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SJPL Picks: YA Books About Prom

From limo rides and rented tuxes to too much tulle and boutonnieres; if you spend your days dreaming of the perfect prom-posal or brainstorming the best themes for this time-honored US high school tradition, check out these YA reads all about PROM! Get ready for stories full of glitter, nerves, and everything in between! YA fiction books centered around promenade. Selected by SJPL Librarians.

San José Public Library

20 items

  • There are more than ten things to hate about prom, but the worst thing is when your lovable best friend wants to go with someone else.
    BookNew York : Joy Revolution, [2024] — YA FICTION Rose
  • After a disastrous promposal at a party, seventeen-year-old Theo has an existential crisis upstairs in an empty bedroom, but as the night progresses, various classmates also seek refuge from the party, and Theo finds he is not as alone as…
    BookNew York : Viking Children's Books, 2023. — YA FICTION Winters
  • Michael, to whom Liz Buxbaum gave her heart long ago, has returned but to get his attention and, perhaps, a prom date she must scheme with her nemesis Wes, her next-door neighbor.
    BookNew York : Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2022. — YA FICTION Painter
  • Jemima Kincaid is a feminist. Her private school is laden with problematic traditions, but the worst of all is prom. The girls have to wait for promposals, and only the hetero kids even go. When Jemima is named to Senior Triumvirate,…
    BookNew York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2020. — YA FICTION Hattemer
  • He's never had a boyfriend, or even been kissed. It's not like Penn Valley is exactly brimming with prospects. Nolan plans to ride out the rest of his junior year drawing narwhals, working at the greenhouse, and avoiding anything that…
    BookNew York : Roaring Brook Press, 2019. — YA FICTION Goslee
  • Leah Burke is an anomaly in her friend group: the only child of a young, single mom; her life is decidedly less privileged. She loves to draw but is too self-conscious to show it. And even though her mom knows she's bisexual, she hasn't…
    BookNew York, NY : Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2018] — YA FICTION Albertal
  • Just when Mario thought the night couldn't get any worse, he sees something on the side of the road while driving home. That something is Prom Queen Maribelle Starr--murdered and left for dead
    BookNew York : Underlined, [2022] — YA FICTION Schroede
  • Instead of going to prom, seventeen-year-old Elena Soo wants to spend her time saving the local community center, and she is determined to keep her priorities straight even when her childhood best friend--who is now a K-pop…
    BookLos Angeles ; New York : Hyperion, 2022. — YA FICTION Cho
  • The Prom

    a Novel Based on the Hit Broadway Musical

    Mitchell, Saundra,
    Emma Nolan wants only one thing before she graduates: to dance with her girlfriend at the senior prom. But in her small town of Edgewater, Indiana, that's like asking for the moon. Alyssa Greene is her high school's "it" girl: popular,…
    BookNew York : Viking, 2019. — YA FICTION Mitchell
  • A multi-generational novel beginning with three teen girls who become pregnant on prom night, and picking up as their three teens head to prom eighteen years later.
    BookNew York : Henry Holt Books and Company, 2024. — YA FICTION Magoon
  • Ten people are invited to share a prom house at the Jersey Shore for the weekend. Every one of them has a secret . . . and when one by one they begin to die, panic ensues. Could somebody's prom date also be . . . a killer?
    BookNew York : Underlined, [2021] — YA FICTION Mueller
  • Iris Oxtabee, who has Nonverbal Learning Disability, decides to prove love is simply chemistry by getting popular, newly-single Theo Grant to ask her to prom--complicating her friendship with Seth.
    BookNew York : Simon & Schuster BFYR, [2021] — YA FICTION LaBar
  • Told from the perspectives of a diverse group of seniors, this romance explores first love, break-ups, promposals, and the anxiety and anticipation of an after-prom hotel room stay.
    BookNew York : Swoon Reads, 2018. — YA FICTION Hall
  • When the school of her dreams puts on her on the wait list, Autumn enlists the help of a former crush turned rival to form a promposal service in hopes of impressing the admissions committee.
    BookNew York : Poppy, Little, Brown and Company, 2023. — YA FICTION Garrett
  • Creating a drag-show audition tape that culminates in an unkind nomination for prom queen, an overweight and openly gay teen partners with a girl who has been nominated for prom king to embrace their true selves.
    BookNew York, NY : Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2021] — YA FICTION Murphy
  • Seventeen-year-old Sky, openly gay but under the radar, decides to make a splashy Promposal but his plans are leaked by an anonymous, homophobic hacker, moving his classmates to help him expose the perpetrator.
    BookNew York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, [2021] — YA FICTION Couch
  • Luis just wants to go to prom with his boyfriend, something his "progressive" high school hasn't allowed since an incident ages ago. Not after what happened to Chaz Wilson-- back when Luis's parents were in high school. Then a hit on the…
    BookNew York : Bloomsbury, [2021] — YA FICTION ValdesGr
  • When Springville residents--at least the ones still alive--are questioned about what happened on prom night, they all have the same explanation . . . Maddy did it.
    BookNew York : Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2022] — YA FICTION Jackson
  • Liz Lighty has always done her best to avoid the spotlight in her small, wealthy, and prom-obsessed midwestern high school, but when a music scholarship falls through she is forced to turn to her school's scholarship for prom king and…
    BookNew York, NY : Push, [2021] — YA FICTION Johnson
  • High school senior Harriet is still grappling with her mother's death when an unwanted property sale causes her to join forces with her new neighbor to stop Belle Grove Plantation from turning into a wedding venue.
    BookNew York : Little, Brown and Company, 2023. — YA FICTION McWillia