Book picks similar to
Mallee Boys by Charlie Archbold


australian
young-adult
contemporary
loveozya

Pieces of Sky


Trinity Doyle - 2015
    She was in the local swimming club, and loved it; she lived with her parents and her brother, Cam, in the small coastal town she'd known all her life. She had friends, she had goals - she had a life. Now Cam is dead, her parents might as well be - and Lucy can't bear to get back in the pool. All she has to look forward to now is a big pile of going-nowhere.Drawn to Steffi, her wild ex-best-friend who reminds Lucy of her mysterious, unpredictable brother, and music-obsessed Evan, the new boy in town, Lucy starts asking questions. Why did Cam die? Was it an accident or suicide? But as Lucy hunts for answers she discovers much more than she expects. About Cam. About her family. About herself.

Zac and Mia


A.J. Betts - 2013
    Now I believe in science, statistics, and antibiotics.So says seventeen-year-old Zac Meier during a long, grueling leukemia treatment in Perth, Australia. A loud blast of Lady Gaga alerts him to the presence of Mia, the angry, not-at-all-stoic cancer patient in the room next door. Once released, the two near-strangers can’t forget each other, even as they desperately try to resume normal lives. The story of their mysterious connection drives this unflinchingly tough, tender novel told in two voices.

Six Impossible Things


Fiona Wood - 2010
    Fourteen-year-old nerd-boy Dan Cereill is not quite coping with a reversal of family fortune, moving house, new school hell, a mother with a failing wedding cake business, a just-out gay dad, and an impossible crush on the girl next door.His life is a mess, but for now he's narrowed it down to just six impossible things..."I loved this book so much I wanted to be in it." Kaz Cooke

Nona & Me


Clare Atkins - 2014
    Yapas.They are also best friends. It doesn’t matter that Rosie is white and Nona is Aboriginal: their family connections tie them together for life.Born just five days apart in a remote corner of the Northern Territory, the girls are inseperable, until Nona moves away at the age of nine. By the time she returns, they’re in Year 10 and things have changed. Rosie has lost interest in the community, preferring to hang out in the nearby mining town, where she goes to school with the glamorous Selena, and Selena’s gorgeous older brother Nick.When a political announcement highlights divisions between the Aboriginal community and the mining town, Rosie is put in a difficult position: will she be forced to choose between her first love and her oldest friend?

The Pause


John Larkin - 2015
    But there’s something in Declan’s past that just won’t go away, that pokes and scratches at his thoughts when he’s at his most vulnerable. Declan feels as if nothing will take away that pain that he has buried deep inside for so long. So he makes the only decision he thinks he has left: the decision to end it all. Or does he? As the train approaches and Declan teeters at the edge of the platform, two versions of his life are revealed. In one, Declan watches as his body is destroyed and the lives of those who loved him unravel. In the other, Declan pauses before he jumps. And this makes all the difference.One moment. One pause. One whole new life. From author of The Shadow Girl, winner of the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2012 Prize for Writing for Young Adults, comes a breathtaking new novel that will make you reconsider the road you’re travelling and the tracks you’re leaving behind.

Beautiful Malice


Rebecca James - 2010
    To erase her past, Katherine has moved to a new city, enrolled in a new school, and even changed her name. She’s done the next best thing to disappearing altogether. Now, wary and alone, she seeks nothing more than anonymity. What she finds instead is the last thing she expected: a friend.Even more unlikely, Katherine’s new friend is the most popular and magnetic girl in school. Extroverted, gorgeous, flirtatious, and unpredictable, she is everything that Katherine is not and doesn’t want to be: the center of attention. Yet Alice’s enthusiasm is infectious, her candor sometimes unsettling, and Katherine, in spite of her guarded caution, finds herself drawn into Alice’s private circle. But Alice has secrets, too—darker than anyone can begin to imagine. And when she lets her guard down at last, Katherine discovers the darkest of them all. For there will be no escaping the past for Katherine Patterson—only a descent into a trap far more sinister . . . and infinitely more seductive.

Waterhole


Fiona Bell - 2018
    There’s the first meal, the first time you watch a TV show you both liked, the first time you laugh, the first day of the Christmas holidays.Without them.Ever since sixteen-year-old Sunny Maguire’s mother died in a car accident, Sunny has been feeling lost and alone. She dreads the idea of spending the long summer with her distant stepfather, the person she blames for her mother’s death. But Kevin is the only family she has left and Sunny’s got nowhere else to go.When Sunny learns that a local teenage boy has disappeared, she joins in the search along the gorge and at the waterhole – a beautiful pool tainted by a suspicious number of tragic drownings. And when she sees her mother’s ghost, she starts to lose faith in the only person she can rely on.

Sky


Ondine Sherman - 2017
    When her mum was alive, Sky knew who she was: she was kind-hearted and full of a passion for justice, especially the rights of animals. She was also a vegan whose hero was Jane Goodall. And until recently she preferred the company of dogs to boys.But being a vegan and trying to fit into her new home isn’t easy. Her aunt has forgotten she doesn’t eat meat, and Sky is desperately lonely without her mother and friends. It seems the only way to fit in and make friends is to pretend to be someone she’s not.When Sky starts to investigate the local chicken farm for a school project, the cruelty she witnesses goes to the very heart of who she is. She knows she has to do something, but what? Can one single act really make a difference?As she struggles between her desire to belong, and her desire to remain true to her values, can Sky find the true courage it takes to stand up for what she believes in and be true to herself?

One Thousand Hills


James Roy - 2016
    The children in the village are doing childlike things, playing with toys they make themselves, going to school and church on Sunday. Doing their chores. But there are whispers and looks, and messages of hate on the radio, and people are leaving. Pascal is a good boy, trying his best, but the world he knows is about to change forever.

Take Three Girls


Cath Crowley - 2017
    St Hilda's antidote to the cyber-bullying? The Year 10 Wellness program. Nice try - but sometimes all it takes is three girls.

Dirty Little Secrets


C.J. Omololu - 2010
    But Lucy’s is bigger and dirtier than most. It’s one she’s been hiding for years—that her mom’s out-of-control hoarding has turned their lives into a world of garbage and shame. She’s managed to keep her home life hidden from her best friend and her crush, knowing they’d be disgusted by the truth. So, when her mom dies suddenly in their home, Lucy hesitates to call 911 because revealing their way of life would make her future unbearable—and she begins her two-day plan to set her life right.With details that are as fascinating as they are disturbing, C. J. Omololu weaves an hour-by-hour account of Lucy’s desperate attempt at normalcy. Her fear and isolation are palpable as readers are pulled down a path from which there is no return, and the impact of hoarding on one teen’s life will have readers completely hooked.

Twisted


Laurie Halse Anderson - 2007
    But since he got busted for doing graffiti on the school, and spent the summer doing outdoor work to pay for it, he stands out like you wouldn’t believe. His new physique attracts the attention of queen bee Bethany Milbury, who just so happens to be his father’s boss’s daughter, the sister of his biggest enemy—and Tyler’s secret crush. And that sets off a string of events and changes that have Tyler questioning his place in the school, in his family, and in the world.In Twisted, the acclaimed Laurie Halse Anderson tackles a very controversial subject: what it means to be a man today. Fans and new readers alike will be captured by Tyler’s pitch perfect, funny voice, the surprising narrative arc, and the thoughtful moral dilemmas that are at the heart of all of the author’s award-winning, widely read work.

Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters


Natalie Standiford - 2010
    On Christmas Day their rich and imperious grandmother gathers the family and announces that she will soon die . . .and has cut the entire family out of her will. Since she is the source of almost all their income, this means they will soon be penniless. Someone in the family has offended her deeply. If that person comes forward with a confession of her (or his) crime, submitted in writing to her lawyer by New Year's Day, she will reinstate the family in her will. Or at least consider it.And so the confessions begin....

Boy21


Matthew Quick - 2012
    He lives in gray, broken Bellmont, a town ruled by the Irish Mob, drugs, violence, and racially charged rivalries. At home, he takes care of his disabled grandfather, and at school he’s called “White Rabbit”, the only white kid on the varsity basketball team. He’s always dreamed of getting out somehow with his girlfriend, Erin. But until then, when he puts on his number 21, everything seems to make sense.Russ has just moved to the neighborhood. A former teen basketball phenom from a privileged home, his life has been turned upside down by tragedy. Cut off from everyone he knows, he now answers only to the name Boy21—his former jersey number—and has an unusual obsession with outer space.As their final year of high school brings these two boys together, “Boy21” may turn out to be the answer they both need.

Frankie


Shivaun Plozza - 2016
    Just ask the guy whose nose she broke. Or the cop investigating the burglary she witnessed, or her cheating ex-boyfriend, or her aunt who's tired of giving second chances.When a kid shows up claiming to be Frankie's half brother, it opens the door to a past she doesn't want to remember. And when that kid goes missing, the only person willing to help is a boy with stupidly blue eyes, a criminal record, and secrets of his own.Frankie's search for the truth could change her life, or cost her everything.