Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves

By E. Kristin Anderson and Miranda Kenneally

Dear Teen Me includes advice from over 70 YA authors (including Lauren Oliver, Ellen Hopkins, and Nancy Holder, to name a few) to their teenage selves. The letters cover a wide range of topics, including physical abuse, body issues, bullying, friendship, love, and enough insecurities to fill an auditorium. So pick a page, and find out which of your favorite authors had a really bad first kiss! Who found true love at 18? Who wishes he'd had more fun in high school instead of studying so hard? Some authors write diary entries, some write letters, and a few graphic novelists turn their stories into visual art. And whether you hang out with the theater kids, the band geeks, the bad boys, the loners, the class presidents, the delinquents, the jocks, or the nerds, you'll find friends—and a lot of familiar faces—in these pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lerner Publishing
• Release date: Aug 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781541581722

E. Kristin Anderson

E. Kristin Anderson, co-creater of the blog Dear Teen Me, has worked on the editorial staff at Hunger Mountain. Her work has been featured in the anthology Coin Opera II, a collection of poems about video games.

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Reviews for Dear Teen Me

[bookswithbite · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved getting to know each other more personally that I ever would. As the reader, you get into the depths of who the author was and who they became. Some struggled harder than others. Reading each story is unique and totally different style of writing. I didn't read all of the authors stories only the ones I knew. I did skim a few authors I have not heard of and made a mental note to be sure to check those authors out.Dear Teen Me is raw, real stories of the past coming to life in front of the reader. Each author bravely puts their life out there for the whole world to see, bearing the soul. I like, that they were too, a teen, making plenty of mistakes and still moving forward.

[bornbookish · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I want to start off by saying that I’m not a big non-fiction reader so the fact that I finished this book is a big deal! This is actually the first anthology I’ve ever read from start to finish. YAY!Dear Teen Me is a collection of YA authors letters to their teen selves. These letters are lighthearted, funny, sad, hopeful. Some deal with serious issues like bullying, eating disorders, suicide, self-harm, and homosexuality. They are letters that every teen can relate to and hopefully find strength in. I’m positive that any teen who picks up this book will be able to relate to at least one letter if not more!My favorite letters were the ones by authors who took a humorous approach on things. Letters like:“9 Things You Need to Know” by Robin Benway“Stop Obsessing, Kiss That Guy, and Party Like it’s 1999” by Jess RothenbergMost of the letters included were short (about a page and a half) making it easy to read in small doses between classes and such.Overall, I think this was a great collection of letters that have the opportunity to touch many teens and help them get through the rough times in their lives while also giving them hope for what the future holds.

[book_in_hand · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoy reading books where the story is told using letters. That's what caught my eye when I was reading about Dear Teen Me. It is a book of authors, who mostly write YA books, writing letters to their teenage selves. I hate it when people say that your high school years are the best years of your life. Just the idea of that being true is depressing. The authors of Dear Teen Me seem to agree with me. Their letters were hilarious, inspiring and touching. I wish that my teen self could receive one of these letters. Dear Teen Me really makes you think about what you would tell teenage you if you had the chance.

[prettydeadly · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Super duper warning here. I'm about to bare a lot of myself and it might be triggering (eating disorders, self harm).


Dear Teen Rebekka,

You've got everyone fooled, don't you? You're popular, pretty, you're part of plenty of teams, you're invited out on Fridays and Saturday nights. You somehow convinced everyone that your normal but I know the truth.

I know it hurts. Everything hurts. You can't pull yourself out of bed, you can't tear your eyes away from that mirror, you can't stop shoving your fingers down your throat. I know that sometimes you don't even feel like a person; you feel like you're in a movie, you're watching someone else do these things. That you have to cut to pull yourself back into your body. I know that you've had to make a horrifying decision, a decision you should have never had to make.

And I know that it is just going to get worse.

But I know something else: it will get better.

It will.

You will heal. You will stop searching for love from boys with dead eyes and great hair; you will stop punishing yourself for those awful things, things you could control and the things that were not your fault. You will learn to really love, you will get closer to your parents, you will learn to forgive. And you will meet a man that will lift you up instead of holding you back.

So please, teen me, do not give up. You have so much more left in you, so much more to see and learn and feel. It gets better. Things aren't perfect now by any stretch, but I can promise you that it is worth it.


Dear Teen Me obviously spoke to me. I went into this book thinking I would be reading stories about bullying. I guess I should pay attention to synopses a little bit more. This book was so much more than that. While I didn't relate to many of the letters, there were a couple letters that basically ripped my heart open, namely from Janet Gurtler, PJ Hoover, and especially, especially Hanna Moskowitz.

Each author relays messages of hope - that is the underlying theme with all of these letters. Things will get better. It will all be okay. You are going to see and experience bigger and better things after high school. Adolescence is a shitty place for everyone, and it will be okay.

Besides the entries dealing with eating disorders, the letters I found most interesting were those written by men. You see, I know what it's like to be a teenage girl. I've been there - and not very long ago at all! But I will never know the displeasure of being a teenage boy. Of being bullied in a locker room by boys older and bigger than me; of facing the struggles of coming out in a world that expects from me the very opposite of who I am; of being a teenage father stuck between my father's expectations and impressing my friends.

I have no doubt that this book will be powerful. I sincerely hope that it ends up in school libraries and not banned for some asinine, shit reasons like having the word "bullshit" in it. I wish I had the opportunity to read this as a teenager. I don't know if it would have saved me some pain but I at least would have known that I was not alone. And that's the most important thing, right?

[vykic37 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Find this review and more at On The Shelf!At first, I thought it was going to be pretty cool to read what authors had to say to their teen selves. But it wasn’t…it was AMAZING. These letters were so much more than I thought they were going to be. Some were funny, some serious, some heartbreaking. I have more respect for a lot of these authors than I did before and I was surprised by some of the very serious issues many of them have dealt with and the message of courage and love being sent out to the people who read these letters. The letters are so honest and encouraging. Many of the letters are from well known authors we all love and there is a website you can visit if you would like to read even more letters. Not a long review, but you just have to read this book!Fast read, encouraging, honest, very touching.

[a_reader_of_fictions · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Originally posted on A Reader of Fictions.

Dear Teen Christina,

Life sucks right now, and, I'm not going to lie to you. High school is awful, but at least middle school is over, and, so far, that exists as the nadir of your life, and I hope that does not change (it hasn't yet). Also, in junior year, you'll make a friend, a real one, the kind of friend you'll still talk to when you're unspeakably old (aka 25). Also, teen self, you should know that your fantasies of showing up at your ten year reunion incredibly hot and successful and falling in instalove with [insert one of the innumerable boys you crush on during high school] will not be coming true. Also, instalove is awful. Even in your daydreams, I expect better quality material, okay? Just know, young self, that it will get better.

There's a lot more that I could tell my teen self, because there's a lot that I've learned, even just to the extent of realizing how much I don't know. None of these authors had quite the same experience that I did, but a comment here and an embarrassing moment there spoke to me, just as others would to anyone who picks it up.

Robin Benway wrote one of my favorite letters in the anthology. Her second point begins, "High school stops mattering the second you graduate from it." This is both the truest and least accurate statement in here, I feel, and sort of sums everything up. All of these stories are people coming to terms with their middle school, high school or college experiences. In some stories, you can still feel the vitriol or the sadness, emotions still very close to the surface. These moments have a profound impact on your formation as a person. However, once I graduated from high school, I hardly looked back, and I barely remember a lot of it. The late nights frantically trying to produce a two-week science experiment in three days (you won't get a good grade on that one, self, but you weren't going to anyway) really just won't matter. And, if you don't want to, you won't ever have to see those people again.

At Decatur Book Festival, the moderator of a panel I attended made an observation that no authors of young adult fiction were popular in high school. Well, Dear Teen Me shows that this is not true. In fact, I'd say there's a pretty decent representation of different social cliques in here, although, unsurprisingly, the nerds do predominate. There are some cheerleaders, though, and at least one jock. I liked that, and getting a window into other people's high school experiences has a cathartic feeling to it, because no one had it easy. Growing up hurts.

Dear Teen Me is a brief volume, composed of short snippets, generally two to four pages long. About half of the authors go for silly self-mockery, giving an entertaining account of their teen awkwardness and playing for laughs. Most of the rest focus on a specific issue that will haunt their years, something dark and painful: eating disorders, self-harm, rape, abuse, grief over the loss of a loved one. The honesty of these stories and the bravery of the authors for putting that out there is incredible. A couple stories, sadly, didn't really say anything at all. These I did not approve of.

I whipped through Dear Teen Me in a single evening. For teenagers struggling with feeling at home in their own skin (aka all teenagers) or for those of us who still have some things from our teen years we need to get over, Dear Teen Me is a powerful read to help us feel just a little bit less alone. Also, you can see what all of the authors looked like in high school (in fact, Sean Beaudoin's letter will be all about his emo, artsy photograph), which I love.

[reginar_447079 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I checked out this book to read the Sara Zarr letter. Each letter is short and easy to read. Enjoyable, not life alterting but I enjoyed the ones I read.

[maryann12_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was great! It took me back to my teen years when you feel you are the only one dealing with such a problem. This is very useful for every teen out there. It is very inspiration and makes you feel as if you are part of the teen's group. Lots of feelings and emotion pure out when you read this book. Very well written and a must for every teen.

[pussreboots · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Dear Teen Me edited by E. Kristen Anderson is a collection of letters written by young adult authors to their teenage selves.I suppose the point of such an exercise is to show struggling teenagers that things will get better. But it makes me wonder if there might be a disjoint between the audience and the messenger, especially when the people writing are now successful or famous.On its most basic level these are little pep talks. They talk of an embarrassing event, or unfounded but universal fears of adolescence. The message over and over is "I went through that too and look at me now!"What I'd like to see an an anthology like this written by adults who aren't famous. It would be nice to see the views from other adult walks of life, career paths, and what not.

[thebooklife · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely love this book and the idea behind it! Who hasn't wanted to give advice to their teenage self? Reading about the type of things that these authors would like to say to their younger selves, definitely makes you think about all the things you wish you knew or could go back and say. I definitely recommend this one to everyone, young and old, and definitely check out the Dear Teen Me blog :0)

[hrose2931 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an interesting book with a lot of short entries by authors I really didn't know writing letters to their teen selves. Some were about the bullies they had to put up with and how that shaped their future lives. Others are about how it's okay that they were shy and awkward because they grow out of it later in life. There are fun Q and A pages that ask about crushes, most embarrassing moments and first jobs. Other entries are harsher, Some are pictures with captions or thought bubbles. Some of the authors I've never heard of some are quite famous and others are in between. It's really interesting to read what they say about themselves as teens. I found that I wasn't all that different from many of them. I realized that a lot of them were as awkward and shy as me and just as lost.It was actually quite comforting to find that I had so much in common with so many authors. Maybe there's hope for my dreams yet!