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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of coming of age short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

6510+ Coming of age Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. No matter how old you are, there’s just something inherently relatable about coming-of-age tales. Discover the best new coming-of-age stories right here!

Coming of age Short Stories – Page 5 of 434

The Day I Stopped Making Excuses

Submitted to Contest #299

I woke up that morning and my first thought was of the beautiful resolution that had lullabied me to a sweet sleep the night before to never again make an excuse for any of my failings, large or small. It was a comfort knowing that now by sheer force of will and moral fortitude I would with confidence stand up to any challenge and, if it was hard, go forth and persevere and, if it was easy, persevere as well. Oh, if you had only seen the bounce in my step, the sunshine, light and joy that radiated from my eyes as I looked around my bedroom...

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My Bully Frenemy... is a Ghost?!

Submitted to Contest #299

I guess I never thought I’d said life is good while staring at the chaos right in the face.If you look at the picture, you will find me with my dress drenched. The whole venue for my Quinceañera party is flooded. The cake, the food, and some presents are done for good. But here we are, dancing under the lights like nothing happened, listening to “Party in the USA” and moving our hips. The good people I want and need are here: my parents, my best friend Mary and my newfound friend… frenemy… uh, I… I don’t even know how to name it. One, becaus...

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Marvin the Magnificent (and the Price of Wonder)

Submitted to Contest #299

The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows across the cracked pavement of the park. Marvin stood at the edge of the fountain, the faint smell of stale popcorn mingling with the scent of freshly cut grass. His fingers trembled around three juggling balls, smooth, round, and heavier than they had any right to be."Come on, Marvin," he muttered, glancing at a small group of children sitting cross-legged on the grass. A couple of parents lounged nearby, only half-watching, their faces illuminated by the blue glow of phone screens.He tossed...

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Poor Mr. Whiskers

Submitted to Contest #299

Poor Mr. Whiskers…My mom said that every time I tell a story, start from “the big beginning”. I will try to do that now.Mom said that we were going to take a very big trip and I got excited and she said don’t be excited because you will have to go to the bathroom and I just put you in your favourite coat and hat with those boots (my feet hurt). I did not get that excited, but I was happy that we were taking the trip, but where was dad? Dad had to work that week and we could not take a trip with him so we should just enjoy it and maybe not te...

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The Magnificent Temper of Catherine the Great

Submitted to Contest #299

“Sharpen those minds, folks. It’s test time!”Hark, the holy master doth cry. Seriously though, how do they expect us to be excited about our futures when they use discount Eugene Levy as the personification of a fulfilled education? I stare at him as he stops at my desk, licking a grotesque finger onto a stapled manifesto of misery while a sickly smile spreads on his sagging face like a delightful disease. He leaves a spot of saliva on my paper as he slithers onto his next victim. I am simultaneously mortified and mystified by this meagre m...

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Tijuana At Five

Submitted to Contest #300

Words woke me and I looked up through the smell of car mustiness and petrol to a smiling moustache on a strange face. I was still curled in the darkness of the backseat and didn’t know if it had been on a long drive or if we had arrived in Mexico. I didn’t know if I was awake but I did know that we were sitting still now with the engine still vibrating. The moustache man wore dark glasses under a slouchy light brown military kind of hat with a shiny bill. I saw brown skin and a smile but he was just a blur with a background of glaring lights...

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My Life As A Taco

Submitted to Contest #299

This is stupid. Wear-your-sneaker-toes-out-kicking-the-carpet boring. A full careful-not-to-tip-your-chair-too-far-or-crash snorefest. And it’s making me hungry. “Who can give me an example of a food from the grains and cereals group?” There’s a collection of play food from the kindergarten kitchen on the table beside Miss Krizinski. David C and Michelle got to go down to the kindergarten room to pick it up from Mrs. Wilson. That’s all the way out the big doors and down the hall. Lucky. To get to go. Not because of the kindergarteners. Kind...

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The Weight of Time

Submitted to Contest #299

Each birthday is supposed to bring wisdom—another year of challenges and lessons shaping who you become. As I sit in my bedroom on my seventeenth, listening to Mom and Dad argue again, I wonder if that’s true. Do we grow, or are we just trapped in the same cycles, bound to people who drain us? Of all days, you’d think this one wouldn’t be about them and their failing marriage. What keeps people tethered to someone they clearly disdain? I scan my room for a distraction. Action figures I haven’t touched in years. Books ranging from Dr. Seuss...

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Atlas Shrugged

Submitted to Contest #299

I was sixteen years old when the whole mess with The Vatican Archives and the summoning of The Great One went down, and even when I said I was sorry there was little in the way of forgiveness from the parties affected. Sure, the humans had some reason to be upset, but I think they went just a little overboard. Besides, The Great One only took over a small fishing village in Boston and made the locals into fish-mutants, hardly worth getting riled up over seeing as he didn’t even kill any of them. In some cases, the people of Port Merton were ...

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The Great Noodle Meltdown

Submitted to Contest #299

Name: MaxClass: Language Arts – 4th PeriodAssignment: Personal Narrative – “A Family Memory I’ll Never Forget”Title: The Great Noodle Meltdown (aka The Spaghetti Incident)Every family has tall tales to tell. Every generation, they get a little more crazy, a little harder to believe. It’s those stories that come up every holiday, family reunion, and around the campfire when someone says, "Remember that time...".For me, there's one very specific story that sticks out more than the rest.It all began on a Sunday in May. Some people might call it...

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The Toupee

Submitted to Contest #299

The day my mom left for the fat farm, dad wore his new toupee. I now see that the two events were related, but back then i didn't see it that way. The way I saw it, fat farms and toupees didn't have much in common. They were totally separate things. But I was wrong. The fat farm was located in Canada somewhere. My mom weighed 250 pounds and, according to the doctor, if she didn't lose the weight, her organs might start to fail. She didn't want to go, but she had no choice. She needed those organs.One night, while I was lying in the lower bu...

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Strings and Rods

Submitted to Contest #299

Duncan lay motionless with his legs on the bed and his arms stretched out over the nightstand. The late afternoon sun pierced through the vinyl mini-blinds warming his back. Lynette gasped when she saw him and ran to his side. Nicole was on Lynette's heels anxiously awaiting the moment she could take pleasure in Lynette's distress. Lynette untangled Duncan's strings and rods with the care one would afford any small living creature and not merely a marionette puppet.“Oh, are you going to cry over your stupid little creepy doll?” Nicole mocked...

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Trigonometry

Submitted to Contest #299

It was in the fall of 1985 that Jack’s dream of attending an Ivy League college went down the drain. During a trigonometry midterm, third period, at Roman Catholic High School in Philadelphia, Mario Lombardi lost his mind and decided to cheat.They sat next to each other in Mr. Rysak’s class. Jack was in the fourth row, third seat back, and Mario sat next to him on his left. Now anyone who has been through high school knows that people who are good at cheating don’t get caught. Unfortunately, Mario wasn’t good at cheating; in fact, he never c...

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From Raging Bulls to Roaring Laughter

Submitted to Contest #299

My name is Fernando Ramírez. I used to be a bullfighter. My career wasn’t long, but it was exciting. Growing up, my father often took the whole family to the bullfights at Plaza de Toros México. The scent of roasted peanuts and spilled beer mixed with the sharp musk of the arena sand. The spectacle felt like magic to me. The elegance of the matador’s movements, shimmering in their embroidered suit under the bright stadium lights, contrasted with the brute force of the bull in a way that left me transfixed. The crowd's roar rolled over me lik...

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How I Became Acolyte to Primordial Chaos

Shortlisted for Contest #299 ⭐️

CW: TransphobiaHow familiar are you with chaos theory?An old adage goes that if a butterfly somewhere in Brazil flaps its wings, it can potentially form a tornado in Texas, because everything is connected. Ask a meteorologist how often they consult butterfly wings when writing weather reports, and they might look at you a bit funny. But the metaphor still works.So what if you could control the butterflies? Not just one, but all of them? Every single factor in the complex, nearly unknowable ecosystem that led to the destruction, or lack there...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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