There's cover trends (I mean, y'all have seen all those girls in dresses, right?), but then there also seem to be title trends. This post isn't fully comprehensive, but boy, is it going to be giant. Just preparing y'all. I originally posted this two years ago, and I decided to redo it just because there are even more books for the list now.
GIRL
The Goose Girl, Girl Overboard, Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover, The Girl of Fire and Thorns, The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls, Smart Girls Get What They Want, Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality, Fangirl, Material Girls, A School for Unusual Girls, Jesse's Girl, Red Girl Blue Boy, The Girl with the Wrong Name, The Factory Girl, Dead Girls Society, The Last Boy and Girl in the World, The Girl from Everywhere, The Girl Who Fell, A Psalm for Lost Girls, Those Girls, The Girl with the Red Balloon, Girl Out of Water, Girl Against the Universe, Flygirl, Girl on a Wire, Girl in the Blue Coat, Who's That Girl, A Girl Like That, Neighborhood Girls, The Lost Girl of Astor Street, Gunslinger Girl, Girls of Paper and Fire.
That's a lot of girls.
BOY
Lola and the Boy Next Door, The Boyfriend App, The Boy on the Bridge, To All the Boys I've Loved Before, How to Meet Boys, A Blind Spot for Boys, The Fill-In Boyfriend, Red Girl Blue Boy, The Last Boy and Girl in the World, Kill the Boy Band, The Boy in the Black Suit, This Is My Brain on Boys, The Raven Boys.
There's a lot of boys, too.
FIRE
Catching Fire, The Girl of Fire and Thorns, Fire with Fire, Rose Under Fire, Fire & Flood, The Fire Wish, Heir of Fire, Liberty's Fire, Ice Like Fire, Tell the Wind and Fire, Girls of Paper and Fire, A Spark of White Fire.
We've got a bunch of arsonists in YA.
TIME
Out of Sight Out of Time, Time Between Us, Time After Time, Breakfast Served Anytime, The Last Time We Say Goodbye, Never Always Sometimes, The First Time She Drowned, The Ship Beyond Time, Timekeeper
This is the last time I discuss this.
CROWN
The Lost Crown, The Crown of Embers, Crown of Midnight, The Ring and the Crown, The Crown's Game, Three Dark Crowns, The Crown's Fate, A Crown of Wishes, The Crown.
PRINCESS
Princess Academy, Paparazzi Princess, Princess of the Midnight Ball, Princess of Glass, Princess of the Silver Woods, Deception's Princess, The Princess Spy, Princess of Thorns, I Am Princess X, The Princess Diaries, Ash Princess.
QUEEN
The Cupcake Queen, The Queen's Daughter, Red Queen, The Orphan Queen, The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things, Queen of Shadows, The Shadow Queen, Stef Soto Taco Queen, The Star-Touched Queen, The Queen of Attolia, The Queen's Rising, The Nameless Queen.
Like I've said before, YA loves royalty.
SUMMER
Sixteenth Summer, Second Chance Summer, Fifteenth Summer, The Summer I Became a Nerd, Summer on the Short Bus, Open Road Summer, Unforgettable Summer, The Summer After You and Me, Three Day Summer, Summer Days & Summer Nights, The Square Root of Summer, Summer of Sloane, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Two Summers, Song of Summer, The Summer of Chasing Mermaids, Someone Else's Summer, Summer Bird Blue.
Well, summer is pretty nice.
LIES/LIARS
Perfect Lies; Lies We Tell Ourselves; Lies I Told; Even When You Lie to Me; The Lies About Truth; Little Black Dresses, Little White Lies; Loves, Lies & Spies; Love Songs & Other Lies; Perfect Liars; We Were Liars; Liars, Inc.
I think the lesson here is, YA characters lie a lot.
SHADOW
Shadow and Bone, Sea of Shadows, Falls the Shadow, Shadow Scale, Queen of Shadows, The Shadow Behind the Stars, The Shadow Queen, In the Shadow of Blackbirds, The Shadow Society, A Shadow Bright and Burning, Circle of Shadows.
Let's avoid the shadows from now on, please.
NIGHT
Princess of the Midnight Ball, One Past Midnight, Crown of Midnight, Starry Nights, Prisoner of Night and Fog, Midnight Thief, Starry Night, Inherit Midnight, The Night We Said Yes, Bright Lights Dark Nights, Until Friday Night, A Night Divided, Tonight the Streets Are Ours, A Thousand Nights, A Drop of Night, Wink Poppy Midnight, Summer Days & Summer Nights, Vassa in the Night, The Nightmare Affair, The Nightmare Dilemma, The Nightmare Charade, The Midnight Star, Frost Like Night, We Own the Night, The Midnight Dance, Batman: Nightwalker, The Midnights, Beasts Made of Night, Together at Midnight, What the Night Sings, Last Night at the Telegraph Club.
Do people just not like the morning or afternoon?
KISS
Anna and the French Kiss, The Last Best Kiss, 17 First Kisses, The Things You Kiss Goodbye, The Kiss of Deception, Kissing Ted Callahan (and Other Guys), Kissing in America, 26 Kisses, The Winner's Kiss, Can't Kiss Won't Tell, My Last Kiss.
Well, there is a lot of kissing in YA.
SECRET(S)
River Secrets, Secrets of My Hollywood Life, Maid of Secrets, Manor of Secrets, Wicked Little Secrets, The Secrets of Lily Graves, The Secrets of Attraction, The Secret of a Heart Note, My Secret to Tell, The Secret History of Us.
Apparently, there's a lot of secret-keeping in YA.
DAUGHTER
The Queen's Daughter, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, The Merchant's Daughter, The Madman's Daughter, The Tyrant's Daughter, Daughter of Deep Silence, Daughter of Dusk, Daughter of the Pirate King, The Dark Lord's Daughter, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, Daughter of the Burning City.
Don't people have sons anymore?
HEART
Heart and Salsa; Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy; The Lonely Hearts Club; Broken Hearts, Fences, and Other Things to Mend; Mortal Heart; My Heart and Other Black Holes; Things We Know by Heart; Wild Hearts; A Matter of Heart; Lion Heart; The Heart of Betrayal; The Anatomical Shape of a Heart; Hearts, Fingers, and Other Things to Cross; The Museum of Heartbreak; Assassin's Heart; Blackhearts; That Thing We Call a Heart; Tash Hearts Tolstoy; The Heartbeats of Wing Jones; Heartless; The Secret of a Heart Note; Steelheart; Between the Blade and the Heart; The Hearts We Sold; Three Sides of a Heart; Comics Will Break Your Heart; Heart of Iron; When My Heart Joins the Thousand; Foolish Hearts; Listen to Your Heart; Hungry Hearts.
Hearts are important, yes.
LOVE
I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You; Wanderlove; The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight; Pizza, Love, and Other Stuff That Made Me Famous; How to Love; OCD Love Story; To All the Boys I've Loved Before; Love Me; Love Letters to the Dead; My True Love Gave to Me; A Little in Love; Love and Other Unknown Variables; Famous in Love; How (Not) to Fall in Love; The Game of Love and Death; Love, Lucas; Love Fortunes and Other Disasters; P.S. I Still Love You; Hello, I Love You; Suffer Love; The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love; The Love That Split the World; Love, Lies & Spies; Wanted: Dead or in Love; Lucky in Love; Love & Gelato; The Love That Split the World; Love Fortunes and Other Disasters; I Believe in a Thing Called Love; The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily; Speak Easy, Speak Love; Love, Hate & Other Filters; Let's Talk About Love; Love & Luck; Love, Life, and the List; A Taxonomy of Love.
If you couldn't tell, a lot of YA revolves around love.
STAR
The Fault in Our Stars; For Darkness Shows the Stars; Days of Blood and Starlight; Still Star-Crossed; These Broken Stars; Starstruck; Starry Nights; The Chaos of Stars; Across a Star-Swept Sea; Catch a Falling Star; Starry Night; Written in the Stars; The Shadow Behind the Stars; Inherit the Stars; Wandering Star; The Stars Turned Away; Where the Stars Still Shine; The Sun Is Also a Star; The Midnight Star; Map to the Stars; The Star-Touched Queen, Stars Above, Even the Darkest Stars, Starfish, Among the Red Stars, A Conspiracy of Stars, and Starry Eyes.
The stars are nice.
WISH
A Crown of Wishes, The Fire Wish, Wish You Were Italian, As You Wish, The Seventh Wish.
Where there are stars, there are wishes.
LAST
Famous Last Words, The Last Best Kiss, The Last Time We Say Goodbye, Last Year's Mistake, Every Last Word, The Last Boy and Girl in the World, The Last Thing You Said, Last Night at the Telegraph Club.
And of course that's accompanied by...
FIRST
Not If I See You First, First & Then, 17 First Kisses, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, The First to Know, Not If I Save You First.
WORLD
The Young World, This Shattered World, The World Within, Etherworld, In a World Just Right, A Whole New World, This Is Where the World Ends, Either the Beginning or the End of the World, The Love That Split the World, The Last Boy and Girl in the World, When the World Became White, You and Me and the End of the World, A Million Worlds with You, A World Away, The Ends of the World, In a Perfect World, Kat and Meg Conquer the World, This Tiny Perfect World, The Weight of Worlds.
*belts out "A Whole New World" from Aladdin*
DEAD/DEATH/DIE
Something Strange and Deadly, Love Letters to the Dead, Wanted: Dead or in Love, Vivian Divine Is Dead, Deadly Little Sins, Dead to Me, Charlie, Presumed Dead, Dead Girls Society, I Woke Up Dead at the Mall, The Game of Love and Death, Death Sworn, Dorothy Must Die, They Both Die at the End
Are all teens obsessed with death or something?
DARK
Letters to the Dark, For Darkness Shows the Stars, The Darkest Minds, Dark Triumph, Her Dark Curiosity, Dark Metropolis, A Darker Shade of Magic, Bright Lights Dark Nights, Out of Darkness, Dark Tide, Three Dark Crowns, And I Darken, The Darkest Hour, A Darkness Strange and Lovely, The Darkest Corners, The Dark Lord's Daughter, Even the Darkest Stars, One Dark Throne, Beyond a Darkened Shore, A Poison Dark and Drowning.
What's wrong with light? (Although this is coming from a girl who hates really bright lights and an excess of sunlight.)
WEAPONRY
(blade, dagger, gun)
Poisoned Blade, The Assassin's Blade, Between the Blade and the Heart, The Rose & the Dagger, Gunslinger Girl.
BLOOD
Blood Rose Rebellion, RoseBlood, Bad Blood, Blood for Blood, Silver in the Blood, Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke, Blood and Sand, Children of Blood and Bone.
YA books can be violent.
FLOWERS
(rose, lily, etc.)
Blue Lily, Lily Blue; The Secrets of Lily Graves; Tiger Lily; The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily; Blood Rose Rebellion; RoseBlood; The Rose & the Dagger; The Rose Society; A Court of Thorns and Roses; Rose Under Fire; Rosemarked; Wildflower; Magnolia.
Hopefully these books' prose isn't too flowery.
I stared at these words for so long, they stopped looking like words.
So had you noticed that these words were used a lot in titles? Are there other title trends you've noticed?
LIES/LIARS
Perfect Lies; Lies We Tell Ourselves; Lies I Told; Even When You Lie to Me; The Lies About Truth; Little Black Dresses, Little White Lies; Loves, Lies & Spies; Love Songs & Other Lies; Perfect Liars; We Were Liars; Liars, Inc.
I think the lesson here is, YA characters lie a lot.
SHADOW
Shadow and Bone, Sea of Shadows, Falls the Shadow, Shadow Scale, Queen of Shadows, The Shadow Behind the Stars, The Shadow Queen, In the Shadow of Blackbirds, The Shadow Society, A Shadow Bright and Burning, Circle of Shadows.
Let's avoid the shadows from now on, please.
NIGHT
Princess of the Midnight Ball, One Past Midnight, Crown of Midnight, Starry Nights, Prisoner of Night and Fog, Midnight Thief, Starry Night, Inherit Midnight, The Night We Said Yes, Bright Lights Dark Nights, Until Friday Night, A Night Divided, Tonight the Streets Are Ours, A Thousand Nights, A Drop of Night, Wink Poppy Midnight, Summer Days & Summer Nights, Vassa in the Night, The Nightmare Affair, The Nightmare Dilemma, The Nightmare Charade, The Midnight Star, Frost Like Night, We Own the Night, The Midnight Dance, Batman: Nightwalker, The Midnights, Beasts Made of Night, Together at Midnight, What the Night Sings, Last Night at the Telegraph Club.
Do people just not like the morning or afternoon?
KISS
Anna and the French Kiss, The Last Best Kiss, 17 First Kisses, The Things You Kiss Goodbye, The Kiss of Deception, Kissing Ted Callahan (and Other Guys), Kissing in America, 26 Kisses, The Winner's Kiss, Can't Kiss Won't Tell, My Last Kiss.
Well, there is a lot of kissing in YA.
SECRET(S)
River Secrets, Secrets of My Hollywood Life, Maid of Secrets, Manor of Secrets, Wicked Little Secrets, The Secrets of Lily Graves, The Secrets of Attraction, The Secret of a Heart Note, My Secret to Tell, The Secret History of Us.
Apparently, there's a lot of secret-keeping in YA.
DAUGHTER
The Queen's Daughter, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, The Merchant's Daughter, The Madman's Daughter, The Tyrant's Daughter, Daughter of Deep Silence, Daughter of Dusk, Daughter of the Pirate King, The Dark Lord's Daughter, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, Daughter of the Burning City.
Don't people have sons anymore?
HEART
Heart and Salsa; Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy; The Lonely Hearts Club; Broken Hearts, Fences, and Other Things to Mend; Mortal Heart; My Heart and Other Black Holes; Things We Know by Heart; Wild Hearts; A Matter of Heart; Lion Heart; The Heart of Betrayal; The Anatomical Shape of a Heart; Hearts, Fingers, and Other Things to Cross; The Museum of Heartbreak; Assassin's Heart; Blackhearts; That Thing We Call a Heart; Tash Hearts Tolstoy; The Heartbeats of Wing Jones; Heartless; The Secret of a Heart Note; Steelheart; Between the Blade and the Heart; The Hearts We Sold; Three Sides of a Heart; Comics Will Break Your Heart; Heart of Iron; When My Heart Joins the Thousand; Foolish Hearts; Listen to Your Heart; Hungry Hearts.
Hearts are important, yes.
LOVE
I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You; Wanderlove; The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight; Pizza, Love, and Other Stuff That Made Me Famous; How to Love; OCD Love Story; To All the Boys I've Loved Before; Love Me; Love Letters to the Dead; My True Love Gave to Me; A Little in Love; Love and Other Unknown Variables; Famous in Love; How (Not) to Fall in Love; The Game of Love and Death; Love, Lucas; Love Fortunes and Other Disasters; P.S. I Still Love You; Hello, I Love You; Suffer Love; The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love; The Love That Split the World; Love, Lies & Spies; Wanted: Dead or in Love; Lucky in Love; Love & Gelato; The Love That Split the World; Love Fortunes and Other Disasters; I Believe in a Thing Called Love; The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily; Speak Easy, Speak Love; Love, Hate & Other Filters; Let's Talk About Love; Love & Luck; Love, Life, and the List; A Taxonomy of Love.
If you couldn't tell, a lot of YA revolves around love.
STAR
The Fault in Our Stars; For Darkness Shows the Stars; Days of Blood and Starlight; Still Star-Crossed; These Broken Stars; Starstruck; Starry Nights; The Chaos of Stars; Across a Star-Swept Sea; Catch a Falling Star; Starry Night; Written in the Stars; The Shadow Behind the Stars; Inherit the Stars; Wandering Star; The Stars Turned Away; Where the Stars Still Shine; The Sun Is Also a Star; The Midnight Star; Map to the Stars; The Star-Touched Queen, Stars Above, Even the Darkest Stars, Starfish, Among the Red Stars, A Conspiracy of Stars, and Starry Eyes.
The stars are nice.
WISH
A Crown of Wishes, The Fire Wish, Wish You Were Italian, As You Wish, The Seventh Wish.
Where there are stars, there are wishes.
LAST
Famous Last Words, The Last Best Kiss, The Last Time We Say Goodbye, Last Year's Mistake, Every Last Word, The Last Boy and Girl in the World, The Last Thing You Said, Last Night at the Telegraph Club.
And of course that's accompanied by...
FIRST
Not If I See You First, First & Then, 17 First Kisses, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, The First to Know, Not If I Save You First.
WORLD
The Young World, This Shattered World, The World Within, Etherworld, In a World Just Right, A Whole New World, This Is Where the World Ends, Either the Beginning or the End of the World, The Love That Split the World, The Last Boy and Girl in the World, When the World Became White, You and Me and the End of the World, A Million Worlds with You, A World Away, The Ends of the World, In a Perfect World, Kat and Meg Conquer the World, This Tiny Perfect World, The Weight of Worlds.
*belts out "A Whole New World" from Aladdin*
DEAD/DEATH/DIE
Something Strange and Deadly, Love Letters to the Dead, Wanted: Dead or in Love, Vivian Divine Is Dead, Deadly Little Sins, Dead to Me, Charlie, Presumed Dead, Dead Girls Society, I Woke Up Dead at the Mall, The Game of Love and Death, Death Sworn, Dorothy Must Die, They Both Die at the End
Are all teens obsessed with death or something?
DARK
Letters to the Dark, For Darkness Shows the Stars, The Darkest Minds, Dark Triumph, Her Dark Curiosity, Dark Metropolis, A Darker Shade of Magic, Bright Lights Dark Nights, Out of Darkness, Dark Tide, Three Dark Crowns, And I Darken, The Darkest Hour, A Darkness Strange and Lovely, The Darkest Corners, The Dark Lord's Daughter, Even the Darkest Stars, One Dark Throne, Beyond a Darkened Shore, A Poison Dark and Drowning.
What's wrong with light? (Although this is coming from a girl who hates really bright lights and an excess of sunlight.)
WEAPONRY
(blade, dagger, gun)
Poisoned Blade, The Assassin's Blade, Between the Blade and the Heart, The Rose & the Dagger, Gunslinger Girl.
BLOOD
Blood Rose Rebellion, RoseBlood, Bad Blood, Blood for Blood, Silver in the Blood, Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke, Blood and Sand, Children of Blood and Bone.
YA books can be violent.
FLOWERS
(rose, lily, etc.)
Blue Lily, Lily Blue; The Secrets of Lily Graves; Tiger Lily; The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily; Blood Rose Rebellion; RoseBlood; The Rose & the Dagger; The Rose Society; A Court of Thorns and Roses; Rose Under Fire; Rosemarked; Wildflower; Magnolia.
Hopefully these books' prose isn't too flowery.
I stared at these words for so long, they stopped looking like words.
So had you noticed that these words were used a lot in titles? Are there other title trends you've noticed?
Almost all of these I've definitely noticed trending. Most of them are dramatic, although I guess YA has to be dramatic in order to have a plot. I mean, if the trending words were "Apple" or "Tissue" where would we be?
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