If you’re a competitive person, reading about fierce rivalries and challenges that will keep you on the edge of your seat is a fun way to tap into that side of yourself (without scaring off your friends and family members thanks to a heated board game competition). You are probably familiar with the iconic competitions found in the YA classics, but if you’re looking for something new, here are some heart-pounding recs we know you’ll love!
Ninth House meets Legendborn in this thrilling first book in a dark academia fantasy series about a teen who’s willing to do anything to find her brother—even infiltrate a secret society full of monsters.
They Wish They Were Us meets Nothing Left to Tell in this young adult thriller about three girls with entangled pasts who compete for glory in their private school’s annual tournament, putting their survival skills and their relationships to the test.
Powerless has taken the world of YA fantasy by storm, and for good reason! This romantasy read has EVERYTHING you could want in your fantasy read, a forbidden romance between a powerful prince and an ordinary girl, immersive worldbuilding, and the Purging Trials, a brutal competition that exists to pit the powerful Elites against one another.
If there's one thing we love as YA readers, it's vampires! The Revenant Games takes us beyond the traditional vampire/human romance and throws us in the middle of warring witch and vampire kingdoms, both of which buy human blood (either for food or spells). Once a year the uneasy truce between kingdoms is dissolved as they hold the Revenant Games, a contest that allows humans to compete for the life-changing prize of either raising one person from the dead or immortality, depending on which side you play for.
Iris has discovered a terrifying secret, the world is ending, and a mysterious committee has the power to decide who lives... and who doesn't. To choose a leader for the impending apocalypse, the Enlightenment Committee is holding the Tournament of Freaks, a macabre competition made up of vicious fighters with fantastical abilities. Will Iris survive?
Adina has always know that she has to work twice as hard to get half as much, which is why she's worked so hard to pe perfect and above reproach at the prestigious (and mostly white) Edgewater Academy. But when one slip leaves her desperate to regain her Ivy League acceptance, she enters the Finish, an elite competition sponsored by Edgewater's founding family, only to discover the stakes are deadly.
Ever since a vampire murdered her mother, Ava has been determined to get revenge. But it’s been ten years since anyone’s seen a vampire, and Ava has lost hope that she’ll ever find one…until she stumbles across a hidden magic show where she witnesses impossible illusions. The magicians reveal they’re part of an ancient secret society with true magic, and Ava has the same power in her blood that they do. But there’s a catch: if she wants to keep the power they offer, she needs to prove she’s worthy of it by entering a sinister and dangerous competition where illusion and reality blur, and the stakes are deadly.