Do you love books about getting even or about angry female characters seeking vengeance? Check out my list of 13 Must-Read YA Books About Revenge! Updated in 2023!
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13 Must-Read YA Books About Revenge – updated for 2023
Do you love books about revenge? Here’s a list of contemporary YA books about teen characters who have been wronged and seeking revenge (or are avenging a wrong).
YA Books About Revenge for a Crime
Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin (2020)
Both a revenge book and a Macbeth retelling.
Jade and her friends Jenny, Mads, and Summer rule their glittering LA circle. Untouchable, they have the kind of power other girls only dream of. Every party is theirs and the world is at their feet.
Until the night of Jade’s sweet sixteen, when they crash a St. Andrew’s Prep party. The night the golden boys choose Jade as their next target.
They picked the wrong girl.
Sworn to vengeance, Jade transfers to St. Andrew’s Prep. She plots to destroy each boy, one by one. She’ll take their power, their lives, and their control of the prep school’s hierarchy. And she and her coven have the perfect way in: a boy named Mack, whose ambition could turn deadly.
You can find my review here.
Mayhem by Estelle Laure (2020)
It’s 1987 and unfortunately it’s not all Madonna and cherry lip balm. Mayhem Brayburn has always known there was something off about her and her mother, Roxy. She knows they aren’t like everyone else.
But when May’s stepfather finally goes too far, Roxy and Mayhem flee to Santa Maria, California, the coastal beach town that holds the answers to all of Mayhem’s questions about who her mother is, her estranged family, and the mysteries of her own self.
There she meets the kids who live with her aunt, and it opens the door to the magic that runs through the female lineage in her family, the very magic Mayhem is next in line to inherit and which will change her life for good.
But when she gets wrapped up in the search for the man who has been kidnapping girls from the beach, her life takes another dangerous turn and she is forced to face the price of vigilante justice and to ask herself whether revenge is worth the cost.
Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand (2018)
Three teens take on a predator.
Who are the Sawkill Girls?
Marion: The newbie. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.
Zoey: The pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken—or maybe everyone else is.
Val: The queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives; a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.
Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires. Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight…until now.
Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed (2017)
Who are the Nowhere Girls? They’re everygirl. But they start with just three:
Grace Salter is the new girl in town, whose family was run out of their former community after her southern Baptist preacher mom turned into a radical liberal after falling off a horse and bumping her head.
Rosina Suarez is the queer punk girl in a conservative Mexican immigrant family, who dreams of a life playing music instead of babysitting her gaggle of cousins and waitressing at her uncle’s restaurant.
Erin Delillo is obsessed with two things: marine biology and Star Trek: The Next Generation, but they aren’t enough to distract her from her suspicion that she may in fact be an android.
When Grace learns that Lucy Moynihan, the former occupant of her new home, was run out of town for having accused the popular guys at school of assault, she’s incensed. Rosina and Erin feel equally deeply about Lucy’s tragedy, so they form an anonymous group of girls at Prescott High.
YA Books About Revenge at High School
Clique Bait by Ann Valett (2020)
Chloe Whittaker is out for revenge.
Last year her best friend Monica’s life was unceremoniously ruined by the most popular students at their high school, so this year Chloe plans to take each and every one of them down.
She’s traded in her jeans and T-shirts for the latest designer clothes, edited her social media, and carefully figured out how she will befriend the members of the clique, find out their deepest and darkest secrets, and reveal them to the world.
Chloe has the perfect plan . . . but there’s one thing she didn’t prepare for. And that’s falling for someone she’s determined to destroy. The closer she gets to uncovering the secrets the in-crowd is determined to cover up, the more she realizes that she is going to have to choose between betraying her oldest friend or the boy who’s captured her heart.
These Vengeful Hearts by Katherine Laurin
A girl infiltrates a secret sorority of REVENGE to get even for her sister’s accident.
Whenever something scandalous happens at Heller High, the Red Court is the name on everyone’s lips. Its members deal out social ruin and favors in equal measure, their true identities known only by their leader: the Queen of Hearts.
Ember Williams has seen firsthand the damage the Red Court can do. Now, she’s determined to hold the organization accountable by taking it down from the inside. But will the cost of revenge be more than she’s willing to sacrifice?
The Revenge Playbook by Rachael Allen (2015) – revenge on the football team
In the small town of Ranburne, high school football rules and the players are treated like kings.
How they treat the girls they go to school with? That’s a completely different story. Liv, Peyton, Melanie Jane, and Ana each have their own reason for wanting to teach the team a lesson—but it’s only when circumstances bring them together that they come up with the plan to steal the one thing the boys hold sacred. All they have to do is beat them at their own game.
YA Books with Revenge Cliques and Clubs
For Girls Who Walk Through Fire by Kim DeRose (2023)
Elliott D’Angelo-Brandt is sick and tired of putting up with it all. Every week, she attends a support group for teen victims of sexual assault, but all they do is talk. Elliott’s done with talking. What she wants is justice.
And she has a plan for getting it: a spell book that she found in her late mom’s belongings. Elliott recruits fellow survivors from the group. She, Madeline, Chloe, and Bea don’t have much in common, but they are united in their rage at a system that heaps judgments on victims and never seems to punish those who deserve it.
As they each take a turn casting a hex against their unrepentant assailants, the girls find themselves leaning on each other in ways they never expected—and realizing that revenge has heavy implications. Each member of the coven will have to make a choice: continue down the path of vigilantism or discover what it truly means to claim their power.
Very Bad People by Kit Frick (2022)
My review of Very Bad People is here!
Six years ago, Calliope Bolan’s mother drove the family van into a lake with her three daughters inside. The girls escaped, but their mother drowned, and the truth behind the “accident” remains a mystery Calliope is determined to solve.
Now sixteen, she transfers to Tipton Academy, the same elite boarding school her mother once attended. Tipton promises a peek into the past and a host of new opportunities—including a coveted invitation to join Haunt and Rail, an exclusive secret society that looms over campus like a legend.
Calliope accepts, stepping into the exhilarating world of the “ghosts,” a society of revolutionaries fighting for social justice. But when Haunt and Rail commits to exposing a dangerous person on campus, it becomes clear that some ghosts define justice differently than others.
As the society’s tactics escalate, Calliope uncovers a possible link between Haunt and Rail and her mother’s deadly crash. Now, she must question what lengths the society might go to in order to see a victory—and if the secret behind her mother’s death could be buried here at Tipton.
Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu (2017)
Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with an administration at her high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes, hallway harassment, and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules.
Viv’s mom was a tough-as-nails, punk rock Riot Grrrl in the ’90s, and now Viv takes a page from her mother’s past and creates a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates.
She’s just blowing off steam, but other girls respond. As Viv forges friendships with other young women across the divides of cliques and popularity rankings, she realizes that what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.
Also a series on Netflix!
Get Even (The Get Dirty series) by Gretchen McNeil
Four girls who seem to have nothing in common team up to get their revenge on school bullies.
Bree Deringer, Olivia Hayes, Kitty Wei, and Margot Mejia have nothing in common. At least that’s what they’d like the students and administrators of their elite private school to think.
The girls have different goals, different friends, and different lives, but they share one very big secret: They’re all members of Don’t Get Mad, a secret society that anonymously takes revenge on the school’s bullies, mean girls, and tyrannical teachers.
But when their latest target ends up dead with a blood-soaked “DGM” card in his hands, the girls realize that they’re not as anonymous as they thought—and that someone now wants revenge on them.
As the unlikely group searches for the killer, they also uncover secrets and lies that rock their tenuous friendship to the core. Soon the clues are piling up, the police are closing in . . . and everyone has something to lose.
Also a show on Netflix!
Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian (2012)
Three girls, three revenge motives.
Postcard-perfect Jar Island is home to charming tourist shops, pristine beaches, amazing oceanfront homes—and three girls secretly plotting revenge.
Kat is sick and tired of being bullied by her former best friend.
Lillia has always looked out for her little sister, so when she discovers that one of her guy friends has been secretly hooking up with her, she’s going to put a stop to it.
Mary is perpetually haunted by a traumatic event from years past, and the boy who’s responsible has yet to get what’s coming to him.
None of the girls can act on their revenge fantasies alone without being suspected. But together…anything is possible.
Books with Revenge Plots
Daughter of Deep Silence by Carrie Ryan (2015) – revenge after a tragic “accident”
I’m the daughter of murdered parents. I’m the friend of a dead girl. I’m the lover of my enemy. And I will have my revenge.
In the wake of the devastating destruction of the luxury yacht Persephone, just three souls remain to tell its story—and two of them are lying. Only Frances Mace knows the terrifying truth, and she’ll stop at nothing to avenge the murders of everyone she held dear. Even if it means taking down the boy she loves and possibly losing herself in the process.
I Am Her Revenge by Meredith Moore (2015)
Revenge on behalf of her mother.
Vivian was raised with one purpose in life: to exact revenge on behalf of her mother. Manipulative and cruel, Mother has deprived Vivian not only of a childhood, but of an original identity. With an endless arsenal of enticing personalities at her disposal, Vivian is a veritable weapon of deception.
When it’s time to strike, she enrolls in a boarding school on the English moors, where she will zero in on her target: sweet and innocent Ben, the son of the man who broke Mother’s heart twenty years ago.
With every secret she uncovers, Vivian comes one step closer to learning who she really is. But the more she learns about herself, the more dangerous this cat and mouse game becomes. Because Mother will stop at nothing to make sure the truth dies with her.
Do you have any revenge stories to add to my list? Let me know in comments!
Interesting timing on the topic of revenge. Recently I was starting to put together a list of YA books about second-chance relationships. I haven’t read any of these but I’m definitely adding a few to my TBR.
K
I bought the Burn for Burn series a while back. My daughter read it and loved it. And I do enjoy a good revenge story. Clique Bait is one I’d like to pick up.
I read the first Burn for Burn but I don’t think I finished the series. And I tried Clique Bait but for some reason it just didn’t grab me. I may try again.
Moxie is the only one I have read, and I thought it was fantastic. I was all about the Riot Grrrl stuff in that book. I just finished a mystery that ended up being a revenge plot, but I don’t want to reveal the name, because it seems spoilery.
Clique Bait sounds right up my alley! I’ve been meaning to read Sawkill Girls but it sounds all sorts of crazy.
Let me know if you like it – I have an e-ARC but didn’t get to it!