Contemporary books without romance

If you’re looking for a bit of romance on the side, you can find it in space operas, murder mysteries, epic fantasies, hard-hitting YA, historical fiction, and every other kind of book under the sun.
If you’re looking for books without romance, though, things get harder.
But they do exist! .

One of the most common requests I see from YA readers is for books that contain little or no romantic elements to them.
A couple of years ago, one of the biggest complaints I read across the book blogging and greater literary world was how there were “too many” books in YA with a romance at the center of the story.

These six contemporary novels all feature (almost) no romance.
A few of them do mention romance, but none of them have romantic plots or subplots.
Some of the characters in these books are in romantic relationships at one point or another, but those relationships are just briefly touched on.
Romance isn’t what drives the plot.

In short, “little to no romance” simply means that romance is way in the backseat, with no driving force in the narrative.
Just because a book doesn’t feature a romance, though, doesn’t mean it’s an easy book nor that it’s not a book tackling tough, gritty topics.
Many of these books do just that.