Young Adult Newsletter September 2025

composition notebook that says August

All County buildings, including the Library, will be closed on Monday, September 1, in honor of Labor Day.

New School Year, New Resources!


The Librarians have been hard at work making the Teen Area even cooler! Check out the new reader's advisory and book award binders for recommended reads, look through the school resource section for supplies and study tips, and find our DIY project station to participate in our new monthly art and writing prompts.

Upcoming Events

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Let's Chat in Spanish!

Tuesday, September 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 | 1:00pm-2:00pm
Hotpick Meeting Room


Join us for a weekly program designed to bring together speakers of all levels to practice conversational Spanish in a relaxed, friendly environment.


Learn more.

Crafting at the Library: Beading Bonanza

Saturday, September 6 | 3:00pm-5:00pm
Library Lab


Join us for a rotating monthly craft program on the first Saturday of the month. In September, we will work on independent beading projects.


Learn more.

librarian writing in spanish on whiteboard
image of a pile of pin buttons

Library Open House Party

Thursday, September 11 | 4:00pm-6:00pm

Dunaway Community Room


Celebrate National Library Card Sign-Up Month with us! Enjoy food and live music while you learn more about the Pitkin County Library.


Learn more.

Dungeons & Dragons

Saturday, September 13, 27 | 3:30pm-5:30pm
Library Lab


Become the hero of your own adventure! Join us to play Dungeons & Dragons on the second and fourth Saturday of the month. No experience necessary!


Learn more.

librarian writing in spanish on whiteboard
image of a pile of pin buttons

Book Thieves Book Club

Tuesday, September 16 | 4:30pm-5:30pm
Hotpick Meeting Room


The Book Thieves explore young adult books across genres and discuss them over snacks. At September's meeting, pick up our October book, Very Dangerous Things by Lauren Muñoz, and help us choose November's title!


Learn more.

Young Adult Recommended Reads

Every month, we highlight stories with a different genre or theme in the

Teen Area. Explore the shadowy halls of secretive campuses in these

Dark Academia books.

A Mastery of Monsters

Liselle Sambury

When August’s brother disappears before his sophomore semester, everyone thinks the stress of college got to him. But August knows her brother would never have left her voluntarily, especially not after their mother so recently went missing.


The only clue he left behind was a note telling her to stay safe and protect their remaining family. And after August is attacked by a ten-foot-tall creature with fur and claws, she realizes that her brother might be in more danger than she could have imagined.


Unfortunately for her, the only person with a connection to the mysterious creature is the bookish Virgil Hawthorne…and he knows about them because he is one. If he doesn’t find a partner to help control his true nature, he’ll lose his humanity and become a mindless beast—exactly what the secret society he’s grown up in would love to put down.


Virgil makes a proposition: August will join his society and partner with him, and in return, he’ll help her find her brother. And so August is plunged into a deadly competition to win one of the few coveted candidate spots, all while trying to accept a frightening reality: that monsters are real, and she has to learn to master them if she’s to have any hope of saving her brother.

The Art of Exile

Andrea Max

Unlike the high-achieving members of her family’s secret society, Ada Castle has mastered nothing but the art of falling for the wrong guys. But now she finally has the chance to prove her worth: she just needs to gain access to a hidden school that her family has been trying to locate for generations. Granted, she accidentally goes on a date with the recruiter first, then is temporarily abducted, but Ada manages to secure herself an invitation to the Genesis Institute, where descendants of exiled Renaissance masters practice long-lost arts and sciences.

The school is a utopia of sustainable technology, medical advancements, and myths come to life, yet they are unjustly hoarding their resources. Ada goes undercover to steal their innovations for the rest of the world, but Genesis nurtures her creativity and challenges her views, and she can’t help but fall for the school…and maybe also for her frustratingly off-limits recruiter-turned-mentor.

Ada’s tangle of lies starts to unravel when one of her new friends goes missing. To rescue her, Ada is forced to work with a dangerous (and dangerously hot) classmate whose suspicions threaten her cover. And when the information she’s shared with her family puts her missing friend and all of Genesis in peril, she’ll have to choose whom to betray: the family she loves or the school that has helped her find herself.

Unhallowed Halls

Lili Wilkinson

Page Whittaker has always been an outcast. And after the deadly incident that destroyed her single friendship at her old school, she needs a fresh start. Which is why when she receives a scholarship offer from Agathion College, an elite boarding school folded deep within the moors of Scotland, she doesn’t even consider turning it down.

Agathion is everything Page has ever a safe haven full of dusty books, steaming cups of tea and rigorous intellectual debate. And for the first time in her life, Page has even managed to become part of a close group of friends. Cyrus, Ren, Gideon, Lacey and Oak help her feel at home in Agathion's halls--the only problem is, they're all keeping secrets from her. 

Page doesn't know it yet, but her perfect new school has dark roots--roots that stretch back to its crooked foundation, and an ancient clandestine society with rumored ties to demonic magic. Soon, Page will be forced to learn that not everyone at Agathion is who they say they are. Least of all, her friends.

Agathion claims to teach its students history…but some histories should stay buried.

The Girl You Know

Elle Gonzalez Rose

The week before Luna’s twin sister Solina was supposed to return for her final semester at Kingswood Academy, an elite boarding school in the Washington mountains, she told Luna she was dropping out. When Luna refused to let her throw away her future, Solina disappeared.

Twelve hours later, she was dead.

Luna knows Solina’s death wasn’t an accident, even if the police say otherwise. There’s a reason Solina didn’t want to go back to Kingswood, and Luna knows she’ll find the truth there. All she has to do is become Solina. Playing her sister comes easy, but finding answers is far from it. Between the cunning, cruel people Solina called her friends, Luna's budding feelings for her roommate, and the harsh realization that Solina had dark secrets, getting to the bottom of her sister’s murder is more difficult than Luna could have ever anticipated. But when you have nothing left to lose, you’re willing to do anything to get what you want.

There’s no limit to how far Luna will go to avenge her sister—even if she has to burn all of Kingswood to the ground.

Lovely Dark and Deep

Elisa A. Bonnin

Hidden off the coast of Washington, veiled in mist, there is an island that does not appear on any map. And on that island is Ellery West.

Ellery West has always been home for Faith. After an international move and a childhood spent adjusting to a new culture and a new language, the acclaimed school for magic feels like the only place she can be herself. That is, until Faith and another student walk into the forest, and only Faith walks out.

Marked with the red stripe across her uniform that designates all students deemed too dangerous to attend regular classes, Faith becomes a social pariah, an exile of Ellery West. But all she has to do is keep her head down for one more year to graduate, and she gets to keep her magic. Because when students fail out of Ellery West, they have their magic taken away. Forever. And Faith can't let that happen.

Except terrifying things are still happening to students, and the dark magic that was unleashed in the forest still seems to be at work. To stop it, Faith and the other Red Stripes will have to work together, risking expulsion from the magical world altogether.

BROWSE THE YOUNG ADULT NEW BOOK COLLECTION

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Pitkin County Library
120 North Mill Street, Aspen, Colorado 81611
970-429-1900 | pitcolib.org