Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Out of Reach | 2012 | Buy |
| There Will Come a Time | 2014 | Buy |
| Crazy Messy Beautiful | 2017 | Buy |
| We Are All That’s Left | 2018 | Buy |
| Skywatchers | 2020 | Buy |
Carrie Arcos writes young adult novels that take on difficult subjects without flinching. Her debut, Out of Reach (2012), follows a girl on a desperate search through Southern California to find her brother who has disappeared into meth addiction. The book earned a National Book Award nomination and put Arcos on the map as a YA author willing to tackle hard truths. She followed it with There Will Come a Time (2014), a story about a Filipino-American teen processing grief after losing his twin sister.
Her later books continued to explore the messy, complicated parts of growing up. Crazy Messy Beautiful (2017) is a verse novel about three teens whose lives intersect over one day, while We Are All That’s Left (2018) connects a modern-day girl in Maine with her mother’s past during the Bosnian War. Skywatchers (2020) rounds out her catalog with a story set in a sleep-study facility. Across all five novels, Arcos has a talent for writing teens who feel like real people dealing with situations that have no easy answers.