Young Adult

Blood moon book cover

Blood moon

Lucy Cuthew

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Cuthew Lucy
Young Adult

"After school one day, Frankie, a lover of physics and astronomy, has her first sexual experience with quiet and gorgeous Benjamin - and gets her period. It's only blood, they agree. But soon a gruesome meme goes viral, turning an intimate, affectionate afternoon into something sordid, mortifying, and damaging. In the time it takes to swipe a screen, Frankie's universe implodes. Who can she trust? Not Harriet, her suddenly cruel best friend, and certainly not Benjamin, the only one who knows about the incident. As the online shaming takes on a horrifying life of its own, Frankie begins to wonder: is her real life over?" --Amazon.

Victoria's picture

A formidable feminist find in verse (that's called alliteration!). -Victoria

Somebody give this heart a pen book cover

Somebody give this heart a pen

Sophia Thakur

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Thakur Sophia
Black History, Young Adult

"In her publishing debut, internationally acclaimed performance poet Sophia Thakur takes you on an intimate journey through love, loss, sacrifice, and self-discovery. In four parts -- titled Grow, Wait, Break, and Grow Again -- she shares her raw self and gives voice to experiences that connect people, inspiring readers to explore the tendencies of the heart." -- Provided by publisher.

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Sophia is raw, honest and someone who who built herself up brick by brick to become an indomitable force. Somebody give that heart all the pens she needs! If you don't know her, you need to check her out! -Victoria

Beauty mark : a verse novel of Marilyn Monroe book cover

Beauty mark : a verse novel of Marilyn Monroe

Carole Boston Weatherford

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Weatherf Carole
Young Adult

From the day she was born as Norma Jeane Mortenson, to her reigning days as a Hollywood icon, Marilyn Monroe lived a life that was often defined by others. This verse novel revisits Marilyn's often traumatic early life of foster homes, loneliness, sexual abuse, teen marriage, and follows her into a hard-won, meteoric rise to stardom that brought with it exploitation, pill dependency, and depression. In covering moments of extraordinary pain and moments of unexpected grace, gumption, and perseverance, we learn the inexorable power of pursuing one's dreams. -- adapted from jacket

Victoria's picture

A gripping account of a Hollywood icon. You may never see Marilyn Monroe the same way again! -Victoria

One of us is lying book cover

One of us is lying

Karen M. McManus

YOUNG ADULT FICTION McManus, Karen
Young Adult

"The Breakfast Club" meets "Pretty Little Liars", One of Us Is Lying is the story of what happens when five strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. Everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide "When the creator of a high school gossip app mysteriously dies in front of four high-profile students all four become suspects. It's up to them to solve the case"

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We were liars book cover

We were liars

E Lockhart

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Lockhart E
Young Adult

Spending the summers on her family's private island off the coast of Massachusetts with her cousins and a special boy named Gat, teenaged Cadence struggles to remember what happened during her fifteenth summer.

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Darius the Great is Not Okay book cover

Darius the Great is Not Okay

Adib Khorram

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Khorram Adib
Diverse Characters, Young Adult

Clinically-depressed Darius Kellner, a high school sophomore, travels to Iran to meet his grandparents, but it is their next-door neighbor, Sohrab, who changes his life.

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A great story about friendship, finding value, purpose and acceptance of yourself for who you really are at your core. I really loved how this book realistically tackled mental illness and the interactions Darius has with his family and friends about it. Soccer, Iran, bullying, depression, and tea; this book has it all! -Victoria

Life as we knew it book cover

Life as we knew it

Susan Beth Pfeffer

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Pfeffer, Susan Beth
Young Adult, Science Fiction

Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the moon closer to the earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic winter, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove. Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.

Beth's picture

Book #1 in the Last Survivors series. -Beth

Leviathan book cover

Leviathan

Scott Westerfeld

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Westerfeld, Scott
Young Adult, Fiction

A steampunk novel. In an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen-year-old Austrian Prince Alek, on the run from the Clanker Powers who are attempting to take over the globe using mechanical machinery, forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn who, disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically-engineered beasts.

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Concrete Rose book cover

Concrete Rose

Angie Thomas

YOUNG ADULT FICTION/Thomas, Angie
Young Adult

Maverick feels strongly about family ties, making choices he feels necessary to help support his mom while his King father serves time, and leave him literally holding his son in a doctor's waiting room after he gets paternity test results back and his babymomma ghosts. Now the child he's raising is impacting the lives of his family and his girlfriend, and the gang life he led to support them all financially could leave them all bearing his responsibilities since it endangers his life. It looks like he may have been offered a chance to go straight, but leaving the King Lords won't be easy, and a "real" job has high demand for low return.

Victoria's picture

Incredible prequel to Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give. Learning about who Maverick and Lisa are as teenagers as well as looking at exploring a different generation in Garden Heights felt like I gained so much perspective into Starr's life and upbringing. In a recent interview I watched with Thomas, she said the novels are stand-alone in a way and could be read in any order so if you missed The Hate U Give, check it out while you wait! -Victoria

The Patron Saints of Nothing book cover

The Patron Saints of Nothing

Randy Ribay

YOUNG ADULT FICTION/Ribay Randy
Read Woke, Young Adult

When seventeen-year-old Jay Reguero learns his Filipino cousin and former best friend, Jun, was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, he flies to the Philippines to learn more.

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This is the story of Jay- a Filipino-American straddling two countries; the US where he's spent most of his life and the Philippines, where his parents chose to leave shortly after he was born in pursuit of a better life. Author Randy Ribay excels in exploring identity, what it means to look a certain way and be interpreted in another. Another theme I appreciated was no matter how much you feel a part of the country you left behind, you will often be seen as an outsider once you leave making you question where your home really is. This book is an excellent read for young adults and adults. It humanizes victims of the war on drugs in the Philippines and allows the reader to explore the conflict from alternative perspectives. This is an exceptional read and provides many opportunities for discussion around immigration, politics, family tradition and connections. -Victoria