Bored of the sappy chick lit novels and their typical boy-meets-girl, I-love-you-forever, cheesy romance stories? These books will give you the same endorphin rush but with a taste of quirky wit and dorkiness.

Between Us and the Mood 

Author: Rebecca Maizel

Since birth, Sarah — aka “Bean” — has always lived in the shadows of her beautiful older sister, Scarlett. After surviving a traumatic school year, Sarah retreats to Cape Cod with her family. Determined to become her own person, Sarah instead meets a gorgeous college boy Andrew who sees her as the girl she thought she never could be: Scarlett.

Not your typical beach read, this book is sure to stir a whirlwind of pure, raw emotions, mixed with deceit and heartache. With a summer full of firsts, Sarah must decide between finding love or finding herself.

This is My Brain on Boys 

Author: Sarah Strohmeyer

Addie Emerson doesn’t believe in love, but she does believe in science. And science tells her that “love” is merely a state of the brain under the effects of certain chemical compositions. So technically, Addie can cause people to fall in love by artificially stimulating those chemicals, right?

In attempt to win the coveted Athenian Award, a full scholarship to Harvard, Addie has to fight against her “irrational” attraction to that mysterious new guy; a backstabbing former lab partner; and more than one pair of star-crossed lovers to salvage her experiment and prove her theory right. Will her prefrontal cortex prevail or surrender to her amygdala instead?

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The Secret of a Heart Note 

Author: Stacey Lee

Sixteen-year-old Mimosa is one of the last two aromateurs — someone with an extraordinary sense of smell who mixes “the smell of notes” into love-elixirs — left on the planet. She has two choices: fall in love and lose her talent, or keep her talent and live forever alone.

When Mim accidentally gives an elixir to the wrong woman, she is set off on an adventure that makes her realize that falling in love isn’t always a choice she can make.

Shuffle, Repeat

Author: Jen Klein

This humorous, unpredictable story takes off when June’s and Oliver’s mothers decide that it is a wonderful idea for Oliver to drive June to school — every morning, every day of the week, every school week until the end of their senior year. June and Oliver find themselves disagreeing about car music, life plans and pretty much everything there is. But hey, opposites attract, right?

Our Chemical Hearts 

Author: Krystal Sutherland

Henry Page has been waiting forever for his “slo-mo, heart palpitating, can’t-eat-can’t-sleep kind of love”. When Grace Town walks into his first period class on the third Tuesday of his senior year, she was going to change his life, he just didn’t know it yet. Despite being far from his “dream girl”, Henry soon finds himself falling for her, finding himself attracted to the broken-ness in Grace.

Not a typical awkward-boy-meets-weird-girl story, Henry and Grace will bring you through a witty adventure as they find themselves putting each other’s pieces together.

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Girl Against the Universe 

Author: Paula Stokes

Maguire is bad luck for those around her. But her attempts at hiding out in her room as a way of minimizing the damage around her grow futile as she meets Jordy, an aspiring tennis star determined to lift the curse of her unluckiness. Maguire’s brain knows, more than anything, that she should stay away, but what happens when all her heart wants, more than anything, is to stay near Jordy? (sab/kes)