clean book review sites

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New release: dream of kings.

In the glacial nation of Norgard, Jolan the dream teller serves every seeker, whether peasant or high lord. Though she loves using her gift, she struggles to navigate the corrupt and dangerous court and the jealousies of the Guildagard.

When an old man’s nightmare imparts a dire warning, Jolan realizes her entire nation is in danger. But before she can sound the alarm, she is betrayed by the guilds and sold into slavery in a rival kingdom far to the south. As a slave in a foreign land, at first Jolan can’t see beyond her singular focus: return home to warn Norgard of the coming calamity. After facing new dangers, making new friends, and forgiving old wrongs, she must fulfill the purposes the Provider has set before her.

Only then can she face a decision that could cost her the man she loves, her calling, and her freedom—all to save a people who abandoned her.

How to Find Clean Books to Read

This post may contain affiliate links.

I wish, with all of my heart, that there was a book rating system similar to movies.  I wish they would warn us in advance what language, violence, and sex scenes were in the books we want to read.  I love reading and so do my kids.  The problem I come across, though is that I will begin reading a book, based on the many recommendations of others and find out it is full of filth. I want to help find clean books to read for me, but also for my kids. I do not have time to read every book that they want to read. As they are getting older, I am becoming more and more concerned.

Join my cause to help create a National Book Rating System! : National Book Ratings

Sign the Petition to have a National Rating System put in place.

I am very selective about the media I allow into my home.  If it would make me uncomfortable watching it on television, it would also make me uncomfortable reading it. I often will quit reading a book part-way through due to inappropriate content. I find it even more important for my kids!  Do any of you have this problem?  So, what do you do to help you find clean books to read?

I have been searching and I want to let you in on a few of the ways that I have discovered to help me in my quest to find clean books to read. There are a whole bunch of other people who seem to feel the same way and they are doing their part to help the rest of us out!  I am grateful for that, but I really do wish there was one place where we could have all of it and make it consistent! (Make sure to read to the end & sign my petition!!)

So without fail, here is my list of resources to help you . . .

How To Find Clean Books to Read:

The first is a series of books.  Gladys Hunt writes a series of books:   Honey for a Child’s Heart , Honey for a Teen’s Heart , and Honey for a Woman’s Heart . In these books, the author teaches how to find good books, the importance of reading good books, as well as sharing a list of great books that she has read.  They are all family-friendly and clean reads!

The Good and the Beautiful has an amazing clean & wholesome book list. They also re-print older books and write new beautiful books.

I am a huge fan of The Well Educated Heart library. too. They reprint old classics that are all so wonderful and uplifting.

Book Review Websites:

1000 Good Books – This website has a list of 1000 good books categorized by  grade and topic to help you in teaching your kids!  It is aimed at homeschoolers and is huge and exhaustive, but such a wonderful resource!

Rated Reads – This site is fantastic!!  I just wish it had 10x more books on it!  Rated Reads has books organized by ratings: None, Mild, Moderate, High, Dirt.  You can choose what level you are comfortable with and select books from that list. They have adult and young adult categories and you can search by title or author.  You can request specific reviews.

Common Sense Media  – This website gives ratings on all kinds of media. They have book lists by topic and ages. They rate based on positive messages and role models, engagement, learning, violence and scariness, etc.  It is a wonderful website with so much content!

Plugged In  (a part of Focus on the Family) does book reviews as well as other media reviews. They share family-friendly books that parents will feel safe allowing their kids to read. They share a plot summary and then tell of any questionable material that might be in the books. They even mention alcohol use or smoking.

Compass Book Ratings – this is a well-established website with more than 1800 reviews on it.  They have 13 reviewers helping write their reviews. You can search books by title, author or content. They use standard n numeric ratings and also give recommended ages for the books.

The Fussy Librarian – This is a neat site that does reviews on books, but also offers a service to bring books to you that match your reading style!

Novel Book Ratings is a great review website. It has a search engine to find the different books that have been reviewed. You can search by category, by author or title. They rate profanity, violence and sexual content.

Learning Resource Directory – This is a book review website.  They review books and give a synopsis as well as warnings on any topics related to Language, bad morals, violence, death, drugs/drinking, etc.  After each review they will list any things you may need to look out for.  You can request books to be reviewed, too.  They have a large library of books.

Book Cave – They have an awesome rating system.  It is really impressive and helpful!

Book Review Blogs:

Library of Clean Reads – This is a blog that reviews books. They have 3 different reviewers sharing on this site. They review books and rate them with the following:  C = clean  S = sex  V = violence  P = profanity  PA = paranormal  You can request specific reviews. You can see all of the books they have reviewed by title or by author. They have a great list and have been doing it since 2009.

Good Clean Reads – This is a book review blog. She started it for the same reason as many of the other sites, to help us find good books to read.  She uses a rating system of 1-5 for Sexual Content, Profanity and Violence. There is not a large quantity of reviews yet, but it still has some great content!

Clean Read Books – It appears this site is just getting going. They have a few reviews and are taking review requests. They have a mailing list you can subscribe to for updates. They also want you to tag their twitter handle when you read a clean book to help spread the word. @CleanReadBooks.

The Literate Mother – This is another blog site that reviews books. It is very well done!  They  have their own rating system and a team of reviewers. Their rating is on a scale of 0 to 5 with 0 having no inappropriate content and 5 having excessive disturbing content.  You can browse by genre or title. They appear to have a very large collection of book ratings.

Homespun Light is a book review site written by a friend of mine. Her focus is “Deliciously Clean Reads”.  She has hundreds of reviews that you can search by category.

Read Clean Books is another book review blogger. The books are rated like movies- G, PG, PG-13, R.  They review well-known books as well as others I have not heard of.

Kathryn Cooper Writes (Formerly Clean Teen Fiction) reviews books for teens and adults and gives a rating system like the movie ratings. You can search her site by content or by star ratings. She has a big list of books that she has reviewed to date.

Bloggin’ Bout Books is another book review site. They give an A,B,C,D rating based on how well they liked the book as well as a rating based on content (PG, Pg-13, R). They list inappropriate content in the book and give a synopsis as well.   You can search by Title or author. There is a good list of reviews!

If you are on Goodreads, there are a few groups that share clean books.  Clean Reads   ~   Clean Books List

Publishing Companies that Focus on Clean Reading:

Clean Teen Publishing – They actually give their books ratings!

Clean Indie Reads

Shadow Mountain

There are MANY others, I am sure!!!

In my research I also came across some information on the American Library Association’s Website.  They say that a rating system is not possible due to the Library Bill of Rights . They say that it would be a violation of their rules.  I have to STRONGLY disagree and say that it is a much needed thing in this society.  With media incorporating more and more garbage, we NEED a way to be able to know what is inside the covers of these books.

Former school teacher turned homeschool mom of 4 kids. Loves creating awesome hands-on creative learning ideas to make learning engaging and memorable for all kids!

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Dai Alanye wrote many clean humorous books …he wrote romance and adventure …i recommend his books to anyone interested in clean enjoyable read…Will you Like the author Facebook page please, https://www.facebook.com/Dai-Alanye-196572664016760/ Thank you

Clean Teen Publishing does not focus on publishing clean books. Yes they rate their books but openly admit they will publish YA books with sex, drug use, rape etc.

Thanks for your comment! I will edit my post!

THANk YOU SO MUCH FOR BLOGGING THIS!!! My goodness, my husband and I have become so frustrated with this topic when it comes to books and movies, but more so books. I hadn’t thought to use PluggedIn for books (we do for movies). Thank you for these resources!

I am so glad you came across it. The struggle is real!! Happy to give you some resources to help.

Love your site. Thank you!

Thank you so much for listing my site on your blog lost! It is such an encouragement to click through and see the others out there who share our concern for clean content in our reading choices! I’m signing the petition! God bless you and your efforts to protect the minds and hearts of our children (and adults!) Hilary at Wholesome Reads

I think the idea of looking at blogs than just online ratings for books might be better. There’s probably more input on what actually entails in the novel that might be more helpful. However, looking at rating would give you a general consensus on what you can expect.

My grandson, age 14, just finished a trilogy fantasy/romance and he really loved this series. It has plenty of adventure and a very touching romance in each book. The series is called The Isian Series and has received great reviews on Amazon: The Treasure of Isian, The Alliance of Isian, and The Secret of Isian. These were written for YA, but I read all three and loved them. I would read them again, too.

I forgot to add where you can find the author of The Isian Series. Her website is https://serenaclarke.wordpress.com/ .

A great site I know of is CleanParanormal.com. All the books on there are rated for content broken down into 10+, 13+, and 16+ depending on language, sexual content, and adult themes. There have hundreds of books listed all of them best-sellers in Paranormal.

This site also rates books: https://mybookratings.com/ They give books a rating in each of these seven categories: crude humor/language, profanity, drug and alcohol use, kissing, nudity, sex and intimacy, and violence and horror.

The book then gets an overall rating that is the highest rating of the seven categories, but it shows you exactly what the book was rated in each category. The ratings are All Ages, Mild, Mild+, Moderate, Moderate+, Adult, and Adult+.

wonderful! Thank you so much for sharing!

HI I think you should check out Sword Bearer by Teddy Jacobs its really good I just finished that and the new Brandon Mull book Dragon Watch it was awesome Thanks

Thank you so much for putting together this list of resources! I have another to add to your list– The Good and The Beautiful has a wonderful book list that has very high standards. (I also love her home-school curriculum.) She charges $5 for the list the first time, and $1 each time you want to update to the latest list. It’s currently up to 650 approved books! You can find it at: http://www.jennyphillips.com/good-beautiful-book-list/

Thank you!! I love this resource & definitely need to update my post to include that list.

Hi Karyn, I happened on your site and wanted to share my company with your list of clean reads. Write Integrity specializes in clean, wholesome, uplifting fiction and Christian living non-fiction. I’m a “graduated” homeschool mom of 4, and I had the same struggle. I was so delighted to be involved with this company and actually read fun, clean romances and young adult fiction with my teenage daughters. If you’re interested, we can be found at http://www.WriteIntegrity.com

Thank you for this! I have been wanting to read something other than classics, so I tried The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which I really enjoyed except for the really unnecessary swearing and innuendoes which added nothing to the plot and left a bad taste – I wish someone could rewrite it without those in there! So I will definitely be exploring these resources

I run a library only for children in India and here is why I review content.

I lost my father a year after I entered adolescence.

Knowing how important a father is to a son and a mother is to a daughter in this stage of life, I began to censor books and movies before adding them to the shelves of my library racks.

Not to blame the lack of awareness of parents with regard to what their children are exposed to, inflation in prices of daily commodities is forcing them both to go for work, leaving them totally unaware of what their kids are into.

In my understanding, if the queries of children are unresolved at home, their next resort would be peers who at that age tend to have half knowledge about things, which is dangerous and their last resort would be the Internet which is full of irrelevant information.

When I pursued my International Graduate Diploma in Counselling Skills, I learnt that our feelings and actions are based on the frequency, duration and intensity of our thoughts and to investigate from where these thoughts rise within us, I follow the Three Wise Monkeys of Confucius.

I rely on Common Sense Media to avoid books, cartoons and movies with potty and wry humour. When it comes to other aspects of characterisation and plot, I follow my instincts as I too write for children and know that no story can be composed without negative elements.

Living in a country that is recently prone to child abuse and juvenile crimes. I feel there is need to choose books that are age appropriate and lack underage substance consumption.

I would recommend removing Thrifty and Thriving’s site as a recommend. We went off her recommendations and the first TWO series we read were both not clean. One had very sensual, almost sex scenes, and one had homosexual stuff in it.

Thank you for letting me know!! I definitely will remove it.

Just an FYI, I am looking through the booklist for Honey for a Teen’s heart and disheartened to find books in there with quite a bit of language and sexual themes. The biggest one that caught my eye is she recommends Catcher in the Rye. She mentions the amount of language in the book, but not one comment on the sexual information in this book. It makes me question all the other books she has listed.

Thanks so much for your comment. That’s definitely an important thing to know!

After 2 days of looking for Authors that published clean books for adults, I found this site. My husband and I like reading western and mystery books, but 90% of them have strong language and sexual scenes. I was wondering if anyone has a site or name of authors that writes these type of books that are clean with light romance. Thank you for this sight. I will check out some that are posted here. God bless you and give you favor!

Here’s another site you can add to your list: MoreThanAReview.com. There are several reviewers who read and rate books on 4 categories given a scale of 0 to 5 (zero being no offensive content). The rates categories are violence, language, sex, and alcohol/drugs. The reviewer also typically gives a summary of the book and speaks to offensive content.

Thank you!!

The Swoony Awards is a website that nominates and votes on the best clean romance books published each year. A lot of the books are in kindle unlimited. I like reading sweet romance, not smutty and this has been a great resource for me.

It’s infuriating to spend money on a book and then discover it’s full of vulgar (not adult ) language. Lately, I’ve stopped reading a number of books because of this. All of today’s manuscripts are done on a computer. It wouldn’t take much to do a quick search of selected words to include in reviews and it would come up with the number of times that particular word is used. It sure would save me a lot of money irritation.

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100 Clean Books Still Worth Reading

by Brooke Romney | Oct 27, 2022 | Books | 35 comments

Sometimes it is difficult finding a good, clean read that still has an interesting, adult plot and keeps you engaged for hundreds of pages. Here are a few of my all time, well-written favorites that I don’t hesitate recommending to even my most conservative friends!

How I Picked the Books

I LOVED all of these books. These are not necessarily for kids or squeaky clean. These books have adult themes, heart-breaking situations, some language and romance, but nothing gratuitous that doesn’t further the theme and overall important message of the story. I realize we all have a different tolerance. I did my best here, but I do understand that some of these books may still walk the line for certain readers. If you are uncomfortable, just stop reading and try something else.

P.S. I cannot even express how much I love reading on my Kindle Paper White (no, this is not sponsored!). No glare, doesn’t hurt my eyes or feel like I am reading from a screen, and no notifications or other distractions…plus perfect for travel.  You can share a kindle account with 8 people, which makes the book costs a little more doable! If you are a reader, you will love it!

 Click on each title below to read a summary and see if it is what you are in the mood for. Now, without further adieu, on to my favorite clean books!

FICTION YOU CAN’T MISS

These fiction books are captivating reads that would be great to read on your own or with a book club., the great alone.

Orphan Train (this one is a bit on the line. If you are very conservative or sensitive, skip it.)

The Orphan Keeper

Lilac Girls  (content warning on this one, not as clean as some would like)

America’s First Daughter 

The Nightingale

Before We Were Yours

The Light Between Oceans 

A Thousand Splendid Suns

And a few more for your list…..

Sarah  *  All the Light we Cannot See   * These is My Words  * The Boys in the Boat   * The Book Thief *  Sara’s Key   * The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet  * The Forgotten Garden  * Half Broke Horses  * The Power of One  * The Magic of Ordinary Days  * The Rent Collector  * Cry, the Beloved Country  * The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society   * The Chosen  * My Sister’s Keeper * A Separate Peace  * The Giver   * The Secret Life of Bees  * The Poisonwood Bible   * The Invention of Wings  * The Winter Sea  * Still Alice *  I Capture the Castle  * The Alchemist  * Once We Were Brothers *  The 80 Dollar Champion  * My Name is Resolute

NON-FICTION AND MEMOIRS

These books will make you think and won’t put you to sleep also great for book club.

Daring Greatly

I Like Me Anyway: Embracing Imperfection, Connection & Christ

When Breath Becomes Air

The Glass Castle

First They Killed My Father

I Am Malala

Left To Tell

Bread and Wine

A Woman Is No Man

Elizabeth Smart: My Story  *   Being Mortal * Carry On, Warrior * A Million Miles in a Thousand Years   * Life in a Jar * Unbroken * Girl Wash Your Face * 10 Great Souls I Want to meet in Heaven * A Simple Act of Gratitude * Heaven is Here * Outliers: The Story of Success * Nurture Shock * Beautiful Boy * Mountains Beyond Mountains * Night * The Last Lecture * The Hiding Place * Boys Adrift   * The Year of Living Danishly * The Boys in the Boat * Essentialism * An Unseen Angel: A Mother’s Story of Faith, Hope, and Healing after Sandy Hook *

JUST FOR FUN

These clean books are a little lighter and include beach reads and chic-lit..

A Man Called Ove

Whistling In the Dark

Lizzy and Jane

Prayers for Sale

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

Lucia, Lucia

The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen

Dandelion Summer

The Goose Girl

The Lost Girls of Ireland

Seven Perfect Things

Open Road Summer * Blackmoore * When I Found You * The Mark of Royalty * Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen * The Actor and the Housewife * Very Valentine * The Truth about Forever * Garlic and Sapphires * Life Just Got Real * The Secret Journal of Brett Colton * Christmas Jars * The Book of A Thousand Days * The Samurai’s Garden * The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio * Secrets of a Charmed Life * The Wednesday Letters *   Counting By 7s * Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand * Blue Castle * A Different Blue * The Bird and the Sword

And there you have it, 100 clean books still worth reading!

Looking for More?

I love reading and sharing the good books I find with you and your family. Check out my other lists like The Best Audiobooks for the Whole Family and  The Best, Most Addictive Books for Teens.

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Of course, feel free to ask a question or leave other favorites in the comments! Who doesn’t love good book recommendations?

**I am an Amazon Affiliate and get paid a small amount when you purchase from my links. Thank you so much for supporting my writing and research!

35 Comments

Thanks so much Brooke. I’ve read 3 of these books recommended from you in a previous post and loved them. Thanks for adding to the list of reads. I’m hoping you have a Christmas gift ideas post for boys in the 9-10 range planned in your near future, they’ve been so helpful in the past. (0:

Thank you so much Amber! I hope you love these just as much! And, YES, I am working on that gift list right now! Should be up in about a week!

If your doing Christmas gift lists, how about one for 16 year old boys and 28 year old daughter with baby 😉

I am publishing one next week that should give you some great ideas for both! I am doing another practical list for women that might be great for your daughter too. That one will come a little later!

Love this post! Can’t wait to try a few of these books. I always love some good book ideas whenever I’m in a rut! A few of my favorites are anything by Amy Harmon, but especially A Different Blue and The Bird and The Sword. I also just read The Blue Castle by the same author as Anne of Green Gables and it was lovely. Thanks again!

Thanks so much Cindy! Those sound great. I will add them to my “to-read” list!

Is it possible to print the list of the books?

You should be able to copy and past this into a word document. I should make a printable list though! I will give that a try when I have time :).

My book club enjoyed Edenbrooke very much! Thank you!!!

I am so glad! It is one of my favorites!

Thank you so much for your thoughtful reviews. I continue to enjoy the books you recommend. Please keep up the good work.

Thank you, Brooke! Im never sure which book to take a chance on when I download from the library. I’m excited to read them! ??

This is the page I go to when I’m looking for a new book to read. This is it. Since I pinned this page on Pinterest, I’ve read about 20 of these titles and I’ve never been disappointed. Thank you for putting all of the best books in one place. I’ll let you know when I finish all of your suggestions… and I will.

This is the best! I am so happy you have loved them like I have. I plan on adding a few more titles this month. Can’t wait to see you finish them all…and if you have a favorite, please share!

how to thank you in italian

Thanks for this list! I have read many of them and recommended some for Book Club. Unfortunately, I cannot agree with you on Orphan Train being “clean.” Eek!..the nonstop foul language and an uncomfortable ‘scene’ made me regret having suggested it as a read for our book club. Provides good insight into this piece of history, but I wish I would’ve known ahead of time what I would encounter in the book, as I’ve always trusted your lists. The others on this list that I’ve read I’ve been so glad you recommended!

I am so sorry about that. I will put a little feedback on that one. It was for sure a more difficult and darker read.

I love and appreciate this list!!!  Please keep adding to it.  I just finished the Lilac Girls and America’s First Daughter and loved them both!!

I am so glad you enjoyed them!

THANK YOU!!!

Hope you find a few to love!

Just a heads up that Lilac Girls has a scene which quite descriptively depicts a girl getting raped within the first couple chapters. I was pretty surprised when this happened, since no explicit sexual content is generally what I think of as “clean”. Wanted to let others know in case this would be triggering.

Thanks for the comment. I will add a warning to that one.

Lilac girls is not clean. I started reading it based on this recommendation and it’s horrible. 

So sorry we will make a note of that

Thanks for this list! I think I read through all of the books, but may have missed some…Anyways, here are my additions: I also love Little Women, Anne of Green Gables series, The Hollow Kingdom Trilogy (a childhood favorite that is my secret favorite series 😅). The Lord of the Rings is actually a great classic, also apparently the Hobbit is a must, but I haven’t gotten to that one yet!

Thank you so much

You are welcome!

I love this list. I’ve loved all the books on the list that I’ve already read so I know I can trust your judgment on the others. Thank you!

I’m so glad! Happy reading!

Thankyou for this article. I’ve always found non-fiction stuff boring and repetitive. I could only read a book like that for school. Sine I found Andy Lazris’s work, i am hooked and love his captivating writing style. Visit his website to buy best non fiction books to read 2021

Why not just say, 100 books you recommend? Many on this list I would not consider clean.

Thank you so much for the list! I’m looking for something new to read. I would also like to Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See.

Thank you so much for the list! I’m looking for something new to read. I would also like to recommend Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. Another great read!

I love that book too!

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The 13 Best Book Review Sites and Book Rating Sites

Knowing where to buy books can be challenging. So, here are the best book review sites to help you avoid buying books that you'll regret reading.

Nobody likes to spend money on a new book only to face that overwhelming feeling of disappointment when it doesn't live up to your expectations. The solution is to check out a few book review sites before you hit the shops. The greater the diversity of opinions you can gather, the more confidence you can have that you'll enjoy the title.

Which book review and book rating sites are worth considering? Here are the best ones.

1. Goodreads

Goodreads is arguably the leading online community for book lovers. If you want some inspiration for which novel or biography to read next, this is the book review site to visit.

There's an endless number of user-generated reading lists to explore, and Goodreads itself publishes dozens of "best of" lists across a number of categories. You can do a book search by plot or subject , or join book discussions and reading groups with thousands of members.

You can participate in the community by adding your own rankings to books you've read and leaving reviews for other people to check out. Occasionally, there are even bonus events like question and answer sessions with authors.

2. LibraryThing

LibraryThing is the self-proclaimed largest book club in the world. It has more than 2.3 million members and is one of the best social networking platforms for book lovers .

With a free account, you can add up to 200 books to your library and share them with other users. But it's in the other areas where LibraryThing can claim to be one of the best book review sites.

Naturally, there are ratings, user reviews, and tags. But be sure to click on the Zeitgeist tab at the top of the page. It contains masses of information, including the top books by rating, by the number of reviews, by authors, and loads more.

3. Book Riot

Book Riot is a blog. It publishes listicles on dozens of different topics, many of which review the best books in a certain genre. To give you an idea, some recent articles include Keeping Hoping Alive: 11 Thrilling YA Survival Stories and The Best Historical Fiction Books You’ve Never Heard Of .

Of course, there's also plenty of non-reading list content. If you have a general affinity for literature, Book Riot is definitely worth adding to the list of websites you browse every day.

Bookish is a site that all members of book clubs should know about. It helps you prep for your next meeting with discussion guides, book quizzes, and book games. There are even food and drink suggestions, as well as playlist recommendations.

But the site is more than just book club meetings. It also offers lots of editorial content. That comes in the form of author interviews, opinion essays, book reviews and recommendations, reading challenges, and giveaways.

Be sure to look at the Must-Reads section of the site regularly to get the latest book reviews. Also, it goes without saying that the people behind Bookish are book lovers, too. To get a glimpse of what they’re reading, check out their Staff Reads articles.

5. Booklist

Booklist is a print magazine that also offers an online portal. Trusted experts from the American Library Association write all the book reviews.

You can see snippets of reviews for different books. However, to read them in full, you will need to subscribe. An annual plan for this book review site costs $184.95 per year.

6. Fantasy Book Review

Fantasy Book Review should be high on the list for anyone who is a fan of fantasy works. The book review site publishes reviews for both children's books and adults' books.

It has a section on the top fantasy books of all time and a continually updated list of must-read books for each year. You can also search through the recommended books by sub-genres such as Sword and Sorcery, Parallel Worlds, and Epic Fantasy.

7. LoveReading

LoveReading is one of the most popular book review sites in the UK, but American audiences will find it to be equally useful.

The site is divided into fiction and non-fiction works. In each area, it publishes weekly staff picks, books of the month, debuts of the month, ebooks of the month, audiobooks of the month, and the nationwide bestsellers. Each book on every list has a full review that you can read for free.

Make sure you also check out their Highlights tab to get book reviews for selected titles of the month. In Collections , you'll also find themed reading lists such as World War One Literature and Green Reads .

Kirkus has been involved in producing book reviews since the 1930s. This book review site looks at the week's bestselling books, and provides lengthy critiques for each one.

As you'd expect, you'll also find dozens of "best of" lists and individual book reviews across many categories and genres.

And while you're on the site, make sure you click on the Kirkus Prize section. You can look at all the past winners and finalists, complete with the accompanying reviews of their books.

Although Reddit is a social media site, you can use it to get book reviews of famous books, or almost any other book for that matter! Reddit has a Subreddit, r/books, that is dedicated to book reviews and reading lists.

The subreddit has weekly scheduled threads about a particular topic or genre. Anyone can then chip in with their opinions about which books are recommendable. Several new threads are published every day, with people discussing their latest discovery with an accompanying book rating or review.

You'll also discover a weekly recommendation thread. Recent threads have included subjects such as Favorite Books About Climate Science , Literature of Indigenous Peoples , and Books Set in the Desert . There’s also a weekly What are you Reading? discussion and frequent AMAs.

For more social media-like platforms, check out these must-have apps for book lovers .

10. YouTube

YouTube is not the type of place that immediately springs to mind when you think of the best book review sites online.

Nonetheless, there are several engaging YouTube channels that frequently offer opinions on books they've read. You’ll easily find book reviews of famous books here.

Some of the most notable book review YouTube channels include Better Than Food: Book Reviews , Little Book Owl , PolandBananasBooks , and Rincey Reads .

Amazon is probably one of your go-to site when you want to buy something. If you don’t mind used copies, it’s also one of the best websites to buy second-hand books .

Now, to get book reviews, just search and click on a title, then scroll down to see the ratings and what others who have bought the book are saying. It’s a quick way to have an overview of the book’s rating. If you spot the words Look Inside above the book cover, it means you get to preview the first few pages of the book, too!

Regardless of the praises or criticisms you have heard from other book review sites, reading a sample is the most direct way to help you gauge the content’s potential and see whether the author’s writing style suits your tastes.

12. StoryGraph

StoryGraph is another good book review site that's worth checking out. The book rating is determined by the site's large community of readers. Key in the title of a book you're interested in and click on it in StoryGraph's search results to have an overall view of its rating.

Each book review provides information on the moods and pacing of the story. It also indicates whether the tale is plot or character-driven, what readers feel about the extent of character development, how lovable the characters generally are, and the diversity of the cast.

13. London Review of Books

The London Review of Books is a magazine that covers a range of subjects such as culture, literature, and philosophy. Part of its content includes amazingly detailed book reviews. If you feel that most modern book reviews are too brief for your liking, the London Review of Books should suit you best.

You'll gain insight into the flow and themes of the story, as well as a more thorough picture of the events taking place in the book.

Read Book Reviews Before You Buy

The book review sites we've discussed will appeal to different types of readers. Some people will be more comfortable with the easy-to-interpret book rating systems; others will prefer extensive reviews written by experienced professionals.

Although it’s easy to be tempted by a gorgeous book cover, it’s always best to have a quick look at the book reviews before actually buying a copy. This way, you can save your money and spend it on the books that you’ll be proud to display on your shelves for a long time. And check out recommendations, as well, to help you find what's worth reading.

Clean Read Books

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Questions or comments:.

Each year, Vicki Hinze begins a new Special Project to better circumstances between authors and readers.  This year, that project is Clean Read Books.  Please address any questions or comments to her through the contact form here or on Vicki’s website at:   www.vickihinze.com .

The Mission:

To connect readers and writers of clean books.

For the purpose of this project, a CLEAN READ book is:

• A book in which there is no foul language, no excessive violence and, if there are bedroom doors in the book, they must be closed.
• A Clean Read Book can be fiction or nonfiction.
• A Clean Read Book can be in any appropriate genre (mystery, romance, science fiction, thriller, inspirational, etc.)
• A Clean Read Book can be a book, or a short story or a novella, provided it’s clearly designated as a book, short story or novella.

Clean Read Books has launched on Twitter.

• Please follow Clean Read Books on Twitter at  @CleanReadBooks .
• Sign up for the Clean Read Books email list on this site.  During this building phase there will be no emails.  Once the program warrants, you’ll receive a periodic email of new Clean Read Books releases.

How Clean Read Books Works

If you are a Clean Read book reader:

• On Twitter, follow  @cleanreadbooks .  If you’ve read and enjoyed a Clean Read Book, post it to  @cleanreadbooks  so others can find it, too.
• On Facebook, follow  https://www.facebook.com/cleanreadbooks .  If you’ve read and enjoyed a Clean Read, post it to the wall so others can find it, too.  Be sure to “Like” and hover over “Like” then click “Get notifications.”
• Sign up for the email here so that once the email postings of new Clean Read releases begins, you won’t miss any of them.

If you are a Clean Read book author:

• On Twitter, follow  @cleanreadbooks  and include it in your Clean Read tweets.
• On Facebook, follow  https://www.facebook.com/cleanreadbooks .  If you’ve written a Clean Read, post it to the wall so others can find it.  Be sure to “Like” and hover over “Like” then click “Get notifications.”

Welcome to Clean Read Books

Join Discovery, the new community for book lovers

Trust book recommendations from real people, not robots 🤓

Blog – Posted on Friday, May 01

The best book review sites for enthusiastic readers.

Book lovers, stop us if you’ve heard this one before: you’ve just finished a mind-blowing book and you need to hear some discussion about it. What do you do? Dive straight into the limitless realm of the Internet and search for book review sites, of course. 

Or here’s another scenario: you’ve finished reading a novel and now you’re searching for something to fill the void. Maybe you want more of the same, or maybe something completely different to switch things up. You’ll probably also scour the Internet for ratings and trustworthy recommendations. 

Fortunately, there are endless review blogs and book review sites that you can peruse. Un fortunately, not every one of them features a wide enough variety to help you. But don’t worry: we’ve got you covered with ten of the best book review sites to satisfy the bookworm in you. If you want to cut to the chase and get a personalized pick for a book review site in 30 seconds, we first recommend taking this quick quiz:

Which review community should you join?

Find out which review community is best for your style. Takes 30 seconds!

Then read on for the full explanation of all of the best book review sites out there!

1. Goodreads 

It’s impossible not to mention Goodreads when discussing book communities: it’s the Facebook of book reviews — the ultimate social media platform for bibliophiles. If you’ve somehow managed to go this long without stumbling upon this omnipresent site, here’s the run-down: you can use Goodreads to organize, display, and discuss your virtual bookshelf with other users. 

Goodreads recommendations are based on your listed interests. You can follow authors and book influencers ranging from Celeste Ng to Bill Gates . This allows you to see all their reviews, which vary from compact one-liners to critical analysis, and watch the new reviews roll in. For a quick verdict, just take a look at the star rating that they give the book. 

Also if you like to browse lists, Goodreads compiles the best and most popular books for every genre. There’s also the annual Goodreads’ Choice Awards to celebrate each year’s new releases, where you can cast your vote or peruse the list of contenders to find a new book to read. It’s a site for every kind of reader, with abundant ways to comment and interact. 

2. LibraryThing

This is the OG of all online book catalogues and discussion boards — take a look and you’ll see that it’s an oldie but a goodie. Of course, the basic functions of LibraryThing are rather similar to Goodreads: there are millions of books that readers can add to their lists, as well as review with star ratings.

While the interface harks back to the earlier days of the world wide web, LibraryThing has a secret weapon that’ll appeal to all readers, especially modern ones: their Zeitgeist . This page displays the latest crème de la crème of the whole site, from the most popular books to the hottest reviews , which you can also write with the help of a good book review template . Just a glance shows that the readers here know how to read between the lines and wield their words!

So if you’re hoping to read or share some in-depth literary thoughts with fellow sharp-minded users , LibraryThing is the site to browse. (You can even access it without creating an account!) 

3. Reedsy Discovery 

Now, if you’re searching for some hidden gems to peruse, Reedsy Discovery ’s got your back. While our blog features everything from classics to contemporary hits, Discovery’s specialty is indie publications, many of which are accompanied with succinct comments from experienced reviewers . There’s no better way to broaden your horizon! 

Moreover, if casual and creative reviews are more your cup of tea, then rejoice: the burgeoning community of readers on Discovery can leave comments, one-line reviews, and video reviews (calling all Booktubers!) on just about any book. It’s a fun and interactive way to geek out over your favorite reads and discover all the coolest new titles you won’t find anywhere else.

Looking for something new to read?

Trust real people, not robots, to give you book recommendations.

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4. LoveReading 

Though it’s UK-based, this prolific site caters to audiences around the world. LoveReading is strictly a reviewing site, with a base of staff writers and carefully selected contributors, so you know the reviews are top-notch. The staff often give quite personal reading experiences in their reviews, which make their recommendations very endearing, like they’re from a close friend. They even offer you presents — well, if you think of giveaways as presents! 

LoveReading covers books from every genre you can think of. They also have weekly, monthly, and yearly list features to keep you up to date with the latest stellar releases, so you’ll never be in want of something to pore over. 

5. The Millions 

In search of reviews that really dive into the themes, metaphors, and overall executions of interesting and highbrow books? The Millions has got you covered. 

Written by a collection of seasoned critics, these reviews are speckled with memorable quotes, elegant analysis, and plentiful comparisons to other works — which means extra reading recommendations for you! If contemporary and literary fictions are your go-tos, then The Millions is the site for all your lit nerd needs. 

6. SFBook Reviews 

Those who think quantity and quality don’t go hand in hand, you clearly haven’t encountered SFBook Review . The five reviewers on the team here share two common and important goals: firstly, to follow the outpour of new titles in the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres every year, and secondly, to give thoughtful reviews to as many of them as possible.

This team knows their SFF niches inside out, so their verdicts are very credible. Still, their reviews are quite friendly and personal — they discuss other related books and share their reading experiences to help you make your own reading choices. 

7. Bookpage

Bookpage features all kinds of genres: from children’s books to nonfiction, from the works of household names to debut authors, and so much more. Their format is neat and straightforward — they bring you the volumes they think are most worthwhile, recommending them to you by summarizing and concisely commenting on the prose, the theme, and the plot of each chosen book.

In addition to this, Bookpage also features author interviews and articles that unearth the deeper themes and purposes of certain books. If you’re a true book lover seeking like-minded literary aficionados, this may be the perfect place for you.

8. Book Riot 

Avid readers, you’ve probably stumbled upon Book Riot more times than you can remember. While it’s not a site that individually assesses titles, it has lists for everything — from timeless literary giants to the top books in each genre. What’s more, Book Riot has lots of thinkpieces that dive deep into the way certain titles make readers feel — be it exhilarated, motivated, or enraged — and that’s really all you need to know when deciding to embark on a new reading adventure. 

Additionally, if you’d rather listen to discussions and reviews rather than read them, you'll be happy to know that Book Riot has a range of podcasts for you to choose from. 

9. NetGalley 

NetGalley is another platform bringing you new and unconventional recommendations. They specialize in connecting authors who are publishing to readers who’d like to preview and put in their two cents. While the database of books available here are not the most expansive, those that are featured are certainly worth your time. 

Readers can benefit most from NetGalley via their book recommendation site, Bookish , where the staff reviewers update you with their recent reads and in-depth thoughts on those reads. Along with that, Bookish also has book club kits, equipped with comprehension questions and discussion points, to help readers explore stories mindfully. 

10. BookBub

While it’s very similar to Goodreads, BookBub focuses more on connecting readers to books that might suit them specifically — which is partly why you’ll see plenty of bargains and deals promoted on the site.

Because of this promotional value, BookBub has quite a strong author community. Diana Gabaldon and Gillian Flynn , for instance, are constantly recommending books on their accounts. So if you’d like to tag along with your favorite author, this is an excellent website to visit. The only drawback of BookBub is that they only have community reviews from users based in the US, and you have to sign up in order to read them. 

With these ten sites, you’ll be sure to find your little community of fellow book lovers regardless of what your interests are. Here’s to exciting TBR lists and nourished minds!

If you want to try your hand at reviewing, we’ve got a little guide to help you out ! On the other hand, if you want to plough away at your books, why not consider the Kindle Cloud Reader ?

Continue reading

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Mrs. Lady Wordsmith

Good Grammar and Clean Reads

How to Find Clean Books to Read

April 1, 2020 By Kerry 4 Comments

I love to find and read clean books. But many popular books readily available have some unfortunate surprises in them. I’m picky about what I read, and the ladies in my neighborhood book club are too. We want little to no swearing. No explicit sexual scenes. No graphic violence. Little to no drugs or alcohol. Some might argue there’s nothing decent to read that fits our criteria. But there is. You just have to hunt a little–or know a few tools to help you find clean books that are worth reading.

My Clean Books List

If you’d like a specific list of great, clean books to read, you’ll love this one I created a few years ago. I’m asked again and again to share it. Perhaps you’ve read many on the list, but I guarantee you’ll find some new ones. There are at least 65 titles, so there’s a great selection: https://mrsladywordsmith.com/65-clean-books-to-read-for-book-clubs/.

How to Find Clean Books on Amazon

Search for swearing before you buy. At Amazon.com if you search for a particular book, many of them have “Look Inside” features. Click on the cover of the book and find the link that says “search inside this book.” You can type in questionable words to see if/how many times they appear in the book. Granted, you have to type the swear words to find out, but if you’re in a book club, perhaps the leader of the group or the host for the month could take turns finding out and reporting this information to the group. That way, everyone is given a heads up first about the content, so they can choose whether to read the selection or not. Or maybe another book could be suggested.

How to Find Clean Books Online

Homespun Light  is a blog maintained by Emily, a former BYU student. She has a small listing of clean adult books but features mostly reviews for children’s books, highlighting the moral or educational principles they teach. She also offers reviews of church literature.   More Than a Review  is a more extensive reference tool. The purpose of the site clearly states: “More Than a Review allows readers to search and rate books on the level of sex, violence, language and drugs. Be surprised by plot twists not content.” I couldn’t Friend them fast enough on Facebook! You can simply use the site to find books to your level of standards. You can also be part of the solution to the content problem by posting reviews of books. In other words, you can give a really great rating to a good, clean read or give a poor rating to a bad read and warn other potential readers.

The ever-popular GoodReads  is another helpful way to find groups that might suggest clean reads. In the link shown, there are several LDS virtual book club groups. You can also use the site to connect to other Christian groups. Use the site’s search field to play around with different search words and see what you can find. This Clean Reads group on GoodReads looks very promising and has over 1500 members.

Christian Fiction Site  looks like a wonderful resource as well. I just opted to follow them on Twitter and can’t wait to see their suggestions.

A quick search on Facebook showed a few potential groups for finding appropriate books. The first one I saw was another  Clean Reads.  The group has almost 700 members, and I noticed that a friend of mine belongs to the group. She has good judgment, so I joined too. Here’s another group featuring LDS Book Sellers and Friends.

As you can see, there are some readily available resources to find good reading materials. Still, asking friends is my best method. In my book club, one cute lady offered her copy of the monthly reading selection with all the swear words blacked out. I’m sure the author would have had a fit, but the loaner book was a huge hit in our group. My son and I continue to enjoy lots of books together, and I’m so glad I can screen them first through some of these methods mentioned. We like it when a book surprises us, but we’d rather not be surprised by trashy content.

How do you find clean books to read? Any specific recommendations? Please share in the comments.

May 29, 2020 at 12:43 pm

Great suggestions. I was recently reading a novel that I was surprised to find had parts I wasn’t expecting!

June 7, 2020 at 5:59 pm

Dang! I hate when that happens–and it happens a lot.

January 29, 2021 at 12:24 pm

Hi! Are there any other blogs for moms to find books for kids?

February 12, 2021 at 2:21 pm

I don’t know about other blogs, but you are most welcome to join my Facebook group. It’s free, and all members can post their questions. The ladies there are smart and will share lots of great ideas with you. I hope you’ll join us. The group is called The Book Club Ladies. Email me if you can’t find it, and I’ll send you the link.

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24 Exceptional Clean Fiction Books for Adults

Making a list of clean fiction books for adults is tricky business. 

To begin with, everyone has a different definition of clean . 

Some readers don’t want profanity or sex scenes, others don’t want violence or triggers of abuse. The line is fuzzy and varies for each person. 

On the other hand, there are scads of books with no offensive content that aren’t well-written. 

My goal here was to highlight books that fit a general definition of clean but also stood out as high quality. 

Top 5 Exceptional Clean Fiction Books for Adults

• Pride and Prejudice
• Hannah Coulter
• Peace Like a River
• The Widows of Malabar Hill
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn 

( Note: pictures of book covers are Amazon affiliate links. Clicking through to purchase will earn commissions for this site. )

Clean Romance Books for Adults

A few books in this section do not have romance as the main component but weaves it in as an intregal part of the whole story.

Edenbrooke  by Julianne Donaldson

The heir of Edenbrooke believes that females are empty headed flirts until he meets Marianne Daventry. 

She intrigues him enough to changes his plans to flee home and his mother’s match making schemes. 

Blackmore  by Julianne Donaldson

Blackmore is the name of the estate of Kate Worthington’s neighboring friends. It’s where their grandparents live and where they spend their vacations. She is enamored by the idea of it and her dream is to visit it.

She also wants to visit India and the only way her mother will support her trip is if she receives and rejects three proposals of marriage. She decides Blackmore is the perfect place to achieve that goal. 

The Kiss of a Stranger  by Sarah M Eden

Lord Cavratt impetuously kisses an unknown woman in the garden of a country inn to prove a point. 

He assumes she is a serving woman, but her angry guardian informs him she is a woman of brith whose reputation can only be saved by marriage. 

The marriage of two strangers? What could go wrong? What could go right?

Seeking Persephone  by Sarah M Eden

The Duke has a flaw that he believes will keep any woman from marrying him.  

But, with abundant wealth at his disposal, he can surely entice a young woman into marriage by endowing her family with large quantities of money. 

But can two married people get to know each other and find love with scars of the past hanging over them?

Dear Mr. Knightly  by Katherine Reay

Five stars for  Dear Mr. Knightly!   I struggle to find wholesome, well-written fiction.  This one’s a winner.  I’m a huge fan of Webster’s  Daddy Long Legs , and this modern re-telling knocked it out of the park. I like it better than the original.  The Austen references were fun, but the story itself was poignant.

Even though it’s technically Inspirational fiction, the Christian message was subtle, not overwhelming.  Kudos to Reay for a wholesome, engaging work. 

These is My Words   by Nancy E. Turner

“A moving, exciting, and heartfelt American saga inspired by the author’s own family memoirs, these words belong to Sarah Prine, a woman of spirit and fire who forges a full and remarkable existence in a harsh, unfamiliar frontier. Scrupulously recording her steps down the path Providence has set her upon–from child to determined young adult to loving mother–she shares the turbulent events, both joyous and tragic, that molded her and recalls the enduring love with cavalry officer Captain Jack Elliot that gave her strength and purpose.

Rich in authentic everyday details and alive with truly unforgettable characters,  These Is My Words  brilliantly brings a vanished world to breathtaking life again.”–Goodreads

Unpredictable.  Well-written.

Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson

Savannah Cade needs help with her romance manuscript. Can a mystery editor help her solve more than just manuscript problems? 

Writing to an anonymous friend whose advice and interaction you start to fall in love with has You’ve Got Mail vibes. 

This is a breezy read. Simple, straight forward plot without time jumping or point of view hopping. Just right when life is too stressful for complicated plots with a plethora of characters.

An inside look at the publishing world was fun, too, to someone who has skirted around the fringes for the past decade. 

The Selection by Keira Cass

If the Bachelor and Bachelorette TV shows are any indication, we love the idea of a competition for love. Add to that echoes of Queen Esther’s story, and a competition for the royal crown is compelling. 

In the future kingdom of Illea, the prince must choose his bride from a group of 35 eligible commoners. America Singer is a contestant dealing with her own inner turmoil, not sure she wants to win. The stage is set for a great story. 

In spite of having to suspend belief at times, I found this story engaging. It’s fun to entertain a princess fantasy every once in awhile. 

The Selection is the first in a five book series.

Pride and Prejudice  by Jane Austen

It’s hard not to like Lizzie Bennet. She speaks her mind, she’s unfazed by social regulations, she’s fiercely loyal. And no one can articulate matters of the heart like Jane Austen. 

Five girls growing up in one household is certainly a recipe for matchmaking dilemmas. 

Certainly other Austen titles have won hearts, but Pride and Prejudice often is recognized as standing above the rest. 

Sense and Sensibility  by Jane Austen

Austen fans often agree that  Pride and Prejudice  tops the list as the author’s greatest work. What comes in the number two slot can be debated. Some prefer  Emma , others  Persuasion . 

I vote for  Sense and Sensibility.  

After the death of their father, the three Dashwood sisters, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret and their widowed mother must leave the family estate and dwell in a humble cottage. 

Of course, the suitors come to call. Finding income to sustain the family is a constant challenge. Each of the sisters navigates their way in the midst of the challenge. 

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

Best known for writing Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery penned other novels of note, including The Blue Castle .

Valancy Stirling, age 29,  lives with her mother and aunt. She’s stifled by the expectations of her relatives and her coping method is to build a dream castle in her imagination. 

One day she receives unexpected news that radically changes her outlook. With new freedom, she throws off convention to begin living her own life.

Throughly relatable to anyone who’s ever daydreamed and wished they could walk away from stifling convention. 

When Crickets Cry  by Charles Martin

Reese first meets little Annie Stephens at her lemonade stand. It doesn’t take long to see that she’s fighting serious health issues while fiercely holding to a dream of a long and healthy life. She’s lost her parents and lives with her aunt. 

Reese is hiding from his past life in the medical profession. 

The plot could be considered predictable, but the journey to get there is so enjoyable. Charles Martin has the magic touch to draw you in and practically force you to fall in love with his characters. 

Christy   by Catherine Marshall

Set in the mountains of Kentucky, Christy is the school teacher to children who don’t always wear shoes and don’t always have the means to pack a lunch. 

Confronted with a culture so different from the one she grew up in, Christy is forced to examine her own beliefs about life. She also discovers deciding who to love can be difficult. 

Classic for a reason,  Christy  will draw you in to the pathos and the drama of the human condition. 

Clean Literary Fiction Books for Adults

The definition of literary fiction can be debated but for my purposes I generally refer to character driven works of art rather than plot driven novels.

Hannah Coulter  by Wendell Berry

Hannah Coulter  takes the panoramic view of a person’s life, the progression of a lifetime. 

Sometimes when we sit down to a novel, we are looking for perspective, to find meaning for the daily grind. We need to see that what we do day after day matters.  Hannah Coulter  gives us a clue. For many women, all those meals cooked, all the time serving and caring others adds up to a lifetime of meaning. 

Then there’s the small town, rural community. I think our deep longing for community resonates with what happens in small, rural towns where people know each other and care for each other, where lives intertwine in romance, conflict, partnership, friendship and commerce. And no man lives as an island, no matter how solitary they choose to live their lives.

Finally, there’s the  strong female protagonist  in Hannah Coulter. You might not realize she’s strong. Not at first. She’s the type of woman that is the glue of a community. Keeping her family together. Working the long hours to grow, process and prepare the food that keeps the whole engine running. She tends to the sick, stands by her man and brings up her children. She’s the backbone, the unsung hero. Being unassuming makes it hard to recognize her as strong.

Check out more  books like Hannah Coulter .

Gilead by Marilyn Robinson

Gilead is the story of a pastor who married late in life and has a seven year old that he won’t see grow up. The novel is a series of letters to his son. 

He tells of his life, his friends and neighbors, meeting and marrying his mother.

The action is slow moving, and, yet, it’s not necessarily character driven, either. Just a reflective account of life and faith in small town Iowa.

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

“The unforgettable story of four orphans who travel the Mississippi River on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression.”—from Amazon

The story is told through Odie O’Banion’s adolescent eyes. 

It’s his quest for home, family and the meaning of life. Along for the ride are his brother Albert and his friends Mose and Emmy. 

The human experience is more complicated than most novelists are able to express. There’s the complexity of human nature and relationships, the complexity of our belief system and how our experience influences our beliefs. I feel like This Tender Land wrestled with that complexity and won. 

It doesn’t downplay the true depravity of man. It has lots of plot twists.

The novelist deals with the most delicate of subjects in an inoffensive way. 

There was one element of the book I didn’t care for, but it wasn’t enough to ruin it for me. 

It reminded me of  Peace Like a River . I’ll want to read it again and again. 

A Man Called Ove  by Fredrik Backman

I can’t remember the last time a novel made me cry.  This one did.

Ove is near the end of his life, but this novel takes us back to his family, his first love and his losses. It is a bittersweet exploration of what really matters in relationships and what gets in the way.

Love, friendship, community and social awkwardness.  It’s the recipe for a great novel.

It demonstrates in brilliant colors that no man is an island.

Peace Like a River  by Lief Enger

Told through the eyes of an eleven year old boy, the novel is not about a span of time, it mostly just covers one year.

Rueben is the eleven year old, Swede, his younger sister, and Davy their older brother. They live with their father out west, growing up in a modest life. 

Circumstances dictate a search for answers to a reality that doesn’t add up. 

  Jewel  by Bret Lott

“ It is 1943 in the backwoods of Mississippi. In the land of honeysuckle and wild grapevine, Jewel Hilburn and her husband Leston – whose love for his wife is the surest comfort she’s ever known – are truly blessed. They have five fine children who embrace the world as though it were a sumptuous table set for a feast; and when Brenda Kay is born, Jewel gives thanks for yet another healthy baby, last-born and most welcome.

JEWEL is the story of how quickly a life can change; how, like lightning, an unforseen event can illuminate our lives and set us on a course without reason or compass.”– Goodreads

Jewel fights the odds of prejudice and ignorance with a mother’s fierce love.

“Bret Lott has created one of the finest and most indomitable heroines of contemporary American fiction.”

Beautifully crafted. A pleasure to read.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn  by Betty Smith

“The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness — in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience. “–Goodreads

Rightly labeled a literary work of art.  Francie Nolan develops the grit and humanity she needs to survive her tumultuous life.

Clean Historical Fiction Books for Adults

This section includes some books written for young adults that are compelling enough to be enjoyed by a broader audience. 

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin

Grace Bennett moves to London in 1939. The war is ramping up. Air raids and the fragility of life are daily uncertainty.  But a job at a bookstore teaches Grace the power of the written word and friendships forged during trying times endure.  

The Downstairs Girl by Stacy Lee

Jo Kuan works as a ladies’ maid in Atlanta in the 1890’s, but she also moonlights as the popular advice columnist, Miss Sweetie. Anonymously answering questions in the newspaper gives her the chance to address some social issues. 

I enjoyed this wholesome story and recommend it for all ages. 

Lovely War by Julie Berry

Another YA book that adults will enjoy, especially helpful during stressful seasons when a complex plot is hard to follow. 

It’s set in World War I and II and follows two couples— Hazel and James and Aubrey and Collette as they navigate, war, prejudice and their relationships. 

The Tehran Initiative by Joel C. Rosenberg

This isn’t technically historical fiction because it’s set in the future, or at least an alternate reality present.

I had never read a Rosenberg book before and this one surprised me by drawing me in. 

I don’t read very many people who know that much about what’s going on in the Middle East. I found it fascinating. I felt like he did a good job of keeping the plot unpredictable. 

I liked the characters, too and found myself rooting for them. And, always, the critical element of every page turner, what’s going to happen next? 

It’s the first in a three book series. 

The Widows of Malabar Hill  by Sujata Massey

 Based of the life of the first female lawyer in Bombay.

Not only does this fictional account weave a riveting tale, it highlights the culture and customs of 1920’s India.

The obstacles of limited educational opportunities for women, arranged marriages, gender segregation and inequalities were ingrained in the culture.

Navigating that world and winning is a real feat.

Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan

The fame of the Titanic is wide spread.

A lesser known naval disaster occurred off the US coast in the 1838. The short voyage on the steamship Pulaski was used by the upper classes to escape the heat of Savannah in the summer. But the boiler exploded and the ship sank. 

This book fictionalizes several real passengers and the drama that surrounded them before, during and after the accident.  

Before We Were Yours   by Lisa Wingate

The narrative moves back and forth between present day South Carolina and the 30’s and 40’s Tennessee. 

The setting is an orphan asylum where children are cared for until families are found for them. Unfortunately, the people in charge are not as altruistic as they appear. 

Inspired by true facts, this book tackles difficult themes with a surprising amount of optimism and hope. Trigger warnings.

  Once Upon a Wardrobe  by Patti Callahan

Once Upon a Wardrobe does a deep dive into the question of why C.S. Lewis wrote the Chronicles of Narnia. History is woven into the fictional scenario of Megs Devonshire trying to get answers for her chronically ill brother who has fallen in love with the recently published The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe .

Megs is a student at Oxford in 1950, so she is able to gain access to the literary legend. But, of course, her straight forward questions don’t get straight forward answers. Instead, we learn the background, history and influences on the man behind the fantasies. 

The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner

The Last Year of the War traces an unlikely friendship between a German teenage girl and a Japanese teenage girl who become friends in an internment camp in Texas during World War II. 

Certainly the themes of racial prejudice are explored, but, even more, friendship, family expectations and traditions. Maybe an even deeper underlying theme is coming of age when the forces of your life throw you into situations beyond your control. 

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Windspear

Maise Dobbs is a detective in Vitorian London. Coming from modest means, she is indebted to her benefactors for her education and mentoring. 

The work of a sleuth is different in the days before cell phones and fingerprints. An ability to understand human nature and get to the truth are the skills that are needed. 

Independent and likable, Maise Dobbs is a heroine to cheer for and skillful plotting of the story keeps you turning pages. 

***************

Need more book recommendations?

Try Near Miss Clean Books: 7 PG Fiction for Adults .

Or Best Clean Romance Novels to Love .

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Pride and Prejudice

Jane Auste | 5.00

Meg Rosoff It’s a coming-of-age story, because she throws aside her prejudices but also sees the house and realises that she could be quite comfortable and maybe realises how important that is. (Source)

See more recommendations for this book...

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

J. K. Rowling | 4.90

Joe Lycett guys i just read this book called harry potter well worth checking out it’s about a really interesting magic lad (Source)

Edenbrooke (Edenbrooke, #1)

Julianne Donaldson | 4.80

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)

C. S. Lewis, Kenneth Branagh, et al | 4.80

Chris Anderson As a child, they exploded my imagination. (Source)

Lev Grossman You win some Turkish delight. Everyone knows Lewis’s Narnia books are a foundational work of the modern fantastic. But I don’t think Lewis gets enough credit for his craft as a writer. Those books are deceptively simple. Look at the way he constructed the opening of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. He puts the shadows of the war in the background, the excitement of a new house in the country... (Source)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)

J.K. Rowling | 4.74

Big Structural Change @siriusclaw Azkaban ftw! Goblet is the worst of the series. Great book though. (Source)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)

Maude Garrett @GeekBomb Best use of time travel in a book or series to date (Source)

Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles, #1)

Marissa Meyer | 4.70

Estelle Francis The story weaves politics, technology and fantasy in with the classic fairytale that we all know and love. (Source)

J. R. R. Tolkien | 4.68

Richard Branson Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. (Source)

Cressida Cowell The Hobbit is such a richly imagined fantasy that, especially as a child, you can live in it. It is so completely immersive. (Source)

Lev Grossman First up, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, by JRR Tolkien. But you knew I was going to say that. This one book, which was published in 1937, defined so many variables for the fantasy tradition that are still in place today. Tolkien’s extraordinary achievement was to recover the epic landscapes of Anglo-Saxon myth, bring them back to life, and then to take us through them on foot, so we could... (Source)

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott, Frank Merrill, Alice L. George | 4.67

Amy Chua Marmee is a character that really resonates for me. She’s obviously not Chinese, but she believes that integrity and hard work are the most important things in life. She holds her daughters to very high standards. She doesn’t sugarcoat much. She also reveals to her rebellious daughter Jo, the star of the book and a character loosely modeled on Louisa May Alcott herself, that she had a bad temper... (Source)

Anne Thériault @mmarmoset I love that book so much, and then I got to see Patty Smith perform the year I read it, and she made a Little Women reference during the show, and my heart overflowed (Source)

Jay Kleinberg Nancy Drew is another series which follows in those footsteps. The book is all led by her. I think if one looks in the magazine literature it would be hard to find a similar character at that time. These were stories initially published in a magazine and then bound together as a book. (Source)

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)

Suzanne Collins | 4.67

Bill Gates [On Bill Gates's reading list in 2012.] (Source)

Robert Muchamore A brutal, exciting, action-based sci-fi novel. Hugely popular and excellent fun. (Source)

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)

J. K. Rowling | 4.61

Shami Chakrabarti It’s all about the War on Terror as far as I’m concerned. (Source)

Charlotte Brontë, Michael Mason | 4.60

Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard.

But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again?

John Sutherland There is an interesting debate … that the real heroine of Jane Eyre is not the plain little governess but the mad woman in the attic, Bertha Mason (Source)

Tracy Chevalier The idea of marriage is that two people are going to become one, but here you know—because of the mad woman in the attic—that it’s one thing about to be split in two. (Source)

Audrey Penn My next one is Jane Eyre. She was orphaned and sent to a very rich aunt, who had her own very selfish children. Jane Eyre was not the perfect child and she was sent to live in a girls’ school. She made one friend, but unfortunately the little girl died, so she had to toughen up. She grew up there and learned everything she needed to know about teaching. She was a very good artist, she played a... (Source)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)

J.K. Rowling | 4.58

R. J. Palacio | 4.58

Jane Austen | 4.56

Jenny Davidson Persuasion is an unusually brilliant novel, just in terms of its style of narration. Out of all of the novels Austen published in her short life, this one feels most to me like a real love story. (Source)

The Hiding Place

The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

Corrie Ten Boom, John Sherrill, et al. | 4.55

Alison Alvarez What I really took with me from the book were the descriptions of how she dealt with the stress of solitary confinement and eventually the Ravensbruck concentration camp. I adapted some of her techniques for keeping her mind occupied to deal with my own problems with anxiety and worry. Also, it’s a book with a surprising amount of joy in it for subject matter that is so dark. (Source)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)

J. K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré | 4.53

Friends and Foes (The Jonquil Brothers, #1)

Sarah M. Eden | 4.53

Julianne Donaldson | 4.53

Seeking Persephone (The Lancaster Family, #1)

Sarah M. Eden | 4.52

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)

J.K. Rowling | 4.51

Jane Austen, Fiona Stafford | 4.51

Robert McCrum You’ve got to have Jane Austen. (Source)

Stella Tillyard Emma is the Regency novel in the sense that it was written and published during the Regency. I think the feel of much of Jane Austen is really in the late 1790s – the beginning of the French Wars. Jane Austen wasn’t writing about politics. She is famously someone who writes about what she knows. Her world is essentially a provincial world of manners. (Source)

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1)

Rick Riordan | 4.45

Making Faces

Abrams Appleseed | 4.44

Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3)

Marissa Meyer | 4.43

The False Prince (The Ascendance Series, #1)

Jennifer A. Nielsen | 4.40

Drops of Gold (The Jonquil Brothers #2)

Sarah M. Eden | 4.39

Sense and Sensibility

Jane Auste | 4.39

Edward Skidelsky Jane Austen’s purpose is to illustrate this very Aristotelian virtue of prudence: that you’ve got to look out for your interests, you mustn’t just give in to passion. (Source)

Kathryn Stockett | 4.37

Twin Mummy And Daddy I love a good book and The Help is exactly that! In fact it’s an amazing book! Read my review over on the blog today! https://t.co/efaf9aRGOK #TheHelp #KathrynStockett #bookreview #bookblogger #mummybloggers #daddybloggers #pbloggers #mbloggers @UKpbloggers @UKBloggers1 #books (Source)

The Selection (The Selection, #1)

Kiera Cass | 4.37

Georgette Heyer | 4.36

P.S. I Like You

Kasie West | 4.34

The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, Margaret Atwood | 4.31

Meghan Camarena While I was walking to the gym I finished the last chapter of The Graveyard Book by @neilhimself. I must’ve looked like a mad woman because I was balling my eyes out in public. Damn, what an incredible story. (Source)

Simon Smith @carveresque ...but The Graveyard Book is one of the best books ever. (Source)

The Kiss of a Stranger (The Jonquil Brothers, #0)

Sarah M. Eden | 4.31

The Blue Castle

L.M. Montgomery | 4.29

Georgette Heyer | 4.28

The Giver (The Giver, #1)

Lois Lowry | 4.28

Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)

L. M. Montgomery, Jennifer Lee Carroll | 4.28

Short-Straw Bride (Archer Brothers, #1)

Karen Witemeyer | 4.28

The Maid of Fairbourne Hall

Julie Klassen | 4.28

My Sister's Intended (Serendipity #1)

Rachael Anderso | 4.27

The Elite (The Selection, #2)

Kiera Cass | 4.26

Holes (Holes, #1)

Louis Sachar | 4.26

Princess of the Midnight Ball (The Princesses of Westfalin Trilogy, #1)

Jessica Day George | 4.23

The Grand Sophy

Georgette Heyer | 4.22

Howl's Moving Castle (Howl's Moving Castle, #1)

Diana Wynne Jones | 4.21

Jenny Davidson Young adult books often cut to the heart of human relationships. Literature for young people sometimes simplifies things by making them metaphorical, by moving them into a fairy-tale world. That often means YA stories give us some of the most profound stories of human relationships. Howl’s Moving Castle is a story of this caliber. (Source)

Matched (Matched, #1)

Ally Condie | 4.21

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)

Suzanne Collins | 4.21

The Goose Girl (The Books of Bayern, #1)

Shannon Hale | 4.21

The Tutor's Daughter

Julie Klassen | 4.21

The Silent Governess

Julie Klassen | 4.18

Winter (The Lunar Chronicles, #4)

Marissa Meyer | 4.18

Georgette Heyer | 4.17

Twilight (Twilight, #1)

Stephenie Meyer | 4.17

The Fall of Lord Drayson (Tanglewood, #1)

Rachael Anderso | 4.17

North and South

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell | 4.17

Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles, #2)

Marissa Meyer | 4.17

The Maze Runner (The Maze Runner, #1)

James Dashner | 4.17

Redeeming Love

Francine Rivers | 4.16

A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

Robert C. Martin | 4.15

Ana Bell This book is going to show you how to write code that is readable by yourself in the future, or by somebody else. You can sit on the couch and read it; you don’t need to code. You can actually enjoy it if you don’t know how to program at all. (Source)

On the Fence

Kasie West | 4.13

Georgette Heyer | 4.13

Heather Dixon | 4.13

A Noble Masquerade (Hawthorne House, #1)

Kristi Ann Hunter | 4.12

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows | 4.12

Living Clean

The Journey Continues

1, 201 | 4.12

Head in the Clouds

Karen Witemeyer | 4.12

Ella Enchanted (Ella Enchanted #1)

Gail Levine | 4.11

The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3)

Rick Riordan | 4.11

The One (The Selection, #3)

Kiera Cass | 4.10

Courting Miss Lancaster (The Lancaster Family, #2)

Sarah M Eden | 4.09

Running Barefoot

Amy Harmo | 4.07

A Proven Plan for Men Committed to Sexual Integrity

Douglas Weiss | 4.07

As You Are (The Jonquil Brothers #3)

Sarah M. Ede | 4.07

Rise of the Elgen (Michael Vey, #2)

Richard Paul Evans | 4.07

The Unknown Ajax

Georgette Heyer | 4.07

Princess Academy (Princess Academy, #1)

Shannon Hale | 4.07

The Shadow Throne (The Ascendance Series, #3)

Jennifer A. Nielsen | 4.06

The Apothecary's Daughter

Julie Klassen, Davina Porter, et al | 4.06

Healing Hearts (Savage Wells, #2)

Sarah M. Eden | 4.06

Becoming Lady Lockwood

Jennifer Moore | 4.05

The Inheritance

Tamera Alexander | 4.05

Longing for Home (Longing for Home #1)

Sarah M. Eden | 4.05

A Fine Gentleman (The Jonquil Brothers #4)

Sarah M. Eden | 4.04

The Runaway King (The Ascendance Series, #2)

Jennifer A. Nielsen | 4.04

Black Sheep

Georgette Heyer | 4.04

The Prisoner of Cell 25 (Michael Vey, #1)

Richard Paul Evans | 4.04

When You Reach Me

Rebecca Stead | 4.03

The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co., #1)

Jonathan Stroud | 4.02

Robin Stevens Lockwood & Co is set in a world where ghosts are real and they walk among us. Hauntings are becoming daily more dangerous—and deadly. Only children can see ghosts, so children become the most important people in this world. (Source)

Stargirl (Stargirl, #1)

Jerry Spinelli | 4.02

Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School, #1)

Gail Carriger | 4.02

Do Claim the Tempting Athlete (Jewel Family #7)

Cami Checketts | 4.02

Missing Lily (Books of Dalthia #2)

Annette K. Larsen | 4.01

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy (Gallagher Girls, #2)

Ally Carter | 4.01

Romancing Daphne (The Lancaster Family, #3)

Sarah M. Eden | 4.01

The Complete Book of Clean

Tips Techniques for Your Home

Toni Hammersley | 4.01

Beauty and the Clockwork Beast (Steampunk Proper Romance #1)

Nancy Campbell Allen | 4.00

Suddenly Psychic

A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Glimmer Lake, #1)

Elizabeth Hunter | 4.00

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

Jennifer E. Smith | 4.00

The Healer's Apprentice (Hagenheim, #1)

Melanie Dickerson | 4.00

Book Series Recaps

So what happened in book one.

Clean YA books for teens, tweens, or anyone

*Our site contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases....hey, we had to upgrade our hosting due to our amazing number of readers...we're just trying to pay for it! ;)*

Are you looking for clean YA books for teens? Us, too.

There is a particular conversation that keeps cropping up between Stacy and me (the editors of this website…who both happen to be moms of teens) and many of our readers: the face of YA is changing. There is no doubt about it. Young Adult books are becoming more and more mature , and the trend will probably continue. Parents and readers alike are looking for clean teen books.

According to our conversations with several librarians, we are losing readers as they hit the tween and early teen years . This is a time when they are not yet comfortable with YA books but feel too old for middle-grade books. Did you read that? We’re losing them as readers …many, perhaps, for the rest of their lives.

Our goal with this section of our website is to find clean teen books that are great for tweens, teens, or anyone looking for exciting books without sexual content and without excessive language. We have found that violence is usually not the main concern, but we will always make note if we think the violence is excessive (even if there is no sex or language).

If you like, you can go straight to our favorites list on our CLEAN READS BOOKSTORE !

(paid link – Yes, this is an affiliate link. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases . We don’t make much money on these, but we do make enough to pay for the hosting on this growing website. Thank you! )

Please join our mailing list for readers who are looking for clean teen books:

Join the thousands of other teens, parents, and educators who have signed up to receive book suggestions from us! We never share email addresses. You can expect three to four emails a year from our clean teen list. We’ll let you know when we find more great clean YA books for teens.

Don’t forget to check out these clean book lists:

Clean books for teen and tween boys

Reader-recommended clean books for teens

Clean romance books for adults

Clean Fantasy Romance Books for Teens

Clean Contemporary Romance Books for Teens

Clean Contemporary Romance for adults – Clean Romcom books

Clean YA books by Christian authors

Sweet Christmas Romance Books – Holiday Romcom

OUR CLEAN READS BOOKSTORE – our favs from this list!

Here are some of our favorite clean teen books we’ve come across in recent years. If you see only one book listed in a series, that probably just means we haven’t read the others in the series.

(**Yes, these are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases . We don’t make much money on these, but we do make enough to pay for the hosting on this growing website.  Thank you!**)

**Didn’t find these books at your library? Request them! It’s easy!**

Clean YA books for teens or anyone:

Click the image for a synopsis:

**Note: as some parents in the comments have pointed out, the Selection Series has a fair amount of kissing/making out. FYI

Clean YA books for teens with Elevated Violence only:

As we mentioned above, from what we have heard, most readers and parents are concerned with sexual content over mild language and violence. Let us know what your main concerns around in the comments. Here are a few clean ya books for teens that come with a strong violence warning:

* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases .

Clean YA Books for Tweens:

If you have a tween or a young teen, then this category is for you! Even if the books mentioned above are clean, your young reader might not be ready to read about older characters or the issues facing them. These are the clean books we’ve found which have a younger feel to them.

* As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases .

The Enchanted Sonata

Scripted Unscripted

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Series

Septimus Heap Series

TodHunter Moon Series

Magisterium Series

The Palace Chronicles

Wildwood Series

A Curse as Dark as Gold

Heir to the Sky

The Two Princesses of Bamarre

Ella Enchanted

A Tale of Two Castles Series

A Twisted Tale Series

Princess Academy Series

Kingdom Keepers Series

Kingdom Keepers: The Return Series

How can you help? Send us your clean young adult book suggestions!

We are constantly looking for more clean YA books for teens, so we need your help . Please add your own suggestions for clean YA books to the comments. Kids today want to read current literature, so while we will add some classics, we would love to have suggestions for books that have recently been published . This would be a great place to promote a new author you’ve discovered who writes clean YA fiction. Stacy and I are passionate about this subject, and we want to help these authors find their place in the publishing world. We need more authors that fit this category!

We only have so many hours in the day and cannot read all suggestions. If someone else makes a suggestion that you think should not be on our clean teen book list, please let us know and be sure to include why you feel this way. We want to partner with you and are excited to work with our readers on this project!

Check back on this page for updates to our lists of books and websites. We’ll recap our most recent additions in our Clean Teen Newsletter . Don’t forget to leave your suggestions in the comments and scroll up to join our clean teen mailing list. We’d love to hear from you and find more clean reads and authors in the bookish world! 🙂

*Looking for more ideas? Visit our Reader-Recommended Clean Teen Book List !

We created a new page for all of your wonderful suggestions! Take a look at our reader-recommended clean teen page and check back often. We’ll periodically update the page as new suggestions emerge in the comments of this page. Happy reading!

If you like, you can view our favorites list on our CLEAN READS BOOKSTORE !

289 thoughts on “Clean YA books for teens, tweens, or anyone”

I recently read The Girl of Fire and Thorns… the first two are clean, but the last book has on-page sex. Just a heads up. Everless is also a great, clean book without sex. So is Heartless, by Marissa Meyer.

Thank you Madeline! I will adjust the page. Sounds like The Girl of Fire and Thorns is not worthy of this list. I am going to remove it.

Fairy tale reform school!

ah yes I loved fairy tale reform school when I was younger!

Jennifer E Smith books (This Is What Happy Looks Like, Geography of you and Me eat al), Morgan Matson (Amy & Rogers Epic Detour, Since You’ve been Gone).

The Allegra Biscotti Collection.

Not all of Morgan Matson’s books are clean though

Bill Myers Eli, God Hater

The Society (Forbidden Doors #1) by Bill Myers – whole Forbidden Doors series.

Fame Fate and the fist kiss

Fame, Fate and The Fist Kiss is a good book.

Julie Kagawa … Iron Fey Series

I have not read it but according to this review there is considerable language in the Iron Fey Series.

http://www.theliteratemother.org/the-iron-king-by-julie-kagawa

I agree that there is a fair amount of language in this series, and two of the main characters do end up having sex in one of the later books, although it is not graphically described or anything, but it is very clear that it happens.

Those books are really good, but they do have lots cursing.

Neal Shusterman …. Scythe & Thunderhead, Unwind Dystology, The Dark Side of Nowhere.

I would also recommend Shusterman’s Bruiser. We use it for summer reading for freshman.

Yes, these books are really good, and Scythe definitely shows the sacredness of life as a main theme… I love this author

Ally Carter – Embassy Row Series Meg Cabot – Heather Wells Mysteries – Size 12 Is Not Fat, size 14 Is Not Fat Ether, Big Boned.

Heather Wells is very much an adult series.

River of Time Series by Lisa Tawn Bergren – Waterfall – Cascade – Torrent. Front Lines by. Micheal Grant. The Runnung Dream by Wendy Van Draanen. Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch. The Keeper Cronicles Deries by Becky Wallace (Storyspinner, Skylighter) The.Night Circus by Erin Morgensten Amy & Rogers Epic Detour Morgan Matson A Girl Called Featless by Catherine Linka The Goos Girl by Shannon Hale Michael Vey Series. BY Richard Paul Evans Shelter, seconds Away, Found by Harlan Coben Charlotte Holmes Series – A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavalarro Graceling by Kristin Cashore Red QueebySeries by Victoria Aveyard

Red Queen series has language in the last book.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore has a sex scene in it.

And Amy & Rogers Epic Detour by Morgan Matson apparently has a non-graphic sex scene.

http://www.kids-bookreview.com/2015/02/review-amy-rogers-epic-detour.html

Keeper of the lost cities series by Shannon messenger and the land of stores series by Chris Colfer although maybe you’d concider them middle grade?

Keeper of the lost cities is one of my favorite series and totally clean!!

I do love the Night Circus, but it should be mentioned that that book does have a sex scene in it.

Charlottle Holmes series has this review on Amazon. Definitely not a clean read “At my daughter’s urging, I did read it, and by page 15, where the “F” bombs began to fly, I was not happy. But I had to keep reading to see what other uglies I needed to explain. That turned into conversations of the characters experiencing sex, rape, drugs, and casual gambling at school. So, yeah, thanks. Awkward conversations, and these things are now in my kid’s head.”

Red Queen series is definitely not clean. Red Queen is the first book, and it can be considered innocent enough, but the rest of the series is a political statement by the author. I think you should not include it on your list.

I definitely agree, my daughter read the first book but it got too mature by the second and third. The plot wasn’t even that spectacular and the maturity wasn’t worth the read.

Hey..YES!! I’m a YA author and have 12 and 13 year old girls who want to read YA. It’s SO difficult without reading everything first.

My two YA Sci-fi series are completely clean. Some violence, but not graphic.

The Configured Trilogy- by Jenetta Penner The Starfire Wars- by Jenetta Penner

Thank you Jenetta!

no problem!

Hi!!! First of all I LOVE your website. I stumbled across it when I realized I really didn’t remember half of One Dark Throne when I started my fresh new just-in copy of Two Dark Reigns and you’ve saved me. Thank you! To this list, I’d like to add The Girl Who Drank The Moon by Kelly Barnhill which is, in my opinion, the most “clean book” I’ve had in years! I loved it 🙂 also, I read The Novice by Taran Matharu, and it does have fighting so there’s the warning for that, but in the first book, there’s not really any sign of romance,which I greatly appreciated 🙂 I hope this helps you!

An oldie but a goodie, Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls series is clean! It has one mention of ‘the B-word,’ but it calls it ‘the B-word,’ rather than uses it.

Yes they are great

She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah by Ann Hood… Normal teen angst-your best friend is hanging out with the popular girls-genuinely engaging without 2018 problems

I’m a school librarian (K-8), and I wouldn’t include Meyer’s Fairest on the clean list. There is sex in it, and I wouldn’t call it consensual.

Thanks for letting us know, Erika! 🙂 I had forgotten about that part of the book. I removed Fairest from the list.

This is an awesome idea! Good, clean stuff is so hard to find! Some of my suggestions are: The Wish Granter by C.J. Redwine; The Beautiful Pretender by Melanie Dickerson; A Noble Masquerade by Kristi Ann Hunter; The Princess in the Opal Mask by Jenny Lundquist; Miss Burton Unmasks a Prince by Jennifer Moore; Chances Are by Tracy Hunter Abramson; Love, Life and The List by Kasie West; The Traitor Prince by C.J. Redwine; Not if I Save You First by Ally Carter; Kiss of the Spindle by Nancy Campbell Allen; and Love at First Note by Jenny Proctor

Thank you so much for all of the great ideas, Maree!

Not if I Save You First is a great and clean read! My younger sister and I love it, nothing too mature. There is a small amount of violence, not enough to go under the “elevated violence” category (Not close to Hunger Games; the plot includes kidnapping, explosions, some blood from injury, and more, but not anything too mature for the clean-teen crowd).

Thanks for this list! I have a tween and soon-to-be one who are voracious readers, and well above their age level in reading. It’s a challenge to find clean series for them. Can’t wait to join your list to keep up to date! Do you only list/review SciFi or Fantasy? If not, please list more ‘adventure’ and ‘mystery’ genre books, when you can.

Here are a few recommendations from my kids: Spy School series by Stuart Gibbs Warriors (and others) series by Erin Hunter Dragonet Prophecy series by Tui Sutherland

Thank you for your recommendations, Catherine. Our list, as well as our reviews and recaps, lean more toward SciFi/Fantasy because that’s what we love to read the most! I will take your advice into account. 🙂

Thanks, Sara! Warriors series (1st is Into the Wild) and Dragonet Prophecy series both fall into Fantasy genre. 🙂

My 11 year old kiddo love, love, loves all the Stewart Gibbs novels. He is currently devouring “The Mysterious Benedict Society” by Trenton Lee Stewart. John Grisham also has a “Kid Lawyer” series that I was going to try next. Agreed that adventure/mystery novels would be a good category to add. So glad I stumbled onto this website!

So glad I came across this list, it’s really hard to find good YA books without mature content. I would like to suggest Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger to be added to this list

Thanks for the recommendation!

Oh my gosh i love that series! i was happy to come upon this because there are very few books that don’t have anything inapropriate while still having a good plot.

I would like to add Skyward by Brandon Sanderson and it’s sequel Starsight, i love them and they’re clean

Love both of those! Brandon Sanderson is a fab author and a lot of his works are clean

I really appreciate you compiling this list! Even as an older teen I like to read cleaner YA novels when at all possible, but it can be hard to know before actually getting into a book what content is in it!

Fawkes by Nadine Brandes is a really good and clean YA novel. Also I would argue that Shadow of the Fox is pretty clean except for some innuendos, BUT I will mention that there is a lot of violence in that book.

Hi Sara and Stacy, Another suggestion for the Clean Teen Books with Elevated Violence only section: the half bad trilogy by Sally Green.

I am still looking for adventure and historical fiction for my teen boys who don’t like fantasy or sci fi. They like books like Bear Grylls and thé Mapmaker series. Many of the reviewers seem to be women and the book choices are weighted accordingly !

What about Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom? It’s a series about all the prince charmings

I love that series! The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom is a series that we read together as a family (kids from age 8-16), and all enjoyed. I would say that it is geared a little more towards the 12-13 age range.

Wendy – Try this list: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/lists/adventure-books .

Also, if you pull up a book in Goodreads that they liked, the top right area of the page gives “Readers Also Enjoyed” short list of books like the one you’re looking at.

I would recommend Micheal Marpurgo’s books,, like War Horse and Private Peaceful. They do deal with WWI, but they aren’t overly explicit and violent as other books are.

Sorry, I guess that is fantasy. How about classics like Man In the Iron Mask, Three Musketeers, Treasure Island, or autobio like Unbroken? Depends on their age of course.

“The Lie Tree”, and “A Face Like Glass” (both by Francis Hardinge) are both really good clean YA books. Both could be classified as children’s books, but the themes are very thought-provoking, and younger readers might not fully understand some of the deeper thoughts.

“Thirteenth Child” by Patricia Wrede is also a very fun clean YA (maybe Tween?) read!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to everyone who has commented on this post!!! Sara & I are thrilled we have so many readers who are also passionate about clean books for teens. We have decided to start a second page of clean YA books based on all of your recommendations. So check back soon for details on this new page. We’ve also found some additional resources to check for clean YA books. We’re excited to share more books with everyone very soon. Please help spread the word about our project, and please keep your recommendations coming! 🙂

Dianna Wynne Jones wrote for children, to teens and YA. All her books I’ve read so far are clean.

Thanks so much for this list. I have a 9yo/4th grader who reads well above his grade level, but the content begins to be inappropriate and this is the exact kind of list I’ve been hoping for. My wife did suggest getting a couple to read myself first and leaving them laying around – he always shows interest – but I’m waist deep in a stack I’m already behind on.

Thank you so much for this initiative!

Here are some series I would suggest: Artemis Fowl – Eoin Colfer Children of the Red King – Jenny Nimmo Children of the Lamp – P. B. Kerr Redwall – Brian Jacques Inheritance – Christopher Paolini (violence) Chronicles of Narnia – C. S. Lewis

When I was 11 and 12 I devoured all of the Redwall books, definitely second that suggestion! Another suggestion: I never really got into them but all my friends loved the Warriors series by Erin Hunter!

Loved the Inheritance Series! Very clean, not a whole lot of violence, some though.

I LOVE the Inheritance series!

Lots of romance but no LGBT books that I can see? Are you taking the stance that LGBT characters automatically make a book “dirty”? Or can you include them as “clean” provided there are no sex scenes? How about Ash by Malinda Lo, in that case? Or the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire or Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (both of these need a violence warning, but no sex)?

Nope. No stance. We only put books Sara, Jacee, or I have read on this page, and the only one of those we have read is Six of Crows. We loved Six of Crows (and Crooked Kingdom, too—check out our reviews of each book here ) and have recommended this series too many times to count. But we didn’t put them on this list because this series feels more mature to us. The subject matter and writing style feel closer to adult books, and we’ve developed this page to try to identify books on the younger side of YA. These more mature YA books (even if we love them) won’t hit this list. So check our reviews for our overall recommendations, but check this list if you’re looking for books that, in our opinion, fall on the younger side of YA. 🙂

I can appreciate your “no stance” but for some it is. Could that be included in descriptions as you do with violence and “sex scenes” , so we can be aware that this is included?

That is my thing, too. I’d like to know if that’s in a book because I would not recommend it for my kids if it is.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares by Krystal Sutherland, Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman!

Where’d You Go and Eleanor Opliphant is Completely Fine are both adult books. Clean and good, but younger readers probably won’t get into them.

I heard that was a lot of swearing in a couple of those books. I don’t think they are clean adult books!

I just finished “The Murderbot Diaries” series of 4 novellas and cannot recommend it more for your Clean Teen Books with Elevated Violence Section. Fantastic protagonist.

I’ve outgrown some of the series and am looking for clean books for teens, so thank you! Your lists rock! I think someone already mentioned thies series, but the Mysterious Benidict Society is a great, clean series, as is The Viking Quest series…Boxcar Children and The Cooper Kids Adventure series for younger readers, Red Rock Mysteries for anyone, (well, probably not older teens…) E. D. Baker’s Frog Princess and Ed Dunlop’s Young Refugees series

The pfp is my bro, I didn’t find a random pic of the web haha

All of the Kasie West books are amazing and very clean!!!

You should also do something like this but for people who are transitioning from YA to more mature books, because I love YA books but now they feel a little too childish for me and I have a few friends who do not know what to read either (for the same reason). I think this list is a great idea for tweens and I think it would be great to do it for other stages also 🙂

Unwanteds – Lisa McMann and Wingfeather Saga – Andrew Peterson

I love this idea so much! It’s so important to get kids reading and even as a college student I still enjoy many of these books. Disclaimer: I haven’t read most of these in a while so I might be not remembering correctly, but I did look them up on commonsensemedia.org and they all seemed to pass. Some of my favorites: Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli — one of my absolute favorites growing up. There’s some romance but very innocent and no sex Wonder by R.J. Palacio — clean and I highly recommend The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman — has a fair amount of fantasy violence so probably for around 11 and 12 year olds (older tweens) The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale — it’s a series and I’ve only read the first one so I can’t vouch for all of them Don’t know if people are interested in graphic novels, but I personally loved (and continue to love) reading them. Here’s two: Nimona by Noelle Stevenson — violence but very cartoon-like and nothing disturbing or overly graphic Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, and Shannon Watters — again only read the first, but enjoyed it very much. A little language but pretty tame

I love the Goose Girl series!! It is clean, but there is a bit more violence in Enna Burning, the second book of the series.

The Akarnae series by Lynette Noni is also an excellent clean series, with the last book being released feb 2019. Rangers Apprentice by John Flanagan is also amazing and clean. The Whisper series by Lynette Noni is also terrific and clean, with more books being released later.

There are quite a few minor swear words in Ranger’s Apprentice, and Halt in particular often says d**n.

The book series circle of nine is a fantastic book series. Great characterization, and only mild language.

I have found the unfortunate fairy tales (starts with UnEnchanted) by Chanda Hahn very clean and enjoyable.

I love that series! Would also recommend, very clean

The Blackhope enigma books by Teresa flavin. The peculiar series by Ransom Riggs. The midnighters by Scott Westerfield. Lock and Mori by Heather Petty is a good one, and an interesting take on Sherlock Holmes. Abarat by Clive Barker is cool, as well as his book Thief of Always.

The 1st book of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is slightly creepy, but it is clean.

Why do they all seem to be futuristic or fantasy? Also, I disagree with at least one series, The Selection Series. As the books go on they get worse. I wouldn’t classify them as clean at all.

I’m sorry that our genre range is small! We only put books that Sara, Jacee, or I have read on this page, and sci-fi and fantasy are favorites for all three of us. We’re going to try to broaden our range by adding a user-suggested page soon. We’ve had so many recommendations in the comments above that we want to incorporate them into a separate section.

I haven’t read the Selection series, but one of our contributors has and deemed it clean. But we can certainly forget things and get it wrong! So I just did a follow-up check on Common Sense Media, one of the sources I like to use when researching a specific book or series. And according to the write-up on that website, the Selection series seems to meet the criteria we’re using on this page. I’ll check some of my other sources as well to make sure there isn’t something that Common Sense has left out.

Thanks for your comment! 🙂

I would agree that the Selection Series is a little too sensual in parts for my teenager. I’m returning the book and will need to really check out the other selections on this post before I purchase them for my daughter.

I can also answer this from speaking to many Contemporary Genre YA authors.

I think cleaner writing in sci-fi and fantasy YA is more plentiful because the author is creating a whole new world… including new rules and sometimes even new words. So it doesn’t seem “unrealistic” for there not to have swear words sometimes.

In dystopian fiction (what I write) the characters are often too busy saving the world to have time for… eh hem.. too much romance. 😉

For authors writing Contemporary Genre YA it’s hard for a lot of them to feel like the story isn’t genuine if there are not swearing characters and sex… because a lot of teens are swearing and having sex.

Personally? I think it can be done in a way that can feel genuine, but I can see the side of those authors that don’t.

I agree with so much of what you’ve said. I’ve published 2 picture books and am now revising a contemporary YA that I was told is a “sanitized” version of a teen. I’m struggling a bit now about what to do with that feedback.

I’d buy your “sanitized” teen book! Not everyone wants reading material that’s been dirtied up, for their kids or for themselves. I admire what you’re doing!

I would buy it too! Parents need to request from editors and publishers that this is what is wanted! That we don’t want our kids reading smutt and often times they don’t want to and it makes them uneasy.

I would love if there was more of a separation between tween, teen and YA.

Self publish!

I completely agree. There needs to be a rating system for books—more separation between the genres. Your best bet may be to find books on a list like this one and also to search out self-published authors. Big publishing companies want to push the envelope and won’t even look at books that don’t. (I know from experience.) I would be wary of new titles that you find at a book store if you want something squeaky clean. Several big-name authors once wrote YA but now write adult books. The kids who love their stories follow them. Instagram is a good place to look. Clean self-published authors want to get their books out there, but it isn’t easy. Search hashtags like #cleanya #cleanbooks #cleanfantasy, etc.

Tamora Pierce’s Circle of Magic Quartet Book #1 – Sandry’s Book is safe and it has been a WHILE since I read them, but I believe Tanith Lee’s Wolf Tower series is also safe. I read them in high school and I was definitely not ready to read anything explicit back then. Shug by Jenny Han (this is a contemporary)

The whole first Circle series (Circle of Magic not The Circle Opens) is clean as far as I remember. The characters are 10-13ish throughout the series, and the curses are made up (“catdirt”). The sequel series The Circle Opens has elevated violence but is clean of sex (and possibly clean of kissing).

It’s been a while since I’ve read Tamora Pierce’s Immortals series, but outside of a kissing scene in the last book, I’m not remembering any sexual content (though some parents may object to the romance as it is an older man, younger woman where he had previously been her instructor).

I do remember there being a little sex in that book, but it wasn’t really explicit. I might be remembering wrong, though, because I read that book some time ago before I really understood what was going on.

Hi! You can also include the Nancy Drew books by Carolyn Keene is amazing, plus there is zero violence and is absolutely clean and good!

The School for Good and Evil (there are 3 books) is a pretty clean series. They’re almost a retelling of our favorite fairy tales but with a twist.

In my opinion, I thought this had a fair amount of violence. There are good themes there, good vs evil, doing the right thing. But some of the vocabulary was a little to much. It stated for 8 and up on the back cover, but i would be surprised if many 8 year old know the word “bosom” I read the first two only. I know there are now like 6 or more books in the series.

I don’t know if this has been suggested already, but all of Kaiser West’s books are clean and cute. I highly recommend her books.

Thank you so much for this article! My daughter is 11 and has the exact issue that you described- she is interested in more “grown-up” themes, but she and I both don’t want her reading anything inappropriate.

In today’s society, reading is done more by imposition than by pleasure, which is leading young people to not understand the deep meaning behind a handful of letters, words and sentences. They have stopped enjoying to obey what they dictate and this prevents them from developing with pleasure their vocabulary and their ease of comprehension and writing through all that it offers to read.

I have not seen it posted, but I wasn’t able to read everything. If you haven’t read John Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice and the spin-off series, BrotherBand , they are excellent and clean for 6th graders and up. Fairly high reading level, so they appeal to Fantasy readers, but there is not as much fantasy as say, Harry Potter. There is some violence, but nothing excessive. Definitely appeal to boys, but I do have some of my girls that love it as well. I highly recommend it.

YES!!! Second John Flanagan’s books. They are also fabulous audiobooks. We home educate and do a ton of driving to practices and games and on trips – The Brother Band Chronicles have kept us company all fall!

I definitely second all of John Flanagan’s books. He is clean without language and while there is romance later in the Rangers Apprentice series it is all clean (no sex) and leads the characters toward matrimony. My 11 and 9 year-olds loved all of his series as did my husband and I.

Maybe the Caraval Series by Stephanie Garber? There is some mild language, but no “f words,” assuming Finale has no sex or language. There’s also some scenes that are on the more passionate side (i.e. kissing), but no sex.

First off, you so much for creating this list of clean reads! While I’m not yet a parent, I do love reading clean ya fiction myself and appreciated the work put into this.

Here’s a list a books I’ve discovered over time that I’ve really enjoyed:

-The Running Dream by Wendelin van Draanan – The Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter – The Embassy Row Series by Ally Carter – Not if I Save You First by Ally Carter – Long May She Reign by Rhiannon Thomas – The Redwall Series by Brian Jacques (I enjoyed these as a tween) – The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stieffater (I haven’ t read this one in a while. No language or sex as far as I remember, though I do believe there were a few crude references and would recommend for older teens.) Even the Darkest Stars by Heather Fawcett (though I haven’t yet read the second book in the series) Entwined by Heather Dixon Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine City of a Thousand Dolls by Miriam Forster Gullstruck Island/The Lost Conspiracy by Frances Hardinge

Great idea! My debut YA fantasy novel, Gems of Fire, was published November 2018 by Clean Reads. It’s aimed a little more for the younger end of YA and has mild battle-type violence. It’s the first in a series of three, but the next two are not published yet.

The “Caraval” Trilogy by Stephanie Garber. All 3 books are just out! Mild language (No f–words) No sex (Maybe a couple allusions) Some passionate scenes (passionate kissing) This series is the probably best one I’ve ever read!

Could I suggest my own series? It’s YA Fantasy which I began writing back when I was a teen myself. I would describe them as a mix of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and the His Dark Materials series. I focus more on the adventure and it has hints of romance but definitely no sex. The first book is The Order of the Rose, and the second in the series is due out later this year.

I would recommend the Leviathan series by Scott Westerfield. Set in an alternative history of WWI, the series is a weird but cool combination of historical fiction, adventure, and sci-fi. If I remember correctly, it’s pretty clean and would be interesting to middle schoolers.

The Ember in the Ashes series, I do not remember and explicit sex scenes, but there is violence.

The Queens if Fennbrin Series, same as above.

The Red Queen series, same as above.

Scythe series, same as above.

Unwind series, same as above.

Between Shades of Gray and it’s companion book Salt to the Sea.

The Librarian of Auschwitz

And of course the Harry Potter, Narnia, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Little House on the Prairie, series as well as great classics like The Secret Garden, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, Dracula, and Little Women.

On the younger end of YA there is:

The Giver series, don’t stop at the first book.

Out of My Mind, really a great read for all ages.

One for the Murphy’s, same as above.

The Mr. Terupt series.

Wonder, really a great read for all ages.

The War that Saved My Life, this is a two book series.

Island of the Blue Dolphins.

The Man Who Loved Clowns, better have a box of tissues handy!

Hope these are worthy additions. I liked/loved most of them and so did my daughters.

Wow! Thank you for all of your suggestions!

I loved The War That Saved My Life series and would recommend. More for younger tweens but still a great read.

I love so many of those books!

The Librarian of Auschwitz was awful if I remember right. Very graphic and awful language!

Yes!!! In the first pages it had awful language and the detail of violence was sickening!

I forgot to add an author I read when I was younger and loved, devoured every book I could get my hands on Christopher Pike.

Jeff Wheeler’s book series are all great and clean fantasy books

I, an adult, read the first Thirst book (it is an omnibus). Then I went on to the 2nd Thirst omnibus. The first omnibus has SO MUCH violence i.e rape attempts, murder etc, plus sex. A good amount of it too. The 2nd omnibus got to weird for me I actually stopped. I actually LOVED the first omnibus, but like i said the 2nd one just got weird. I would not suggest this for a young kiddos/teen.

The Galendor Trilogy is squeaky clean fantasy with Christian principles (much like Narnia). The voice is humorous and mixes modern verbiage with High Fantasy tropes.

Galendor: Ye Dude from Yonder Forest Galendor: The Five Mugical Items Galendor: The Middle of Next Week

A great clean book is Geekerella by Ashley Poston. It’s a sweet nerdy contemporary book.

I’ve just completed Abbie Emmon’s 100 Days of Sunlight and it is so pure and definitely clean. I’m being asked increasingly by friends to suggest clean YA reads so will be sharing this link!

I wish this list had existed when I was a teen! Some clean series I read then are: The Door Within trilogy and Isle of Swords/Isle of Fire by Wayne Thomas Batson Dragonkeeper Chronicles by Donita K Paul (first book is Dragonspell and companion series first book is Dragons of Chiril) Dragons in Our Midst series and Echoes from the Edge trilogy by Bryan Davis The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson The Heritage of Shannara by Terry Brooks

And then one of my favorite (clean) reads of 2019 is To Best the Boys by Mary Weber!

Yes! Wingfeather and all of the Dragons series by Bryan Davis are beloved at my house!

Hi, Thank you so much for undertaking this task. Two comments, my kids don’t like fantasy series, would you please try to find more books out of that genre? Also, I would highly recommend the Alex Rider series and the Theodore Boone series. Thank you

Any by Brandon Mull, especially Fablehaven but also all the others. Great Fantasy writer aimed for younger and “cleaner” audiences

Rick Riordan and Brandon Mull!!!!!! Would recommend to anyone and these writers fit the YA for both older teens and younger. Rick Riordan does have more thought provoking ideals later on, but series like Percy Jackson and The Olympians or the Kane Chronicles (both have mythology) are great, and Fablehaven and Five Kingdoms, etc. by Brandon Mull for anyone. I am an older teenager and would like to personally thank you for putting together lists like this so I can choose a random book off of it and not have to worry about what is inside, just enjoy it.

I totally agree! The only “thought provoking” would be one gay character in the Olympus Series (SPOILERS for book 4) but nothing happens other than admitting a crush and holding hands with someone. That’s it and I totally support.

I literal LOVE ALLL OF THOSE BOOKS

Return to Isle of the Shallows by Debra A White is a really good and clean book for teens with great morals and teaching moments woven into a fantasy adventure story.

https://www.amazon.com/Return-Isle-Shallows-Debra-White/dp/154397161X/ref=nodl_

Hi, there. Ty for making this list. Really it means a lot. And about a CLEAN YA book, I think you can try this The Last Boy and Girl in The World by Siobhan Vivian.

Hi, there. Ty for making this list. Really it means a lot. And about a CLEAN YA book, I think you can try this The Last Boy and Girl in The World by Siobhan Vivian. 🙂

The Colours of Madeleine series by Jaclyn Moriarty – the titles are A Corner of White, the Cracks in the Kingdom and A Tangle of Gold.

I love “The Queen’s Thief” series by Megan Whalen Turner. Great characters.

Return to Isle of the Shallows by Debra A White is great for tweens and teens. It tackles bullying issues very well in a fantasy adventure story. Other themes are familial bonds, friendship, love and respect among others.

I would recommend Slated trilogy by teri terry, altough it has a few bad language though the whole series there isnt that much.

A Thousand Night by EK Johnston. This book is SOO unique and beautifully written and perfectly clean

I highly recommend the Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger. It’s an absolutely amazing series, and it’s very clean.

👍 yes please add this

Yeah Please

My son discovered the Bodyguard series by Chris Bradford. No language (at least not in the first 3 that I read.

Love this site! So glad to see there is still demand for clean YA fiction as an author in that genre!

My debut novel, The Heir of Ariad, is a YA fantasy free of profanity or sexual content. There’s some medieval action, but no gratuitous violence.

Checkout The Gateway Chronicles series by K.B. Hoyle. There are 6 books in this series. The author was heavily influenced by C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and many others. There is a some violence and romance (kissing & feelings of love). I would recommend it for YA readers as the themes could be a little too intense for tweens. K.B. Hoyle also has another series out, The Breeder Cycle, but I have yet to read those.

Thank you for this website!

Thanks for the suggestions! Niki, I put The Heir of Ariad on my list in Goodreads. 🙂

An uncertain choice series by Jody Hedlund is clean but violence.

I have read the fable haven and dragon watch series and they are both great and clean. The dragon watch series is still coming out, though the third book of five just came out. I would recommend reading fable haven and then dragon watch because dragon watch is the sequel series of fable haven.

Dreamhouse Kings by Christian author Robert Liparulo is excellent and clean!

The Kalila Chronicles by Erin R. Howard is a clean YA urban fantasy series. The first two are out now, and the third will be released in February.

This list is amazing! I was looking for a list where lgbq is ruled out too or at least done tastefully, it’s hard to find new YA that I would let a kid read right now. Most of these books above, from what I remember and have read anyway, are pretty ‘straight’ too?

Our nonprofit publishes a list of new clean reads for grades 3-12 each year. Check out the lists for ideas here: http://www.tomesociety.org/books.html

I would like to recommend an action and adventure series for tween/teens for both boys and girls. It’s called, The Fuller Creek Series by David C. Reyes. Beginning with The Mystery of Fuller Creek Mine, this series takes you on a journey of the lives of Jess and Katie who become friends in the seventh grade. From there, it is one adventure after another which spans until their senior year in high school. It has action, adventure, drama, mystery, friendships, and coming of age romance. It is very clean, and it does have some Christian values weaved into the storylines. I have provided a link from Amazon, as well as the author’s website. Amazon Author’s website

Dear Editors; in regards to the comment by David R. (author) please note: that if you wish to receive a free copy of the first book in The Fuller Creek Series for your review, just leave your name and address through my website in my “contact” page, and I will be more than happy to send you a copy. Thank you.

Do you think that the first book of the ‘The Fuller Creek’ series would be easy and kiddish for a high schooler to read? could you also tell me if the other books in the series that if for the high school kids if they are as clean as the first book? Thanks.

We just read City of Ember. It is fabulous, and very clean. It is the first in a trilogy, but we’re only halfway through the second book, People of Sparks.

All three of us (my husband, my daughter, and myself) write clean books. Freddie Perez has: Children of the Stars series, Dragon’s World, Rangers of Prydous, and Phoenix Regeneration. Stephanie Perez has: Supernatural Police Academy series and Odd Hollowe. Roseann Perez has the Safe Haven series. All are clean. Mostly SF and fantasy. All available on Amazon.

Any clean books that are not sci fi/fantasy? Something lighthearted, not depressing and dark. Funny, even? Thank you.

For the Middle Grade section, “Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes” & “Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard” (a duet), along with any other book published by Jonathan Auxier. They’re clean, beautiful, and read like prose, but are exciting page-turners. Like a proper quirky modern classic, they can be enjoyed by any age.

A few more I should mention: The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson, Furthermore & Whichwood by Tahereh Mafi, “Snow and Rose” by Emily Winfield Martin, Keeper of The Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger (Teen), the Serafina series by Robert Beatty (Serafina and the Black Cloak), “The Girl Who Drank the Moon” & “The Witch’s Boy” by Kelly Barnhill, the Fairyland series (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making) by Catherynne M. Valente, The Peter and the Starcatchers series by Dave Berry, The Greenglass House series by Kate Milford, The Nevermoor Series by Jessica Townsend, and The Winterhouse Series by Ben Guterson. All of these are appropriate and well written, with minimal violence.

Celia’s Journey and The Keeper of the Lost City Series.

I’m thrilled to have stumbled upon your site! I’m always looking for good reads for my teen boys. It’s tough enough to find good books for boys, much less try to read ahead of them for content. You have several series on here that they have not yet read so we will check them out! Thanks so much. I would also like to return the favor and suggest some additions to your list (I have personally read and approved all books in these series and thoroughly enjoyed them as well!) – the Beyonders Trilogy by Brandon Mull (some violence), the Five Kingdoms Quintet by Brandon Mull (some violence but not as much as Beyonders), The Brotherband Chronicles by John Flanagan (Language & Violence, I would suggest age 13 for these), The Summoner Trilogy by Taran Matharu (some violence) – I’ve only read the first book and a half of this series so far.

I agree! Even all of the comments give even more ideas of books to check out. My son reads a lot, and it is impossible to stay ahead of him. It baffles my that there is not a better rating system for books like there are for movies and even video games.

Hi! I loved The Crescent Stone by Matt Mikalatos Clean and hilarious!!!

P.s. it is a series that is in the process so I haven’t read all the ones that have come out, but I imagine the rest will be clean as well.

I love all things by Brandon mull. Fablehaven, Dragonwatch, The Beyonders, and Five Kingdoms are all good and I recommend them to people a lot. I also am in love with The Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger. I got my whole family reading and loving it. I’m dying for the 9th and finally book, which won’t be out until November 2021.

Triligy: Howl’s Moving Castle, Castle in the Air, and House of Many Ways all by Diana Wynne Jones. These are some of my Go-To books with my kids.

I’m a huge proponent of clean literature leaning towards fantasy! Here’s what I have recently read and would allow my kids to read: The Broken Lands Series by Carrie Summers (3 books in the series) Book 2 has one profanity, light graphic imagery. Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George (3 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1. Red Rope of Fate by K.M. Shea (2 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1. The Lovely Deep by Michelle Pennington. A couple of profanities. Modern fantasy. The Dragon Princess by Lichelle Slater. (4+ books in the series) I can vouch for book 1. Escape the Woods by Gabriella Catherine. One profanity Elven Alliance Series by Tara Grayce (2 book series, book 3 coming soon) I can vouch for book 1-2 Silver and Orchids (5 book series) by Shari L. Tapscott The Four Kingdoms (9 book series) by Melanie Cellier Beyond the Four Kingdoms (6 book series) by Melanie Cellier Eledntimber by Shari L. Tapscott (7 book series) Andari Chronicles by Kenley Davidson (3 book series) Some light profanity throughout The Spy in the Silver Palace by Jordan Rivet (3 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1. 4 profanities (same word each time) Warning-face melting scene. The Prophet’s Apprentice by Cassandra Boyson Fairy Tale Adventures by Angela Marshall (3 book series, book 4 coming soon) The Spoken Mage by Melanie Cellier (4 book series, maybe more to come) Entwined Tales Various Authors (6 book series) Book 5 has light profanity Pathways by Camille Peters (4 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1. The Tethered World by Heather L.L. FitzGerald (3 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1. The Firethorn Crown by Lea Doue (6+ books in the series) I can vouch for book 1. Magic Forged by K.M. Shea. (3 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1. Handful of profanities. Vampires The Grimm Laws by Jennifer Youngblood (4 books in series) I can vouch for books 1-3. Fae of the North by E. Hall (4 books in series) I can vouch for book 1. Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Immortal Plunder by Kelly St. Clare (7 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1. The Godseeker Duet by David A Willson (2 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1. Very religious overtones. Resistance by Jaye L Knight (9 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1 Before Beauty by Brittany Fichter (7 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1 A Reluctant Assassin by J.C. Morrows (10 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1 The Ravenwood Saga by Morgan L. Busse (3 books in the series) Some religious overtones. Protectors of the Spear by MaryLu Tyndall (3 books in the series) Very religious overtones. Follower of the Word by Morgan L. Busse (3 books in the series) Very religious overtones. A Branch of Silver, A Branch of Gold by Anne Elisabeth Stengl This one is dark but YA doable Tales of Goldstone Wood by Anne Elisabeth Stengl (13 books in the series) Huntress by Julie Hall (4 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1 Beauty and the Beast by Jenni James (14 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1 The Door by Lorilyn Robeerts (6 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1

My favorite this year has to be, new author, Sylvia Mercedes. The Venatrix Chronicles (total of 7 books in series). Handful of profanities in each book. Some books are a bit more violent and graphic than the others in regards to the war going on. Homosexual relationship hinted at in book 2 (if this bothers you, NO details).

A couple more: The Subtle Beauty by Ann Hunter (7 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1. A Medieval Fairy Tale by Melanie Dickerson (3 books in the series) Hagenheim by Melanie Dickerson (11 books in the series) I can vouch for books 1-9

If you are looking for books other than fantasy, reply and I can try to help with historical fiction & pirate novels!

We would love to hear all of your ideas. Yes, we need more non-fantasy books on our list. Historical fiction would be amazing additions.

Of course! These are clean novels & most have some religious overtones. There are a few with very heavy overtones. Trouble in Store by Carol Cox The Everstone Chronicles by Dawn Crandall (5 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1-2 The Lady and the Lionheart by Joanne Bischof The Feud Series by Tamara Leigh (3 books in the series) Lady Series by Tamara Leigh (6 books in the series) Age of Faith Series by Tamara Leigh (8 books in the series) Beyond Time Series by Tamra Leigh (2 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1 Marisol by Elva Cobb Martin In a Pirate’s Debt by Elva Cobb Martin Surrender to Destiny by Marylu Tyndall (3 books in the series) Escape to Paradise Series by Marylu Tyndall (3 books in the series) Legacy of the King’s Pirates Series by Marylu Tyndall (6 books in the series) The Falcon and the Sparrow by Marylu Tyndall Charles Towne Belles series by Marylu Tyndall (4 books in the series) Tears of the Sea by Marylu Tyndall Daughters of the Mayflower by various (12 books in the series) Ladies of Distinction series by Jen Turano (5 books in the series) comedy A Class of Their Own series by Jen Turano (3 books in the series) comedy Apart from the Crowd series by Jen Turano (4 books in the series) comedy American Heiresses series by Jen Turano (3 books in the series) I can vouch for books 1-2 comedy A Tailor-Made Bride by Karen Witemeyer To Win Her Heart by Karen Witemeyer Archer Brother series by Karen Witemeyer (3 books in the series) A Worthy Pursuit series by Karen Witemeyer (2 books in the series) Head in the Clouds by Karen Witemeyer The Ashford Chronicles series by Laurie Alice Eakes (2 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1 A Match Made in Texas by various (4 books in the series) The Regency Spies of London by Melanie Dickerson (3 books in the series) Deeanne Gist books Regency Refuge series by Heather Gray (3 books in the series)

Michelle Griep books California Historical series by Cathy Marie Hake (2 books in the series) Only in Gooding series by Cathy Marie Hake (5 books in the series) Jennifer Moore books A Rumored Forturne by Joanna Davidson Politano Lady Jayne Disappears by Joanna Davidson Politano Second Chance Cinderella by Carla Capshaw Legacy of Love Series by Melanie Dobson (6 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1 The King Raven Trilogy by Stephen Lawhead The ChristKeepers by Grace Walton (3 books in the series) I can vouch for book 1

i am a teen and an avid reader, but i despise when books have really bad language and sex scenes, so i am forever grateful for this list!! i would like to suggest a couple reads that i adore. my taste is centralized around two specific genres, which are regency romance and military action/suspense. all of the books on this list have absolutely no sex and no language, but great plots. – any traci hunter abramson book(my favorites are the guardians and saint squad series). a lot of her books have quite a few religious references, which not everyone may be into, but the guardians series isn’t at all focused on religion if that is preferred. – edenbrooke and blackmoore by: julianne donaldson – girl from nowhere by: tiffany rosenhan – esther hatch books – undercover saint duo by: frank holdaway(very religion centered and awesome plot) – heidi kimball books hope this is helpful!!

Thank you so much! This is great!

Wow! Thank you!

Thank you very much for creating this website. I am a reader for 13 years and counting. I am now a big fan of the bookseriesrecaps! I am very particular in what I read and I really want to read good books that are wholesome and free from explicit contents. More power and God bless.

Thank you so much for this website. I have been desperate for something new to read that I know is clean and those has been a lifeline. I will is also like to suggest the Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson (with a sequel due sometime) and the Skyward series also by Brandon Sanderson. (probably another book coming too) They are both clean books with mild language that were really good.

For fans of Cinder, I recently read Renegades (same author) and loved it! Fair warning: There is some violence, especially towards the end of book 3; and one of the main characters’ (shifting POV) adoptive parents are gay. This probably isn’t a big deal for some of you or your kids, but personally goes against my standards so I thought I’d mention it. It wasn’t the focus of the book or anything, though. Shannon hale was probably my favorite author in elementary school, and I didn’t see the Ever After High series on here. One of my favorites. Also recommend Brandon Mull- I liked Beyonders and Fablehaven the best. Five kingdoms was good too, but I started to age out/ lose some of my interest waiting for the last two to come out. Divergent is great for dystopia fans (no sex, but there are some make-out scenes I didn’t notice until the second read through). Legend is another, although I can’t remember how clean it was, so you might want to double check on that one. But definitely read Slated. I read Blue Sword recently, which was good. I hadn’t heard of it until I read on a website or something that it was a childhood favorite of Shannon Hale’s. It is a hard/ advanced/ long read. Finally, Brandon Sanderson is my FAVORITE author right now and you absolutely have to read the Way of Kings series (Stormlight Archive). Best series I’ve read in a LONG time- maybe ever. Detailed world building and characters.

‘The Seed of America’ series by Laurie Halse Anderson is a great series with no sex or language, although it does have some violence.

Good book options. They look interesting to read!

Hi! The selection series does imply sex in it and talked about rape and how she wishes she could have sex so I would take that off the clean list because it is definitely not clean

Check out the Character Club Series for tweens. http://Www.characterclubonline.com

Some great clean books 1. The lost princesses trilogy by Jody hedlund 2. The unblemished trilogy by Sara Ella 3. Coral by Sara Ella ( this book does have a trigger warning though so be aware of that) 4. There you’ll find me by Jenny b Jones 5. I’ll be yours by Jenny b Jones 6. Jupiter winds by c.j. Darlington 7. The max and Liz/order of the seven series by Jenny cote 8. Gilt hollow by lorie Langdon (could have one or two minor words in it) 9. A medieval fairy tale trilogy by Melanie Dickerson 10. The scourge by Jennifer a Nielsen 11. Circle of stones by Catherine fisher (again could have a word or two) 12. Windfall by Jennifer e Smith 13. Also all of Kasie west’s books (there’s a lot )

I am thrilled to find your site. I have 3 girls always looking for clean reads. May I suggest my YA Romantic Fantasy (squeaky clean) called Starlight Legend. I can send you a free copy if you’re interested.

We are always interested! I’ll contact you privately. Thanks!

I enjoyed ‘Cinder’ by Marissa Meyer, however be warned, the next in the series ‘Scarlet’ contained what I would call extreme violence. It is a shame that the author chose to go in this direction as the series was enjoyable up to that point. I won’t be reading any more of the books in the series. Also should it really be in the ‘clean’ list as it most definitely isn’t squeaky clean – it’s the stuff of nightmares.

While I appreciate your intentions – as a mom with advanced readers, it was hard to navigate when they were 11 but read like seniors -I am concerned that your list is overwhelmingly white. Please consider books by authors of color.

Jason Reynold’s Track Series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, Lu) Ibi Zoboi – My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich Kelly Yang – Front Desk (the sequel drops soon, as well) The entire Rick Riordan Presents imprint from Disney Hyperion. Mr. Riordan used his influence as a crazily successful author to promote authors of color writing fantasy novels out of their cultures’ myths, much like he did with The Lightning Thief series and Greek mythology. Any and all of Alan Gratz’s books. He’s not an author of color, but he brings various cultures together in super exciting historical fiction novels centered on famous conflicts. Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed – probably the most beautiful book cover out there and a great story inside I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

I suggest “The Headspace” by Shaylin Klassen ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GLCGR6W ). It deals with some heavy topics like domestic violence and drug/alcohol abuse, but has zero language and is suitable for both tweens and teenagers.

Thank you for your post!! It’s hard to actually search for books with very minimal cursing and 1% to nothing sex scene and this really helps A LOT! I have a 10 year old kid and I wanted to make sure that when she grow up a little, she would start by reading clean YA books.

Suggestions: -The Hero and the Crown -Beauty -The Unicorn Chronicles -Redwall series -Artemis Fowl series

A good clean teen book is skyward by Brandon Sanderson

Dianna Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle series also is a fun clean read. There’s even a anime movie based off the first book. It’s one of my favorite series.

The Young Sherlock Holmes series by Andrew Lane appeals to both boy and girl reader alike and are clean reads.

I would suggest Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger. It is a good book for tweens and teens alike. No language, some minor violence, and no sex.

I absolutely love that series and I also recommend it!

Ally Carter’s YA books/series Gallagher Girls (6 books), Heist Society (3 books), Embassy Row (3 books), and Not If I Save You First (stand-alone).

I highly recommend the Keeper of the Lost Cities series! I have recently read all of the books that have been released (Up to book 8, Legacy) and they are all clean. I believe there will be two more books in the series that have not been released yet.

Definitely! These books are marketed as middle-grade novels. There is some violence, but nothing graphic, and the farthest romance goes is kissing. They’re full of action and great characters and are super thick, great for higher level readers who want something clean.

Love this idea! Didn’t have time to read all the comments but my 11 year old loves The Land of Stories series. We did the first one on audio as a family and it was clean. I recommend it to so many Friends with tweens!

Great list! I also suggest ‘The Headspace’, a powerful coming-of-age romance, and perfect for teens or even adults looking for a clean and enjoyable read! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NDT5JTQ

Morgan Madsen’s Amy and Rogers Epic Detour have on page sex (twice) at the beginning and the end. Just an FYI.

I’d love to get on this list with my YA Fantasy Series – The Arch Mage Series https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0848R1NY4 I’m also interested in clean YA Fantasy for my 6 children and started writing to help my daughter with her chronic illness, depression and anxiety. I plan to have 5 books in the series revolving around Agnes who was injured as a baby and has scars and chronic pain, self doubt, and still manages to summon the courage to save worlds.

I recommend the Blood Rose Rebellion trilogy by Rosalyn Collings Eves. Excellent YA historical fantasy, great reviews, riveting reads, clean and not too violent.

One of my favorite series is the Faylinn series by Mindy Hayes. It is a cute fantasy and romance series and is a very clean and good read for early teens (13+) (all include some kisses, but not like mature): 1. Kaleidoscope 2. Ember 3. Luminary (There is a big battle scene and killing/blood; not super descriptive but still a battle scene). 4. Glimmer (Two friends end up sleeping on same bed, no sex at all or reference to sex!!; a girl suggests why her guy friend has dated so many girls but doesn’t really suggest sex unless you really think about it, like “I see you dating all these girls, you are living a fraternity-college-guy’s dream”).

Just Ella (and all of Annette K Larsen’s books I’ve read so far) are clean and super fun to read too! I would also recommend the Children of Willesden Lane.

This were awesome to read. The last thing I remember by Andrew Klaven (4 in the series called Homelanders). – there were some references to God, should that bother you. But only like a quick prayer when something intense is going on.

Boy Nobody (the unknown assassin series) 3 in the series. I would put this on in the elevated violence category.

Some of my personal favorite clean books that have a younger feel are The Renegades by Marissa Meyer and Elementals by Amie Caufman. I also love the Janitors by Tyler Whitesides. Elementals and Janitors are great for young children with absolutely no language and mild violence. I highly recommend them for the whole family.

Margaret Peterson Haddix’s books are clean! Some of my personal favorites are “Full Ride” and “Double Identity”. I also really liked Jenna Evans Welch’s “Love & Gelato” and “Love & Luck”. They were both clean but interesting at a young adult level, which was good!

Megan Turner’s The Queen’s Thief series. I found it in the JFIC section of my library and it’s clean, sex wise, with some violence. It’s a good series for tweens and even for teens who don’t want to read romancy stuff.

Everless has a sequel, it’s called Evermore

Omg I love reading and I just want to say what a great website for us students to read!!!

I think these books are clean- House of Salt and Sorrows Invictus The Betrothed 10 Blind Dates The Fountains of Silence Uglies Dangerous Harry Potter You already have a bunch of good ones though! I’m glad you had Shannon Hale and Kasie West on there!! And The Lunar Chronicles is so good! Want to reread that someday!

I would like to recommend the Bring me their Hearts series by Sara Wolf. It is a triology followed by Find me their Bones and Send me their Souls.

It is a pretty clean series which is intense enough to keep the teens interested. Though, I do have to warn about a bit of violence towards the end of the first book.

It has a strong and very much likable female lead. Despite her minimum flaws, she has a lot of great qualities to look up to. Compassion being one of them.

It has the PERFECT blend of humor, sarcasm, friendship, action, adventure, romance. I recommend it for fantasy-loving teens out there.

Echo by Pam Muñzo Ryan

would be a great read for Tweens

I recommend The Hidden World: a Novel by Gabriella Sulzbach. It is clean, beautifully written, and by a 12-year-old author.

My almost 13-year old daughter is a voracious reader and always has been! Thanks for this site, it is hard to find clean, high-quality, well-written books with meaningful themes and now that she is moving beyond middle-grade books I’m a bit worried we won’t be able to find engaging series for her to enjoy. We have very high standards for content and try to find not only “clean” books but books with resonant ideas and/or themes.

Our absolute favorites include:

House Above the Trees and Wind Boy by Ethel Cook Eliot – both very sweet and enlightening fantasy stories with deeper themes and child-like innocence.

Classics like Heidi by Johanna Spyri; Anne of the Green Gables Series and Emily of New Moon Series by Lucy Maud Montgomery; Little Women Series by Louisa May Alcott; The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett; Trumpet of the Swan and Stuart Little by E.B. White; Emily’s Runaway Imagination by Beverly Cleary; Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne; Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong remain some of our favorites.

She also really enjoyed these series for younger/middle-grade readers The Emily Windsnap Series by Liz Kessler; Phantom Stallion and Phantom Stallion: Wild Horse Island Series by Terri Farley; Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Series and other books by Grace Lin; Animal Ark Series by Ben Baglio; Boxcar Children Series by Gertrude Chandler Warner; The 13-Story Treehouse Series by Andy Griffiths; Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Series by Chris Grabenstein; The Faun and the Woodcutter’s Daughter, The Lady of the Linden Tree, the Goldfinch Garden by Barbara Leonie Picard (compilation of short of fairytales); and the list goes on…

More recently her favorites have been the Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger; The Warriors Series by Erin Hunter; the Wings of Fire Series by Tui Sutherland; Charlie Bone Series by Jenny Nimmo; The Last Dragon Chronicles by Chris d’Lacey; the Rick Riordon series starring Percy Jackson; The Pendragon Series by D.J. Machale; The Septimus Heap Series by Angie Sage; The Map to Everywhere Series by Carrie Ryan; The Edge Chronicles Series by Paul Stewart; The Jack Blank and Order of the Majestic Series by Matt Myklusch; Wonder and related books by R.J. Palacio; The Green Glass House Series by Kate Milford; A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park; The Silver Wings Series by Kenneth Opal; and more!

Favorite Graphic Novels: The Smile series and other books by Raina Telgemeier; Magus of the Library Series by Mitsu Izumi; The Complete Chi’s Sweet Home by Konami Kanata; The New Kid and Class Act by Jerry Craft; and others.

Thank you! This is great!

One more favorite, the Dragonsdale series by Salamanda Drake.

My YA novel, Going for the Record (Eerdmans BFYR 2021) is a clean read. I hear from many readers who are as young as 9, 10, 11, and a 7th grade teacher in our area teaches the book in a unit in his classes.

Lockwood & Co

Super fabulous series. Minimal “violence”…mainly against ghosts. No sex. Don’t remember much cursing either. Great series!

Clean YA books? Oh GOD!!!!! The Gallagher Girl series, it’s AMAZING because they’re clean but you can feel the shift in the writing and the characters as they grow and mature. Another favourite series is The Harry Potter series of course. Any Rick Riordan, Sarah Dessen, or Katie West books. All VERY talented authors, all with very clean books. I’ve read just about every Kasue West, Sarah Dessen, and Rick Riordan books and have loved them all. Another really good clean book I absolutely love is A Secret Service by Joy Jenkins, she is FOR SURE one of the most talented authors I’ve recently read from. She has so many beautiful works on Wattpad and I was beyond elated to discover she FINALLY PUBLISHED! a Secret Service everyone, just check it out.

Thank you for adding to our list!

The Giver series by Lois Lowry. It’s my favorite book!!!

I’d love to whole-heartedly recommend The Thief series, for young adults, by Megan WhalenTurner. I read them all as an adult and was drawn in, deeply impressed by both their intelligence and story-building suspense. So good!

Do you mind if authors recommend themselves? I write a contemporary/historical clean series called Between Worlds. It’s about two teen girls a century apart–Juliana today and her great-grandmother Elisabeth a century ago in Eastern Europe. They’re connected via Elisabeth’s diary of drawings, which Juliana’s grandfather–Elisabeth’s son–has to interpret for Juliana despite his being in the early stages of dementia. For parents: it looks at family dynamics, dementia, mental health, and the after-effects of war (but nothing graphic). The arts play an important role, too.

Of course, you can! Thanks for recommending your book! Sounds awesome. -Sara http://www.sarawatterson.com

Paranormalcy series by Kiersten White is good and clean. Thank you for this list!

The Ascendance Series (only the first three because the last two books in the series are very recently published.) and the Mark of the Thief Series. I’ve only read the first book of Mark of the Thief, but I’ve never seen anything inappropriate from Jennifer A. Nelson.

I am so happy to have found this site. I’m the YA author of the Kindle Vella story: The Uncertainty of Fire. (The story image is listed and linked above under The Impossible Princess, which I believe is a different Kindle Vella story that I’ve not had a chance to read yet.) But my story is also a clean and Christian YA historical offering. Though written for teens, I hope moms and adults will also find it enjoyable should they pre-screen. The story is now complete and you don’t have to wait for episodes. And I’m finding new titles on this list that I want to add to my tbr. Thank you for compiling such a wonderful resource.

Thanks for reaching out, Stephanie! Let us know if you publish your story as one complete work, and we’ll update the link. (I think most of our readers prefer a paper book or e-book, but perhaps they just don’t know about Kindle Vella yet.) Don’t hesitate to list any other clean suggestions on this page. We’re committed to finding them! Also, I updated the text link above. 🙂

– Sara, Author of This Dreamer (Kindle Vella)

Thank you so much. You’re quick! My story has been updated to complete. I was so shocked and thrilled to find this page and see my story listed. I am in the process of publishing it as a book and ebook now with a goal of releasing this spring. This is a series but with different main characters featured as the protagonist. Working on Story/Book 2 now. I look forward to being able to make recommendations here. I love reading clean YA.

The four kingdoms series and beyond the four kingdoms series by Melanie Cellier are great! And clean <3

Thanks, Tina!

Signifigance series by Shelly Crane and Starstruck series by Brenda Hiatt. My two favorites.

Sins of Our Ancestors series by Bridget E. Baker is the one I’m currently reading and it’s amazing.

I actually write clean Fantasy Romance novels for teens and young adults. I have a free Kindle Promotion today if anyone is interested in checking out one of my novels. It’s called Unwritten, and it’s the first book in a series called The Written World. I will try to include a link, but if I am unable to, you can simply type in: Unwritten Summer McRae Copy and paste: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01L4QF7LK/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 Hope you enjoy!

Thanks for providing sharing your book!

Anything by K.M. Shea is clean and fun, and same with W.R. Gingell and Brittany Fichter.

I also write clean fantasy and currently have nine books out. (I’m currently working on an epic fantasy series that involves elemental magic, and a portal fantasy series with one book currently released) Here’s the link to my Amazon profile: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B086WRWGVN

Thank you so much for putting this list together! Finding clean, good books for teens is one of my passions as well!

Thanks for the info Meagan! I’ll check out your book!

I recommend “Out of My Mind” by Sharon M. Draper. It is a great book and it’s clean.

Jeff Wheeler has several fantasy adventure series that appeal to both YA and adults that are clean. I pre-read them and my girls have enjoyed them very much. There is violence, but zero language or sex. The favorite here is the first Muirwood trilogy.

Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger

It looks nice.

A mages influence series : Melanie Cellier Spoken mage series : Melanie Cellier The hidden mage series : Melani Cellier The four kingdoms series : Melanie Cellier Beyond the four kingdoms series : Melanie Cellier Return to the four kingdoms series : Melanie Cellier Inheritance cycle : Christpher Poalini Inkhert Trilogy : Cornelia Funke Keeper of the lost cities series : Shannon Messanger Rangers apprentice series : John Flannagan The underland chronicles : Suzanne Collins

Thank you for putting this out there. I agree with your opinion and I hope more people would come to agree with this as well.

I am surprised that Robin McKinley didn’t make this list. Beauty Spindle’s End Outlaws of Sherwood Blue Sword Hero and the Crown

Michael Vey Series (clean although violence but if I recall correctly the first one is fine and then it gets more violent as the series goes along)

I just finished reading a NEWly published book (it’s only been a week!) called Silver Sparks by J. S. Bowers. Once I finished reading, I thought it would be an excellent clean read for my teenage nieces, who are growing up in a Christian home and visit their grandparents in the countryside often! It has an environmental theme and a touch of fantasy. The main character, Kaneia, grows up in an unorthodox (hippy-dippy?) rural Christian home, and has wonderful interactions with other characters that share her faith, but also characters that have different or non-religious/secular viewpoints. She’s also homeschooled, unlike the other children/teens, but she is never ridiculed for it.

There are a few things to mention (which I will mention to my nieces’ parents): Even though the characters are about 16 years old/high school age, it reads very pre-teen for the first half of the book. There is some kissing later in the book, and one instance where one of them has an involuntary reaction, and the lead character does the best thing: walks away and pretends not to notice so as not to embarrass him. The author writes intelligently and doesn’t rely on any cursing to relay what a character is feeling, which I appreciate! There is a scene with a frightful accident that could be considered graphic (blood and contusions from a falling injury), but there are no violent, malicious acts towards people and everything ends up okay in the end. Kaneia was also orphaned as a child and is raised by her adopted mother and older sister. They do mention that the parents died in a fire when she was a baby, but the scene isn’t replayed in any way.

I haven’t finished reading J. S. Bowers’s other book, Wash Away, so I can’t recommend it yet is a clean read. Like Silver Sparks, the cover illustration is gorgeous! If you are looking for a brand new author on the scene and a clean gem of a book, I highly recommend Silver Sparks. There’s a current promotion to get the book for free on Kindle, but I splurged for the paperback version. Worth every penny.

(I am including a link for reference, not to solicit).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B7NTJ8VS/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_bibl_vppi_i1

Thank you so much for writing this article! I am 14 now and I am still reading mostly middle grade books because I dare not venture into the teen section. I’d like to recommend anything written by Jennifer A. Nielsen (I have yet to read a book by her that has anything inappropriate) or Brandon Mull. Most of the series written by Erin Hunter are good, but Bravelands is a little heavy for younger readers, and the Warriors series seems to get slightly darker with each series that is written (though I have yet to come across anything bad). Wings of Fire by Tui T. Sutherland is also fairly clean, but the standalone book Darkstalker is, as the name suggests, much heavier and darker than the others. It has more violence and a lot of the characters grapple with problems that younger readers may not sympathize with.

Thank you, Jocelyn! Great suggestions. Jennifer A. Nielsen is a favorite at our house as well!

Harley Merlin by Bella Forrest…. a great series for teens and adults alike

The Hunger Game isn’t clean. It has romance.

Enemy Brothers by Constance Savery This is an excellent book set (and written) during World War ll. A very special story about a boy faced with the difficult choice of choosing/discovering where he belongs. The Letter for the King and the sequel The Secrets of the Wild Wood by Tonke Dragt YA, but appropriate for younger readers as well Song of Seven by Tonke Dragt Creative, mysterious fantasy The Great and Terrible Quest by Margaret Lovett YA, a bit too wordy for most middle-grade readers to follow and a bit violent for sensitive children Jonathan by Margaret Lovett A moving story of sacrifice and found family. Historical fiction set during the industrial revolution in England. My Diary from the Edge of the World by Jodi Lynn Anderson Awesome alternate Earth fantasy story about a family on an extended road trip. The Goldsmith and the Master Thief by Tonke Dragt This is a compilation of short stories centering around twin brothers. Witty and unique. Throne of Athlumney by Charline Davis and C.E. Boyle Funny light-hearted medieval novella. Sherwood Ring by Mary Elizabeth Pope Humorous fantasy historical fiction novel set during revolutionary America. Friendly ghosts and family secrets abound. Circle Trilogy (Black, Red, and White) by Ted Dekker YA, Action-packed powerfully written fantasy/real-world allegory. (Some mature themes so recommended for teens and up.) Red Sails to Capri by Ann Weil Amusing historical fiction The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge Enchantingly written fantasy story with a likeable heroine. The Giant-Slayer by Iain Lawrence This is a sweet historical fiction mashed up with an adorable fantasy story. Ronja (or Ronia in some editions) by Astrid Lindgren A Swedish classic. Fantasy world with sweet childhood friendship and an important message about standing for what’s right. What Katy Did (series) by Susan Coolidge These stories written by a Civil War nurse are wonderful for girls. What Katy Did, What Katy Did at School, What Katy Did Next, Clover, and In the High Valley. Easy to find in the library, buy used, or read free online or in iBooks etc. Otherwood by Pete Hautman Intriguing middle-grade and above fantasy about slipping into alternate worlds. (Does have a sudden death that might be upsetting to younger readers.) Wikkeling by Steven Arntson Creative middle-school level novel, but funny enough to be enjoyed by all ages. Treekeepers by Susan McGee Britton Another must-read. This wonderful allegory isn’t heavy-handed like some, but fresh, unique and very special. We read this aloud as a family and it is one of my daughter’s favorites. Heartwood Hotel (series of 4 books) by Kallie George My daughter loved this novel series back when she only wanted to read graphic novels. There’s enough illustrations to keep struggling readers motivated. Sweet animal friendships. The Journey with the Golden Book and The Quest for the Silver Castle by Lela Gilbert Fantasy allegories for children you won’t want to miss. Prince Vance by Arlo Bates This is an old book about a selfish young prince being challenged to become more. Available for free on iBooks etc The Bridge, The Crown and Jewel, and The Two Collars (series) by Jeri Massi Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli Middle grades; Medieval historical fiction Behind the Bedroom Wall by Laura E. WIlliams Middle grades; historical fiction set during WWll. GRAPHIC NOVELS: Jim Henson’s Power of the Dark Crystal (3 volumes) by Simon Spurrier Amazing art, complex world, middle-grade to adults. Zita the Spacegirl trilogy and Mighty Jack trilogy by Ben Hatke The BEST middle-grade graphic novel series ever! The Flying Beaver Brothers series (6 books) by Maxwell Eaton lll Elementary age. Silly action and humor. Bird & Squirrel series (6 books) by James Burks Little Robot by Ben Hatke (author of the Zita and Mighty Jack books) Wordless and cute Korgi series by Christian Slade Another wordless one, creative and with beautiful drawings. Books 1 & 2 are great for young children, but the later ones get quite a bit darker. Robot Dreams by Sara Varon Interest for ages 8-12. Almost wordless. There’s words in the pictures but not dialogue. Kerry and Knight of the Forest by Andi Watson Interest for ages 8-14 Missile Mouse (2 books) by Jake Parker Interest for ages 8-14 Alice in Wonderland Graphic Novel by Russell Punter Lightfall: The Girl & the Galdurian by Tim Probert Interest for ages 8-14.

Wow! Thank you for all the great suggestions!

Glad to! I hope some of them can be helpful!

Keeper of the lost cities is a great series

it’s by Shanon Messenger

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart is another great series. It is also a TV show on Disney +

Fish in a tree by Lynda Hunt The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis and my personal favorite, The Wingfeather saga by Andrew Peterson

The Spoken Mage series by Melanie Cellier The Four Kingdoms series by Melanie Cellier Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull Dragon watch series by Brandon Mull The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander Pathways series by Camille Peters Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling

Here’s a few more suggestions that I didn’t remember to include in the list last week, but they are too deserving to be missed.

Rapunzel and the Lost Lagoon and Rapunzel and the Vanishing Village by Leila Howland Great for fans of the amazing Tangled the series TV show The Mistmantle Chronicles (5 book series) by M. I. McAllister Anthropomorphic squirrels, hedgehogs and moles inhabit this (slightly allegorical) fantasy world. It’s full of struggles for honor, truth, and bravery, with endearing, relatable characters and meaningful relationships. Highly recommend. The Tripod series (4 book series) by John Christopher Well-written and action-packed, this series is perfect for any sci-fi fan.

I’m a YA author and chose to publish my own books so I could keep them clean. I wrote a Duology that is YA fantasy with some romance, but for ages 15 and up it’s very clean.

Alliance by E.B. Bridenstine Devotion by E.B. Bridenstine

I would also like to put the Hollow Kingdom trilogy by Clare B Dunkle forward. Great books for this age group!

The Winternight trilogy is amazing but might not be for tweens. The Girl in the Tower has a scene where the main character, a teenage girl disguising herself as a young man, has her breasts forcibly bared to a crowd to ruin her disguise.

Toward a Secret Sky by Heather Maclean is a really good book. It’s been a while since I read it, but I don’t remember any cussing or inappropriate scenes.

The Arch Mage series by Cami Murdock Jensen.

Ranger’s Apprentice series is appropriate with no weird scenes.

The Stoker and Holmes Series by Colleen Gleason is a really good series. It is clean with no sex scenes, good characters, lots of funny things, romance. It has a few swears, but other than that it is good. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to read a clean YA book.

The Book Thief (some language and violence) – Markus Zusak The maze runner series (violence) – James Dashner Before we were yours – Lisa wingate Fahrenheit 451 (violence) – Ray Bradbury

I see the Wings of Fire series was recommended a couple of times in the comments. This is not a clean series. It has strong LGBTQ themes introduced in the later books (10 and on). Book 13, The Poison Jungle, features a lesbian dragon relationship as a major plot point. The Wings of Fire series also contains some gruesome violence.

Agree. The first set of books were decent but LGBTQ was added into the later books

I loved Lockwood & Co and it’s totally clean.

Young Samurai series by Chris Bradford is great. Read them to my daughter then to my sons a few years later. Does have some violence.

Also John Flanagan’s Brotherband series and the Ranger’s Apprentice series are also great books. They do have some violence. Language is mild. No Sex.

The Forgotten Five series- Lisa McMann (probably middle grade) Gordon Korman ( all of his books are great) The Five Ancestors series-Jeff Stone Explorer Academy series – Trudi Truit Jennifer Nielsen ( all of her books are great)

The City of Ember series by Jeanne DuPrau is a good clean series. Stuart Gibbs is also a good author. Haven’t read all of his books, but the ones we have read are clean. Also James Ponti’s – City Spies series, and Framed series are good middle grade books

My trilogy, The Lost Stones of Argonia, is a high fantasy clean read, and I would love to have it listed here. (I mentioned it a year or two ago, not sure what happened. :)) Books 1 and 2–Kingdom Lost, and Quest of the Queen are out. 3rd book in the trilogy–Battle for the Crown–is due out in September.

Melline cellers books are good

Rick riordans books are all clean

I have just one thing to say: Thank you for existing! Teaching at a Christian middle school is so tough when I am updating my library myself and can’t read all the books or trust commonsense.org to give me the right details.

Can anyone comment on the Ben Archer book series by Rae Knightly? I researched and they seemed clean so sent them to my nephew.

All of Kate Stradling’s books are clean and very entertaining. My favorites are: Soot and Slipper Bone and Brine The Heir and the Spare Goldmayne (the kids and my favorite!) Thrushbeard There are a few others as well that I can’t think of at the moment. Check out her books. Totally clean and very captivating!

As a teen I personally love Melanie Cellier’s books. The books are clean by pretty much anyone’s standards, but still deliver action and romance.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Teens in rehab deal with addiction, other mature problems.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Teens can talk about the factors that drive addict

There is a hopeful conclusion here. In a final let

The characters here have "screwed up" -- even beyo

A drunk teen was babysitting his sister when she f

A boy trades drugs for sex with another boy; a gir

Some mature words, such as "s--t" and "f--k"; also

This is a book about addiction, and the teen chara

Parents need to know that this book is about teen drug addicts in a rehabilitation facility. The teen characters have different dependencies, including alcohol, painkillers, cocaine, and meth. The characters have done terrible things -- or had terrible things done to them -- but in the end, they form bonds and become…

Educational Value

Teens can talk about the factors that drive addiction, and even what it takes to forgive yourself after you've made mistakes. See our "What To Talk About" section for some other discussion ideas.

Positive Messages

There is a hopeful conclusion here. In a final letter, one of the protagonists reminds the friends that she met in rehab that they "deserve to be happy" even though they have made serious mistakes in their lives.

Positive Role Models

The characters here have "screwed up" -- even beyond their drug addictions. But they learn to trust and depend on each other -- and become stronger through their time in rehab and with each other.

Violence & Scariness

A drunk teen was babysitting his sister when she fell down the stairs, an accident that left her brain damaged. Another character threatens a bully with a chair. When a girl says no to sex, a boy shakes her. The same girl later reveals that she had been raped four years ago. Mention of parental abuse. A high character crashes her car. Another girl cuts herself.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A boy trades drugs for sex with another boy; a girl and a boy sneak into a bathroom to have sex, but don't; a girl admits that she had lots of partners; a pregnant character and another who was a prostitute to pay for drugs. Another boy recalls sleeping with a virgin, who may be as young as 12, and then shooting her up with his semen.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Some mature words, such as "s--t" and "f--k"; also, a slur for gay people, "bitch," etc.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

This is a book about addiction, and the teen characters in the rehab center have different dependencies, including alcohol, painkillers, cocaine, and meth. They describe their drug use, but don't glamorize it and know that their addictions are destructive to them.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this book is about teen drug addicts in a rehabilitation facility. The teen characters have different dependencies, including alcohol, painkillers, cocaine, and meth. The characters have done terrible things -- or had terrible things done to them -- but in the end, they form bonds and become stronger as a result of their therapy and friendships. There is a hopeful conclusion here. In a final letter, one of the protagonists reminds the friends that she met in rehab that they "deserve to be happy" even though they have made serious mistakes in their lives. Also, most of the more disturbing details are told as memories so they don't seem quite as visceral.

Where to Read

Community reviews.

• Parents say (1)
• Kids say (3)

Based on 1 parent review

What's the Story?

Teen drug addicts come together at a rehab center to discuss their addictions, work through their painful pasts -- and to form unlikely friendships. They are from different walks of life and have different dependencies (Jason drinks, Olivia takes pills, Christopher uses meth, etc.), but they all take turns as narrator, giving voice to their own stories and pain. Readers also see them interact at group therapy sessions, where a helpful counselor helps them understand their addiction, and how to live with it.

Is It Any Good?

The author creates a rather scripted ensemble of protagonists -- the rich girl, the Christian boy, etc. -- but there is still plenty for teen readers to ponder here. They can think about the factors that drive addiction, and even what it takes to forgive yourself after you've made mistakes. The book's format, which alternates among the five main protagonists, their group therapy sessions, personal essays, and questionnaires makes for a fast, if somewhat shallow, read. But even readers who find the narrative taking predictable turns will be touched by the book's hopeful messages about supporting friends in need -- and why everyone deserves good things in their life.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about books dealing with teen drug addiction. Do stories like this one do anything to either prevent -- or normalize -- teen drug use? How does this book compare to other media -- books, movies, etc. -- that deal with drug addiction?

How does this book compare to Reed's other novel Beautiful , which also deals with mature subjects, such as rape, teen sex, and drug use? Are there any topics that are too mature for teens? Or is it important for books to tackle tough topics?

Book Details

• Author : Amy Reed
• Genre : Coming of Age
• Book type : Fiction
• Publisher : Simon Pulse
• Publication date : July 19, 2011
• Number of pages : 288
• Last updated : July 14, 2015

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

Recovery Road

The Spectacular Now

Coming-of-Age Books

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Independent Book Review

A Celebration of Indie Press and Self-Published Books

30+ Top-Notch Book Review Sites for Readers & Writers

Here are 30+ top-notch book review sites for booksellers, librarians, readers, & writers. Learn more about 30 bookish companies helping spread the word about the best & latest books.

Top-Notch Book Review Sites for Readers & Writers

Book reviews are for all of us.

Readers need to know whether books with the best covers are worth the time they’re about to put into it. They find it helpful (and fun!) to check out reviews after reading the books, too, so they can see what other real-life humans had to say about it.

Authors & publishers need to get book reviews to build buzz and credibility for their product. Librarians & booksellers need to hear from trusted sources that the book they are about to buy for their collection has the capability to get picked up & to satisfy. 

Book review sites have transformed the book-recommending landscape.

We can write reviews on product pages, on social media apps, and some of us, for publications that have been around since before the internet. Book reviewing has changed. But maybe it also hasn’t.

What kind of book review sites are you looking for? Chances are, this list has you covered.

Here are 30+ book review sites to read, write, and bookmark. 

1. Independent Book Review

Does this logo look familiar? (Hint: You’re sitting on it).

IBR, the website you’re on RIGHT NOW, is all about indie books . There are so many books in the world right now, but if you feel like you keep seeing the same ones recommended over and over, start reading indie!

Independent presses & self-published authors are doing some incredible work right now. IBR reviews books, curates lists, does indie bookstore round-ups, and uses starred reviews & best-of-the-year lists to show which books are going to blow your mind.

2. Book Marks

Lit Hub rules. You already knew this.

But do you know about Book Marks? They’re a branch of the Lit Hub network, and they are an excellent way for booksellers and librarians to get shorter recaps from multiple sources and voices.

Their staff peruses book review sites and shares pull-quotes from them in book lists & more. By reading all of these sites, they can give the book a rating based on the average: “Rave, Positive, Mixed, or Pan.”

My favorite book-buying platform, Bookshop , uses Book Marks’ scale for their books’ ratings, and I love getting access to that.

3. Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly has been around since 1872. By now, they’re a review churning machine. They cover so much of the book industry in so many different ways, reviewing nearly 9,000 books per year and providing publication announcements, agency announcements, industry job listings , bestseller lists, industry stats, a self-publishing partner, and more. 

4. Kirkus Reviews

Another one that’s been around since before the internet! 1933 to be exact. Kirkus is a widely recognized publication that book buyers & librarians follow carefully. I dare you to find a bookstore or library that doesn’t have multiple books with Kirkus Reviews plastered on their front and back covers.

5. Booklist

The American Library Association runs Booklist , a platform dedicated to helping libraries, educators, and booksellers choose books. They’ve got a magazine (since 1905!), book reviews, lists, awards, and one of my favorite bookish podcasts out there: Shelf Care .

6. Library Journal & School Library Journal

As you might be able to guess, Library Journal & School Library Journal focus on librarians too! They review a ton of books, and they write often about library-related news, collection management, technology, programs, and more. If you’re an author hoping to land your book in libraries, these are essential targets.

7. BookPage

You may have seen BookPage in your local library or bookstore. Some shops provide it for free so that patrons can look through it to find which books to buy in-store. Their website is clean and intriguing and always full of the most up-to-date releases and bestsellers.

Speaking of libraries! Have you seen our gifts for librarians ?

8. Foreword

Foreword is such an enthusiastic and dedicated champion of indie books, and they’ve been doing it since the 90s! I love how much attention university presses get here too. Their reviews are well-written & thorough, in both print & digital, and I always find something to speed-purchase once the Foreword Indie winners come out.

9. LoveReading

LoveReading is a top book-recommendation website in the UK. They’ve got starred reviews, lists, staff picks, a LitFest , eBooks, and they even donate 25% of the cover price of their books to schools of your choice. It’s reader-friendly and apparent how much they appreciate the wonder of books. 

10. Washington Independent Review of Books

What’s not to love about The Independent?

Back in 2011, a group of writers & editors were frustrated by newspapers dropping book review sections and decided to do something about it. The Washington Independent Review of Books is quite a lovely something! This nonprofit posts every day: from reviews to interviews to essays and podcasts. They host events too!

11. Book Riot

Try being a reader and not finding something you love on Book Riot. Book lists, podcasts, personalized recommendations, newsletters, book deals—this site is a haven.

It doesn’t post solo book reviews like other sites, but they do share mini-reviews in book lists and talk about reading in unique & passionate ways. The Book Riot Podcast is such a winner too! I love listening to Jeff & Rebecca laugh about the latest in books & reading.

12. Electric Lit

From novel excerpts to original short fiction & poetry, they might not only be a book review site,  but they do offer a lot in the world of book recommendations. Their Recommended Reading lit mag features unique staff picks and short, insightful book reviews.

13. The Millions

The writing in The Millions is something to behold. They are an artful source for all things book reviews & recommendations. They write stunning essays about books & reading and long reviews of new and old books. They’ve got some of my favorite Most Anticip ated lists too.

What are the biggest benefits of reading ? 🧐

14. Bookforum

Did you hear? Bookforum is back ! This book review magazine announced in December 2022 that they were closing, and my heart sank a little bit. This company means so much to the publishing industry and has for 20+ years, so when I saw (last week!) that they are returning, I did more than a few jumps for joy.

Welcome back, Bookforum! Can’t wait to see what you’ve got coming for us in book world coverage.

BOMB is in it for the art. Art, literature, film, music, theater, architecture, and dance. There are reviews and interviews, and the literature section is a real delight. The reviews are like poignant essays, and the author interviews are in-depth and feature some fascinating minds.

16. The Asian Review of Books

The only dedicated pan-Asian book review publication! It’s widely cited and features some of the best in Asian books and art, so booksellers and librarians have a source to trust to stock their collections with high-quality pan-Asian lit.

Have you seen our gifts for book lovers yet?

17. Chicago Review of Books

I love so much of what Chicago Review of Books does. They have a clean & sleek design that features some of the buzziest books as well as plenty of hidden gems from our favorite indie presses. I’m a particularly big fan of the spotlight they put on books in translation .

18. Rain Taxi

I love Rain Taxi ’s style! They champion unique books, publish their own fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, and put a real emphasis on art for their magazine covers . It’s a beautiful print magazine to subscribe to, but they also share free online editions & digital archives. They even run the Rain Taxi Reading Series & Twin Cities Book Festival if you’re a real-lifer in Minnesota!

19. The Rumpus

Oh, The Rumpus ! This mostly volunteer-run online magazine publishes reviews, interviews, essays, fiction, and poetry. The reviews are in-depth and personal and heart-melting, and in addition to the site, they’ve got cool perks like the Poetry Book Club  and Letters in the Mail . The book club is where you get a pre-release book and meet the poet via Slack with other club members at the end of the month, and Letters in the Mail are actual postcards sent in the mail to you twice a month from your favorite authors.

20. Book Reporter

The selection in Book Reporter is carefully curated & enticing: hot new releases, forthcoming books, major presses, & indies. And there are plenty of unique ways to learn about them, like video interviews and monthly lists & picks. It launched in 1996 and is in The Book Report Network, which includes Reading Group Guides , a super useful resource for book clubs.

21. BookTrib .

BookTrib does such a great job of making their site browsable. The different ways you can enjoy what they offer—from book lists to giveaways to ebook deals —are difficult to keep your purchase finger off of.

23. Lit Reactor

Writers & readers—where bookish people meet! LitReactor’s book reviews are in the magazine portion of their website, and they’ve got plenty of them! Reviews, interviews, lists, introspectives, writing tips, and reading discussions. I’ve found some really unique content on Lit Reactor, like this ranking of literary parents . The website is a haven for writers especially, as there are workshops, writing blog posts, and even a forum to participate in.

24. Crime Fiction Lover

Dark alleys. Stray bullets. Hard-boiled detectives. Runaway thrills. If you’re a mystery-thriller reader, you’ve got to know about Crime Fiction Lover. They’ve got a passionate group of readers and writers talking about the best books in the genre and the ones that are soon to come out too.

25. SF Book Reviews

Speculative fiction fans unite! SF Book Reviews has been reviewing sci-fi and fantasy books since 1999, and while they’re a relatively small staff, they publish regularly, feature books of the month, and work wonders for their fantastical community.

26. Historical Novel Society

For all you historical fiction fans out there, the Historical Novel Society has reviewed more than 20,000 books in its twenty years. This one works like a membership for “writers and readers who love exploring the past.” You get a quarterly print magazine as a member, and if you’re a writer, you can join critique groups and ask for book reviews.

27. The Poetry Question

The Poetry Question writes about poetry published by indie presses and indie authors. They are a small passionate team dedicated to showing the world why indie presses continue to be a leading source for award-winning poetry.

28. Goodreads

Did you know that there are over 125 million members on Goodreads? When users review books, they can have conversations with fellow readers and follow reviewers too. If you’re looking for the biggest community, there’s no doubt Goodreads is the one. I like using sites like this because it helps you catalog books, one of my favorite ways to build a strong reading habit . 

29. The Storygraph

A big community of active users that’s Amazon free! Come review books, use half & quarter stars (!), and complete reading challenges. You got this.

29. Bookwyrm

Bookwyrm is small (around 5,000 members at the time of this writing), but doesn’t that sound kind of nice? There are active members and a genuine collective goal in talking books. Grow with it. I think you’ll be comfy here. There are other communities within the Bookwyrm umbrella too, like Bookrastinating .

30. Reedsy Discovery

I hold a special place in my heart for book review sites dedicated to helping writers! I got into this business as a book marketer, and I experienced first-hand, through hundreds of books, how hard it was to get exposure & validation for small press and self-published authors. 

Reedsy Discovery is a branch of Reedsy (the author resource company) that connects authors & reviewers so that people can read free books, sometimes receive tips for it, and authors can get more reviews in the process. Readers can choose from the latest books as well as the ones that are getting the best reviews.

31. Netgalley

Netgalley is a book review site for pre-released books. Reviewers sign up for a free account, request galleys from publishers and indie authors, and get to read them before they’re published so that they can leave reviews for the book, preferably on Amazon, Goodreads, or their blog. They also run Bookish , the editorial arm of Netgalley, which has book recommendations, interviews, and more.

32. Online Book Club

This review site combines a bunch of cool things! The 4-million member community gives me a lot of Goodreads vibes, especially with the Bookshelves app . But Online Book Club is a place for you to get eBook deals and talk about books in reviews and forums.

What are your favorite book review sites to follow? Let us know in the comments!

Thank you for reading “ Top-Notch Book Review Sites for Readers & Writers !” If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Check out http://www.literaryvault.com for best book reviews and author interviews. The literary Vault is a blog run and owned by a 13-year-old passionate reader who loves to share her passion and recommendations with others.

Thank you for the information!

Book review sites serve as invaluable resources for both readers and writers, offering insightful critiques, recommendations, and discussions on a wide range of literary works. Whether you’re seeking your next captivating read or looking to promote your own book, these platforms provide a wealth of information and opportunities for engagement. https://ghostwritersplanet.com/

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Confidently choose books for children and teens.

Book reviews and resources for Christian parents and educators.

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We know christian parents and educators struggle to find quality new books. at redeemed reader, we’re reading ahead for you so that you can confidently choose books for your children and teens., weekly in your inbox: book reviews, book lists, news, book trivia, and more, 2024 summer reading: get your ticket today, quick links.

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A Family Saga That Stays Calm Through Tumultuous Times

Jessica Shattuck’s “Last House” dips into the cultural intrigues of 20th-century America, but keeps its nose surprisingly clean.

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By Kate Christensen

Kate Christensen is the author, most recently, of the novel “Welcome Home, Stranger.”

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LAST HOUSE: or, The Age of Oil, by Jessica Shattuck

Jessica Shattuck’s new novel, “Last House,” opens with a two-page list echoing the book’s subtitle, “The Age of Oil” — a cheeky ode to the ubiquity of petroleum-based products that suggests a sort of 21st-century answer to Upton Sinclair’s fast-paced satirical novel “Oil!” Instead, we get a richly detailed, slow-burning family saga distinguished by incisive psychological insight and masterful research. “Last House” brings to life several generations of the Taylor family, who, in different ways, are all involved in the social and political tumult of the second half of the 20th century.

In the prologue, we meet Nick Taylor, an earnest, fresh-faced 30-year-old junior lawyer for American Oil, on a plane over Iran’s Abadan oil field. He gazes out the window, marveling at this “vast and complex apparatus for harvesting the lifeblood of modernity,” while his colleagues heedlessly kibitz and swill booze around him.

One of these men is a former Yale classmate, the golden boy Carter Weston, “a fourth-generation prep-school type” who is dissolute and cocky, and therefore, we expect, will become the instrument of Nick’s eventual downfall. I licked my chops and settled in for a takedown of the oil industry’s evils, looking forward to watching Nick’s ideals crumble, his soul corroding in the acid of his own venal complicity.

The novel opens in the spring of 1953 in Mapleton, Conn., where Nick and his wife, Bet, a well-educated, upwardly mobile young couple, have relinquished their intellectual and artistic ambitions to live in this suburban bedroom community and raise a son and a daughter as they reap the bounty of postwar American largesse, a situation rife with dark undercurrents of marital and existential despair.

But instead of delivering on its foreshadowings, the narrative proffers and then whisks away one juicy dramatic possibility after another, letting every potential chance for interesting conflict gently deflate into internal reflection. Nick’s job troubles him far less than the novel’s beginning suggests it will, and Bet’s forfeiture of her desire to get a Ph.D. in literature to be a mother and housewife troubles her even less. The “javelin of resentment” her husband feels from her on Page 2 never reaches its target or shows its point again.

Because Nick and Bet largely seem to be essentially, mutually contented with the underpinnings of their lives, nothing is ever really at stake for them. Their children flourish, more or less. Nick’s job gives them the means to buy a Vermont vacation home, the titular “last house.” Their marriage is a steady ship plowing straight through Carter’s decades-long attempt to seduce Bet; she’s aware of it and mildly intrigued, but never truly torn or tempted. Any tension that arises between or within the Taylors somehow seems to dissipate by morning.

Fast-forward to Part 2, to the Taylor children’s coming-of-age as baby boomers circa 1968, when political turmoil and social explosion are in full swing. But the muted, genteel tone of the novel’s opening section continues into this exciting new American era, via the first-person voice of Katherine Taylor, Nick and Bet’s daughter, now in her early 20s. As with the beginning of the novel, her narrative is ripe for drama: She writes for a countercultural newspaper and hangs out with radicals in New York as her younger brother, Harry, becomes increasingly caught up in ecological activism.

But Katherine, instead of plunging into the passionate heat of her time, works hard and views her comrades from a distance, with a tinge of condescension. Much as she’d like to join in the rebellious fun, at least in theory, her proper Connecticut upbringing — her parents’ “sense of How to Be” — is too ingrained to allow her to “hoot and holler down the hillside, shirtless, T-shirt tucked into your back pocket, or to slink across the stream braless, hips swishing seductively. I was irritated with all of them.” Along with the novel, she watches primly from the bank.

All the real drama in “Last House” seems to happen offstage. A violent event, the culmination of Harry’s ecological despair, should be the novel’s dark tragic center; instead, it remains frustratingly murky, as does its aftermath. The book’s aura of well-behaved detachment is especially disappointing because Shattuck is such a good writer, giving us swaths of cultural and historical background as gracefully and intelligently as she parses the emotional depths of her characters. Every note in the novel rings clear and true, but it never comes fully to life in the way that matters.

Maybe the “comfort and ease” of the Taylors’ marriage, Bet thinks early on, “diminished a certain excitement and offered honesty in its place.” The same might be said of this admirable, ambitious novel.

LAST HOUSE : Or, The Age of Oil | By Jessica Shattuck | William Morrow | 336 pp. | $28

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Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .