condie

What would you do if everyone you loved disappeared? What if it was your fault? For July, nothing has been the same since her senior year. Once she had a loyal best friend, a team member who made her better and a boy whose touch made her feel everything would be okay. Now, she’s all alone. And her only chance at unraveling the mystery of their disappearance is a series of objects, each a reminder of those she loved most. Perfectly distills the messy and beautiful realities of growing up and figuring out who you are.

The Misfits, Outcasts & Nerds…

Nosy Parker – Lesley Crewe

Audrey is a lot of things: articulate, disarming, forthright. And, as her father reminds her often, indecently nosy. It’s 1967 in Montreal, Expo is in full swing, and Audrey has just moved with her dad into a new neighborhood, full of all different kinds of people to spy on. She scribbles every observation down in her notebooks, from what her teacher eats for lunch to what time the one-legged man across the street gets home. The one mystery she can’t solve, is how did her mother die and why will no one talk about her about it. A beautiful coming of age story!

Joe Nuthin’s Guide To Life – Helen Fisher

Joe-Nathan likes the two parts of his name kept separate, just like dinner and dessert. Mean folks sometimes call him Joe Nuthin, but he is far from nothing. He is a good friend, handy at making stuff, good at following the rules and great at learning new things. His Mom knows there is so much he isn’t yet prepared for. While she helps guide him every day, she is also writing notebooks full of advice for Joe. With all the things she hasn’t yet told him and things he might forget. By following her advice, Joe’s life is about to have some surprises and he learns that remarkable things can happen when you leave your comfort zone. Prepare to have your heart melted!

Once Upon An Effing Time – Buffy Cram

It’s 1969. And eight-year-old Elizabeth, has a choice to make: to be disabled by the circumstances of her own botched birth or to become extraordinary. Attempting to bond with her neglectful mother, she learns to adopt personas and live multiple lives, transforming into a fortune teller who speaks primarily in Dylan lyrics and joining a hippie doomsday cult. A quirky story of criminal misadventures and finding your inner moxie. Irreverent and charming!

The Fortune Seller – Rachel Kapelke-Dale

When Rosie returns from her junior year abroad, she discovers her friend group has been infiltrated by Annelise. A talented tarot reader, the enigmatic girl is unlike anyone Rosie has ever met. When one of the friends’ notices money disappearing from her bank account, Annelise’s place in the circle is thrown into question. The girls turn against each other and will be left wondering if there is any way that can put right what went wrong. Propulsive and engrossing story that doesn’t shy away from how horrible girls can be to each other.

Life Hacks For A Little Alien – Alice Franklin

Before she thinks of herself as Little Alien, our narrator is only a lonely little girl living in England, who doesn’t understand the world the way other children seem to. So, when a late-night TV special introduces her to a mysterious, ancient tome written in an indecipherable language, Little Alien experiences something she hasn’t before: hope. Could there be others like her, who also feel like they’re from another planet? A unique and engaging story about how language shapes the world for each of us.

Beautyland – Marie-Helene Bertino

As Voyager 1 is launched into space, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother. As a child, Adina recognizes that she is different: she possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of Earthlings. For years, as she moves through the world and makes a life for herself among humans, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and surprising joys of their existence. Then, at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her messages with the world. Is there a chance she is not alone? A hilarious and poignant novel that will remind you what a hard and strange world we live in.

Kittentits – Holly Wilson

It’s 1992, and ten-year-old Molly is tired of living in the fire-rotted, nun-haunted House of Friends: a cooperative living community with her formerly blind dad and their grieving housemate Evelyn. But when Jeanie, a dirt bike–riding ex-con with a shady past, moves in, she quickly becomes the object of Molly’s adoration. She might treat Molly terribly, but they both have dead moms and potty mouths, so naturally Molly is the moth to Jeanie’s flame. When Jeanie fakes her own death in a hot-air balloon accident, Molly runs away to Chicago with just a stolen credit card to meet her pen pal Demarcus and hunt down Jeanie. What follows is a race to New Year’s Eve, as Molly and Demarcus plan a séance to reunite with their lost moms. Filled with big emotions and wild characters, this book is equally sacred and profane.

The Murders Of Molly Southbourne – Tade Thompson

Every time she bleeds a murderer in born. So, the rule is simple, don’t bleed. For as long as Molly can remember, she’s been watching herself die. Whenever she bleeds, another Molly is born, identical in every way. On the outside at least. She has learned every way to kill herself, but these other Molly’s still find ways to find her. An enormously vivid and peculiar novel!

Casebook – Mona Simpson

Miles starts eavesdropping to find out what his mother is planning for his life. When he learns instead that his parents are separating, his investigation deepens, and he enlists his best friend, Hector, to help. Their amateur detective work starts innocently but quickly takes them into the ethics of adult privacy as they acquire knowledge that will affect the family’s prosperity, and maybe their sanity. Burdened with this powerful information, the boys struggle to deal with the existence of evil and concoct modes of revenge on their villains that are both hilarious and naïve. Every page is full of wonderful touches sure to delight even the most cynical reader!

Mall Goth – Kate Leth

Liv is not exactly thrilled to be moving to a new town with her mother. Let’s face it high school can be brutal, especially if you are the new kid, and a bisexual goth. With unwelcoming fellow students and teachers that try too hard, she finds the perfect escape. The Mall. Amid the bright storefronts, smells of fried food and anonymous shoppers, Liv is invisible as just one of the crowd. Reminded me of my own youth, and probably yours. I spent a lot of time at the mall!

The Bittlemores – Jann Arden

Willa, just turning 14, is planning a rebellion. Something doesn’t add up in the story she has been told about her missing sister and she’s beginning to question if her horrible parents are even her parents at all. When a young police officer starts investigating a cold case, she may find out just how many secrets have been festering on the Bittlemore farm. Told with Arden’s trademark outrageous humor, this is a rural fairytale, coming of age story and prairie mystery all in one. Not to be missed!

The Loners, Wanderers & Old Souls…

Wasps In The Ice Cream – Tim McGregor

In the summer of 1987, Mark’s only priority is avoiding his dad’s new wife and wasting time with his friends. When they decide to play a cruel prank on the Farrow sisters, Mark gets more than he bargained for. When he tries to make amends, he is pulled into the world of occult practices and finds it hard to keep his secrets. A coming-of-age horror that relies less on supernatural frights and more on the human ones.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism – Grady Hendrix

Two high schoolers, Abby and Gretchen, have been best friends forever. But after an evening of skinny dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act…different. And then there is the aroma wafting after her wherever she goes. Abby is determined to save her friend, leaving us to wonder if their friendship is powerful enough to beat the devil? The author hits on the very real challenges and humiliations of being an adolescent and having to attend an institution of higher learning. Which might in fact be the real horror of this story! A love letter to friendship, from start to finish!

And The Walls Came Down – Denise Da Costa

Just before the demolition of her childhood home in Toronto, Delia returns to retrieve her secret diary. Using it as a compass, she rediscovers life as a precocious teen growing up in the nineties. Her writings reveal her anxieties living in government housing, where she struggles to navigate a life with a mostly absentee mother. Being the grown up as a young person leaves its mark, and as an adult Delia will have to come to terms with that. This packs an emotional punch. Maybe because in many ways, this was me.

Boy’s Life – Robert McCammon

One cold spring morning, Cory and his father witness a car plunge into a lake, and a desperate rescue attempt brings his father face to face with a terrible, haunting vision of death. As Cory struggles to understand what is happening to his father, his eyes open to the forces of good and evil that surround him. From an ancient mystic that hears the dead and bewitches the living, to a violent clan of moonshiners, he is forced to confront the secrets and shadows of his hometown. Filled with the adventures, joy, discovery and heartache you would expect in coming-of-age story.

A Town Called Solace – Mary Lawson

Sixteen-year-old Rose is missing. Angry and rebellious, she had a fight with her mother, stormed out of the house and simply disappeared. Left behind is seven-year-old Clara, Rose’s adoring little sister. Isolated by her parents’ efforts to protect her from the truth, Clara is bewildered and distraught. Her sole comfort is Moses, the cat next door, whom she is looking after for his elderly owner, Mrs. Orchard, who went into hospital weeks ago and has still not returned. Enter Liam, mid-thirties, newly divorced, newly unemployed, who moves into Mrs. Orchard’s house, where, in Clara’s view, he emphatically does not belong. And then the police arrive. At the end of her life, Elizabeth Orchard is thinking about a crime, one committed thirty years previously that had tragic consequences for two families. A masterful and intimate portrait of three people in different stages of life, each grappling with their own struggles.

What’s Not Mine – Nora Decter

The summer Bria turns 16 is not turning out the way she wanted. Waves of insects plague her hometown, a fentanyl epidemic has taken hold, and forest fires muddy the skies. By day she babysits her cousins and slings fast food. But at night she has her own secret world, sneaking out to meet an older guy. A heart wrenching novel of coming of age amidst parental neglect and the fall over an edge that seems inevitable. Steeped in dark humour.

Extraordinary Life Of Sam Hell – Robert Dugoni

Sam has always seen with world through different eyes. Born with red pupils, he is called “Devil Boy” or Sam “Hell” by his classmates and a “Gift From God” by his devoutly religious mother. Luckily Sam finds two other misfit friends; Ernie, the only African American in his class who also longs for a friend and Mickie, a tornado who uproots every rule Sam has been taught. Forty years later Sam must revisit the past and confront the tragedy that caused him to turn his back on them. Infused with hope and the promise of redemption.

The List Of Suspicious Things – Jennie Godfrey

Miv is convinced that her father wants to move their family somewhere far away. Because of the murders. Leaving England and her best friend simply isn’t’ an option, no matter the dangers lurking or the strangeness at home since her mum stopped talking. So Miv and her best friend decide to make a list: a list of all the suspicious people and things on their street. But their search reveals more secrets than they were prepared for. A lovely story about friendship, community and family. One that will make you feel a little bit better about life when you are done.

The Troop – Nick Cutter

I would like to tell you that I don’t read every single book that Stephen King gives a shout out to, but I would be lying. Every year Scoutmaster Tim leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip. But when an unexpected intruder stumbles upon their campsite, shockingly thin and voraciously hungry, they find themselves steeped in more terror than was ever found in their fireside stories. Maybe don’t read before a camping trip…

The Diamond Age – Neal Stephenson

Decades into our future, brilliant nanotechnologist Hackworth has just broken the rigorous moral code of his people. He's made an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer. Commissioned by an eccentric duke for his grandchild, stolen for Hackworth's own daughter, the Primer’s purpose is to educate and raise a girl capable of thinking for herself. Unfortunately for Hackworth, his smuggled copy has fallen into the wrong hands. Hackworth begins an odyssey with another seeker whose fate is bound up with the Primer, a woman who holds the key to a vast, subversive information network that is destined to decode and reprogram the future of humanity. Next level creativity in world building!

The People We Keep – Allison Larkin

April is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at a local diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town that never quite felt like home. When she “borrows” a neighbours car, she begins to realize that her life could be much bigger. After a fight with her father, she sets out without a chosen destination, never expecting to find a place to belong. The people she meets at a café show her that even tragedy can become a blessing. Our heroine is irresistible in this story about found family.