Here are some of my recent top of the list:

I am the Messenger -- Marcus Zusak
An Australian author (lots of people love his newest, The Book Thief, too, narrated by Death). From School Library Journal: Nineteen-year-old cabbie Ed Kennedy has little in life to be proud of: his dad died of alcoholism, and he and his mom have few prospects for success. He has little to do except share a run-down apartment with his faithful yet smelly dog, drive his taxi, and play cards and drink with his amiable yet similarly washed-up friends. Then, after he stops a bank robbery, Ed begins receiving anonymous messages marked in code on playing cards in the mail, and almost immediately his life begins to swerve off its beaten-down path. Usually the messages instruct him to be at a certain address at a certain time. So with nothing to lose, Ed embarks on a series of missions as random as a toss of dice: sometimes daredevil, sometimes heartwarmingly safe. .. The ease with which he achieves results vacillates between facile and dangerous, and Ed's search for meaning drives him to complete every task. But the true driving force behind the novel itself is readers' knowledge that behind every turn looms the unknown presence - either good or evil - of the person or persons sending the messages. Zusak's characters, styling, and conversations are believably unpretentious, well conceived, and appropriately raw. Together, these key elements fuse into an enigmatically dark, almost film-noir atmosphere where unknowingly lost Ed Kennedy stumbles onto a mystery - or series of mysteries - that could very well make or break his life.

Airborn -- Kenneth Oppel
Future/alternate history of a young man working on an airship who, along with a female passenger,
discovers a journal detailing a mysterious "new" lifeform. Wonderful adventure!

Postcards from No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers
WWII story told in alternating voices. A British teen, Jacob, is visiting the Netherlands for the first time in lieu of his grandmother to commemorate his grandfather's regiment during the war. His grandfather was injured and rescued by a Dutch family who hid him. The second voice is during the war, from the perspective of a young woman who was in the rescuing family. Both stories are wonderful.

Silent to the Bone by E. L. Konigsburg
From a review on Amazon: What happened on Wednesday, November 25, 2:43 P.M., Eastern Standard Time, to cause Branwell Zamborska to become mute? All anyone knows is that he called 911 because his baby sister, Nikki, had stopped breathing, and when he was unable to speak to the operator, Vivian, the English au pair, came on the line to say that Branwell had dropped the baby and shaken her. His best friend, Connor, begins visiting him at the juvenile behavioral center, where he has been sent while Nikki remains in a coma at the hospital. Working out a code they both can use, Connor begins the long process of trying to communicate with his friend to find out what really happened. With the help of his own half-sister and some canny detective work, Connor uncovers a complex, multilayered tale of human desires, adolescent confusion, and a touch of menace.

Speak -- Laurie Halse Anderson
Fantastic story of an incident (at a party that happened right before the book begins) as the girl is beginning 9th grade. She called 911, and everyone is mad at her and shun her. She stops speaking as the book progress and we slowly learn what happened. Starts off funny, but gets more intense and is a very interesting journey.

The Schwa was Here -- Neal Shusterman
Contemporary fiction about a boy who nobody seems to notice and the friendship he makes with another boy. Other plot lines include an unusually cranky neighbor who blackmails him into walking his dogs and the beginnings of a romance.

Mortal Engines (Hungry City Chronicles) -- Philip Reeve
Science fiction -- a time in the future when cities have become traction cities: they move around and look for other, usually smaller cities to consume and re-use. Main character starts out on London, but is pushed off by another character and the adventures that ensue. He works in the museum, which includes an exhibit of Pluto and Mickey, "animal-headed gods of 21st c. America". :-)

Sally Lockhart Trilogy -- Philip Pullman (starts with Ruby in the Smoke)
More from Amazon reviews: "Her name was Sally Lockhart; and within fifteen minutes, she was going to kill a man." Philip Pullman begins his Sally Lockhart trilogy with a bang in The Ruby in the Smoke--a fast-paced, finely crafted thriller set in a rogue- and scalawag-ridden Victorian London. His 16-year-old heroine has no time for the usual trials of adolescence: her father has been murdered, and she needs to find out how and why.

His Dark Materials Trilogy -- Philip Pullman (starts with the Golden Compass)
I hope you all already know and love this -- the movie comes out in December, I think! One of the all-time best fantasy trilogies in my opinion. Philip Pullman is AMAZING (and versatile -- see above and others).

Feed -- M. T. Anderson
And one more from Amazon -- it's getting late!
In this chilling novel, Anderson imagines a society dominated by the feed -- a next-generation Internet/television hybrid that is directly hardwired into the brain. Teen narrator Titus never questions his world, in which parents select their babies' attributes in the conceptionarium, corporations dominate the information stream, and kids learn to employ the feed more efficiently in School. But everything changes when he and his pals travel to the moon for spring break. There Titus meets home-schooled Violet, who thinks for herself, searches out news and asserts that "Everything we've grown up with the stories on the feed, the games, all of that it's all streamlining our personalities so we're easier to sell to." Without exposition, Anderson deftly combines elements of today's teen scene, including parties and shopping malls, with imaginative and disturbing fantasy twists.

Hope you find something to love here!
Tamsyn