LYDIA KANG

K-Jane

*Starred Kirkus Review
* A Kirkus Best Young Adult Book of 2025

From acclaimed author Lydia Kang comes a funny, moving YA novel following a third-generation Korean American teen who goes to extreme and hilarious lengths to connect more with her Korean heritage, perfect for fans of Maurene Goo and Rachel Lynn Solomon.

Jane Choi is a typical Nebraskan teen—a corn-fed lover of Husker football. But lately, she feels like she’s missing something. Her non-Korean classmates—that’s everyone—are immersed in K-pop, K-dramas, K-beauty . . . basically, K-everything. But for Jane, kimchi? Not a fan. Bibimbap? What is that? Her mom even named her after the very not-Korean Jane Eyre.

Everyone seems to know more about Korean culture than Jane. And she isn’t sure whether she’s more annoyed at them, or herself.

With a baby brother on the way, Jane is determined to save her new sibling from enduring the same humiliation. Enter: a totally foolproof plan to become the K-Jane of her dreams. What better way than to start a private social media account about all things Korean so her closest cousins can learn from her?

But Korean heritage and identity are more complicated than taste-testing multiple varieties of kimchi in front of a camera. And when online virality crashes into real life, Jane’s plans might just go K-boom in her face.

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Toxic

• Toxic is the winner of YARWA’s 2019 Athena Award for Excellence in Young Adult & New Adult Fiction in the YA/NA Speculative Category
• Toxic is also a Junior Library Guild Selection
• The Nerd Daily: Interview with Lydia Kang

Hana isn’t supposed to exist. She’s grown up hidden by her mother in a secret room of the bioship Cyclo until the day her mother is simply gone—along with the entire crew. Cyclo tells her she was abandoned, but she’s certain her mother wouldn’t leave her there to die. And Hana isn’t ready to die yet. She’s never really had a chance to live.

Fenn is supposed to die. He and a crew of hired mercenaries are there to monitor Cyclo as she expires, and the payment for the suicide mission will mean Fenn’s sister is able to live. But when he meets Hana, he’s not sure how to save them both.

As Cyclo grows sicker by the day, they unearth more secrets about the ship and the crew. But the more time they spend together, the more Hana and Fenn realize that falling for each other is what could ultimately kill them both.

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The November Girl

• Winner of the 2018 Nebraska Book Award for Best Young Adult Fiction
• A Best Book of 2017 by Locus Magazine and Bustle Magazine
• Paste Magazine Best Book of 2017
• Best Young Adult Book of 2017
• Kirkus Book Review
• Book Review: A Beautiful Tale of Magical Realism

I am Anda, and the lake is my mother. I am the November storms that terrify sailors and sink ships. With their deaths, I keep my little island on Lake Superior alive.

Hector has come here to hide from his family until he turns eighteen. Isle Royale is shut down for the winter, and there’s no one here but me. And now him.

Hector is running from the violence in his life, but violence runs through my veins. I should send him away, to keep him safe. But I’m half human, too, and Hector makes me want to listen to my foolish, half-human heart. And if I do, I can’t protect him from the storms coming for us.

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Control

• ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers
• Review of CONTROL
• John H. Ames Reading Series
• Top 10 Modern YA Science Fiction Novels

After the violent death of her father, 17 year-old Zelia loses her younger sister, Dylia, during an abduction at a foster care agency. It turns out her sister Dylia isn’t just pretty and sweet—she’s illegal. In the year 2150, DNA must be pure by law, and anyone with enhanced genes face death. Zelia’s only allies are the freak-show inhabitants of her new, underground foster home. Along with the unexpected love of a very strange boy, she will need her flaws and their illicit traits to save the only family she has left.

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Catalyst

• KMTV’s The Morning Blend
• Designer Superbabies Could Rewrite Human Reproduction
• Glitter Magazine’s Author Crush Friday
• #SelfLove video campaign

Zelia Benten has lost her father, the love of her life, and any future she might have imagined for herself. Now she, her sister, and the band of illegal genetic outcasts they’ve come to call their family are forced to run when the safety of their foster home is compromised. But on the way to a rumored haven in Chicago, Zel hears something impossible: Somehow Cy—the boy she loves, the boy who traded himself for his sister’s safety—is whispering insider her head. She has no idea what it means, but she veers off plan in order to search for him.

What she finds is not what she expected. They’ve been protecting themselves so long against the rest of the world, it’s never occurred to them that the real enemy could be much closer than they realize.

Catalyst is a thrilling ride through a dangerous future that will have you racing through the pages, falling in love, and questioning exactly what it means to be human.

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Color Outside the Lines

This modern, groundbreaking YA anthology explores the complexity and beauty of interracial and LGBTQ+ relationships where differences are front and center.

When people ask me what this anthology is about, I’m often tempted to give them the complicated answer: it’s about race, and about how being different from the person you love can matter but how it can also not matter, and it’s about Chinese pirate ghosts, black girl vigilantes, colonial India, a flower festival, a garden of poisons, and so, so much else. Honestly, though? I think the answer’s much simpler than that. Color outside the Lines is a collection of stories about young, fierce, brilliantly hopeful people in love.—Sangu Mandanna, editor of Color outside the Lines

With stories by:
Samira Ahmed | Elsie Chapman | Lauren Gibaldi | Lydia Kang | Michelle Ruiz Keil | Lori Lee | Sangu Mandanna | L.L. McKinney | Anna-Marie McLemore | Danielle Paige | Karuna Riazi | Caroline Tung Richmond | Adam Silvera | Tara Sim | Eric Smith | Kelly Zekas & Tarun Shanker

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