Book picks similar to
Secret Heart by Danielle Dreger
young-adult
lesbian
romance
coming-out
A Kiss in the Dark
Cat Clarke - 2014
For fans of Paula Hawkins, Gillian Flynn, Megan Abbott and Jandy Nelson.Can love survive the ultimate betrayal? A compelling story of love and identity from a bestselling author.When Alex meets Kate the attraction is instant.Alex is funny, good-looking, and a little shy - everything that Kate wants in a boyfriend.Alex can't help falling for Kate, who is pretty, charming and maybe just a little naive...But one of them is hiding an unbelievable secret, and as their love blossoms, it threatens to ruin not just their relationship, but their lives...
Things a Bright Girl Can Do
Sally Nicholls - 2017
Enraged that she is expected to marry her childhood sweetheart rather than be educated, she joins the Suffragettes, and vows to pay the ultimate price for women's freedom.May is fifteen, and already sworn to the cause, though she and her fellow Suffragists refuse violence. When she meets Nell, a girl who's grown up in hardship, she sees a kindred spirit. Together and in love, the two girls start to dream of a world where all kinds of women have their place.But the fight for freedom will challenge Evelyn, May and Nell more than they ever could believe. As war looms, just how much are they willing to sacrifice?
A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend
Emily Horner - 2010
Then Julia is killed in a sudden car accident, and while Cass is still reeling from her death, Julia’s boyfriend and her other drama friends make it their mission to bring to fruition the nearly-completed secret project: a musical about an orphaned ninja princess entitled Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad.Cass isn’t one of the drama people. She doesn’t feel at home with Julia’s drama friends, and she doesn’t see a place for her in the play. Things only get worse when she finds out that Heather Galloway, the girl who made her miserable all through middle school, has been cast as the ninja princess.Cass can’t take a summer of swallowing her pride and painting sets, so she decides to follow her original plan for a cross-country road trip with Julia. Even if she has a touring bicycle instead of a driver’s license, and even if Julia’s ashes are coming along in Tupperware.Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad is a story about friendship. About love. About traveling a thousand miles just to find yourself. About making peace with the past, and making sense of it. And it’s a story about the bloodiest high school musical one quiet suburb has ever seen.
Adaptation
Malinda Lo - 2012
She only knows one thing: She’s different now.Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David are in Arizona when it happens. Everyone knows the world will never be the same. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway at night in the middle of Nevada, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won’t tell them what happened, where they are—or how they’ve been miraculously healed.Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction—and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.
Love & Lies: Marisol's Story
Ellen Wittlinger - 2008
How hard could that be? She gets her very own apartment (with her high school best friend as roommate) and a waitressing job at a classic Harvard Square coffeehouse. When she enrolls in an adult education class -- "How to Write Your First Novel" -- there are two big surprises waiting for her: John Galardi, aka "Gio," a fellow zine writer who fell head over heels for her last spring (despite the fact that she's a lesbian) and her instructor, Olivia Frost, the most exquisitely beautiful woman she's ever seen.But as Marisol ventures into what seems to be her storybook romance with Olivia, things start to go off track. Between the ups and downs of her new relationship, her strained friendship with Lee (a newly out lesbian who is crushing big-time on Marisol), and her roommate's new boyfriend (who is equally afraid of Marisol and their cat) moving in, Marisol starts losing sight of her goals. Is she too blinded by love to see the lies?In this long-anticipated companion novel to the Printz Honor Book Hard Love, which critics called "A bittersweet tale of self-expression and the struggle to achieve self-love," Ellen Wittlinger offers a novel just as emotionally honest and deeply felt.
I'm Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Gretchen McNeil - 2016
She's starting senior year at the top of her class, she’s a shoo-in for a scholarship to M.I.T., and she’s got a new boyfriend she’s crazy about. The only problem: All through high school Bea and her best friends Spencer and Gabe have been the targets of horrific bullying.So Bea uses her math skills to come up with The Formula, a 100% mathematically guaranteed path to social happiness in high school. Now Gabe is on his way to becoming Student Body President, and Spencer is finally getting his art noticed. But when her boyfriend Jesse dumps her for Toile, the quirky new girl at school, Bea realizes it's time to use The Formula for herself. She'll be reinvented as the eccentric and lovable Trixie—a quintessential manic pixie dream girl—in order to win Jesse back and beat new-girl Toile at her own game.Unfortunately, being a manic pixie dream girl isn't all it's cracked up to be, and “Trixie” is causing unexpected consequences for her friends. As The Formula begins to break down, can Bea find a way to reclaim her true identity and fix everything she's messed up? Or will the casualties of her manic pixie experiment go far deeper than she could possibly imagine?
Amelia Westlake
Erin Gough - 2018
So when she risks it all by creating a hoax to expose the school's many problems – with help from notorious bad-girl Will Everheart, no less – Harriet tells herself it's because she's seeking justice. And definitely not because she finds Will oddly fascinating. But as Will and Harriet's campaign heats up, it gets harder for them to remain sworn enemies – and to avoid being caught. As tensions burn throughout the school, how far will they go to keep their mission – and their feelings for each other – a secret?
Noteworthy
Riley Redgate - 2017
But when her low Alto 2 voice gets her shut out for the third straight year—threatening her future at Kensington-Blaine and jeopardizing her college applications—she’s forced to consider nontraditional options.In Jordan’s case, really nontraditional. A spot has opened up in the Sharpshooters, Kensington’s elite a cappella octet. Worshiped…revered…all male. Desperate to prove herself, Jordan auditions in her most convincing drag, and it turns out that Jordan Sun, Tenor 1, is exactly what the Sharps are looking for.Jordan finds herself enmeshed in a precarious juggling act: making friends, alienating friends, crushing on a guy, crushing on a girl, and navigating decades-old rivalries. With her secret growing heavier every day, Jordan pushes beyond gender norms to confront what it means to be a girl (and a guy) in a male-dominated society, and—most importantly—what it means to be herself.
Whatever.: or how junior year became totally f$@ked
S.J. Goslee - 2016
He and his friends have a crappy band (an excuse to drink cheap beer and rock out to the Lemonheads) and hang out in parking lots doing stupid board tricks. But when Mike's girlfriend Lisa, who knows him better than he does, breaks up with him, he realizes he's about to have a major epiphany that will blow his mind. And worse--he gets elected to homecoming court.It's like the apocalypse came, only instead of nuclear bombs and zombies, Mike gets school participation, gay thoughts, and mother-effin' cheerleaders.With the free spirit of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the raw voice of Winger, and characters reminiscent of Freaks & Geeks, this debut YA offers a standout voice and a fresh, modern take on the coming-out story.
Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun
Jonny Garza Villa - 2021
Get into UCLA. And have the chance to move away from Corpus Christi, Texas, and the suffocating expectations of others that have forced Jules into an inauthentic life.Then in one reckless moment, with one impulsive tweet, his plans for a low-key nine months are thrown—literally—out the closet. The downside: the whole world knows, and Jules has to prepare for rejection. The upside: Jules now has the opportunity to be his real self.Then Mat, a cute, empathetic Twitter crush from Los Angeles, slides into Jules’s DMs. Jules can tell him anything. Mat makes the world seem conquerable. But when Jules’s fears about coming out come true, the person he needs most is fifteen hundred miles away. Jules has to face them alone.Jules accidentally propelled himself into the life he’s always dreamed of. And now that he’s in control of it, what he does next is up to him.
Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel
Sara Farizan - 2014
Her Persian heritage already makes her different from her classmates; if word got out that she liked girls, life would be twice as hard. But when a sophisticated, beautiful new girl, Saskia, shows up, Leila starts to take risks she never thought she would, especially when it looks as if the attraction between them is mutual. Struggling to sort out her growing feelings and Saskia's confusing signals, Leila confides in her old friend, Lisa, and grows closer to her fellow drama tech-crew members, especially Tomas, whose comments about his own sexuality are frank, funny, wise, and sometimes painful. Gradually, Leila begins to see that almost all her classmates are more complicated than they first appear to be, and many are keeping fascinating secrets of their own.
A Hole in the World
Sophie Robbins - 2011
Then, everything changes and Bianca finds herself being thrust into the role of Prince Charming whether she likes it or not.Despite her misgivings, she’s drawn to the strange Princess and her ways and before she knows where she is she’s forced to fight for her love - and her life.Other comments/reviews: “[...] the story just fascinated me from beginning to end. I loved the idea in general, the hole between worlds, the princess in distress the not-quite Prince Charming. It's witty and lovely and rather epic and all sorts of gripping. I loved the characterisation, I loved the relationship between Bianca and Alexandra, I loved 'the gang'...it was just an awesome read, tyvm!”“[...] This was absolutely adorable, it captured everything i love about ya fiction and had amazing characterizations throughout. Some of my favorite YA books are the fantasy/realism fusions and i really felt this GOT it. I also loved the f/f aspect because I find that queer YA books are generally ~dramatic hs plots instead of ever venturing into fantasy etc.”
Even in Paradise
Chelsey Philpot - 2014
Anne’s at the beginning of junior year, Charlotte Ryder already knows all about the former senator’s daughter. Most people do... or think they do.Charlotte certainly never expects she’ll be Julia’s friend. But almost immediately, she is drawn into the larger than-life-new girl’s world—a world of midnight rendezvous, dazzling parties, palatial vacation homes, and fizzy champagne cocktails. And then Charlotte meets, and begins falling for, Julia’s handsome older brother, Sebastian.But behind her self-assured smiles and toasts to the future, Charlotte soon realizes that Julia is still suffering from a tragedy. A tragedy that the Buchanan family has kept hidden... until now.
Good Vibes
Cara Malone - 2019
An agoraphobic game collector. A romantic comedy about finding love and self-acceptance in the strangest places. The little details have never interested Libby. From her eclectic style to her carefree attitude about her adult toy shop, she’s all about the big picture. But when her business partner retires, Libby’s safety net disappears and it’s up to her to sink or swim. For old-school card game nerd Theo, the details are everything. Her anxiety demands to know the rules, the players and the goal in any situation, and it can be hard to even leave her apartment unless she knows exactly what’s coming her way. When Theo’s sister gets engaged, she’s forced out of her comfort zone and into Libby’s shop on the hunt for bachelorette party supplies. Opposites attract and Theo is drawn into Libby’s chaotic world. She wants to help Libby save the shop and together they come up with a plan, but will they be brave enough to play the game of love?
Twisted Lives
Ali Spooner - 2014
A twist of fate leaves Bet and her daughter Kylie stranded at the entrance of the home of Alex Graves, as she flees the control of an abusive husband.When custom–homebuilder Alex arrives to find steam boiling from Bet’s car and a beautiful child asleep in the passenger seat, her heart goes out to them.Alex offers shelter to the pair setting off a chain of events that bring both mother and daughter close to her heart and danger to her door.A heartwarming story of true love that will keep you smiling long after you’ve finished the book.