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Ghost Boys (Paperback)
By Jewell Parker Rhodes
Published: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers - September 10th, 2019
Black lives matter at every age, and Ghost Boys is a view into the movement for middle-grade readers. Ghost Boys tells the story of a young Black boy shot by a white police officer. His ghost returns, seeking answers and peace, and can be seen only by the daughter of his shooter. They are joined by the ghost of Emmett Till, and the three voices alternate to tell a story of history, racism, and hopefully, a way forward.
Everywhere You Don't Belong (Paperback)
By Gabriel Bump
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Published: Algonquin Books - January 12th, 2021
A beautiful portrait of a young man trying to find his place in a world that is simultaneously adversarial, breathtaking, heartbreaking, and hopeful.
The House in the Cerulean Sea (Paperback)
By TJ Klune
Published: Tor Books - December 29th, 2020
Sometimes a book feels like a gift. This lovely, fantastical story is the perfect cozy read for when you need a little more magic in your life! Great for teens, adults, really anyone with room in their heart for a bunch of wild, heartbreakingly endearing, magical children, and the possibility of love in the most surprising places. Humor, fantasy, romance, and transformation await!
On the Come Up (Hardcover)
By Angie Thomas
Published: Balzer + Bray - February 5th, 2019
Bri will be your new hero as she fights to find her voice, her flow, and her path in this incredible novel of hip-hop and staying true to your dreams.
Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens (Hardcover)
By Tanya Boteju
Published: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers - May 7th, 2019
Wondering. Becoming. Testing boundaries, blurring lines. Small-town girl Nima stumbles into a community that shows her a new way to be her truest self. Drag kings, pixie poets, and a divine queen fairy godmother help Nima begin to heal her wounded heart, find her voice, and open up to the possibility of real love. And fabulous outfits.
The Buried Giant (Vintage International) (Paperback)
By Kazuo Ishiguro
Published: Vintage - January 5th, 2016
A magnificent, dream-like journey through marriage, memory, war, loss, and love. This is Ishiguro at his lyrical best.
SHOUT (Paperback)
Published: Penguin Books - March 10th, 2020
Anyone who has experienced and absorbed trauma of any kind should read this. Actually, EVERYONE should read this. This astonishing memoir in verse had me in tears from the eloquent, painful beauty and the huge, tiny, perfect lines that made me want to read them aloud to anyone who would listen.
The Last True Poets of the Sea (Paperback)
By Julia Drake
Published: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers - June 15th, 2021
In a vast sea of YA literature, there are some titles that make you sit up and pay close attention. This debut novel from Julia Drake is one of them. After a wild year of drinking, drugs, and sex, culminating in her brother Sam's suicide attempt, 16-year-old Violet finds herself in the small Maine town founded by her mysterious, shipwreck-surviving ancestor. Trying to dim her charismatic light, Violet is intent on disappearing as best she can in an attempt to work through her roiling, guilt-ridden feelings about herself, her brother, and her family. Her disappearing act is thwarted by a group of friends who inadvertently help Violet find a way back to her passionate, creative self. Dealing with shades of grief, love, sexuality, mental illness, family, and forgiveness, Drake is unafraid of making her characters complicated and real, with staggering depth. This book is full of humor, longing, catharsis, and breath-catching moments that made me want to start over the moment I read the last page. It's been quite a while since I read a book while walking around the house, bumping into things because I was so loath to put it down!
I Wish You All the Best (Hardcover)
By Mason Deaver
Published: PUSH - May 14th, 2019
Perfect for fans of Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli, Mason Deaver's stunning debut will rip your heart out before showing you how to heal from tragedy and celebrate life in the process.
"Heartfelt, romantic, and quietly groundbreaking. This book will save lives." -- Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
It's just three words: I am nonbinary. But that's all it takes to change everything.
When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they're thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder compounded by their parents' rejection, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school. But Ben's attempts to survive the last half of senior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan Allan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan's friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life.
At turns heartbreaking and joyous, I Wish You All the Best is both a celebration of life, friendship, and love, and a shining example of hope in the face of adversity.
Free Lunch (Hardcover)
By Rex Ogle
Published: Norton Young Readers - September 10th, 2019
"A mighty portrait of poverty amid cruelty and optimism."―Kirkus (starred review)
Free Lunch is the story of Rex Ogle's first semester in sixth grade. Rex and his baby brother often went hungry, wore secondhand clothes, and were short of school supplies, and Rex was on his school's free lunch program. Grounded in the immediacy of physical hunger and the humiliation of having to announce it every day in the school lunch line, Rex's is a compelling story of a more profound hunger―that of a child for his parents' love and care. Compulsively readable, beautifully crafted, and authentically told with the voice and point of view of a 6th-grade kid, Free Lunch is a remarkable debut by a gifted storyteller.
Cinderella Is Dead (Hardcover)
By Kalynn Bayron
Published: Bloomsbury YA - July 7th, 2020
A wildly imaginitive spin on a classic tale with a fierce heroine who will stop at nothing to smash the patriarchy, fight for equality, and live proudly as her true self.
Opposite of Always (Paperback)
By Justin A. Reynolds
Published: Katherine Tegen Books - April 7th, 2020
An incredibly clever, beautifully written YA novel about first love, lost love, close friends, and complicated families, with a touch of time travel! Funny, heartbreaking, and honest, this is one of my FAVORITE new reads!
Clap When You Land (Hardcover)
By Elizabeth Acevedo
Published: Quill Tree Books - May 5th, 2020
Elizabeth Acevedo gives her incredible, poetic voice to two young Dominican girls in this powerful story of loss, grief, and survival. Camino and Yahaira's alternating voices carry this story like waves, crashing and receding as their lives intertwine through their mutual loss.
Save Yourself (Hardcover)
By Cameron Esposito
Published: Grand Central Publishing - March 24th, 2020
Funny, wise, heartbreaking, wide-eyed, bawdy, and affectionate, this memoir is perfectly told by one of the strongest voices in comedy today.
Blackbringer (Paperback)
By Laini Taylor
Published: Firebird - May 14th, 2009
The Silver Arrow (Hardcover)
By Lev Grossman
Published: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers - September 1st, 2020
The Chronicles of Narnia meets The Polar Express in this wonderful new middle-grade novel. Two clever, big-hearted kids and a magical train make for an incredible adventure filled with humor, whimsy, and an important message for us all.
Highfire: A Novel (Paperback)
By Eoin Colfer
Published: Harper Perennial - January 5th, 2021
So much fun! Urban fantasy hits the bayou in a funny, irreverent tale full of compelling characters. Meet Everett "Squib" Moreau, a swamp kid with his heart in the right place, Regence Hooke, the baddest of bad guys, and Vern, the vodka-swilling, Flashdance t-shirt-wearing last dragon on earth, formerly known as Wyvern, Lord Highfire.
Reincarnation Blues: A Novel (Paperback)
By Michael Poore
Published: Del Rey - July 10th, 2018
"Tales of gods and men akin to Neil Gaiman's Sandman as penned by a kindred spirit of Douglas Adams."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"The most fun you'll have reading about a man who has been killed by both catapult and car accident."—NPR
"This book made me laugh out loud. And then a page later, it made me sob. Reminiscent of Tom Robbins and Christopher Moore, Poore finds humor in the dark absurdities of life."—Chicago Review of Books
How to Build a Girl: A Novel (Paperback)
By Caitlin Moran
Published: Harper Perennial - June 30th, 2015
What do you do in your teenage years when you realize what your parents taught you wasn't enough? You must go out and find books and poetry and pop songs and bad heroes—and build yourself.
It's 1990. Johanna Morrigan, fourteen, has shamed herself so badly on local TV that she decides that there's no point in being Johanna anymore and reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde—fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer. She will save her poverty-stricken Bohemian family by becoming a writer—like Jo in Little Women, or the Bröntes—but without the dying young bit.
By sixteen, she's smoking cigarettes, getting drunk and working for a music paper. She's writing pornographic letters to rock-stars, having all the kinds of sex with all kinds of men, and eviscerating bands in reviews of 600 words or less.
But what happens when Johanna realizes she's built Dolly with a fatal flaw? Is a box full of records, a wall full of posters, and a head full of paperbacks, enough to build a girl after all?
The Essex Serpent: A Novel (Paperback)
By Sarah Perry
Published: Custom House - April 24th, 2018
A Kirkus Review Best Book of 2017 * A Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction * Winner of the British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year and overall Book of the Year * Waterstones Book of the Year * Costa Book Award Finalist
"A novel of almost insolent ambition—lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden gate...it's part ghost story and part natural history lesson, part romance and part feminist parable. I found it so transporting that 48 hours after completing it, I was still resentful to be back home." -New York Times
Jackaby (Paperback)
By William Ritter
Published: Algonquin Young Readers - August 25th, 2015
The Eight: A Novel (Paperback)
By Katherine Neville
Published: Ballantine Books - June 23rd, 1997
Nightbitch: A Novel (Hardcover)
By Rachel Yoder
Published: Doubleday - July 20th, 2021
The Ogress and the Orphans (Hardcover)
Published: Algonquin Young Readers - March 8th, 2022
Our Crooked Hearts: A Novel (Hardcover)
By Melissa Albert
Published: Flatiron Books - June 28th, 2022
The Craft for a new generation! A dark, witchy, haunting read!