Looking for Must Read Books for Teens? Check out my list of YA Books About Faith and Religion. In these teen fiction books, characters struggle with how to be religious in a modern world. This list of teen books features characters who are Muslim, Jewish, and Christian and facing a variety of life challenges. Updated for 2026!
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YA Books About Faith and Religion:
Whenever I review a YA book with a religious element, I often get blog comments from readers who say they don’t like to read books with religious themes. But in today’s world, reading books about teen characters grappling with religion and religious issues can help us understand others better.
Updated for 2026! This list now features 25 YA books with:
- A children’s book set in Palestine
- Teen Characters who are Muslim
- Teen Characters who are Secular and Orthodox Jews
- Teen Characters from Conservative Christian backgrounds
- Teen Characters who are religious and LGBTQ
- Teen children of Christian clergy
- Teen characters who are Pakistani-American
- Teen characters who are grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors
- Teen characters who are Black and Jewish
- Teen characters of different religions who fall in love
YA Books With Characters who are Conservative Christians
Red by Annie Cardi (2025)
A Christian girl active in her church is stigmatized when her church friends find out she terminated a pregnancy. But finding joy and solace in music, she finds the courage to speak up for herself.
The Redemption of Daya Keane by Gia Gordon (2024)
Daya’s crush, Beckett Wild, actually talks to her at a party neither of them should’ve been at. Beckett is also the poster girl for the wildly popular youth group at Grace Redeemer, the megachurch Daya’s mom prays at and pushes her daughter to attend.
Amid the concert-worthy light shows, high-energy live band, and pastor preaching to love thy neighbor so long as thy neighbor “gets right with God” first, Daya struggles to find her place in a house of worship that doesn’t seem to create space for someone like her … who’s in love with Beckett Wild.
Stealing Parker by Miranda Kenneally
Parker Shelton is a straight-A student and star softball player. But when Parker’s mom shocks her family and their conservative community by falling in love with a woman, Parker’s entire life goes off the rails.
As Parker begins to question everything she thought she knew about love and faith, she begins eyeing her new baseball coach, a twenty-something guy with more than a few issues of his own.
Little Do We Know by Tamara Ireland
Hannah and Emory haven’t spoken in months. Not since the fight.
Meanwhile, Hannah’s strong faith is shaken when her family’s financial problems come to light. In the aftermath of a terrible accident, she, her best friend Emory, and her boyfriend Luke struggle to understand what happened in their own ways.
The Distance Between Lost and Found by Kathryn Holmes
Ever since the night of the incident with Luke Willis, the preacher’s son, Hallelujah Calhoun has been silent. When the rumors swirled around school, she was silent.
Now, six months later, on a youth group retreat in the Smoky Mountains, Hallie and two others get separated from the rest of the group. With past betrayals and harrowing obstacles in their way, Hallie fears they’ll never reach safety.
You can find my review of The Distance Between Lost and Found here!
Dress Codes for Small Towns by Courtney C. Stevens
As the tomboy daughter of the town’s preacher, Billie McCaffrey has always struggled. When Janie Lee confesses that she’s in love with Woods, Billie’s filled with a nagging sadness as she realizes that she is also in love with Woods…and maybe with Janie Lee, too.
What if love isn’t just a boy and a girl falling in love and living happily ever after?
YA Books About Muslim Teens
Ramin Abbas Has Major Questions by Ahmad Saber (2026)
A queer Muslim boy struggles to balance his love for family and faith with his love for popular music and his attraction to a guy.
You Only Live Twice by Autumn Allen (2026)
A young Black Muslim woman decides to drop out of high school and get married.
Hope Ablaze by Sarah Mughal Rana (2025)
The teen niece of a poet arrested in the war on terror writes a scathing viral poem about a politician that sends her life into upheaval
Six Truths and a Lie by Ream Shukairy (2024)
Six Muslim teens are falsely accused of a deadly attack when a rowdy Fourth of July party leads to an explosion off the California coast.Six teens with something to hide and everything to lose.
Ida in the Middle by Nora Lester Murad (2023)
Every time violence erupts in the Middle East, Ida knows what’s coming next. Her classmates treat her like it’s all her fault. In eighth grade, Ida is forced to move to a different school. But people still treat her like she’ll never fit in. Ida wishes she could disappear.
One day, dreading a final class project, Ida discovers a jar of olives that came from a beloved aunt in her family’s village near Jerusalem. Ida eats one and finds herself magically there—as if her parents had never left Palestine! Things are different in this other reality—harder in many ways, but also strangely familiar and comforting. Now she has to make some tough choices. Which Ida would she rather be? How can she find her place?
Fatima Takes the Cake by Khadijah VanBrakle (2023)
Fatima Tate is an aspiring baker, something that goes against her parents’ wishes. But everything changes when she meets a charming university student named Raheem. Fatima keeps their burgeoning relationship a secret. Then, one day, her parents and his parents decide to arrange their marriage. Amazing!
Except it’s not amazing. As soon as the ring is on Fatima’s finger, Raheem’s charm transforms into control and manipulation. . He threatens to reveal their premarital sexual history and destroy her and her family’s reputation in their tight-knit Muslim community.
When Michael Met Mina by Randa Abdel-Fattah (2023)
When Michael meets Mina, they are at a rally for refugees – standing on opposite sides.
Mina fled Afghanistan with her mother via a refugee camp, a leaky boat and a detention centre. Michael’s parents have founded a new political party called “Aussie Values.” When Mina wins a scholarship to Michael’s private school, their lives crash together blindingly.
When a Brown Girl Flees by Amanda Qureshi (2023)
After Zahra makes a decision at odds with her family’s religious beliefs, Zahra runs away.
Anxious, depressed, and grappling with guilt, she wanders aimlessly. She eventually visits the local masjid, where she is befriended by two sisters and drawn into the welcoming Muslim community there.
But can she create a home for herself when the foundation is built on lies she’s spun to protect her from the past? When a family friend recognizes her, will everything come crashing down?
Salaam With Love by Sara Sharaf Beg (2022)
Crammed into a house in Queens with her cousins is not how Dua envisions her trip to New York City. But here she is, spending the holy month of Ramadan with extended family she hasn’t seen in years.Dua struggles to find her place in the conservative household and to connect with her aloof, engaged-to-be-married cousin, Mahnoor. And as if fasting the whole day wasn’t tiring enough, she must battle her hormones whenever she sees Hassan, the cute drummer in a Muslim band. He has a habit of showing up at her most awkward moments.After just a month, Dua finds that she’s learning a lot more than she bargained for about her faith, relationships, her place in the world—and cute drummers. . . .
Saints and Misfits by S.K. Ali
There are three kinds of people in my world:
1. Saints, those special people moving the world forward.
2. Misfits, people who don’t belong. Like me.
3. Monsters.
Well, monsters wearing saint masks, like in Flannery O’Connor’s stories.Like the monster at my mosque. People think he’s holy, untouchable, but nobody has seen under the mask.
Except me.
Read my review of Saints and Misfits!
Mariam Sharma Hits the Road by Sheba Karim
Mariam is looking forward to a summer of working and hanging out with her best friends: irrepressible and beautiful Ghazala and religious but closeted Umar.
But when a scandalous photo of Ghaz appears on a billboard in Times Square, Mariam and Umar come up with a plan to rescue her from her furious parents.
The friends pile into Umar’s car and start driving, but the friends have some hard questions to answer on the road.
That Thing We Call a Heart by Sheba Karim
Shabnam is a Pakistani-American teen in suburban New Jersey. When her best friend, Farah, starts wearing the headscarf, it unravels their friendship.
After hooking up with the most racist boy in school and telling a huge lie about a tragedy that happened to her family during the Partition of India in 1947, Shabnam is ready for high school to end.
She faces a summer of boredom and regret, but then everything changes. She meets Jamie, who scores her a job at his aunt’s pie shack. Shabnam finds herself falling in love, but Farah finds Jamie worrying. With Farah’s help, Shabnam uncovers the truth about Jamie, about herself, and what really happened during Partition.
Read my review of This Thing We Call a Heart.
All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney
Synopsis: It’s not like Allie’s religion is a secret, exactly. It’s just that her parents don’t practice and raised her to keep her Islamic heritage to herself.
But as Allie witnesses ever-growing Islamophobia in her small town and across the nation, she begins to embrace her faith—studying it, practicing it, and facing hatred and misunderstanding for it.
Who is Allie, if she sheds the façade of the “perfect” all-American girl? What does it mean to be a “Good Muslim?” And can a Muslim girl in America ever truly fit in?
A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi
It’s one year after 9/11, an extremely turbulent time, especially for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year old Muslim girl.
Shirin decided long ago not to trust anyone anymore. And she doesn’t expect, or even try, to fit in anywhere or let anyone close enough to hurt her.
But then she meets Ocean James. He’s the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin. It terrifies her—they seem to come from two irreconcilable worlds—and Shirin has had her guard up for so long that she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to let it down.
YA Books With Teen Characters Who are Secular and Orthodox Jews
Somewhere in Nowhere by Steven Gellman (2026)
Simon is Jewish, and thinks he might be gay. His anxiety is high as he changes schools, copes with family drama, and recovers from a date with a guy, a date that failed spectacularly.
The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum (2022)
Hoodie Rosen’s life isn’t that bad. Sure, his entire Orthodox Jewish community has just picked up and moved. But Hoodie’s world hasn’t changed that much.
Until he meets and falls for Anna-Marie Diaz-O’Leary—who happens to be the daughter of the obstinate mayor trying to keep Hoodie’s community out of the town. Things only get more complicated when Tregaron is struck by a series of antisemitic crimes that quickly escalate to deadly violence.
Growing up in an affluent suburb of New York City, sixteen-year-old Nevaeh Levitz never thought much about her biracial roots. When her Black mom and Jewish dad split up, she relocates to her mom’s family home in Harlem and must confront her identity for the first time.
Her cousins can’t stand that Nevaeh, who inadvertently passes as white. Then Nevaeh’s dad decides that she should have a belated bat mitzvah instead of a sweet sixteen. This guarantees social humiliation at her posh private school.
It’s only when Nevaeh stumbles upon a secret from her mom’s past, finds herself falling in love, and sees firsthand the prejudice her family faces that she begins to realize she has a voice. And she has choices.
Stolen Secrets by L. B Schulman
When her mother abruptly moves the family across the country, sixteen-year-old Livvy finds out some new facts.
Instead of working for a bakery, her mom is actually taking care of Adelle, Livvy’s grandmother who she thought was long dead. Suffering from Alzheimer’s, Adelle begins to shout strange things, mistake her own name, and relive moments that may have taken place in a concentration camp.
When Livvy and her new friend, Franklin D., find journal entries from the Holocaust in Adelle’s home, Livvy begins to suspect that her grandmother may have a shocking link to a notable figure — Anne Frank.
Like No Other by Una LaMarche
Devorah has never challenged the ways of her strict Hasidic upbringing. Jaxon is a book-smart nerd who has never been comfortable around girls (unless you count his four younger sisters).
They’ve spent their entire lives in Brooklyn, on opposite sides of the same street. Their paths never crossed, until a hurricane strikes and they become stranded in an elevator together.
You Asked for Perfect by Laura Silverman
Senior Ariel Stone has spent his life cultivating the perfect college résumé. He barely has time to think about a social life, let alone a relationship… until a failed calculus quiz puts his future on the line, forcing Ariel to enlist his classmate Amir as a tutor.
As the two spend more time together, Ariel discovers he may not like calculus, but he does like Amir. But adding a new relationship to his long list of commitments may just push Ariel past his limit.
You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Eighteen-year-old twins Adina and Tovah have little in common besides their ambitious nature. Viola prodigy Adina yearns to become a soloist. Overachiever Tovah awaits her acceptance to Johns Hopkins.
But one thing could wreck their carefully planned futures: a genetic test for Huntington’s, a rare degenerative disease.While Tovah finds comfort in her Jewish religion, Adina rebels against its rules. Then one twin tests negative for Huntington’s. The other tests positive.
Rachel Lynn Solomon’s books often feature Jewish characters. You can read my review of We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This!
Books Featuring Teen Characters who are Mormon or LDS
Visitations by Corey Egbert (2024)
Corey’s mom has always made him feel safe. Especially after his parents’ divorce, and the dreaded visitations with his dad begin. But as Corey grows older, he can’t ignore his mother’s increasingly wild accusations. Her insistence that God has appointed Corey as his sister’s protector. Her declaration that Corey’s father is the devil.
Soon, she whisks Corey and his sister away from their home and into the boiling Nevada desert. There, they struggle to survive with little food and the police on the trail.
Have you read any of these or do you have titles to add?
Want to see all my best of YA book lists? You can find them here!
I have actually read a lot of these (8), and I was happy to see dress codes on the list. It was so, so good. The Hundred Oaks book that followed Stealing Parker also took on religion. Both S.K. Ali’s books were fantastic.
Yes, loved other books by Miranda and S.K. as well!
I’ve heard amazing things about Dress Codes for Small Towns but have not read it yet. I’ve read a few YA novels that tackled religion is a good way but a couple have been heavy-handed and ended up being a turn-off.
I totally get that. I don’t think any YA book (or any book) should be heavy-handed and preachy. No one, and especially not teens, wants to be lectured.
Hi, doing some research on religious rep in YA and wasn’t wondering if you wouldn’t mind sharing a few of the ones you thought were too heavy-handed? Agree with the reply, terms don’t need to be preached at! It’s a delicate balance sometimes… 🙂
Hi – I can’t think of a YA book that I felt this way about. But every time I reviewed a YA book with religious elements I’d get comments from people who won’t read them. In YA I feel like most of the books have characters questioning religion (as YA aged characters tend to question authority in general). If I think of one I will reply again to your comment so I’ll be notified.
Oh wow. I haven’t read any of these. Though I have read some pretty good ones pertaining to faith and religion — mostly nonfiction though. The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo is a good one as well. The character challenged the idea that Catholicism offers haven when she hasn’t seen any evidence of that in her short life.
Thanks for sharing!
Oooh,thanks for the suggestion. I’ve been meaning to read (or listen to, as I’ve heard the audio is great) that one!
I have read Dress Codes for Small Towns but it is one I really struggled with for some reason. I think for the same religion/faith I worked better with The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed and really recommend it! I have That Thing We Call a Heart waiting for me on my kindle and I need to read it soon 😀 And there are quite a few on here I want to read like You Asked for Perfect.