Teenage Textbook


Adrian Tan - 1988
    Tom D'Cruz, the Dashing Athletic Hero. Yeo Chung Kai is Mr Outstandingly Average while Sissy Song and Loo Kok Sean are the Princess of PJC and the Aspiring College Cassanova respectively.Who will melt the Ice Cream Girl?Who or what will sort out this mess? Will it be1. The Teenage Textbook?2. Dr E. Sopramaniam, MA (East Anglia), PhD (Calcutta)?3. Irene Pates, Dear Adam, Paik Choo's Problem Page, the editors of Female Magazine and Mills & Boon?4. Who cares!?The answers to these and many other earth-(or should we say), milk-shaking problems, are here, as the Ice Cream Girl decides to make a clean breast of it."I've Passed Teenhood."

Annabelle Thong


Imran Hashim - 2016
    Enroling herself at the Sorbonne, she meets the suave Patrick Dudoigt, but he’s the one temptation she MUST resist. Annabelle’s belief system is challenged on all fronts, and her naïveté is seen as gauche in the City of Love. Guilt and confusion make for dangerous bedfellows, and when her fellow university students enthusiastically combine reading and rioting, Annabelle can’t help but wonder if everyone’s gone mad—or is it just her? Annabelle Thong takes a hilarious look at the sparks that fly when East meets West, and the passions these ignite.

Love Letters and Two Other Plays: The Golden Age, What I Did Last Summer


A.R. Gurney - 1990
    R. Gurney has wittily captured the manners of upper-middle-class WASP America, but never as gracefully or with such dazzling economy as in Love Letters. Tracing the lifelong correspondence of the staid, dutiful lawyer Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and the lively, unstable artist Melissa Gardner, the story of their bittersweet relationship gradually unfolds from what is written--and what is left unsaid--in their letters. A smash hit both off and on Broadway, Love Letters captures Andy and Melissa with a precision of detail and depth of feeling that only Gurney can command. Two other, thematically related plays by Gurney, The Golden Age and What I Did Last Summer, are included, providing a trio of wry and affectionate paeans to love lost, found, and fleetingly glimpsed.

The Vegetarian


Han Kang - 2007
    But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision to embrace a more “plant-like” existence is a shocking act of subversion. And as her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms, scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. In a complete metamorphosis of both mind and body, her now dangerous endeavor will take Yeong-hye—impossibly, ecstatically, tragically—far from her once-known self altogether.

That's Not What Happened


Kody Keplinger - 2018
    Three years since my best friend, Sarah, was killed in a bathroom stall during the mass shooting. Everyone knows Sarah's story--that she died proclaiming her faith. But it's not true. I know because I was with her when she died. I didn't say anything then, and people got hurt because of it. Now Sarah's parents are publishing a book about her, so this might be my last chance to set the record straight . . . but I'm not the only survivor with a story to tell about what did--and didn't--happen that day. Except Sarah's martyrdom is important to a lot of people, people who don't take kindly to what I'm trying to do. And the more I learn, the less certain I am about what's right. I don't know what will be worse: the guilt of staying silent or the consequences of speaking up . . .

Betrayal


Harold Pinter - 1978
    The play begins in 1977, with a meeting between adulterous lovers, Emma and Jerry, two years after their affair has ended. During the nine scenes of the play, we move back in time, through the states of their affair, with the play ending in the house of Emma and Robert, her husband, who is Jerry's best friend.The classic dramatic scenario of the love triangle is manifest in a mediation on the themes of marital infidelity, duplicity, and self-deception. Pinter writes a world that simultaneously glorifies and debases love.

Diary of a Confused Feminist


Kate Weston - 2020
    She also wants to be a writer, get together with Hot Josh (is this a feminist ambition?), win at her coursework and not make a TOTAL EMBARRASSMENT of herself at all times.But the path to true feminism is filled with mortifying incidents and when everything at school starts to get a bit too much, Kat knows she's lost her way, and the only way forward is to ask for help . . .Join Kat AKA the Confused Feminist as she navigates EVERYTHING from menstrual cups and mental health to Instagram likes and #TimesUp in her HILARIOUS, OUTRAGEOUS and VERY EMBARRASSING diary.

The Boy Who Could See Demons


Carolyn Jess-Cooke - 2012
    His best friend is a 9000-year-old demon called Ruen. When his depressive mother attempts suicide yet again, Alex meets child psychiatrist Anya. Still bearing the scars of her own daughter's battle with schizophrenia, Anya fears for Alex's mental health and attempts to convince him that Ruen doesn't exist. But as she runs out of medical proof for many of Alex's claims, she is faced with a question: does Alex suffer from schizophrenia, or can he really see demons?

Undone


Cat Clarke - 2012
    It doesn't matter that Kai is gay, or that he'll never look at her the way she looks at him. Jem is okay with that. But when Kai is outed online by one of their classmates, he does the unthinkable and commits suicide. Jem is left to pick up the pieces of her broken life. Before he died, Kai left her twelve letters—one for each month of the year—and those letters are all Jem has left. That, and revenge. Although Kai's letters beg her not to investigate what happened, Jem can't let it go. She needs to know who did this, and she'll stop at nothing to find the person responsible for Kai's death. One way or another, someone is going down. Someone is going to pay.

The Other Side


Kim Holden - 2019
    Denver, Colorado1987There are two sides to every story.The surface reality that’s presented to the world.And then there’s the other side.The real one.The one that matters.Seventeen-year-old, self-proclaimed asshole, Toby Page, is alone.No friends.No family.He trades maintenance work in exchange for room and board.Every day he fights demons no one else can see.Every day he wants to give up.But he can’t.Not yet.When Alice Eliot moves in downstairs, she offers Toby some light in his dark world.At a crossroads and barely hanging on, it’s hard to have perspective.It’s difficult to see your own worth when you’re the villain in your story.Luckily for Toby, Alice brings things out in him that no one else ever has.As the two sides of Toby’s story are revealed, and the full reality comes into view, truth is gained.Improbable alliances prove that kindness is fundamentally human.Unlikely heroes emerge.The question is, Will it all be enough to save him?

Medea and Other Plays: Medea / Hecabe / Electra / Heracles


Euripides - 1963
    In Medea, a woman rejected by her lover takes hideous revenge by murdering the children they both love, and Hecabe depicts the former queen of Troy, driven mad by the prospect of her daughter's sacrifice to Achilles. Electra portrays a young woman planning to avenge the brutal death of her father at the hands of her mother, while in Heracles the hero seeks vengeance against the evil king who has caused bloodshed in his family.Translated with an Introduction by PHILIP VELLACOTT

The Curious Savage


John Patrick - 1950
    Savage has been left ten million dollars by her husband and wants to make the best use of it, in spite of the efforts of her grown-up stepchildren to get their hands on it. These latter, knowing that the widow's wealth is now in negotiable securities, and seeing they cannot get hold of it, commit her to a "sanatorium" hoping to "bring her to her senses." But Mrs. Savage is determined to establish a fund to help others realize their hopes and dreams. In the sanatorium she meets various social misfits, men and women who just cannot adjust themselves to life, people who need the help Mrs. Savage can provide. In getting to know them, she realizes that she will find happiness with them and plans to spend the rest of her life as one of them. But when the doctor tells her there is no reason why she should remain, she hesitates to go out into a hard world where people seem ready to do anything for money. The self-seeking stepchildren are driven to distraction by their vain efforts to browbeat Mrs. Savage, but she preserves her equanimity and leads them on a merry chase. At last her friends conspire to get rid of her stepchildren, and through their simple belief in the justice of her cause, they enable Mrs. Savage to carry out her plans. The last scene, a farewell party, is a delightful fantasy where each "guest" in the sanatorium realizes at last some hopeless dream for something he was never able to realize. The dominant mood is high comedy, and the audience is left with a feeling that the neglected virtues of kindness and affection have not been entirely lost in a world that seems motivated at times only by greed and dishonesty.

Everything in the Garden


Edward Albee - 1968
    Albee there is a theme beneath the surface, in this case the corruption of money and the rottenness of this bigoted exurbia where conformity to its illiberal standards and its hypocritical show of respectability is all that counts. The scene is the suburban home of Jenny and Richard, beautifully played by Barbara Bel Geddes and Barry Nelson. The only thing that seems to stand in the way of their happiness is a lack of money. The action starts in an entertaining comedy of manners style. Then abruptly there enters a Mrs. Toothe in the menacing and fascinating person of Beatrice Straight who offers Jenny the opportunity to make more money than they have ever had, to buy a greenhouse and all the other luxuries that they require for their garden and their lives. Richard's realization that their newfound money is being earned by his wife's whoring comes almost simultaneously with the return of their fourteen-year-old son from school and a champagne cocktail party which they are giving to impress their country club friends. As a result, his horror, disgust and rage has to be kept under wraps in order to keep up essential appearances until tragedy strikes, and Richard realizes that the assembled wives are all involved and their husbands are aware and condoning." More than that, they are prepared not merely to justify but defend the ends through which their means are attained and the devastated Richard, left in agonized despair by the ironic events that charge the final moments of the play, must face the fact of his own share in their communal guilt.

If I Was Your Girl


Meredith Russo - 2016
    Like anyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. But Amanda is keeping a secret, and she's determined not to get too close to anyone. But when she meets sweet, easygoing Grant, Amanda can't help but start to let him into her life. As they spend more time together, she realizes just how much she is losing by guarding her heart. She finds herself yearning to share with Grant everything about herself, including her past. But Amanda's terrified that once she tells him the truth, he won't be able to see past it. Because the secret that Amanda's been keeping? It's that at her old school, she used to be Andrew. Will the truth cost Amanda her new life, and her new love? Meredith Russo's If I Was Your Girl is a universal story about feeling different and a love story that everyone will root for.

Singapore: The Air-conditioned Nation. Essays on the Politics of Comfort and Control, 1990-2000


Cherian George - 2000
    The book presents a collection of stimulating essays that get to the very heart of the Singapore system and the dynamics shaping it, revealing many of the tensions and contradictions inherent in the "air-conditioned nation" and the factors accounting for the political success of the ruling People's Action Party.