We asked FYA Book Club members to rank the official book club selections from 2021, and the results are in! 

As a refresher, here’s what we read over the last year.

Out of those books, here are the fave FYABC picks of 2021, as chosen by FYA Book Clubbers!

3. Slay by Brittney Morris

Cover of Slay: Black girl with curly hair and glasses looking directly ahead, with a digitizing effect/filter applied to part of the cover image

2. Legendborn (The Legendborn Cycle #1) by Tracy Deonn

1. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Cover of Long Way Down with a picture of elevator buttons and a Black teen boy's reflection

Fun fact: this is actually the second time that the FYA Book Club has chosen a Jason Reynolds novel as their fave of the year! He also landed at the top of our list in 2018 with All American Boys, which was co-authored with Brendan Kiely.

As for the state of the FYA Book Club — here we go again, I guess? Thanks to all of our book clubs for adapting and switching to virtual meetings when the need arises. Even though virtual isn’t the ideal way to meet, it does come in handy for staying connected amidst… everything.

I’ll also say that I’ve been extra appreciative of time with my book club friends, even when (especially when?) it has nothing to do with books. Books may have brought us together, but we’ve since formed friendships that I’m so grateful to have in my life. Which goes back to the reason why the FYA Book Club exists — to help make these connections between YA fans who are a little less Y and a little more A and may have otherwise never found each other.

Here’s to another year of FYA Book Club memories, on and offline!

Mandy (she/her) lives in Edmonton, AB. When she’s not raiding the library for YA books, she enjoys eating ice cream (esp. in cold weather), learning fancy pole dance tricks, and stanning BTS. Mandy has been writing for FYA since 2012, and she oversaw all things FYA Book Club from 2013 to 2023.