Book picks similar to
The Book of Colors by Raymond Barfield
fiction
lost
coming-of-age
racism
TJ's Last Summer in Cape Cod
Garfield Whyte - 2016
Some will like it.... some wont but its all fiction and TJ just wanted a good time for his last summer back home. NOTE ... Uncle Peter cheats on his wife, so if you will have issues with this, then this is not the book for you. It's all fiction, with some youthful exuberance. We were all young at some time in our lives and we may have made mistakes too.One last wild summer before college. TJ always spent the summer with his uncle since he was 15. He looked forward to spending time with Uncle Peter and all the adventures he got to experience. But now he was 18 and this summer was going to be different; he had a girlfriend whom he could not bear to leave behind. During those past summers, TJ had been the sole witness and confidant to Uncle Peter and his endless shenanigans with the different women in his life. As such, TJ felt Uncle Peter owed him and it was time to collect; it was time for Uncle Peter to return the favor and cover for TJ. To TJ's delight, Uncle Peter was more than eager to comply and he even came up with the perfect plan for the two of them to spend time together without TJ leaving his girlfriend's side. Follow the wicked adventures of this duo as TJ finds himself at a crossroads between being an honorable man or the ladies' man his uncle groomed him to be. Was it worth it when summer ended? That will depend on whose side you are on.Some readers focus on Uncle Peter's cheating ways and less on the crux of the story which is, the unique bond between a nephew and and uncle as well as your sins will find you out.
Kiss It
Erin Soderberg Downing - 2010
Chastity Bryan has never been shy about going after what she wants. And when sexy, mysterious, so-not-from-this-town Sebastian walks into Chaz’s life, she knows in an instant that what she wants next is him. Chaz has no intention of playing for keeps—but she most definitely has intentions. Who needs true love when you’ve got true lust? Sebastian has no idea what he’s in for—but maybe neither does Chaz….
Whale Talk
Chris Crutcher - 2001
The bad news is that they don't have a pool. The good news is that only one of them can swim anyway. A group of misfits brought together by T. J. Jones (the J is redundant), the Cutter All Night Mermen struggle to find their places in a school that has no place for them. T.J. is convinced that a varsity letter jacket exclusive, revered, the symbol (as far as T.J. is concerned) of all that is screwed up at Cutter High will also be an effective tool. He's right. He's also wrong. Still, it's always the quest that counts. And the bus on which the Mermen travel to swim meets soon becomes the space where they gradually allow themselves to talk, to fit, to grow. Together they'll fight for dignity in a world where tragedy and comedy dance side by side, where a moment's inattention can bring lifelong heartache, and where true acceptance is the only prescription for what ails us.
Private Citizens
Tony Tulathimutte - 2016
With the social acuity of Adelle Waldman and the murderous wit of Martin Amis, Tony Tulathimutte’s Private Citizens is a brainy, irreverent debut—This Side of Paradise for a new era.Capturing the anxious, self-aware mood of young college grads in the aughts, Private Citizens embraces the contradictions of our new century: call it a loving satire. A gleefully rude comedy of manners. Middlemarch for Millennials. The novel's four whip-smart narrators—idealistic Cory, Internet-lurking Will, awkward Henrik, and vicious Linda—are torn between fixing the world and cannibalizing it. In boisterous prose that ricochets between humor and pain, the four estranged friends stagger through the Bay Area’s maze of tech startups, protestors, gentrifiers, karaoke bars, house parties, and cultish self-help seminars, washing up in each other’s lives once again. A wise and searching depiction of a generation grappling with privilege and finding grace in failure, Private Citizens is as expansively intelligent as it is full of heart.
Zom-B
Darren Shan - 2012
The series combines classic Shan action with a fiendishly twisting plot and hard-hitting and thought-provoking moral questions dealing with racism, abuse of power and more. This is challenging material, which will captivate existing Shan fans and bring in many new ones. As Darren says, "It's a big, sprawling, vicious tale...a grisly piece of escapism, and a barbed look at the world in which we live. Each book in the series is short, fast-paced and bloody. A high body-count is guaranteed!"
The Cartel Deluxe Edition: Books 1-3
Ashley Antoinette - 2018
The Diamond family is a force to be reckoned with, but all hell breaks loose when they lose their leader. The most ruthless gangster Miami has ever seen, Carter Diamond, leaves behind a wife, twin sons, a daughter, and a secret. The secret is his illegitimate son, Carter Jones. When young Carter learns of his father's death, he comes to town and is introduced to the legacy of the CartelMiamor is a woman who uses her beauty to enhance her skill as a contract killer. She is the leader of The Murder Mamas. When her crew is hired to take down the Cartel, they get caught slipping, and Miamor loses her sister in the process. She is determined to get revenge. Unknowingly, she meets the son of Carter Diamond, and he immediately catches her heart. She is sleeping with the enemy, and when she finds out, she is torn between love and revenge.Thus begins the saga of the Cartel, the New York Times bestselling series by street lit superstars Ashley & Jaquavis. Every book in the series is full of their trademark fast-paced drama, deceit, and plot twists that will leave you shocked. Now fans can relive the story of the Diamond family in this deluxe edition, with books one through three all under one cover.
The Wisdom Of Secrets: The Templar Covenant
Ami Noone - 2014
Although they have been mentioned in the bible and traces of their existence are scattered throughout the globe, Peter Madeloy had always presumed that the myths of the possible existence of an ancient brotherhood, living on Earth for milennia, was nothing more than that, a myth. Until one day his father is brutally murdered and his mother is kidnapped. In exchange for his mother’s safe return, Peter must enter his father’s secret world, uncover the truth about his mother’s kidnappers and find the ancient artefact his father had dedicated his life to protecting. Peter enlists the help of his uncle, Daniel O'Brien, a professor of Philology and avid researcher of veiled organisations and his wife, Emily, a geneticist, to unravel a series of clues his father has left him. Together they embark on a journey that thrusts them into the centre of an ancient battle for supremacy that uncovers a truth that for them, will change the history and future of humanity simultaneously. With the enemy watching their every move Peter, Daniel and Emily must figure out his father's clues in time to save his mother and ultimately protect the world from the true secret that was unearthed from beneath King Solomon's Temple all those centuries ago.
Raft of Stars
Andrew J. Graff - 2021
Will the adults trying to find and protect them reach them before it’s too late?It’s the summer of 1994 in Claypot, Wisconsin, and the lives of ten-year-old Fischer “Fish” Branson and Dale “Bread” Breadwin are shaped by the two fathers they don’t talk about.One night, tired of seeing his best friend bruised and terrorized by his no-good dad, Fish takes action. A gunshot rings out and the two boys flee the scene, believing themselves murderers. They head for the woods, where they find their way onto a raft, but the natural terrors of Ironsforge gorge threaten to overwhelm them.Four adults track them into the forest, each one on a journey of his or her own. Fish’s mother Miranda, a wise woman full of fierce faith; his granddad, Teddy, who knows the woods like the back of his hand; Tiffany, a purple-haired gas station attendant and poet looking for connection; and Sheriff Cal, who’s having doubts about a life in law enforcement.The adults track the boys toward the novel’s heart-pounding climax on the edge of the gorge and a conclusion that beautifully makes manifest the grace these characters find in the wilderness and one another. This timeless story of loss, hope, and adventure runs like the river itself amid the vividly rendered landscape of the Upper Midwest.
The Prophets
Robert Jones Jr. - 2021
That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master’s gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel’s love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation’s harmony.With a lyricism reminiscent of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr. fiercely summons the voices of slaver and the enslaved alike to tell the story of these two men; from Amos the preacher to the calculating slave-master himself to the long line of women that surround them, women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions build and the weight of centuries—of ancestors and future generations to come—culminate in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets masterfully reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.
Confessions of a Fashionista
Angela Clarke - 2013
Now its anonymous author reveals both her identity and the true story of her giddyingly glamorous time in the style industry, with insider gossip on the people who populate it.Propelled by a painful end to a relationship and determined to prove her ex wrong for breaking up with her, our Fashionista lands a place on the Harrods Graduate Scheme. A complete outsider to the fashion world, she sets out on a wing and a pair of Guccis, and finds herself in a whirlwind of couture and craziness. Along the way she learns how to stay sane in a world where hairdressers have egos as big as their clients' bouffants, where dogs fly business class, and if you're eating carbs it can only be because you're pregnant.Confessions of a Fashionista is a book for anyone who's ever been an outsider, for anyone who's ever had a relationship end badly and thought they'd never find true love, and for anyone who thinks that cakes were made to be eaten, not sniffed. By turns hilarious, sad, thrilling, romantic and fun, it is the It book for fashionistas everywhere.
Purity
Jackson Pearce - 2012
Those Promises become harder to keep when Shelby's father joins the planning committee for the Princess Ball, an annual dance that ends with a ceremonial vow to live pure lives -- in other words, no "bad behavior," no breaking the rules, and definitely no sex.Torn between Promises One and Three, Shelby makes a decision -- to exploit a loophole and lose her virginity before taking the vow. But somewhere between failed hookup attempts and helping her dad plan the ball, Shelby starts to understand what her mother really meant, what her father really needs, and who really has the right to her purity.
The Elephant Keeper
Christopher Nicholson - 2008
A crowd forms, hoping to catch a glimpse of the magical creature. One crate after another is unpacked: a zebra, a leopard, and a baboon. There's no mermaid, but in the final two crates is something almost as magical—a pair of young elephants, in poor health but alive.Seeing a unique opportunity, a wealthy sugar merchant purchases the elephants for his country estate and turns their care over to a young stable boy, Tom Page. Tom's family has long cared for horses, but an elephant is something different altogether. It takes time for Tom and the elephants to understand one another, but to the surprise of everyone on the estate, a remarkable bond is formed.The Elephant Keeper, the story of Tom and the elephants, in Tom's own words, moves from the green fields and woods of the English countryside to the dark streets and alleys of late-eighteenth-century London, reflecting both the beauty and the violence of the age. Nicholson's lush writing and deft storytelling complement a captivating tale of love and loyalty between one man and the two elephants that change the lives of all who meet them.
Primary School Confidential: Confessions From the Classroom
Mrs. Woog - 2016
Woog lifts the lid on a world that's part jungle, part nursery, a place both sweet and feral, where the rule of law is tenuous at best and primitive desires hold sway over order and discipline. And wait till you see the children!We're talking about primary school, that special place where little kids turn into big kids, where letters turn into words, numbers turn into more confusing numbers and lunchboxes turn into bacterial breeding grounds. Where teachers rule (mostly) and parents realise primary school's not just for children - that they.re back at school too, just in different roles.Having been a student during the Smurf, Swatch and Strawberry Shortcake Era, and then a teacher in tough-as-nails South London and a back-of-Woop Woop country school, Mrs Woog knew her way around a primary school and thought nothing could surprise or intimidate her . until she became a primary school parent!You'll laugh till lemonade comes out of your nose in this irreverent, hilarious, no-holds-barred and loving homage to primary school and all who dwell in it. Therapy for former teachers, a revelation to prospective parents, a trip down memory lane for us all, Primary School Confidential is a joy to read and essential homework for anyone interested in what really happens beyond the school gate.
How Fast Can You Run
Harriet Levin Millan - 2016
When the US grants approximately 4,000 unaccompanied minors political asylum, Majok becomes Michael, and he is given a new start in the US. Yet his life is not without trauma, culminating when a fellow student betrays him. This is the story of a survivor who summons the courageous spirit of millions of refugees throughout history—and it lives on today.
My Year Abroad
Chang-rae Lee - 2021
Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented protégé, and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself.In the breathtaking, "precise, elliptical prose" that Chang-rae Lee is known for (The New York Times), the narrative alternates between Tiller's outlandish, mind-boggling year with Pong and the strange, riveting, emotionally complex domestic life that follows it, as Tiller processes what happened to him abroad and what it means for his future. Rich with commentary on Western attitudes, Eastern stereotypes, capitalism, global trade, mental health, parenthood, mentorship, and more, My Year Abroad is also an exploration of the surprising effects of cultural immersion—on a young American in Asia, on a Chinese man in America, and on an unlikely couple hiding out in the suburbs. Tinged at once with humor and darkness, electric with its accumulating surprises and suspense, My Year Abroad is a novel that only Chang-rae Lee could have written, and one that will be read and discussed for years to come.