Coming of age book series in reading order

by Yuto Tsukuda

by Lev Grossman

Molly McAdams writes contemporary romance turning on love triangles, college-age characters and coming-of-age crises. Twenty-nine catalogued books run from From Ashes (2012) to Stealing Chances (2022), among them the Forgiving Lies, Thatch, Brewed, Sharing You and Secrets in L.A. series, with stories set in Texas and San Francisco. No new McAdams title has been recorded since 2022.

Yuto Tsukuda writes manga. Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma is the larger of his two series, a cooking-school story about teenage cooks that runs from Volume 1 in 2013 through the ten volumes released by the end of 2014. Tenmaku Cinema followed, its second volume appearing in 2023 as the newest of 38 catalogued books. Cooking schools, coming of age, and Japanese and international cuisine are the standing subjects, and volumes run to a median of 191 pages.

Alice Oseman

21 books• 4 series

Alice May Oseman, born 16 October 1994, is an English author and illustrator whose young adult books portray contemporary teenage life in the United Kingdom, praised for their realism, LGBTQIA+ inclusion and treatment of mental health. Oseman ranks as the third best-selling graphic novelist since records began. A first publishing deal came at 17, and Solitaire followed in 2014 as the first novel; the catalogue runs to 21 titles, ending at Heartstopper #6 in 2026. Awards include a British Book Award, three Children's and Family Emmy Awards, three Goodreads Choice Awards and a Silver Inky Award, and Oseman made the BBC's 100 Women list in 2023 and Time's Time100 Next in 2024.

Naomi Novik

20 books• 3 series

Naomi Novik is an American author of speculative fiction. The Temeraire series (2006–2016) is an alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars with dragons, and the Scholomance trilogy ran from 2020 to 2022. The standalone novels Uprooted (2015) and Spinning Silver (2018) draw on Polish folklore and the Rumpelstiltskin tale. Novik helped create the Organization for Transformative Works and co-founded the organisation's Archive of Our Own project. Awards include the Nebula, Locus and Mythopoeic. The catalogue lists 20 titles from His Majesty's Dragon (2006) to The Summer War (2025), with Liberty Vocational as a third series.

Jay Crownover is a Colorado-born romance author who lives at the foot of the Rockies and has reached the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. The Marked Men series, Saints of Denver, Welcome to the Point, Loveless Texas, Forever Marked and the Monsters Duet make up the series list. The catalogue holds 39 books from Rule (2012) to Ms. Fortune (2025), with Jet (2013) and Nash (2014) among the early titles. Denver, ex-convicts and romantic suspense appear in the subjects.

Jessica Anya Blau has nine books in the catalogue, published between 2008 and 2025. The Summer of Naked Swim Parties (2008) is the earliest and Shopgirls (2025) the most recent. Subjects record coming of age, California, teenage girls, college students, family life and humor, along with the FBI and the CIA. Drinking Closer to Home (2010), The Wonder Bread Summer (2013), Mating Calls (2014), The Trouble with Lexie (2016), The Unexpected Spy (2020) and Mary Jane (2021) complete the list, at a median of 300 pages.

Sarah Kozloff's catalogue divides between film scholarship and fantasy. The earlier books study cinema: Invisible Storytellers: Voice-Over Narration in American Fiction Film (1988), Overhearing Film Dialogue (2000), The Best Years Of Our Lives (2011), The Life of the Author (2014) and Refocus: The Films of Preston Sturges (2015). Four novels followed, all dated 2020: A Queen in Hiding, A Broken Queen, The Queen of Raiders and The Cerulean Queen. Nine Realms is the series listed under the Kozloff name, and subject headings there name epic fantasy, adventure and coming of age. Kozloff is credited alone on all 9 books.

Across 194 catalogued books, Danielle Steel writes contemporary romance and family drama: love stories, marriages, widowhood and the turns that reshape a life. The run starts with Going Home (1973) and continues through Celebration, with 24 Hours scheduled for 2027. Steel's catalogue also holds children's picture books, short stories and non-fiction beside the standalone novels that make up most of it.

Joyce Maynard

22 books

Joyce Maynard writes memoir and fiction about mothers, fathers and daughters, and lives altered by a single event. The catalogue opens with Looking Back: A Chronicle of Growing Up Old in the Sixties (1973), then Baby Love (1981), Camp-Out (1985), Domestic Affairs (1987), New House (1987) and To Die For (1992). 22 titles are catalogued in all, the newest being In Wonderland.

Dan Simmons

41 books• 9 series

Dan Simmons (1948-2026) wrote science fiction and horror, often mixing the two inside a single novel. The Hyperion Cantos is Simmons's central work, opening with Hyperion (1989) and continuing in The Fall of Hyperion (1990); the Ilium cycle is the other major sequence. Song of Kali (1985), his first book, won the World Fantasy Award. Simmons also wrote mysteries and thrillers, some following the recurring character Joe Kurtz, plus standalone horror, short fiction and non-fiction. 41 catalogued titles run to Omega Canyon (2020) at a median of 480 pages, with the 1990s his heaviest decade.

Edward St. Aubyn

11 books• 2 series

Edward St Aubyn is an English author and journalist born in 1960. The St Aubyn catalogue includes the semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, and Mother's Milk (2005) reached the Booker Prize shortlist in 2006. The catalogue counts 11 books, opening with Bad News and Never Mind (both 1992) and continuing through Lost for Words (2014), Dunbar (2017) and Double Blind (2021) to Parallel Lines (2025). Subjects include fathers and sons, the upper class, drug addicts and England.

Edmund White

35 books• 4 series

Edmund Valentine White III (1940-2025) was an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer and essayist, and a pioneering figure in gay literature after the Stonewall riots. White wrote with rare candour about gay identity, relationships and sex, at a time when coming out still carried real danger. The semi-autobiographical trilogy runs from A Boy's Own Story (1982) through The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988) to The Farewell Symphony (1997). This catalogue holds 35 titles from Forgetting Elena (1973) to The Loves of My Life (2025), among them States of Desire (1980), Caracole (1985), Genet (1993) and Our Paris: Sketches from Memory (1994). Subjects cover gay men and gay authors, biography, AIDS, coming of age and intellectual life.

Courtney Cole writes romance, with erotica and love stories among the catalogue subjects, alongside family life, mothers and sons, veterans and restaurateurs. The listing holds 34 books, dated from 1999 to 2023 and reaching A Wish for Christmas (2023). Series recorded against the name include Beautifully Broken, the Bloodstone Saga and Moonstone Saga, the Nocte Trilogy, Paradise Diaries, the Minaldi Legacy and American Princess. Cole holds the sole credit on all 34 titles.

Boarding schools, coming of age, friendship, dating and the relationships of mothers and daughters and fathers and daughters are the subjects recorded for Emily Franklin. Principles of Love and Chalet Girls are the two series in the catalogue, which holds 22 books published between 2003 and 2026. Liner Notes (2003) opens the run; Piece, Love, and Happiness and The Principles of Love date from 2005; and Love & Other Monsters (2026) is the newest listing. The 2000s hold the most titles, the median book is 256 pages, and Franklin is still publishing.

Elin Hilderbrand is an American novelist, born July 17, 1969, who writes mystery and romance. Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket, and the novels are typically set on and around the island. The 39 catalogued books start with The Beach Club (2000) and reach The Thoroughbreds (2026). Named series include Nantucket, Paradise and 28 Summers. Subject headings return to family secrets, female friendship, summer resorts and love stories. In 2019 New York magazine called Hilderbrand "the queen of beach reads".

V.C. Andrews was the name used by Cleo Virginia Andrews (June 6, 1923 to December 19, 1986), an American novelist best known for Flowers in the Attic (1979). That novel led to four sequels and two film adaptations. The publisher never classed the books as Young Adult, yet their young protagonists have drawn teenage readers for decades. After Andrews died in 1986, a ghostwriter first hired to finish two incomplete manuscripts went on publishing new books under the V.C. Andrews name. The catalogue carries 108 books under that name from 1979 to 2025, across series such as Dollanganger, Casteel, Cutler, Landry, Logan and De Beers.

Jenny Colgan

67 books• 19 series

Jenny Colgan is a Scottish writer of romantic comedy and science fiction, born 14 September 1971 in Prestwick, Ayrshire. Colgan has written Doctor Who stories and also publishes as Jane Beaton and J. T. Colgan. Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams won the Romantic Novel of the Year award in 2013, and The Summer Seaside Kitchen won the Romantic Novelists' Association Comedy Novel of the Year in 2018. The catalogue lists 67 titles, from Amanda's Wedding (1999) to The Secret Christmas Library (2025), across series such as Scottish Island of Mure, Little Beach Street Bakery, Cupcake Café and Scottish Bookshop.

Larry McMurtry

48 books• 10 series

Larry McMurtry (Larry Jeff McMurtry, June 3, 1936 to March 25, 2021) was an American novelist, essayist and screenwriter. Most of McMurtry's fiction takes place in the Old West or in contemporary Texas, and the early novels Horseman, Pass By (1961), The Last Picture Show (1966) and Terms of Endearment (1975) trace the decline of small-town Texas life. Screen adaptations of McMurtry's work received 34 Oscar nominations and 13 wins. The catalogue lists 48 books from 1961 to Thalia (2017), including the Lonesome Dove and Berrybender Narratives series and non-fiction.

Leigh Bardugo

25 books• 12 series

Leigh Bardugo is an American fantasy author, born April 6, 1975, best known for the young adult Grishaverse: the Shadow and Bone trilogy and the Six of Crows and King of Scars duologies. Ninth House was Bardugo's paranormal fantasy debut for adults. Netflix adapted Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows as the series Shadow and Bone, Amazon Studios holds Ninth House, and Bardugo is an executive producer on both. The catalogue lists 25 books from Shadow and Bone / The Gathering Dark (2012) to A Darker Shore (2026), with Alex Stern and Language of Thorns among the series.

Jenny Han

11 books• 4 series

Jenny Han is an American author, screenwriter, executive producer and showrunner, born September 3, 1980. The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy became a Prime Video series that Han adapted, and the To All the Boys trilogy became a Netflix film series. The catalogue lists 11 books from Shug (2006) to Always and Forever, Lara Jean (2017). The Summer I Turned Pretty (2009), Burn for Burn (2012) and To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2014) appear in the list. Burn for Burn, To All the Boys I've Loved Before and Clara Lee are the named series.

Colson Whitehead

12 books• 1 series

Colson Whitehead is an American novelist, born November 6, 1969, and one of four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice. The Underground Railroad (2016) won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer, and The Nickel Boys took the Pulitzer again in 2020. Whitehead has written ten novels and two nonfiction books, and received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2002. The catalogue lists 12 books from The Intuitionist (1999) to Cool Machine (2026), including John Henry Days, Sag Harbor, Zone One and Harlem Shuffle. Ray Carney / Harlem Trilogy is the one series on file.

Ellen Marie Wiseman writes historical fiction about people at the edges of large events - orphans, household employees, and prisoners held in concentration camps. The Plum Tree (2012) opens the catalogue, with What She Left Behind (2013), Coal River (2015), The Life She Was Given (2017), The Orphan Collector (2020) and The Lost Girls of Willowbrook (2022) after it. Seven titles are catalogued, the most recent of them The Lies They Told in 2025.

Three novels make up Donna Tartt's catalogue: The Secret History (1992), The Little Friend (2002) and The Goldfinch (2013). College students, classicists, teacher-student relationships, murder and friendship are the subjects attached to the work. The books are long, at a median of 624 pages. No new Tartt title has appeared since 2013.

Ray Bradbury

132 books• 13 series

Fahrenheit 451 (1953) is the novel Ray Bradbury is best known for, alongside the short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951) and The October Country (1955). Bradbury (22 August 1920 – 5 June 2012) was an American author and screenwriter whose work covered fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery and realistic fiction. Dandelion Wine (1957) is a coming-of-age novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) a dark fantasy, and Green Shadows, White Whale (1992) a fictionalized memoir. The catalogue reaches back to Kaleidoscope (1940) and Dark Carnival (1947), and Green Town and Crumley Mysteries are among the series.