Sometimes I go on a mood reading spree when I haven’t read a category or a genre in a bit. Recently, I went looking for some thrills in the YA genre and I thought I’d share my favorites. I was specifically looking for thrillers, so I soft DNF’d anything that didn’t have the pacing, action, and intensity of thrills I was looking for. What I ultimately ended up with is a great mix of YA thrillers. There’s a YA horror thriller with a racist cult, a “dead” hacker in a secret organization, and a chilling revenge plot that may or may not include a bear. Rawr!
Since format can affect pacing and tone sometimes, I’ll note that I listened to the audiobooks for the first two selections. Both had really good productions and narrators. Additionally, my final pick is the very rare book that I was able to read with my eyeballs right now because it grabbed my attention from the opening and never let go!
Unintentional bonus: the covers look very nice together.
Funerals are For the Living by Sami Ellis
For fans of YA horror thrillers, cults, and funny dialogue!
A month after Junie Daniels was in a car accident that killed her sister, she’s still unable to fully remember the incident, but is doing her best to keep her life together. Her mom is struggling, drinking, and not going to work, so Junie takes care of the burial arrangements, which end up being based on a flyer with a sale because she does not have money. Problem? There’s a whole racist history of enslavement in that part of town that her mom has always warned her to stay away from, and now Junie and her best friend Omari are going to have to fight for their lives because of a cult… Maybe Junie being on her school’s MMA team can help?
This has some seriously funny lines— starting with a “Temu grave” comment in the opening—that are paired with gross, off-the-wall, action and horror scenes to make this an ultimately fun and thrilling read.
All access members continue below for more of the best YA thrillers to read this summer.
Augusta Pine Does Not Exist by Emily Lloyd-Jones
For fans of YA thrillers, hackers, and secret organizations!
This has a near-future setting that is really our world, just with a bit of “future” technology, like biometric identifying tattoos and spy gadgets. Augusta Pine is essentially dead to the world after having hacked a car while on a fun adventure with a boy she had a crush on because the car crashed and he died. Except the being dead part was a cover for her new life by an organization that gave her the “choice” to go to prison for accidentally killing her friend or work for them. Years of working with the organization haven’t made her the biggest rule follower, and while on assignment, she deviates slightly to go to where her grandmother lives. That’s how she ends up in an apartment building locked down by terrorists and having to team up with residents (and her bumblebee bot) to fight her way to safety…
This has emotional depth in Augusta’s longing for the family who thinks she’s dead and her guilt over the accident, but all the hacking, spying, secret organization, her quips, and action make this a page-turning thriller.
Natural Selection by Clare Edge
*Content warning
For fans of YA thrillers, dark humor, and revenge!
Remember that recent-ish viral conversation where a lot of women emphatically stated that they’d feel safer alone in the woods with a bear than with a man? Keep that thought.
Three high school seniors—two best friends, one new in town—band together to punish, humiliate, and out one of their boyfriends as a sexual assaulter. But the plan of taking him into the woods and scaring him with a fake bear attack while filming his confession doesn’t go as planned…
This opens with the intensity that it maintains throughout—with plenty of edge-of-your-seat scenes—as the POV seamlessly alternates between the girls, Outlaw, Megan, and Bee.
Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf, and see 2026 releases! Until next time, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Goodreads, Litsy, and Multitudes Contained.
If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you or you read it on bookriot.com and you’d like to get it right in your inbox, you can sign up here.
Get access to our entire content archive plus exclusive features with an All Access subscription on Book Riot. Save and share your favorite Book Riot picks with Collections Get the scoop on upcoming books with our curated new book discovery tool, the New Release Index Join the conversation with community features like comments and polls.Join All Access to unlock our content archive
This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
English (US) · 
French (CA) · 
French (FR) ·