Fact of Life #129: Some people put you where they want you to be, not where you actually are.16-year-old Kat Flynn believes in going with the flow. She practices yoga, works with her mom at Abra’s Midwifery, and watches the Perfect Couple in the hall at school. But when she finds herself in the middle of the Perfect Couple’s drama and some drama of her own (including an unexpected romance), Kat has to decide whether going with the flow is really the best way to come back to herself.

    How can she start her freshman year as a complete nobody? Fatima Garcia does well in school and helps out with her family’s construction business, but is worried about her weight. So she’s thrilled when a junior starts paying attention to her – but is he really interested in Fatima? Olivia Silverstein tries to make life easier for her mother. Ever since her father died two years ago, she’s been the perfect daughter. When will she get to have her own life? When Vanna, Fatima, and Olivia meet at band practice in August, they quickly become best friends. Together, they are ready to tackle the matters of the heart that await them, deep in the heart of high school.Written with verve and touches of humor, the voices in this first novel ring with authenticity.

    To add to the shame, the Cooper-Melnicks' gorgeous daughter Sarah is a bit like Lady Brett, and she seems less than thrilled to hang out with her new houseguest. Any dreams Kate once had of a perfect summer are ruined.That is, until Sarah's cute, witty friend Adam starts drawing Kate into the fold—and seems intrigued. With Adam around, Kate feels like she just might have a bit of heartbreaker potential after all. But when a breezy summer romance quickly grows more complicated can Kate keep pretending her relationship with Adam is just a carefree fling? Or will she take the risk and tell him her real feelings? Suddenly Kate is asking herself a question she never thought she'd stoop to: Is she girlfriend material?

    Her parents are successful; her older sister, Shyla, is on track to becoming the youngest lawyer in Texas; and her sixteen-year-old brother, Zane, the all-American best brother ever, is a star on the high school swim team. Then Phoebe's mother, Beth, becomes the traveling spokeswoman for Bee Beautiful Cosmetics, a job that keeps her away from home indefinitely, and Phoebe's father, a respected judge, finds himself embroiled in a trial that has the whole town choosing sides. What's more, the new next-door neighbor is a gorgeous widow who seems to want to take Beth's place in the family. All of a sudden Phoebe's once-solid family is on very shaky ground.In the year that follows, Phoebe is pushed to her limit as she struggles to cope with the changes in her life that just keep coming, ready or not -- and as she learns what it really means to love...and to forgive.

    Her father has dragged her to Farnsworth House, a.k.a. the Hippie Hotel, on Cape Cod. It's a place where divorced parents bring their children for quality "Together Time." Tracy dreads the whole idea, until she meets the other girls her age at the hotel. They seem friendly and fun. But they're also great at flirting, which Tracy definitely isn't. When Tracy meets Kevin, a cute, smart guy, she panics. With pretty friends like Kelsey and Beka around, how can Tracy possibly interest Kevin? Then again, maybe she is someone worth knowing, and maybe Kevin thinks so too. Filled with strong, appealing characters and heartfelt narration, this is a touching and memorable first novel.

    When she flails at her trashy tabloid job, she's given an escape hatch: tutor seventeen-year-old identical twins Rose and Sage Baker--yes, the infamous Baker heiresses of Palm Beach, Florida, best known for their massive fortunes and their penchant for drunkenly flashing the paparazzi -- and get their SAT scores up enough to get into Duke. Impossible job -- yes. But if she succeeds, her student debts are history. Unfortunately for Megan, the Baker twins aren't about to curtail their busy social schedules for basic algebra. And they certainly aren't thrilled to have to sit down for a study session with dowdy Megan. Megan quickly discovers that if she's going to get her money, she'll have to learn her Pucci from her Prada. And if she can look the part, maybe, just maybe, she can teach the girls something along the way.

     Eighteen-year-old Indigo Skye feels like she has it all - a waitress job she loves, an adorable refrigerator-delivery-guy boyfriend, and a home life that's slightly crazed but rich in love. Until a mysterious man at the restaurant leaves her a 2.5 million-dollar tip, and her life as she knew it is transformed. At first its amazing: a hot new car, enormous flat-screen TV, and presents for everyone she cares about. She laughs off the warnings that money changes people, that they come to rely on what they have instead of who they are. Because it won't happen...not to her. Or will it? What do you do when you can buy anything your heart desires -- but what your heart desires can't be bought? This is the story of a girl who gets rich, gets lost, and ultimately finds her way back - if not to where she started, then to where she can start again.

    When the emotion drives out all common sense, we say they're chucking a big one. The telltale signs are: flaming cheeks, shortness of breath, bulging eyes, and a prolonged illogical outburst.Gemma Stone is convinced that it's always unseemly to chuck a birkett and that it's actually insane to chuck one in front of a complete stranger. But that was before she fell for a boy who barely knows she exists, before she auditioned for the school play, before she met the family of freaks her sister Debbie is marrying into, before the unpredictable Raven De Head took an interest in her, and before she realized that at the right time and for the right reason, a birkett could be a beautiful thing.

    She's also the last person anyone expects to be hanging out with Luke DeSalvio, the hottest guy at Audrey's school. But Luke is a liar, a player, a dream, and Audrey knows it. She dumps him at her friend's Halloween party with no intention of looking back, but not before giving him one last goodbye gift...The next Monday, messages begin popping up on people's phones and email inboxes. Somebody has taken a picture of her and Luke together and soon everyone knows, including her teachers, her mum and her dad… Now she must discover strength she never knew he had, find friends where she didn't think she would, and learn that life goes on – no matter how different it is to how you think it's going to be.

    Hart?s tenth-grade creative writing class, sparks a group of nine students each to tell his/her own story. Readers are introduced to Jake and Shante?s interracial romance, Carlos? fear of deportation, and Sunday?s determination after being sexually assaulted. These teens persevere through hardship and heartache, laughter and love, and in the end, their voices shine through inspiring journal entries that answer the question in unusual and unexpected ways. Once again, Brenda Woods shows a keen understanding of the teenage psyche, as she did in Emako Blue, winner of the 2005 IRA Children?s Choice Young Adult Fiction Award.

    There are parties in abandoned houses. Canoe races down Main Street. The goal is to make the most of every minute they still have together.And for Keeley, that means taking one last shot at the boy she’s loved forever.There’s a weird sort of bravery that comes from knowing there’s nothing left to lose. You might do things you normally wouldn’t. Or say things you shouldn’t. The reward almost always outweighs the risk.Almost.It’s the end of Aberdeen, but the beginning of Keeley’s first love story. It just might not turn out the way she thought. Because it’s not always clear what’s worth fighting for and what you should let become a memory.

    Now all I want is to go back.When troubled Taylor Truwell is caught with a stolen car and lands in court for resisting arrest, her father convinces the judge of an alternative to punishment: treatment in a juvenile psychiatric correctional facility. Sunny Meadows is anything but the easy way out, and Taylor has to fight hard just to hold on to her sanity as she battles her parents, her therapist, and vicious fellow patients. But even as Taylor struggles to hold on to her stubborn former self, she finds herself relenting as she lets in two unlikely friends--Margo, a former child star and arsonist, and AJ, a mysterious boy who doesn’t speak. In this striking debut, Laura Lascarso weaves together a powerful story of anger and self-destruction, hope and love.

    But he never thinks he’ll end up yanked out of his city life and plunked down into a small Montana town with his dad and Edward, The Boyfriend. As if it’s not painful enough living in a hick town with spiked hair, a skateboard habit, and two dads, he soon realizes something’s not quite right with Billy, the boy next door. He’s hiding a secret about his family, and Ben is determined to uncover it and set things right. In an authentic, unaffected, and mordantly funny voice, Michael Harmon tells the wrenching story of an uprooted and uncomfortable teenaged guy trying to fix the lives around him–while figuring out his own.From the Hardcover edition.

    In a Ya-Ya Sisterhood for teens, Peaches combines three unforgettable heroines who have nothing in common but the troubles that have gotten them sentenced to a summer of peach picking at a Georgia orchard.Leeda is a debutante dating wrong-side-of-the-tracks Rex.Murphy, the wildest girl in Bridgewater, likes whichever side Rex is on.Birdie is a dreamer whose passion for Girl Scout cookies is matched only by her love for a boy named Enrico.When their worlds collide, The Breakfast Club meets The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in an entirely original and provocative story with a lush, captivating setting.

     Anastasia (Anna) Cayne is a complicated high school girl with a penchant for riddles and affectionate mind games, who spends much of her time writing obituaries for every living person in town. She is unlike anyone the narrator has ever known, and her energy and enthusiasm explode his quiet universe, revealing a world of Houdini tricks, strange art, covert messages, and ghost stories-although her past remains an even bigger enigma. Even so, he couldn't be happier. But a week before Valentine's Day, Anna disappears, leaving behind nothing except a dress placed neatly near a hole in the frozen river, and a string of unanswered questions. Determined to find Anna-to comprehend what happened, and why-he begins to retrace their past five months together. Soon the fragments of events, conversations, and letters (and new messages that continue to arrive) coalesce into haunting and surprising revelations about friends, about family, and especially, about Anna Cayne. And perhaps these revelations will solve the puzzle of Anna's disappearance, whether it was her own invention, or is simply another of life's great mysteries.