Atheists are a despised minority. According to a recent Pew survey, voters are warier of an atheist candidate than of a lesbian, an adulterer or an erstwhile marijuana user. At the same time, atheist pride is waxing in the United States. Atheist tracts share prominent space at airport bookstores with memoirs about dogs and inspirational volumes for aspiring C.E.O.s. Atheist campus groups are multiplying, and polls show growing numbers of Americans identifying with the label.

What kind of young people’s literature can we expect in the early, heady days of a minority-rights movement? Second-wave feminism spawned some horrid writing (case in point, Jill Johnston’s stream-of-­consciousness “Lesbian Nation,” from 1973), but it primed readers to listen for a greater range of women’s voices, in many ways making possible the current flourishing of American fiction. Three new novels feature teenage characters openly skeptical of God’s existence, with mixed results for readers. These books suggest that while the New Atheism, Teenage Edition, opens up some fresh possibilities for the Y.A. novel, it may inevitably suffer its own growing pains.

“Misdirected,” by Ali Berman, is seemingly born more of anger against religious people than of interest in understanding them. When Ben’s mother gets a new job, the family moves from Boston to a conservative town in Colorado. Despite being fairly progressive, and irreligious, they enroll him in the far-right Christian Heritage Academy, because it “had a much better reputation” than the public school — a choice that makes sense only to an author needing to chug along her anti-­Christian plot. Ben becomes a pariah for his atheist views, his only friends down-low atheists and Tess, a neighbor and love interest, who is that rarity in town: an open-minded, nonjudgmental Christian.

Tess’s parents forbid her to consort with Ben, and the teachers at school are no friendlier. There’s a kind of campy comedy to the dialogue at Ben’s high school. “You’re new here, Ben,” his science teacher says, when Ben questions creationism, “so you’ll need some time to adjust.” He tells Ben to read up on proper biblical science. “Because right now you’re saying things that will get you a seat in detention . . . and in hell. And I don’t think any of us want that, now do we?”