Teen Fiction

Heartbreak and other organ failures : a novel

Hobbs, Taylor, author.

There is no one in the world that Kaley loves more than her older sister Zoey, who has developmental disabilities and medical complications. When the sisters learn that Zoey needs a new kidney but is at the bottom of the transplant list, they set off on a madcap family road trip to find their estranged father, who might agree to donate.....

View in Catalog

Evie and her nightmares

Zappia, Francesca, author, illustrator.

After the death of her best friend, Evie Leigh seeks solace in an online role-playing game. In the game, she finds purpose, community, and even romance. But online life alone can’t sustain her, and the farther she pushes herself away from reality, the harder it will come back to bite... Without her best friend by her side, nothing feels important to Evie Leigh. Running on the track team isn’t worth the effort, none of her other friends understand her anymore, and her spotless high school career is meaningless. Everything makes Evie feel numb and empty, until she discovers the fantastical world of the online role-playing game, Children of Hypnos, which her best friend had been obsessed with, but never really drew Evie in. Until now. ....

View in Catalog

Alex, by proxy

Cantor, Karen Myna, author.

A Munchausen by proxy victim reveals his deepest secrets on a true-crime podcast—but will his audience believe him, let alone his loved ones? HARROWING NEW DETAILS IN 'MONSTER MOMMY' CASE... SHOCKING INFORMATION SURFACES AS 'MONSTER MOMMY' CASE HEADS TO TRIAL... HOW COULD A MOTHER POISON HER SON? Welcome to sixteen-year-old Alex's life, ripped straight from the headlines. Alex is a victim of Munchausen by proxy, but he's also a witty, sarcastic kid with unusually good crossword skills and a penchant for astronomy. At least he used to be. Now that he's recovered from years of illness induced by his mother, he sort of has to figure out who he is all over again... And most importantly, he'll have to decide if he can testify against the woman who gave birth to him. As Alex awaits the trial, his friends convince him to start a podcast as a way to tell his story. Together, they create "Lethal Lullaby." The podcast brings Alex closer to his old life — hanging out with friends, cracking jokes, having fun... At the same time, new memories surface and disturbing revelations come out, forcing Alex to acknowledge that the podcast could be making things worse. It seems like he's got deeper issues than he'd like to admit — and this time, he can't blame them on his mom. Day by day, Alex's mental health crumbles, until he can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction. Should he trust himself to testify? And if he gets up there, what version of the truth will he share? ....

View in Catalog

Too perfect to die

Goodman, Juliana, author.

With competition this fierce, bodies are bound to hit the mat... All Jonty has ever wanted is to lead her cheerleading team, The Exalted Ones, to win a NCA championship. Cheer is not just a sport, it’s her legacy. Her mother cheered for T.E.O. before she died, and Jonty would do anything to snatch the crown and honor her mother’s memory. This year she has a real shot, finally beating her rival Tommie and becoming the team captain. But Jonty’s perfect season is shattered when Tommie shows up dead on the first day of practice. Now the team is down a flyer and everyone is convinced that Jonty killed her. Everyone except Adam, her co-captain, who was with her the night that Tommie died. As the season progresses, girls keep dropping like flies, and one thing becomes clear: Someone is sabotaging The Exalted Ones, and they're willing to commit murder to get their way. But with the police still convinced it’s her, will Jonty be able to save herself, her team, and her perfect season?....

View in Catalog

I didn't do it

Rose, Elle Gonzalez, author.

High school student Dina Soto is used to laying low. Ever since her father confessed to murdering two of his students, Dina's mom has kept the family on a short leash to avoid drawing any more attention. But when cute, popular, and incredibly sweet Kai Thompson invites Dina to spend the weekend with him and his friends at his cabin, Dina thinks maybe being noticed wouldn't be so bad. But once at the cabin, Dina realizes one night won't change her reputation as the daughter of a killer — especially not when people start turning up dead. Told in part through police evidence, the truth of what happened that night unravels alongside long-held secrets. But one thing remains true: Dina is adamant she didn't do it. Now, she just has to prove it.....

View in Catalog

The gilded blade

Barnes, Jennifer Lynn, author.

All games must come to an end... From Texas to Prague to London and beyond, the Hawthorne family, the players from the Grandest Game, and allies old and new are drawn into a web of centuries-old secrets and mind-bending puzzles. Every clue pulls them deeper; every answer demands a price. To survive, they must unravel the mysteries that bind them together... but some truths are deadly. In this series-shattering conclusion, everyone is a player, long-held secrets are unveiled, precious threads are unraveled, and impossible mysteries are solved. In the grandest of games, there is so much to win — money, love, power, revenge — but there is also everything to lose. ....

View in Catalog

Blue Beach

Parsons, Karyn, 1968- author.

Fifteen-year-old Blue Collins's parents own the only Black beach in Santa Monica in 1929. She loves spending time there with her handsome friend Ben Clark. It's a quiet spot where they can be alone and where Ben's darker skin won't be judged by onlookers--or Blue's own family. During a sunset rendezvous after a summer parade, the pair discovers the body of Dottie Whitehouse, a white debutante. Blue Beach is already threatened by local white property owners. Now their whole community could be at risk. In their panic, Blue and Ben move Dottie's body into the waters of a nearby white beach. Dottie's body washes ashore, and it isn't long before all eyes are on Ben. Everyone saw how Dottie teased him and how they shared smiles. And their history goes deeper than Blue ever realized. But to save Ben from the outraged white townspeople, she'll need to do whatever she can to dig up the truth and prove his innocence. Ben isn't the only one whose life depends on it.....

View in Catalog

Rainsong

Riesen, Lila, author.

In a small coastal town haunted by unsolved disappearances, seventeen-year-old Zayn, gifted with a secret ability to heal, finds herself in the middle of a generations-old feud as she unravels a deadly mystery before she becomes the next victim... Mendocino is not the quaint coastal California town Zayn Pereira imagined. It's shrouded in a fog that never lets up. Posters of a missing teen girl are plastered everywhere, and just offshore is an island called Rainsong, rumored to be haunted. At her new school, everyone is tense and suspicious of each other. So when charismastic Ollie takes Zayn under her wing, it's a relief -- but is her charm hiding something? People assume brooding Tiago, the missing girl's ex-boyfriend, is responsible for her disappearance... but Zayn can't keep her eyes off him. Is he really who everyone says he is? Besides, Zayn has a secret of her own. And when Tiago is struck by a car one night, she is forced to reveal it to save him. In doing so, Zayn discovers her connection to a generations-old feud that still rages today. Can she break herself from the grip of Mendocino's past tragedy? Or will she become the next girl on the missing poster?....

View in Catalog

Together we see

Tison, Ari, author.

How far would you go to protect your land? To protect your family? Told in multiple points of view, Together We See follows seventeen-year-old Ul? Dominguez, a Bribri-American teenager, searching for the truth behind her land-activist father's mysterious death on their Native territory in Costa Rica. Ul? and her brother, Kab?k, uncover secrets and corruption as they face off against illegal loggers, kidnappers, settlers, and the local government in the hunt for clues. Their only allies are a few family friends and relatives still living in Bribri, as well as a young journalist, who may be in danger himself. But as details of their father's death emerge, long-held trust is broken. And in this sinister web of deception, no one is safe. Inspired by real-world missing, dead, and attacked Indigenous activists, award-winning author Ari Tison writes her first novel in prose and pushes the envelope yet again by pulling together a propulsive story full of grief, environmental justice, and the fight for retribution.....

View in Catalog

The bad boyfriend curse

Heron, Farah, author.

Seventeen-year-old Meera Noorani has spent her whole life playing it safe. Raised by her single mom, she?s had to ? especially in love. After all, it has been proven, generation after generation, that all Noorani women are cursed to have partners who ruin their lives. And though she tried her best to avoid it, Meera?s fate comes a-calling, and within the span of a week, she?s broken up with, arrested, and then shipped to small-town Canada, where she?ll be completing her community service under the watchful eye of her mom and her new stepdad. Meera?s spent her whole life being good, and this is the thanks she gets? If she can pose a threat to Mom?s perfect new life, though, maybe she can get back to the city. And there?s no better way to do that than date one of her fellow teen delinquents. Noah has got the piercings, tattoos, and rumors to prove that he?s the town?s most infamous bad boy? but when the bad boy isn't actually bad, what?s a girl meant to do?....

View in Catalog

No one leaves the manor

McWilliams, Kelly, author.

It's 1921, and Mrs. Caroline Reginald Kane, the last surviving descendant of a family of oil barons, has invited four young debutantes to visit her at Greystone Manor. There, they'll compete for the ultimate prize: to become heir to her unspeakably vast fortune. But only one girl can win. And the manor is watching. Dorothea is a thief, and the best liar in the American Northeast. Her mother vanished at Greystone years ago, and she's determined to find out why -- so long as no one uncovers her secrets first. Vaughn isn't crazy. She was born for this life -- and she won't let anyone come between her and the fortune she deserves. Birdie doesn't know why she's been invited, but she believes everything happens for a reason -- and that reason just might be divine. Elspeth is called 'pretty as a peach, dim as a doorknob.' But she sees things that the others can't: whispering birds, shifting doors, and a language that should never be spoken. And there's something else hidden behind these walls. Something sinister. It doesn't plan to let them leave alive.....

View in Catalog

You, me, and infinity

Caletti, Deb.

When Margaret sees Mars for the first time, it doesn't feel like love at first sight so much as future at first sight -- she just knows right away that he will loom large in her life. When her job delivering pizzas brings Margaret right to Mars's doorstep, she can't deny their connection, even as the anxious voice in her head warns her about everything that could go wrong. Soon they're giving in to fate as their romance deepens over stargazing and moments under the endless night sky, where Mars shares his passionate interest in the Voyager's Golden Record -- a time capsule of humanity preserved indefinitely in space. Together, they are absorbed by the unknowable questions we all face: How will we be remembered? What will we leave behind? And can anything truly be infinite? But even for someone who can't help but anticipate the worst, when the worst actually happens, Margaret is shattered. How can she move forward from tragedy when it feels like the world has stopped spinning? Somehow, she has to let go of the gravity of grief pulling her down and find her way back to the stars. But only if she can let the whole of the universe in -- all the beauty and all the pain.....

View in Catalog

Augusta Pine does not exist

Lloyd-Jones, Emily, author.

"I was fifteen when I became a murderer." After a hack gone tragically wrong, a teen girl is given an ultimatum: accept a harsh prison sentence or leave her old life behind and use her talents in the service of a covert government agency. Three years later, the newly named Augusta Pine has become a skilled wraith, one of the Identity Security Division's secret operatives. She has no home, no family. Her only friends are her coolly professional handler and a snarky AI spybot. So when Augusta is sent to Portland for an assignment, she seizes the chance to glimpse her beloved grandmother and rents the apartment next door. But what begins as nostalgic stalking quickly turns into a fight for survival. With her sharp wit, tech savvy -- and help from an unexpected ally -- Augusta must race against the clock to stay one step ahead of a band of deadly cyberterrorists.....

View in Catalog

In between days

Garrett, Camryn, author.

A stunning and uplifting contemporary YA about a young teen who explores her queerness and navigates her grief through an unlikely friendship with her deceased father's boyfriend... When her mother refuses entry to a stranger named Richard at her father's funeral, 17-year-old Mira Howard doesn't understand why. But snooping through her father's things reveals that Richard was her father's boyfriend?a boyfriend she never knew about. In fact, Mira never even knew for sure that her dad was gay. Hoping to feel more connected to her late father, Mira reaches out to Richard without telling her mom, who is still angry from the divorce. As Mira and Richard become closer, Mira gains more and more insight into the side of her father that she never got to see. Grieving that she never got to connect with her dad about their shared queerness, Mira asks that Richard teach her "how to be queer" while she navigates a new crush on her co-worker, which brings her out of her diary and into the real world. But as Mira grows more confident in herself, she finds it hard to keep her relationship with Richard a secret, questioning why her family never talked about her father's sexuality in the first place. Soon Mira has to decide if she wants to keep the peace or honor her father's memory by being her truest self. An epistolary novel told through diary entries, text messages, and book reviews, IN BETWEEN DAYS is a story about queerness, grief, and families?both ones we are born into and ones we create.....

View in Catalog

The last best quest ever

Lukens, F. T., author.

Seventeen-year-old Ellinore has the best questing record in the kingdom. Not even Aven?the infuriatingly charming royal who?s become her fiercest rival?can compete. But every one of Ellinore?s triumphs is a lie. The monsters she?s slain? Staged. The treasures she?s claimed? Planted. Tired of the charade, she shocks the realm by retiring during a royal feast. Her hopes for a quiet life vanish when her reckless twin brother, Zig, bets his life on her ability to retrieve the horn of the mythical Elder Beast?a creature no one believes is real. To save him, Ellinore must return to the spotlight for one final quest. She?s joined by Zig, eager to prove himself; Aven, determined to finally outshine her; and a ragtag crew of unlikely questers with big dreams, questionable skills, and a knack for trouble. As the stakes rise, Ellinore must decide who she really wants to be: the fraud the kingdom celebrates, the hero it needs, or someone entirely new.....

View in Catalog