Book picks similar to
Her by Felicia Johnson


bpd
mental-health
young-adult
self-harm

A Breath Too Late


Rocky Callen - 2020
    Yet the day after she dies by suicide, she finds herself in the midst of an out-of-body experience. She is a spectator, swaying between past and present, retracing the events that unfolded prior to her death.But there are gaps in her memory, fractured pieces Ellie is desperate to re-assemble. There's her mother, a songbird who wanted to break free from her oppressive cage. The boy made of brushstrokes and goofy smiles who brought color into a gray world. Her brooding father, with his sad puppy eyes and clenched fists. Told in epistolary-like style, this deeply moving novel sensitively examines the beautiful and terrible moments that make up a life and the possibilities that live in even the darkest of places. Perfect for fans of the critically-acclaimed Speak, I’ll Give You the Sun, and If I Stay.

The Female of the Species


Mindy McGinnis - 2016
    Alex Craft knows how to kill someone. And she doesn’t feel bad about it.Three years ago, when her older sister, Anna, was murdered and the killer walked free, Alex uncaged the language she knows best—the language of violence. While her own crime goes unpunished, Alex knows she can’t be trusted among other people. Not with Jack, the star athlete who wants to really know her but still feels guilty over the role he played the night Anna’s body was discovered. And not with Peekay, the preacher’s kid with a defiant streak who befriends Alex while they volunteer at an animal shelter. Not anyone.As their senior year unfolds, Alex’s darker nature breaks out, setting these three teens on a collision course that will change their lives forever.

We Are Us


Tara Leigh - 2020
    Survivor. Daughter. Sister. Wife.Now I am called something else.Murderer.Believe it or not, this is our love story.

Lovely, Dark and Deep


Amy McNamara - 2012
    Though she lived through the accident that killed her boyfriend Patrick, the girl she used to be didn’t survive. Instead of heading off to college as planned, Wren retreats to her father’s studio in the far-north woods of Maine. Somewhere she can be alone.Then she meets Cal Owen. Dealing with his own troubles, Cal’s hiding out too. When the chemistry between them threatens to pull Wren from her hard-won isolation, Wren has to choose: risk opening her broken heart to the world again, or join the ghosts who haunt her.

Ginny Moon


Benjamin Ludwig - 2017
    She’s fourteen, autistic, and has a heart-breaking secret…Ginny Moon is trying to make sense of a world that just doesn’t seem to add up….After years in foster care, Ginny is in her fourth forever family, finally with parents who will love her.Everyone tells her that she should feel happy, but she has never stopped crafting her Big Secret Plan of Escape.Because something happened, a long time ago – something that only Ginny knows – and nothing will stop her going back to put it right…A fiercely poignant and inspirational story a lost girl searching for a place to call home. Ginny Moon will change everyone who spends time with her.

Brutal Youth


Anthony Breznican - 2014
    On his first day, tensions are clearly on the rise as a picked-upon upperclassmen finally snaps, unleashing a violent attack on both the students who tormented him for so long, and the corrupt, petty faculty that let it happen. But within this desperate place, Peter befriends fellow freshmen Noah Stein, a volatile classmate whose face bears the scars of a hard-fighting past, and the beautiful but lonely Lorelei Paskal —so eager to become popular, she makes only enemies.To even stand a chance at surviving their freshmen year, the trio must join forces as they navigate a bullying culture dominated by administrators like the once popular Ms. Bromine, their embittered guidance counselor, and Father Mercedes, the parish priest who plans to scapegoat the students as he makes off with church finances. A coming-of-age tale reversed, Brutal Youth follows these students as they discover that instead of growing older and wiser, going bad may be the only way to survive.

Private Lessons


Cynthia Salaysay - 2020
    Claire likes herself best when she plays his old piano, a welcome escape from the sadness — and her traditional Filipino mother’s prayer groups. In the hopes of earning a college scholarship, Claire auditions for Paul Avon, a prominent piano teacher, who agrees to take Claire as a pupil. Soon Claire loses herself in Paul’s world and his way of digging into a composition’s emotional core. She practices constantly, foregoing a social life, but no matter how hard she works or how well she plays, it seems impossible to gain Paul’s approval, let alone his affection. Author Cynthia Salaysay composes a moving, beautifully written portrait of rigorous perfectionism, sexual awakening, and the challenges of self-acceptance. Timely and vital, Private Lessons delves into a complicated student/teacher relationship, as well as class and cultural differences, with honesty and grace.

The S-Word


Chelsea Pitcher - 2013
    With the whole school turned against her, and Angie not speaking to her, Lizzie takes her own life. But someone isn’t letting her go quietly. As graffiti and photocopies of Lizzie’s diary plaster the school, Angie begins a relentless investigation into who, exactly, made Lizzie feel she didn’t deserve to keep living. And while she claims she simply wants to punish Lizzie’s tormentors, Angie's own anguish over abandoning her best friend will drive her deep into the dark, twisted side of Verity High—and she might not be able to pull herself back out.Debut author Chelsea Pitcher daringly depicts the harsh reality of modern high schools, where one bad decision can ruin a reputation, and one cruel word can ruin a life. Angie’s quest for the truth behind Lizzie’s suicide is addictive and thrilling, and her razor-sharp wit and fierce sleuthing skills makes her impossible not to root for—even when it becomes clear that both avenging Lizzie and avoiding self-destruction might not be possible.

On a Scale of One to Ten


Ceylan Scott - 2019
    Lime Grove is home to a number of teenagers with a variety of problems: anorexia, bipolar disorder, behavior issues. Tamar will come to know them all very well. But there's one question she can't... won't answer: What happened to her friend Iris? As Tamar's emotional angst becomes more and more clear to her, she'll have to figure out a path to forgiveness. A shocking, moving, and darkly funny depiction of life in a psychiatric world. A stunning journey of one girl's mental illness and the redemptive power of truth and healing.

Be Safe I Love You


Cara Hoffman - 2014
    Before she enlisted, Lauren, a classically trained singer, and her brother Danny, a bright young boy obsessed with Arctic exploration, made the most of their modest circumstances, escaping into their imaginations and forming an indestructible bond. Joining the army allowed Lauren to continue to provide for her family, but it came at a great cost.When she arrives home unexpectedly, it's clear to everyone in their rural New York town that something is wrong. But her father is so happy to have her home that he ignores her odd behavior and the repeated phone calls from an army psychologist. He wants to give Lauren time and space to acclimate to civilian life.Things seem better when Lauren offers to take Danny on a trip to visit their mother upstate. Instead, she guides them into the glacial woods of Canada on a quest to visit the Jeanne d'Arc basin, the site of an oil field that has become her strange obsession. As they set up camp in an abandoned hunting lodge, Lauren believes she's teaching Danny survival skills for the day when she's no longer able to take care of him.But where does she think she's going, and what happened to her in Iraq that set her on this path? From a writer whom The New York Times Book Review says, writes with a restraint that makes poetry of pain, Be Safe I Love You is a novel about war and homecoming, love and duty, and an impassioned look at the effects of war on women as soldiers and caregivers, both at home and on the front lines.

Something like Normal


Trish Doller - 2012
    It’s not until Travis runs into Harper, a girl he’s had a rocky relationship with since middle school, that life actually starts looking up. And as he and Harper see more of each other, he begins to pick his way through the minefield of family problems and post-traumatic stress to the possibility of a life that might resemble normal again. Travis’s dry sense of humor, and incredible sense of honor, make him an irresistible and eminently lovable hero.

Honeysuckle Love


S. Walden - 2012
    She’s just sixteen. She should be focused on school, hanging out with friends, falling in love. Instead, she’s working to pay off the mound of bills her mother left behind when she vanished at the start of the school year. Left alone with her ten-year-old sister, Beatrice, Clara discovers that she is now the parent, the provider, and the responsibilities grow to be more than she can handle.Complicating matters is senior Evan Morningstar who starts pursuing Clara at the beginning of her junior year. She’s confused by this. Evan is a popular, likeable guy. She describes herself as a nobody—a quiet, intensely shy girl who suffers from social anxiety. She wants love like any teenage girl, but she’s terrified to let Evan get close, to discover her secrets. His gentle persistence wins out, however, and she has no option but to open her heart to him. When Clara’s responsibilities prove too great, she begins a slow descent into depression, making dangerous choices that threaten her relationships. She can stay trapped in her despair or discover redemption—how to forgive the past and love again. (This is a Mature YA novel that contains explicit language and sexual situations.)

Stronger Than You Know


Jolene Perry - 2014
    Now living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in a comfortable house, she’s sure she’ll never belong. Wracked by panic attacks, afraid to talk to anyone at her new school, Joy’s got a whole list of reasons why she’s crazy. With immense courage, Joy finds friends and grows closer to her new family. But just when hope is taking hold, she learns she must testify in her mother’s trial. Can she face her old life without losing her way in the new one? Will she ever truly belong in a world that seems too normal to be real?

The One Memory of Flora Banks


Emily Barr - 2017
    One of them says FLORA BE BRAVE.Flora has anterograde amnesia. She can't remember anything day-to-day: the joke her friend made, the instructions her parents gave her, how old she is.Then she kisses someone she shouldn't, and the next day she remembers it. It's the first time she's remembered anything since she was ten. But the boy is gone. She thinks he's moved to the Arctic. Will following him be the key to unlocking her memory? Who can she trust?

The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland


Rebekah Crane - 2016
    But her parents insist that she get out of her head—and her home state—and attend Camp Padua, a summer camp for at-risk teens.Zander does not fit in—or so she thinks. She has only one word for her fellow campers: crazy. In fact, the whole camp population exists somewhere between disaster and diagnosis. There’s her cabinmate Cassie, a self-described manic-depressive-bipolar-anorexic. Grover Cleveland (yes, like the president), a cute but confrontational boy who expects to be schizophrenic someday, odds being what they are. And Bek, a charmingly confounding pathological liar.But amid group “share-apy” sessions and forbidden late-night outings, unlikely friendships form, and as the Michigan summer heats up, the four teens begin to reveal their tragic secrets. Zander finds herself inextricably drawn to Grover’s earnest charms, and she begins to wonder if she could be happy. But first she must come completely unraveled to have any hope of putting herself back together again.