Amanda Sellet
Amanda Sellet has published 6 books. The recommended reading order starts with By the Book (2020).
Amanda Sellet writes YA novels, channeling a previous career as a professional critic into escapist romps for teens and grown-ups. Her strong opinions about books, movies, and baked goods, once the foundation of her criticism, now inform stories featuring smart girls with a lot to learn. She is firmly on team comedy.
Sellet made her debut as a novelist in 2020 with the book By the Book. She approaches her writing with the same saltiness that defined her critical work, creating stories that offer readers a chance to escape. Her books are written for young adults, but her focus on universally relatable characters and situations appeals to a broader audience.
Shelf & Shadows
Order of Standalone Novels
- Tagsyoung-adultromancechildrenDescriptionAmanda Sellet delivers a contemporary YA romance that understands the particular alchemy of falling in love through literature, where every conversation becomes a debate and every glance carries the weight of a thousand footnotes. This is a story for anyone who has ever argued passionately about a book, who has underlined passages like they're mapping territory, who knows that the right novel at the right moment can rewrite your entire understanding of yourself. The premise hums with tension: a summer spent in the company of someone who reads all your favorite books completely wrong, who challenges every interpretation you've held sacred, who makes you defend what you love most and, in doing so, makes you see it anew. Sellet captures the heady intellectual sparring of two sharp minds circling each other, the way attraction can disguise itself as antagonism, the vulnerability of letting someone see not just which books line your shelves but why they matter. This isn't a story that uses books as mere set dressing—it's about the readers themselves, about how we argue our way toward intimacy, how we test each other with our most beloved stories, and how sometimes the person who disagrees with you most fiercely is the one who understands you best.Publication dateMay 12, 2020Amazon rating4.2/5Print length384LanguageEnglishPublisherClarion Books
- Tagsyoung-adultromanceliterary-fictionDescriptionHigh school shouldn't feel like a battleground, but it does when you're fighting to be taken seriously. Amanda Sellet's *Belittled Women* is a sharp, witty reimagining that takes the bones of Alcott's classic and rebuilds them for the modern age. This isn't your grandmother's March sisters. This is what happens when ambition meets condescension, when talent runs headlong into the boys' club. The title says it all. Sellet zeroes in on the daily indignities, the microaggressions, the casual dismissals that chip away at confidence. Her protagonist navigates a world where being smart and female means constantly proving yourself, where every achievement comes with an asterisk. The voice is fierce, funny, and fed up in all the right ways. You'll recognize the frustrations even if you've never cracked open *Little Women*. What sets this apart is its refusal to soften the edges. Sellet doesn't offer easy answers or tidy resolutions. She gives us a heroine who's angry, flawed, and utterly real. The romance is there, but it's not the point—the point is finding your voice when everyone else wants to turn down the volume. This is a book that understands the particular exhaustion of being underestimated. It's a rallying cry wrapped in a coming-of-age story, and it doesn't apologize for either.Publication dateNovember 29, 2022Amazon rating3.6/5Print length384LanguageEnglishPublisherClarion Books
- TagsromanceDescriptionAmanda Sellet delivers a sharp, self-aware romantic comedy that understands the difference between performing a life and actually living one. This is a book about the exhausting labor of being likable—and what happens when you finally stop trying. Our protagonist has perfected the art of being the girl everyone expects: agreeable, accommodating, endlessly pleasant. She's so good at faking enthusiasm that she's forgotten what genuine desire even feels like. But when circumstances force her into close quarters with someone who sees straight through her carefully constructed persona, the performance starts to crack. What sets this apart is Sellet's refusal to make this a simple "be yourself" fable. The fake-it dynamic here isn't just romantic—it's existential. How do you untangle who you are from who you've pretended to be for so long? The romance unfolds alongside that harder, messier question, and neither gets shortchanged. Sellet writes with the kind of wit that makes you laugh and wince in equal measure, because the observations cut close to the bone. This is contemporary YA that trusts its readers to handle complexity, to sit with discomfort, to recognize that growth isn't a montage. It's a book about permission—to want things, to disappoint people, to be difficult. And it makes that journey feel urgent, necessary, and deeply satisfying.Publication dateJuly 16, 2024Amazon rating3.5/5Print length329LanguageEnglishPublisherSt. Martin's Griffin
- TagsromancemysteryDescriptionA teenager navigates the precarious mathematics of chance, choice, and consequence in this sharp contemporary novel. The title itself suggests a world where probability matters—where outcomes hang in the balance and every decision carries weight. Amanda Sellet constructs a story that likely examines how we calculate risk in our daily lives, particularly during those formative years when the stakes feel impossibly high. The "odds" in question could be romantic, academic, or existential—the kind that keep you up at night doing mental arithmetic, trying to figure out if you've played your hand right. This is the territory of young adult fiction at its most observant: not just what happens to us, but how we think about what happens to us. What emerges is a meditation on agency disguised as a coming-of-age story. The phrase "getting even" carries a double meaning—both the settling of scores and the achievement of equilibrium, that elusive state where the odds finally balance in your favor. Sellet appears to understand that adolescence is fundamentally about learning which battles to fight and which debts to forgive, including the ones we owe ourselves. For readers who appreciate fiction that treats teenage intelligence with respect, this offers a clear-eyed look at how we learn to play the odds when the game keeps changing.Publication dateJuly 15, 2025Amazon rating3.8/5Print length310LanguageEnglishPublisherSt. Martin's Griffin
- Tagsyoung-adultmysteryromancecrimeDescriptionAmanda Sellet brings readers a contemporary mystery where romance and danger intersect in unexpected ways. The title itself suggests a delicate balance between attraction and peril, a duality that promises to drive the narrative forward with both tension and chemistry. At the heart of this standalone novel lies a question that refuses easy answers: how do you navigate the complications of desire when someone's life might be at stake? The premise invites readers into a world where flirtation becomes more than playful banter, where every glance and conversation could carry consequences far beyond a broken heart. Sellet constructs a story that asks readers to consider what happens when the thrill of connection collides with genuine threat, when the person who makes your pulse race might also be hiding something deadly. The novel unfolds with the kind of propulsive energy that keeps pages turning late into the night, blending the emotional stakes of romantic tension with the intellectual puzzle of a mystery that demands solving. Sellet's approach suggests a writer who understands that the best mysteries aren't just about uncovering who committed the crime, but about exploring how danger transforms the people caught in its wake. This is a book for readers who want their mysteries laced with genuine feeling, who appreciate stories where the heart and the head must work in tandem to survive.Publication dateApril 21, 2026Amazon rating4.2/5Print length311LanguageEnglishPublisherWednesday Books
- TagsromanceDescriptionThis is the rom-com that proves destination weddings are chaos waiting to happen—especially when you're seventeen, stuck in the French countryside with your ex-best friend, and pretending everything is fine. Amanda Sellet delivers a sharp, swoony story about what happens when old wounds meet new possibilities, all against the backdrop of lavender fields and too much champagne. When an invitation arrives to a wedding in France, it should be the trip of a lifetime. But for our protagonist, it means facing the girl who used to be her person, the one she hasn't spoken to in years after their friendship imploded. Forced proximity has never been more uncomfortable—or more electric. As the wedding festivities unfold, so do long-buried secrets, misunderstandings that festered in silence, and the realization that some connections don't just disappear because you stop talking. Sellet captures the specific ache of losing a friendship and the terrifying hope of getting it back, all while serving up the kind of banter that makes you want to reread pages twice. It's tender without being precious, funny without undercutting the real emotion at stake, and it understands that sometimes the most important love story is the one between friends.Publication dateAugust 11, 2026Print length320LanguageEnglishPublisherSt. Martin's Griffin
Frequently Asked Questions about Amanda Sellet
Amanda Sellet writes standalone novels. Each book can be read independently of the others. The books are listed here in the order they were published: By the Book (2020), Belittled Women (2022), Hate to Fake It to You (2024), The Odds of Getting Even (2025), and Flirting with Murder (2026). There is one more book planned for publication.
Since Amanda Sellet's novels are all standalones, you can start with any book. The first book published was By the Book in 2020. Her most recent novel is Hate to Fake It to You, published in 2024. You might choose to begin with either of these or any other title that catches your interest.
No, you do not have to read Amanda Sellet's books in order. All of her novels are standalones, meaning each book tells a complete story that can be enjoyed on its own. The publication order is By the Book (2020), Belittled Women (2022), Hate to Fake It to You (2024), The Odds of Getting Even (2025), and Flirting with Murder (2026).
Amanda Sellet writes standalone novels. This means each book is a complete story and does not require knowledge of previous books in order to be understood or enjoyed. The novels published to date are By the Book (2020), Belittled Women (2022), Hate to Fake It to You (2024), The Odds of Getting Even (2025), and Flirting with Murder (2026).
Amanda Sellet has written five novels that have been published. These include By the Book (2020), Belittled Women (2022), Hate to Fake It to You (2024), The Odds of Getting Even (2025), and Flirting with Murder (2026). One additional book is planned for future release.
The first book Amanda Sellet wrote was By the Book, published in 2020. This novel is a standalone story. It was followed by Belittled Women in 2022 and Hate to Fake It to You in 2024. Upcoming titles include The Odds of Getting Even in 2025 and Flirting with Murder in 2026.
Amanda Sellet's most recent book is Hate to Fake It to You, published in 2024. This is a standalone novel. Her previous book was Belittled Women (2022), and her next scheduled release is The Odds of Getting Even in 2025.
Amanda Sellet writes contemporary romance novels. Her books explore relationships and romantic entanglements. Titles include By the Book (2020), Belittled Women (2022), Hate to Fake It to You (2024), The Odds of Getting Even (2025), and Flirting with Murder (2026).
Sasha Burke
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Sarah Morgenthaler
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Karen M. McManus
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We verified the reading order for Amanda Sellet's books by cross-referencing official publication dates, ISBN databases, and publisher catalogs.
Last verified: May 2026
Shelf & Shadows. (…). “Amanda Sellet Books in Order.” Retrieved …, from https://www.shelfandshadows.com/authors/amanda-sellet