YA Book Prize 2023 shortlist announced

The YA Book Prize launched in 2014 to celebrate great books for teenagers and young adults and aims to get more teens reading and buying books. It is the first prize in the UK and Ireland to specifically focus on fiction for young adults.

The prize is organised by book trade magazine The Bookseller and it is run in partnership with Edinburgh International Book Festival. The shortlist is selected by a team at The Bookseller and the winner is selected by a panel of expert and teenage judges, who are asked to pick the book they believe is the best-written and that they would be most likely to share with young adults.

Here is the full shortlist. The winner will be announced at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, on Thursday 24th August.

YA Book Prize Shortlist

Twin Crowns by Catherine Doyle & Katherine Webber (Electric Monkey)

The Eternal Return of Clara Hart by Louise Finch (Little Island Books)

Five Survive by Holly Jackson (Electric Monkey)

When Our Worlds Collided by Danielle Jawando (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books)

The Songs You've Never Heard by Becky Jerams & Ellie Wyatt  (Sweet Cherry)

The Cats We Meet Along The Way by Nadia Mikail (Guppy Books)

Her Dark Wings by Melinda Salisbury  (David Fickling Books)

If You Still Recognise Me by Cynthia So  (Little Tiger Press)

The Society for Soulless Girls by Laura Steven   (Electric Monkey)

Kemosha of the Caribbean by Alex Wheatle  (Andersen Press)

YA Book Prize judging team

The judges of the prize include the chair Caroline Carpenter, deputy features editor for The Bookseller magazine and EIBF's children's and schools programme director, Rachel Fox. They will be joined by teenage judges representing shadowing schools from across the UK, as well as author Patrice Lawrence who won the prize in 2017 with Orangeboy (Hodder Children’s Books). The judges also include Waterstones' national children's events co-ordinator Gary Deane, and Charley Robinson, founder of UK YA book subscription box Paper Orange UK.

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