Boston Book Festival

Especially when you’re a teenager, relationships—whether with parents, siblings, or friends—are rarely straightforward. But the best stories reside amid the messiness, as these four accomplished novelists demonstrate with their latest works. In bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz’s Something in Between, an ambitious young woman discovers her parents have been keeping a monumental secret that may destroy her future. In Rebecca Podos’s debut, The Mystery of Hollow Places, a teenage girl also suspects her mystery-writer father is keeping something from her. Jordan Sonnenblick finds both humor and pathos amid the chaos of family life in Falling Over Sideways. Finally, Jennifer Niven pens an unconventional love story in Holding Up the Universe, about two young people whose life stories are anything but simple. Helping us make sense of these sticky situations is Ellie Moreton, who blogs about YA literature at By Ellie M.