Rutabaga's Reads 2026: Part 4

Here I am with the first young-adult (YA) compilation post for 2026. If you read YA fiction, what do you like about it that has you reading it? What can get on your nerves when it comes to YA?

And the River Drags Her Down (Oct. 7, 2025) by Jihyun Yun.

<This is a standalone novel.>

Ancestral magic follows the female line, but there is a strict rule that one will never resurrect departed humans. Soojin Han and her older sister, Mirae, followed that to the letter, even after their mom died when her car went down an embankment. It’s six years since that accident and now one year since Mirae drowned in the local river that runs through Jade Acre, a [fictional] California town along its coast. Soojin and her dad have only grown apart since they became a two-person household. She doesn’t know how to lift others up like Mirae did and so, in desperation and with Mirae’s milk tooth, she resurrects her sister. She is overjoyed to have her big sister back, but their good friend, Mark Moon, doesn’t share her joy. As Mirae claws her way out from the earth, he sees rot where Soojin only sees vitality. And for a brief while, Mirae seems content. When their dad’s away for work during the week, Mirae cooks with Soojin and prepares her lunches to take to school. The sisters and Mark get up to tame shenanigans in the middle of the night. But Mirae grows tired of hiding. She’s restless and hungry. She needs retribution. In a town that becomes afflicted with a deluge of heavy rain, watch out. “It listens through the water. It comes through the water!” The sister Soojin brought back isn’t, perhaps, the sister she knew, but one she still loves.

            In this YA paranormal fantasy and horror novel, ancient, ancestral magic and desperate loneliness weave together to create an unraveling that is devastating and poignant. The story is grief-filled and sometimes horrible, creepy and disquieting. The plot is propulsive, the horror is mature, and the value of being well-loved is sown throughout. It’s a story of sisterhood but also of selfishness and the desperate, dangerous choices one might make to retrieve what one lost. The narrative is water-stained with darkness and decay, which makes it all the more compelling to read. This haunting isn’t for the faint-hearted, but the strong-willed, even if they come with broken hearts.

Eliza, from Scratch (May 13, 2025) by Sophia Lee.

<This is a standalone novel.>

The one thing standing between Eliza Park (Korean American) and clinching salutatorian is a scheduling conflict that lands her in Culinary Arts – a regular course – instead of AP Physics. Not only is the class unweighted, non-Honors and non-AP, Eliza can’t cook. At all. She can’t fry an egg and only knows the mandolin to be a musical instrument, clearly not knowing that a mandoline is a culinary utensil. She planned for a perfect, flawless senior year with her best friends Kareena and Meredith, but secrets kept and an academic rival disrupting the friend group has Eliza feeling unbalanced. Culinary Arts classmate Wesley Ruengsomboon (Thai American) has her feeling unbalanced, too. She’s also incredibly annoyed with his ease, skill and know-all in the kitchen. In the final period of the day, Eliza goes from star student to mortifying mess. Eliza’s high expectations push her to believe she can win the midterm cooking contest. She’ll learn from Wesley, whom their teacher infuriatingly paired her with, and from her mom. Her mom doesn’t know that Eliza’s learning how to cook Korean food for school and instead thinks she’s learning in order to become closer to the late grandmother she never put in effort to truly understand and know. This overachiever is about to learn some lessons – about life and cooking – from scratch.

            To Wesley, Eliza looks like a cookie cutter cutout of overachieving perfectionism, and she is. Anyone who’s vied for the top spot in their class understands Eliza. It’s eye-opening and frustrating in equal measure and might have some racing to convince themselves that they were never as bad as Eliza. This YA contemporary romance features an enemies-to-lovers, AAPI couple with a sweet/salty plot and a zesty cast of characters. Lee’s debut is here to appease clean romance appetites and make readers hungry for all manner of cultural cuisine. There’s a main character who doesn’t take it in stride or handle it with grace. There’s toughness and vulnerability, hidden feelings and emotions spilling over. The story is well-balanced with freshness and high school drama. For this reader who’s very nitpicky about the YA she can stomach, this one hits the spot.

The Encanto’s Curse (Mar. 4, 2025) by Melissa de la Cruz.

<This is the second novel in a duology.>

<Alert: Potential spoilers ahead.>

A creature stalks the night. It is a manananggal – a mythical creature of the Philippines that separates its upper torso from its legs when hunting – and MJ Robertson-Rodriguez must protect her kingdom as she’s also learning how to be the newly crowned queen of Biringan. She has a vivid dream in which she attacks a young couple in love. The very next day, the couple is there. Injured, but alive. They’re reporting a manananggal attack on one of their goats. MJ comes to the mortifying conclusion that she is the monster. She has no idea how this curse came upon her, and she flees to Mount Makiling with select members of her court, including Sir Lucas Invierno; Grand Duchess Amador Oscura, Sir Lucas’ promised bride; and Nix Xing, a princess of Jade Mountain. Also with their group is the delegation from Jade Mountain, led by Prince Qian, a half-brother to Nix, after he initially tries to get Nix to return to Jade Mountain by force. Prince Qian is a handsome, famed monster hunter. MJ is charmed by him and thinks she could love him someday, but her heart still beats for Lucas just as it also fills with bloodthirst. The young queen must gain control of herself lest she lose her kingdom, her crown and herself, to the viciously hungry ways of the manananggal.

            The concluding novel in The Encanto’s Daughter duology is a YA fantasy that is steeped in Filipino mythology and paranormal romance. I don’t consider it romantasy, for while it does contain kissing, there’s nothing particularly steamy about any of the scenes. I did prefer this story to its predecessor. Where MJ came across as often petulant in that story, I did not get that here, as she races to lift her curse and hide the changes happening to her. The pace is fast, the plot is tense and the tone is dark with notes of hopefulness. Aswang queen though she may be, she’s still a queen and an encanto. And unlike Yara Liliana, practically erased from the history books, MJ has friends who care for and support her. Time isn’t on her side, but her friends are.

            Book One: The Encanto’s Daughter