100 Must-Read YA Books With Little Or No Romance

One of the most common requests I see from YA readers is for books that contain little or no romantic elements to them. A couple of years ago, one of the biggest complaints I read across the book blogging and greater literary world was how there were “too many” books in YA with a romance at the center of the story. There were “too many” love triangles and “too many” stories where love was more important than anything else in the book.

I’m not a reader who fancies a romance in her books. A lot of times, I don’t pay attention to it in the story. In YA books, romance adds a lot of tension, and often, it fits in fine with the story — teenagers are the main characters, and their hormones are raging, so it’s not a surprise to see it play out on the page in ways that do or do not make sense. Because of that, I disagree with the notion that there are “too many” or that there is “too much” in terms of romance in YA books. Does it sometimes feel unnecessary? Sure. But a lot of times, it’s pretty natural to how teenagers are in the real world.

That said, knowing how many readers are hungry for books where romance takes a huge backseat or, perhaps, isn’t present at all, I thought it would be useful to create a big list of must-read YA books where there is little to no romance in the story.

This was not easy.

Finding YA books written by authors of color where there is little or no romance is challenging. Not because those authors aren’t writing them. Instead, it’s because the pool of those books is already tiny to begin with. As I found with a number of the books I chose to include, many of these skew on the younger side of YA and could, in some cases, easily be handed to middle grade readers. I also found many of these books are a little bit older, meaning they might be challenging to come by today.

The other challenge was defining what “little to no romance” meant. In the creation of this list, some of the books may feature characters who have a significant other, but that partner plays little or no role in the story beyond a passing one. Some of these stories may have a kiss or two, but again, it’s in the interest of experimentation and teenagerness, rather than in any way that advances or adds tension to the plot of the story. Some of the books on this list, too, are first in a series, and there are no guarantees that later installments don’t go down a romantic road. . . though by book two or three or six, perhaps that romance feels like a necessary and welcoming element. In short, “little to no romance” simply means that romance is way in the backseat, with no driving force in the narrative. 

Just because a book doesn’t feature a romance, though, doesn’t mean it’s an easy book, nor that it’s not a book tackling tough, gritty topics. Many of these books do just that. Other books are pure adventure stories, science fiction romps constructed entirely in fantasy worlds, or spine-tingling thriller or horror reads. I’ve included historical fiction, as well, which is where one can find books with little or no romance most easily. There is literally something for every kind of YA reader, along with books that represent the nice wide swath of landscape that YA books not take up in our cultural and literary histories. In other words: you’re getting classics, award winners, and titles that are pretty new. To really give a sense of how many books exist here, selections were limited to one per author.