Modern Boy YA with Magic

Try these books if you're looking for:

• teen reads
• male protagonist
• good characterization
• modern settings

Ship Breaker 
Paolo Bacigalupi
YA F BACIGALU
In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.

Midnight for Charlie Bone 
Jenny Nimmo
YA F NIMMO Charlie #1
Charlie Bone's life with his widowed mother and two grandmothers undergoes a dramatic change when he discovers that he can hear people in photographs talking.

Insignia 
S.J. Kincaid
YA F KINCAID Insignia #1
Tom, a fourteen-year-old genius at virtual reality games, is recruited by the United States Military to begin training at the Pentagon Spire as a Combatant in World War III, controlling the mechanized drones that do the actual fighting off-planet.