Young Adult
Aristotle and Dante dive into the waters of the world
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
YOUNG ADULT FICTION/Saenz, Benjamin
Diverse Characters, Young Adult
High school seniors Aristotle and Dante find ways to spend time together despite being at different schools, having to keep their love secret, and nightly news of gay men dying from AIDS.
With the fire on high
Elizabeth Acevedo
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Acevedo Elizabet
Young Adult
Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago’s life has been about making the tough decisions—doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it’s not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.
Added by Beth
Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Saenz Benjamin
LGBTQ+, Young Adult
Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.
I'm not sure how this book has escaped my clutches. It is a heart-warming, beautiful, soul-touching reminder that love is love! The sequel, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World is released later this month so you have time for a re-read before it comes out! -Victoria
Home is Not a Country
Safia Elhillo
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Elhillo, Safia
Young Adult
"Nima doesn't feel understood. By her mother, who grew up far away in a different land. By her suburban town, which makes her feel too much like an outsider to fit in and not enough like an outsider to feel like that she belongs somewhere else. At least she has her childhood friend Haitham, with whom she can let her guard down and be herself. Until she doesn't. As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen, the name her parents didn't give her at birth: Yasmeen. But that other name, that other girl, might just be more real than Nima knows. And more hungry. And the life Nima has, the one she keeps wishing were someone else's...she might have to fight for it with a fierceness she never knew she had."--
I absolutely loved the brutal honesty, the language and slight mysticism of this book. The author tackles the Islamophobia of a post 9/11 world in a delicately poetic and human way. This is a great read into the lives of those forced to flee their motherland for hopes of better opportunities only to find the grass is often anything but greener on the other side. -Victoria
Ace of spades
Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Abike-Iyimide, Faridah
Young Adult, Thriller, Suspense, LGBTQ+
At Niveus Private Academy, Devon and Chiamaka are the only students chosen to be Senior Prefects who are also black, which makes them targets for a series of anonymous texts revealing their secrets to the entire student body. Both students were on track toward valedictorian and bright college futures, but this prank quickly turns into a very dangerous game and they are at more than one disadvantage as it looks like things could turn deadly.
This is a fantastic page-turner with a delectable plot, well-developed characters and an overall killer debut! Fans of One of Us is Lying, Get Out and Gossip Girl will delight in this read. -Victoria
The Wee Free Men
Terry Pratchett
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Pratchett, Terry
Young Adult, Humor
A young witch-to-be named Tiffany teams up with the Wee Free Men, a clan of six-inch-high blue men, to rescue her baby brother and ward off a sinister invasion from Fairyland.
Added by Beth
The Blue Castle
L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Montgomery, L. M.
Young Adult
In early 1920s Canada, drastic circumstances give Valancy, a twenty-nine-year-old unmarried woman resigned to being an "old maid," the courage to defy her controlling family and escape to a life of her own choosing.
Added by Beth
Little women
Louisa May Alcott
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Alcott, Louisa May
Young Adult
Little Women is many things: a coming-of-age story; a collection of anecdotes illustrating life in Civil War-era America; a pastiche of domestic and didactic fictions; a reflection on living morally and a proto-feminist critique of 19th-century “separate spheres” ideology. Louisa May Alcott’s best-known, beloved novel draws readers into the world of the four March sisters – Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy – and their mother, Marmee, and follows the girls as they grow from impulsive teens into mature young women. Alcott’s episodic narrative showcases the girls’ individuality and ambitions, their triumphs and trials, their shortcomings and evolving characters, and their relationships with one another, with their mother and with society at large. Its voice is in a manner that is, alternatingly, humorous, uplifting and, sometimes, heartbreaking. Alcott’s novel doesn’t resist sentimentality, but it balances, and, ultimately, transcends it with realistic depictions of the challenges inherent in the pursuit of true vocation and true love, the burden of domestic labor, and the effects of social pressures and life’s challenges – including illness – on female ambition.
Added by Beth
Truly Devious
Maureen Johnson
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Johnson Maureen
Fiction, Young Adult
When Stevie Bell, an amateur detective, begins her first year at a famous private school in Vermont, she sets a plan to solve the cold case involving the kidnapping of the founder's wife and daughter shortly after the school opened.
Added by Beth
The ballad of songbirds and snakes
Suzanne Collins
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Collins Suzanne
Young Adult
It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute. The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined, every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute, and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.
Added by Beth
This second novel is equally as eloquent, captivating and heart-wrenching as the first. Characters are beautifully life-like, multi-faceted and layered and the story is realistic, thought-provoking and well worth waiting nine years for! -Victoria