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The Big Crunch


Pete Hautman - 2011
    Jen and Wes do not "meet cute." They do not fall in love at first sight. They do not swoon with scorching desire. They do not believe that they are instant soul mates destined to be together forever. This is not that kind of love story. Instead, they just hang around in each other's orbits...until eventually they collide. And even after that happens, they're still not sure where it will go. Especially when June starts to pity-date one of Wes's friends, and Wes makes some choices that he immediately regrets. From National Book Award winner Pete Hautman, this is a love story for people not particularly biased toward romance. But it is romantic, in the same way that truth can be romantic and uncertainty can be the biggest certainty of all.

The Beautiful Lost


Luanne Rice - 2017
    Ever since her mother left, Maia’s struggled with depression—which once got so bad, she had to go to an institution for a while. She doesn’t want to go back.2. Maia’s sure that if she finds her mother, if the two of them can talk about whale songs and constellations, then everything will be okay again.3. She’s in love with Billy, the handsome, brooding boy who lives in the group home in town. He doesn’t seem to know that Maia exists…until now.When Maia sets off on a road trip in search of her mom, Billy unexpectedly comes along. They drive up the East Coast, stopping along the way for lobster rolls and lighthouses. Maia learns that Billy has dark secrets of his own—and wants to outrun his past, too. But what will the future hold if they reach their destination?

She Went All the Way


Meg Cabot - 2002
    And it's put her in some bizarre situations -- like in a helicopter en route to the wilds of Alaska, sharing too-close quarters with the last man she wants to be with: Jack Townsend! Once a sexy nobody whom Lou helped make a somebody, Jack's just been dumped by a high-profile Hollywood airhead -- who's eloped with Lou's longtime love! So what else could go wrong?Well...Their pilot could try to shoot the most adored man in America. They could crash land in the icy, mountainous middle of nowhere. And at the worst possible moment, when survival should be their only consideration, Jack could start wondering if maybe he wasn't a wee bit too hasty for not giving this sexy screenwriter a second look -- while Lou could start noticing how superstar Jack is kind of hot after all ...

Dear Evan Hansen


Val Emmich - 2018
    He just has to stick to a lie he never meant to tell, that the notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend.Suddenly, Evan isn't invisible anymore--even to the girl of his dreams. And Connor Murphy's parents, with their beautiful home on the other side of town, have taken him in like he was their own, desperate to know more about their enigmatic son from his closest friend. As Evan gets pulled deeper into their swirl of anger, regret, and confusion, he knows that what he's doing can't be right, but if he's helping people, how wrong can it be?No longer tangled in his once-incapacitating anxiety, this new Evan has a purpose. And a website. He's confident. He's a viral phenomenon. Every day is amazing. Until everything is in danger of unraveling and he comes face to face with his greatest obstacle: himself.A simple lie leads to complicated truths in this big-hearted coming-of-age story of grief, authenticity and the struggle to belong in an age of instant connectivity and profound isolation.

The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To


D.C. Pierson - 2010
    They share a love of drawing, the bottom rung on the cruel high school social ladder and a pathological fear of girls.  Then Eric reveals a secret: He doesn’t sleep. Ever.  When word leaks out about Eric's condition, he and Darren find themselves on the run. Is it the government trying to tap into Eric’s mind, or something far darker?  It could be that not sleeping is only part of what Eric's capable of, and the truth is both better and worse than they could ever imagine.

Bad Kitty


Michele Jaffe - 2006
    5 One second she's trying to enjoy her Vegas Vacation, 6 the next she's tangled up in an outrageous adventure and has to outwit a crazed killer before he ends ten lives, one of them her own. 1 Hi! That's me!2 I. Wish.3 Emphasis on aspiring. Current status: failing.4 If friend means "unsuspecting victim" and animals means "one very bad kitty."5 And meet the cute guy at the Snack Hut. I have priorities.6 Meep! But I guess it winds up okay since Kirkus Reviews says: "Inventive, witty, and laugh-out-loud funny, with an enjoyably twisty ending." They wouldn't say that if everyone died, right? Right?

Smothered


Autumn Chiklis - 2018
    Just a few minor problems: she has no job, no prospects, and she’s moving back into her childhood bedroom. Lou is grimly determined to stick to a rigorous schedule to get a job and get out of her parents’ house. Shelly “Mama Shell” Hansen, on the other hand, is ecstatic, and just as determined to keep her at home. Who else will help her hide her latest binge-shopping purchases from her husband, go to SoulCycle with her, and hold her hand during Botox shots?Smothered is a hilarious roman à clef told via journal entries, text messages, emails, bills, receipts, tweets, doctor’s prescriptions, job applications and rejections, parking tickets, and pug pictures, chronicling the year that Lou moves back home after college. Told from Lou’s point-of-view, Smothered tells the story of two young(ish) women, just trying to get it right, and learning that just because we all grow up doesn’t mean we necessarily have to grow old. (After all, what is Juvaderm for?)

Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures From the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf, and One Other Story We [...]


Eli HorowitzJon Scieszka - 2005
    the Purple Hordes / James Kochalka --Sunbird / Neil Gaiman --The Aces phone / Jeanne DuPrau --The sixth borough / Jonathan Safran Foer.Interspersed with charts, graphs, and various crossword puzzles, A Book of Noisy Outlaws, Evil Marauders, and Some Other Things . . . features some of today's best authors spinning new tales ranging from the spooky to the strange. George Saunders tells the story of a father who takes caution to dangerous extremes in "Lars Farf, Excessively Fearful Father and Husband." In "ACES by Phone," a small boy finds a cell phone that lets him listen in on the thoughts of dogs, and in "Small Country," Nick Hornby introduces a country too small for a postal system but, unfortunately for one bookish boy, just big enough for a football team. Each story features full-color illustrations by artists including Barry Blitt, Lane Smith, David Heatley, and Marcel Dzama.The collection includes previously unpublished children's stories from Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated), Nick Hornby (High Fidelity), Neil Gaiman (Sandman), George Saunders (CivilWarLand in Bad Decline), Kelly Link (Stranger Than Fiction), and Jon Scieskza (Stinky Cheese Man). The dust jacket folds into a unique aerogram, which factors into a special contest involving a story written partly by Lemony Snicket, partly by thousands of children.

Kiss Collector


Wendy Higgins - 2018
    It’s time to take what she wants, and what she wants are kisses. Athletes, musicians, poets, and bad boys—their lips are all on her agenda, and it's time to collect. Zae proposes a contest with her friends to see who can kiss the most boys during spring break. But what starts as a harmless competition leads to a downward spiral she can’t seem to break free of. As family, academic, friend, and guy drama come to a head, Zae is forced to face the reasons behind her boy angst, and starts to wonder if she was wrong about the male race...or at least some of them.

Striking Out


Will Weaver - 1900
    Never been to a movie. Never played baseball with a real team. Never got over feeling guilty for the loss of his brother. But change is in the air. Billy discovers he has a natural talent for baseball, especially as a pitcher. Maybe, just maybe, there's more in store for him than life on the farm. But can Billy convince his father of that? Or is he destined to spend the rest of his life pitching nothing but hay?Teenager Billy Baggs is desperately needed on his family's struggling dairy farm, but he's also an extraordinarily gifted natural baseball player. How he struggles to reconcile his father's desire to keep him on the farm with his coach's interest in getting him on the field is at the heart of this ‘meaty story.… The complex characters grow and change in profoundly real ways.''K. ‘[With] flashes of humor, a wealth of lovingly recounted details evokes the difficult daily life on a small dairy farm.''Publishers Weekly. 1994 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)1993 "Pick of the Lists" (ABA)

The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver


E. Lockhart - 2005
    She knows it’s unusual, but give her a break—she’s had a rough 10 days. In the past 10 days she: lost her boyfriend (#13 on the list), lost her best friend (Kim), lost all her other friends (Nora, Cricket), did something suspicious with a boy (#10), did something advanced with a boy (#15), had an argument with a boy (#14), drank her first beer (someone handed it to her), got caught by her mom (ag!), had a panic attack (scary), lost a lacrosse game (she’s the goalie), failed a math test (she’ll make it up), hurt Meghan’s feelings (even though they aren’t really friends), became a social outcast (no one to sit with at lunch) and had graffiti written about her in the girls’ bathroom (who knows what was in the boys’!?!). But don’t worry—Ruby lives to tell the tale. And make more lists.

The Starlight Conspiracy


Steve Voake - 2008
    That is, until she meets an old man who entrusts her with a package containing a mysterious item that has unbelievable powers. It is a meeting that will change her life.

The Paradox of Vertical Flight


Emil Ostrovski - 2013
    Jack's ex-girlfriend, Jess, has given birth, and Jack is the father. Jack hasn't spoken with Jess in about nine months—and she wants him to see the baby before he is adopted. The new teenage father kidnaps the baby, names him Socrates, stocks up on baby supplies at Wal-Mart, and hits the road with his best friend, Tommy, and the ex-girlfriend. As they head to Grandma's house (eluding the police at every turn), Jack tells baby Socrates about Homer, Troy, Aristotle, the real Socrates, and the Greek myths—because all stories spring from those stories, really. Even this one. Funny, heart-wrenching, and wholly original, this debut novel by Emil Ostrovski explores the nature of family, love, friendship, fate, fatherhood, and myth.

Derby Girl


Shauna Cross - 2007
    Meet Bliss Cavendar, a blue haired, indie-rock loving misfit stuck in the tiny town of Bodeen, Texas.Her pageant-addicted mother expects her to compete for the coveted Miss Blue Bonnet crown, but Bliss would rather feast on roaches than be subjected to such rhinestone tyranny.Bliss' escape? Take up Roller Derby.When she discovers a league in nearby Austin, Bliss embarks on an epic journey full of hilarious tattooed girls, delicious boys in bands, and a few not-so-awesome realities even the most bad-assed derby chick has to learn.

How to Disappear


Sharon Huss Roat - 2017
    But when Jenna moves away, Vicky’s isolation becomes unbearable.So she decides to invent a social life by Photoshopping herself into other people’s pictures, posting them on Instagram under the screen name Vicurious. Instantly, she begins to get followers, so she adds herself to more photos from all over the world with all types of people. And as Vicurious’s online followers multiply, Vicky realizes she can make a whole life for herself without ever leaving her bedroom. But the more followers she finds online, the clearer it becomes that there are a lot of people out there who feel like her— #alone and #ignored in real life.To help them, and herself, Vicky must find the courage to face her fear of being “seen,” because only then can she stop living vicariously and truly bring the magic of Vicurious to life.In this beautiful and illuminating narrative, Sharon Huss Roat shines a light on our love of social media and how sometimes being the person you think you want to be isn’t as great as being the person you truly are.