Kirkus Best Books of the Year - YA Romance (Awarded by Kirkus)

Awards List

2023

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute
(*)
Talia Hibbert

The Love Match
(*)
Priyanka Taslim

Imogen, Obviously
(*)
Becky Albertalli

The Fall of Whit Rivera
(*)
Crystal Maldonado

Check & Mate
(*)
Ali Hazelwood

Emmett
(*)
L.C. Rosen

Finding My Elf
(*)
David Valdes

2022

Kiss & Tell
(*)
Adib Khorram

Ready When You Are
(*)
Gary Lonesborough

Right Where I Left You
(*)
Julian Winters

See You Yesterday
(*)
Rachel Lynn Solomon

Love Radio
(*)
Ebony LaDelle

Lia and Beckett's Abracadabra
(*)
Amy Noelle Parks

Beating Heart Baby
(*)
Lio Min

A Girl's Guide to Love & Magic
(*)
Debbie Rigaud

Love from Mecca to Medina
(*)
S.K. Ali

Salt and Sugar
(*)
Rebecca Carvalho

2021

Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet
(*)
Laekan Zea Kemp

Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry
(*)
Joya Goffney

Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating
(*)
Adiba Jaigirdar

Slingshot
(*)
Mercedes Helnwein

Instructions for Dancing
(*)
Nicola Yoon

The Passing Playbook
(*)
Isaac Fitzsimons

How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe
(*)
Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

Not Here to Be Liked
(*)
Michelle Quach

2020

Heartstopper Volume One
(*)
Alice Oseman

The Henna Wars
(*)
Adiba Jaigirdar

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea
(*)
Maggie Tokuda-Hall

All the Things We Never Knew
(*)
Liara Tamani

The Circus Rose
(*)
Betsy Cornwell

You Should See Me in a Crown
(*)
Leah Johnson

Today Tonight Tomorrow
(*)
Rachel Lynn Solomon

Super Fake Love Song
(*)
David Yoon

Award Categories

Affirming Picture Books

Bedtime Books

Beginning Readers

Board Books

Book Club Fiction

Books for Beginning Readers

Debut Fiction

Empowering Picture Books

Environmental Fiction

Fiction

Fiction in Translation

Fictional Families

Fictional Voices

Funniest Picture Books

Historical Fiction

Informational Picture Books

Joyous Picture Books

Middle-Grade About Speaking Up

Middle-Grade Activist

Middle-Grade Adventures

Middle-Grade Family Stories

Middle-Grade Fantasy and SF

Middle-Grade Fiction

Middle-Grade Friendship Stories

Middle-Grade Graphic Fiction

Award Years

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019