This study explored the nature and performance of masculinity portrayed in popular young adult novels featuring female protagonists. Although all had their limitations, the novels offered more complex renderings of gendered identity in the lives of female and male adolescent characters, addressed the effects of enforced traditional masculinity, and productively, if only momentarily, disrupted the connection between sex and gender in ways that allow for engagement with alternative notions of masculinity. Studying masculinity in these contemporary young adult novels about girls' lives offers much for students and teachers to consider in analyzing masculinity and femininity in texts and in life. (Contains 2 notes.)