Coming-of-age books?

[namechangedtravelanxious]

What's your favourite coming-of-age novels, or (nostalgic/a bit older) YA books that perfectly captures a coming-of-age experience in your opinion?

Would love books who focus on finding new friends, losing friends, bullying or feeling excluded, but it's not a 100 % must.

What age are you targeting? For maybe 10-12 I might suggest Journey To The River Sea - leaning slightly towards a girl reader.

I'm reading them myself as an adult in my thirties 😁 So I'm looking for novels, but I also enjoy some realistic teen/ya titles.

Kala by Colin Walsh has the most believeable teenage characters I have ever come across in fiction. His depiction of teenage girl friendships is so vivid I checked that the book is actually written by a man. There are some dark themes and very violent episodes though.

Anything by John Green.

This song will save your life by Leila Sales. Best description I've ever read of how trying too hard to be cool backfires.

Crossing by Andrew Xia Fukuda.

@namechangedtravelanxious I don't think that's a daft idea - the quality of children's/YA literature has continued to improve over the years - I enjoyed JTTRS. I also found Tim Bowler's The River Boy quite moving but that's still in the 10-12 age category I think.

Bone Music David Almond
The Highest Tide Tim Winton

Correction:

The Highest Tide is by Jim Lynch