How to Save a Life


Sara Zarr - 2011
    But ever since her dad died, she’s been isolating herself from her boyfriend, her best friends—everyone who wants to support her. And when her mom decides to adopt a baby, it feels like she’s somehow trying to replace a lost family member with a new one.Mandy Kalinowski understands what it’s like to grow up unwanted—to be raised by a mother who never intended to have a child. So when Mandy becomes pregnant, one thing she’s sure of is that she wants a better life for her baby. It’s harder to be sure of herself. Will she ever find someone to care for her, too?As their worlds change around them, Jill and Mandy must learn to both let go and hold on, and that nothing is as easy—or as difficult—as it seems.

Belzhar


Meg Wolitzer - 2014
    She’d be watching old comedy sketches with him. She’d be kissing him in the library stacks.She certainly wouldn’t be at The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Vermont, living with a weird roommate, and signed up for an exclusive, mysterious class called Special Topics in English.But life isn’t fair, and Reeve Maxfield is dead.Until a journal-writing assignment leads Jam to Belzhar, where the untainted past is restored, and Jam can feel Reeve’s arms around her once again. But there are hidden truths on Jam’s path to reclaim her loss.From New York Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer comes a breathtaking and surprising story about first love, deep sorrow, and the power of acceptance.

Burning Blue


Paul Griffin - 2012
    But quiet loner Jay Nazarro does more than that--he decides to find out who did it. Jay understands how it feels to be treated like a freak, and he also has a secret: He's a brilliant hacker. But the deeper he digs, the more danger he's in--and the more he falls for Nicole. Too bad everyone is turning into a suspect, including Nicole herself. Award-winning author Paul Griffin has written a high-stakes, soulful mystery about the meaning--and dangers--of love and beauty.

Of Scars and Stardust


Andrea Hannah - 2014
    Delusion or reality, Claire knows she has to hold true to the most important promise she's ever made: to keep Ella safe. She must return to her sleepy hometown in order to find Ella and keep her hallucinations at bay before they strike again. But time is quickly running out, and as Ella's trail grows fainter, the wolves are becoming startlingly real.Now Claire must deal with her attraction to Grant, the soft-spoken boy from her past that may hold the secret to solving her sister's disappearance, while following the clues that Ella left for only her to find. Through a series of cryptic diary entries, Claire must unlock the keys to Ella's past—and her own—in order to stop another tragedy in the making, while realizing that not all things that are lost are meant to be found.

Solving for Ex


LeighAnn Kopans - 2013
     Ashley Price doesn’t have much in life after being bullied so hard she had to leave her old school to live with her aunt and uncle in Pittsburgh. But the camera she borrowed from her best friend and secret crush Brendan, and her off the charts math abilities, make things a lot more bearable. Plus, since Brendan is the captain, making the school Mathletes team should be easy. But when gorgeous new girl Sofia rolls in and steals Brendan, Ashley's place on the team, and her fragile foothold on the Mansfield Park Prep social totem pole, it’s on. Sofia is everything Ashley left her old school to escape. The only thing Ashley didn’t count on is Sofia’s sexy twin brother Vincent. Vincent is not only the hottest boy in school, he’s charming, sweet, and he’s got his eye on Ashley. He’s also not taking no for an answer. There's no real reason Ashley shouldn't like Vincent, but with the battle lines being drawn between her and Sofia, Ashley’s not sure which side he’s on. Or which side she wants him to be on. She does know Sofia is trouble with a capital T, and she’s determined to make Brendan see it. SOLVING FOR EX is a YA contemporary romance that remixes Mansfield Park as Clueless meets Mean Girls in a crazy mix of high school society, mathletic competition, and teenage romance.

Shadow Hills


Anastasia Hopcus - 2010
    Hoping to make sense of her sister's sudden demise and the cryptic dreams following it, Phe abandons her bubbly LA life to attend an uptight East Coast preparatory school in Shadow Hills, MA -- a school which her sister mysteriously mentioned in her last diary entry before she died.  Once there, Phe quickly realizes that something is deeply amiss in her new town. Not only does Shadow Hills' history boast an unexplained epidemic that decimated hundreds of its citizens in the 1700s, but its modern townies also seem eerily psychic, with the bizarre ability to bend metal. Even Zach -- the gorgeous stranger Phe meets and immediately begins to lust after -- seems as if he is hiding something serious. Phe is determined to get to the bottom of it. The longer she stays there, the more she suspects that her sister's untimely death and her own destiny are intricately linked to those who reside in Shadow Hills.

Also Known As


Robin Benway - 2013
    or surviving high school?Maggie Silver has never minded her unusual life. Cracking safes for the world's premier spy organization and traveling the world with her insanely cool parents definitely beat high school and the accompanying cliques, bad lunches, and frustratingly simple locker combinations. (If it's three digits, why bother locking it at all?)But when Maggie and her parents are sent to New York City for her first solo assignment, her world is transformed. Suddenly, she's attending a private school with hundreds of "mean girl" wannabes, trying to avoid the temptation to hack the school's elementary security system, and working to befriend the aggravatingly cute son of a potential national security threat... all while trying not to blow her cover.

Me, Just Different


Stephanie Morrill - 2009
    Her senior year should be the best one yet. But a horrible experience at a summer party has changed everything. Now she's vowing to make better choices, including going back to church. But as Skylar tries to gain new perspective on life, the world as she knows it begins to fall apart.Her parents are constantly fighting. Her younger sister has a big secret that Skylar is forced to keep. The guy she's dating is annoyingly jealous. And the new guy down the street is just plain annoying. In the midst of the chaos, Skylar starts to wonder who her real friends are and, even more importantly, who she is.

99 Days


Katie Cotugno - 2015
    How I wrecked their whole family. Now I’m serving out my summer like a jail sentence: Just ninety-nine days till I can leave for college, and be done.Day 4: A nasty note on my windshield makes it clear Julia isn’t finished. I’m expecting a fight when someone taps me on the shoulder, but it’s just Gabe, home from college and actually happy to see me. “For what it’s worth, Molly Barlow,” he says, “I’m really glad you’re back.”Day 12: Gabe got me to come to this party, and I’m actually having fun. I think he’s about to kiss me—and that’s when I see Patrick. My Patrick, who’s supposed to be clear across the country. My Patrick, who’s never going to forgive me.

Wolves, Boys and Other Things That Might Kill Me


Kristen Chandler - 2010
    The only daughter of a fishing and wildlife guide, KJ can hold her own on the water or in the mountains near her hometown outside Yellowstone National Park.But when she meets the shaggy-haired, intensely appealing Virgil, KJ loses all self-possession. And she's not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that they're assigned to work together on a school newspaper article about the famous wolves of Yellowstone. As KJ spends time with Virgil, she also spends more time getting to know a part of her world that she always took for granted... and she begins to see herself and her town in a whole new light.

Last Girl Lied To


Laurie Elizabeth Flynn - 2019
    But the truth is, she wishes she could forget.Trixie’s disappearance is ruled a suicide, but Fiona starts to believe that Trixie isn’t really dead. Piecing together the trail of a girl who doesn't want to be found leads her to Jasper, Trixie’s former friend with benefits, and Beau—the boy who turned Fiona down, who loved someone else, who might be happy Trixie is gone.The closer Fiona gets to finding out what happened, and the closer she gets to Jasper and Beau, the more she realizes that the girl she knew better than anyone may have been a carefully constructed lie—and she might have been waiting to disappear the entire time.Told in alternating chapters between the past and the present, Last Girl Lied To is a gripping emotional thriller.

Lock & Mori


Heather W. Petty - 2015
    A murder will bring them together. The truth very well might drive them apart.Before they were mortal enemies, they were much more…FACT: Someone has been murdered in London’s Regent’s Park. The police have no leads.FACT: Miss James “Mori” Moriarty and Sherlock “Lock” Holmes should be hitting the books on a school night. Instead, they are out crashing a crime scene.FACT: Lock has challenged Mori to solve the case before he does. Challenge accepted.FACT: Despite agreeing to Lock’s one rule—they must share every clue with each other—Mori is keeping secrets.OBSERVATION: Sometimes you can’t trust the people closest to you with matters of the heart. And after this case, Mori may never trust Lock again.

Perfectly Flawed


Nessa Morgan - 2013
    I had friends that loved me, an aunt who adored me, and everything was just okay.But what I thought was okay and fine, all of that changed.The nightmares, well, they started again, throwing me into a pit I couldn't climb out of, the people at school were spreading and starting rumors faster than I could hear them myself, and I was remembering...I was remembering everything.Well, almost everything. Some things wouldn't come to mind, like why he did it. Why my father killed them, why he tried to kill me? It's not there. Nowhere near my memory.But I'm determined to find out.My name is Joey and this is my story.Joey Archembault is the typical sixteen-year old Junior. She's an overachiever by nature, in her school orchestra, and spends most of her time either doing homework or hanging with the boy next door.Well, typical wouldn't be the word most would use with her. Freak, psycho, that's more what's heard around the school. She can't help it - it's not her fault her father killed her mother, brother, and sister nine years ago. Oh, and he tried to kill her as well, she has the scars to prove it. Joey tries to move on as best she can. It's easy when she can't remember anything about that night or her life before.One day, the self-proclaimed heartthrob asks her out. She knows she should tell him no, but when that doesn't work, and he tricks her into a date by serenading her - twice - things go south, she calls her best friend Zephyr to pick her up, and she once again tries to move on. But it triggers something inside her. It unlocks a vault she never knew existed within her and she can't stop the memories or the feelings, nor can she even begin to decipher what happened to her years ago. Soon, the puzzle begins to piece together and she begins to understand what really happened that night and why she's alone. Couple that with a blooming relationship with the boy next door and it's all a recipe for destruction.

Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies


Erin Dionne - 2009
    No way. NEVER.At least, that's what I thought—until Aunt Doreen secretly entered me in the Miss HuskyPeach pageant for plus-sized girls. I couldn't do it, but I felt too guilty to quit.There was only one way out...This is the story of thirteen-year-old Celeste Harris, who used to be perfectly comfortable with her weight. She also used to think nothing would make eighth grade worse than super-popular, super-mean Lively Carson's persistent insults and attempts to steal her best friend. But along came the chance of being crowned a chubby teen queen, and suddenly it was clear: Things could be much worse. So Celeste crafts a plan—she'll sacrifice her chocolate cookie obsession, lose weight, and shrink right out of the competition.What follows is a series of escapades both hilarious and horrifying, as our heroine tries to hold her head high both on the catwalk and off—and learns to show the world who she is from the inside out.

The Disappearance of Sloane Sullivan


Gia Cribbs - 2018
    Not her friends or family. Not even the boy who loved her more than anyone. And most certainly not the United States Marshals Service. You know, the people who run the witness protection program or, as it’s officially called, the Witness Security Program? Yeah, the WITSEC folks definitely don’t want me talking to you.But I don’t care. I have to tell someone.If I don’t, you’ll never know how completely wrong things can go. How a single decision can change everything. How, when it really comes down to it, you can’t trust anyone. Not even yourself. You have to understand, so it won’t happen to you next. Because you never know when the person sitting next to you isn’t who they claim to be...and because there are worse things than disappearing.