Books Like Love from A to Z

There is a specific feeling that comes from finishing Love from A to Z: you have been inside two young hearts carrying heavy things, and you believe in hope again. S.K. Ali’s novel - Zayneb, the activist who has been suspended for speaking out, and Adam, the boy with a rare illness carrying a grief he cannot name, who meet on a plane to Qatar - is one of the most beloved YA novels of recent years, because it is a romance that is also an argument for hope.

The book’s power is its structure: the “marvels and oddities” that Zayneb records in her journal - the wonder and the sorrow of being alive - and the love that grows between two people who have every reason to despair and choose hope anyway. The problem after finishing it is the one every great book creates: you want more of the feeling - the young love, the hope, the grief held with tenderness. This guide collects the books that genuinely belong on that shelf.

What Made Love from A to Z Special#

Before the recommendations, it is worth naming what you are actually looking for, because the right next book depends on which part of the book stayed with you.

If the love stayed with you - Zayneb and Adam, the meeting, the falling - then the YA romances will fit. If the grief stayed with you - the losses they carry, the hope they choose - then the grief-and-hope novels will be your natural next step. And if the identity stayed with you - the Muslim teens, the faith, the belonging - then the identity novels will carry it forward.

Most readers are looking for all three, and the books below cover the range.

The YA Romances#

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz#

If there is one book that the Love from A to Z reader should pick up next, it is Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Sáenz’s novel - Ari, the angry boy, and Dante, the confident one, two Mexican-American teens who become friends and then more - is one of the most beloved YA novels of its generation, and it shares Love from A to Z’s tenderness and its depth.

The two books are companions: the young love, the identity, the emotional honesty. Where Love from A to Z is set against grief and illness, Aristotle and Dante is set against identity and family - and both are about the courage of being seen.

Content notes: Accessible YA; deals with identity, family and some adult themes.

The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon#

For readers who want the meeting-cute structure and the hope, The Sun Is Also a Star is the essential book. Natasha, the girl who is about to be deported, and Daniel, the poet, meet and fall in love over the course of one day in New York - and the novel is the story of that day.

The book shares Love from A to Z’s structure - the meeting, the falling, the forces against them - and its insistence on hope. For readers who loved the impossible-love quality, this is the book.

Content notes: Accessible YA; suitable for teenage readers.

The Grief and Hope Novels#

Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott#

For readers who want the young love and the illness, Five Feet Apart is the essential book. Stella and Will, two teens with cystic fibrosis, fall in love - and cannot get within five feet of each other, because the illness that binds them forbids the closeness they want.

The book shares Love from A to Z’s central tension: the love that exists alongside the illness, the hope that is chosen against the odds. For readers who loved Adam’s story, this is the companion.

Content notes: YA; deals with chronic illness and death.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green#

For readers who want the grief and the hope at their most beloved, The Fault in Our Stars is the essential book. Hazel and Augustus, two teens with cancer, meet in a support group and fall in love - and the novel is one of the most loved YA books of its generation.

The book shares Love from A to Z’s conviction: that love and hope are possible even when the odds are not, and that the brief life can be a full one. For readers who want the theme at its most famous, this is the book.

Content notes: YA; deals with terminal illness and death.

When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert#

For readers who want the grief with the friend group, When We Were Infinite is the essential book. Beth, whose best friend has been the center of her life, and the friend group that holds together when everything falls apart - the novel is about the love that is tested by crisis.

The book shares Love from A to Z’s emotional register, and it is the book for readers who want the grief and the holding.

Content notes: YA; deals with trauma and mental health; for mature teens.

The Representation in the Book#

One of the reasons Love from A to Z means so much to its readers is what it represents: two Muslim teens, fully human, in love, at the center of a beloved YA novel. Zayneb is a Muslim girl in a hijab who is also a fierce activist; Adam is a Muslim boy who is also an artist carrying illness and grief. The novel does not make them symbols; it makes them people - with families, faith, humor, struggles and love - and the representation is the point: the reader who has never seen themselves in a love story finds themselves here, and the reader who has seen themselves everywhere learns to see others.

This is the dimension the reader carries, and it is the key to the shelf: the books on this list are full of such representation - the characters who were missing from the stories and are now at the center - and reading them is a way of participating in the widening of the story. The love is universal; the faces are particular; and the particular is the point.

The Identity Novels#

Saints and Misfits by S.K. Ali#

For readers who want more of the author, Saints and Misfits is the essential book. Ali’s first novel - Janna, the Muslim teen navigating faith, family and the aftermath of an assault - is the book that introduced her voice, and it shares Love from A to Z’s warmth and its honesty about identity.

The book is for readers who loved the author’s voice and want the themes of faith and belonging in a different register.

Content notes: YA; deals with assault and its aftermath; for mature teens.

Love from A to Z’s Marvels and Oddities#

One of the distinctive things about Love from A to Z is the journal structure: Zayneb’s lists of marvels and oddities - the wonder and the strangeness of being alive, recorded in the middle of grief. The structure is not decoration; it is the argument. The novel insists that the marvels and the oddities belong together - that hope does not require the absence of sorrow, and that the person who can still notice the marvels is the person who can still hope.

This is the lesson the reader carries, and it is the reason the book belongs with the hope novels: the practice of noticing the marvels, even in the hard seasons, is the practice the shelf is built on. The books on this list are all, in different ways, about the same noticing - and the noticing is the hope.

The Notebook as a Survival Tool#

One of the cleverest devices in Love from A to Z is the notebook in which the narrator records the good things that happen, on purpose, so that hope has somewhere to live. It is a small act of self-preservation, and the novel treats it with complete seriousness: the notebook is not a cute detail but a strategy for staying alive inside grief. Zayneb and Adam are both people who have learned to manage their own pain, and the book is full of these small technologies of survival - the lists, the mantras, the rituals that keep a person upright when the world gives them every reason to collapse.

The novels on this shelf share that respect for the practical side of hope. Their characters do not simply feel; they cope, and the coping is often the most moving part of the story. In some books the survival tool is explicit - a journal, a routine, a project - and the reader watches it do its quiet work. In others it is woven into the character’s voice itself, so that the way they tell their own story is the way they keep themselves together. Either way, the effect is the same: grief is not romanticised or hurried past, but met with the small, stubborn inventions of ordinary people.

There is also something important in the way the book insists that joy is not a betrayal of loss. The characters do not forget what they have lost; they simply refuse to let the loss have the last word, and the notebook is the evidence of that refusal. That balance - honouring grief without surrendering to it - is the signature of the best novels on this shelf, and it is why they leave the reader feeling strangely lifted rather than simply sad. If the notebook in Love from A to Z moved you, look for the books that find their own small containers for hope, and you will be in good hands. Our guide to grief and healing gathers the novels that write about loss with the same honesty and care.

How to Choose Your Next Read#

The right next book depends on what you are ready for. If you want the same young love and depth: Aristotle and Dante. If you want the meeting-cute and the hope: The Sun Is Also a Star. If you want the love and the illness: Five Feet Apart. If you want the theme at its most famous: The Fault in Our Stars. If you want the friend group and the grief: When We Were Infinite. If you want more of the author: Saints and Misfits.

There is no wrong order, but there is a sensible one: start with Aristotle and Dante for the depth, then The Sun Is Also a Star for the hope, then Five Feet Apart for the love and the illness, and let the others fill in as you go.

The Resilience and Purpose Shelf#

Love from A to Z is, at its core, a book about hope - the hope chosen in the middle of grief, the marvels noticed in the hard seasons - and it belongs on the wider growth shelf, alongside the books that explore that capacity. Our guide to meaningful resilience for adults walks through the capacity that Zayneb and Adam’s story demonstrates - the resilience of choosing hope against the odds - and it pairs naturally with this reading, because the young love is powered by the resilience.

The shelf also connects to purpose, in a specific way: the question the novel raises - what are you for, in the life you have? - is the purpose question, and the answer the teens find is the purpose answer: love, hope, the marvels noticed. Our thoughtful guide to purpose explores that question, and it belongs with this reading because the hope is, at heart, a purpose practice. Together they form part of the growth section of our library, where the whole shelf of hope is gathered.

Conclusion#

Love from A to Z is one of the most beloved YA novels of recent years because it is a romance that is also an argument for hope - Zayneb and Adam, two teens carrying heavy things, who fall in love and choose hope anyway, recording the marvels and oddities of being alive. The books on this list are the honest responses to the question it leaves behind: what next?

The young love of Sáenz and Yoon, the grief and hope of Lippincott, Green and Gilbert, and the identity work of Ali herself - together they carry the same truth in different voices: the marvels and the oddities belong together, and the hope is the noticing. Read the notes, choose where you are, and let the books take their time.