Below you can find some of the best YA Coming-of-Age Fantasy books.
Coming of age books are perfect if you’re looking for characters who grow and learn to experience the world in a different way. It’s about characters growing up.
The Best YA Coming-of-Age Fantasy Books
Illuminated (Illuminated #1) by Iris Marsh
Am I biased because this is my own book? Yes, probably. Still, I think it’s a great coming-of-age contemporary fantasy if you love suspense and mystery.
Nikki Chase, a 16-year-old striver, feels like her life is falling apart around her. Her parents’ marriage seems in trouble, her best friend prefers to spend time with the popular girl, and she’s quite certain she’s on the verge of a psychosis. After all, normal people don’t see colors around people or hear voices, right?
What she discovers instead is nothing she expected: she not crazy, but has supernatural powers. There’s no time to deal with this new information, however, as she’s targeted by a dangerous power-siphoner.
Novice Dragoneer (Dragoneer Academy #1) by E. E. Knight
A YA Coming-of-Age with dragons. Who doesn’t love dragons?
Fourteen-year-old Ileth grew up in an orphanage, and thanks to her stutter was never thought to be destined for much beyond kitchen work and cleaning. But she’s dreamed of serving with the dragons ever since a childhood meeting with a glittering silver dragon and its female dragoneer. For years she waits, and as soon as she is old enough to join, Ileth runs away to become a novice dragoneer at the ancient human-dragon fortress of the Serpentine.
The Girl of Fire and Thorns (Girl of Fire and Thorns #1) by Rae Carson
A YA Fantasy with a thrilling story and romance.
Elisa is the chosen one.
But she is also the younger of two princesses, the one who has never done anything remarkable. She can’t see how she ever will.
Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.
And he’s not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies seething with dark magic are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people’s savior. And he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake.
Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders #1) by Robin Hobb
This Coming-of-Age Fantasy Adventure is slow-paced and has a magnificent set of characters.
Wizardwood, a sentient wood.
The most precious commodity in the world.
Like many other legendary wares, it comes only from the Rain River Wilds.
But how can one trade with the Rain Wilders, when only a liveship fashioned from wizardwood can negotiate the perilous waters of the Rain River? Rare and valuable a liveship will quicken only when three members, from successive generations, have died on board. The liveship Vivacia is about to undergo her quickening as Althea Vestrit’s father is carried on deck in his death-throes. Althea waits for the ship that she loves more than anything else in the world to awaken. Only to discover that the Vivacia has been signed away in her father’s will to her brutal brother-in-law, Kyle Haven…
Air Awakens (Air Awakens #1) by Elise Kova
A librarian who discovers she has magic. What will she choose?
The Solaris Empire is one conquest away from uniting the continent, and the rare elemental magic sleeping in seventeen-year-old library apprentice Vhalla Yarl could shift the tides of war.
Vhalla has always been taught to fear the Tower of Sorcerers, a mysterious magic society, and has been happy in her quiet world of books. But after she unknowingly saves the life of one of the most powerful sorcerers of them all—the Crown Prince Aldrik—she finds herself enticed into his world.
Now she must decide her future: Embrace her sorcery and leave the life she’s known, or eradicate her magic and remain as she’s always been.
Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor #1) by Mark Lawrence
A Coming-of-Age Epic Fantasy with a wonderful set of characters and action-packed scenes.
At the Convent of Sweet Mercy, young girls are raised to be killers. In some few children the old bloods show, gifting rare talents that can be honed to deadly or mystic effect. But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don’t truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls.
A bloodstained child of nine falsely accused of murder, guilty of worse, Nona is stolen from the shadow of the noose. Despite the security and isolation of the convent, Nona’s secret and violent past finds her out, drawing with it the tangled politics of a crumbling empire. Her arrival sparks old feuds to life, igniting vicious struggles within the church and even drawing the eye of the emperor himself.
The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones
You can find a diviner who’s the last of her kind and revenge in this Coming-of-Age novel.
Once upon a time, the kingdoms of Wales were rife with magic and conflict, and eighteen-year-old Mererid “Mer” is well-acquainted with both. She is the last living water diviner and has spent years running from the prince who bound her into his service. Under the prince’s orders, she located the wells of his enemies, and he poisoned them without her knowledge, causing hundreds of deaths. After discovering what he had done, Mer went to great lengths to disappear from his reach. Then Mer’s old handler returns with a proposition: use her powers to bring down the very prince that abused them both.
Storm and Flame (Enchanted #1) by Mallory Wanless
Read this one for a dose of magical secrets and discoveries.
Elena has always been a disappointment. Her magic is practically non-existent and now, on her sixteenth birthday, she is expelled from magic school by the strict headmistress–also known as her mother. Cast out into the world of the magically inept with only her familiar for company, Elena feels lost and alone until she meets a strange boy in the woods.
Quinn is a thief, a hunter, and a hothead. His unexpected friendship with Elena awakens a fiery side in him–quite literally–and uncovers new and surprising magical abilities. Except men aren’t supposed to be capable of magic.
Forgotten Memories by Cecilia Agetun
Like stories with demons? Then this YA Coming-of-Age Fantasy won’t dissapoint.
Being a demon isn’t easy, especially when you’ve grown up learning the importance of love and friendship.
When Jax gets summoned by his best friend and asked to protect his only child, Cassie, who’s been hidden away in the human world, he agrees.
He thought it would be simple – protect the girl while she learns the truth about herself and the abilities she holds. What he hasn’t counted on is the shock that runs through him when they touch, immersing him in feelings and memories he can’t place.
Of Blood, Shadows, and Death by Brandy Nacole
Finally, a Coming-of-Age Fantasy for Young Adults about witches and a purpose.
I was born in the shadows of night. A witch destined to protect those who are vulnerable in their waiting hour.
My existence was expected to be a promise of simplicity and rituality. The one clear path between life and death. It proved to be anything but.
My soul craved adventure outside of my darkened world. A life in the light… I could only imagine how spectacular that would be.
Some saw this curiosity as the beginning of my fall. To me, it was the start of my uprising.
My Pick of YA Coming-of-Age Fantasy Novels
Those were a few of the best YA Coming-of-Age Fantasy novels I picked. I hope this list will give you some new books to read!
Any on this list you’ve read and would like to share your thoughts about?
Any books you feel should also be on this list?
Let me know in the comments!
