Book picks similar to
Just Plain Weird by Tom Upton


young-adult
romance
fantasy
science-fiction

City of Dark Magic


Magnus Flyte - 2012
    When music student Sarah Weston lands a summer job at Prague Castle cataloging Beethoven’s manuscripts, she has no idea how dangerous her life is about to become. Prague is a threshold, Sarah is warned, and it is steeped in blood.      Soon after Sarah arrives, strange things begin to happen. She learns that her mentor, who was working at the castle, may not have committed suicide after all. Could his cryptic notes be warnings? As Sarah parses his clues about Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved,” she manages to get arrested, to have tantric sex in a public fountain, and to discover a time-warping drug. She also catches the attention of a four-hundred-year-old dwarf, the handsome Prince Max, and a powerful U.S. senator with secrets she will do anything to hide.      City of Dark Magic could be called a rom-com paranormal suspense novel—or it could simply be called one of the most entertaining novels of the year.

Losing Me Finding You


Natalie Ward - 2014
    Today is the tenth time this has happened to me. The tenth time I’ve had to figure out where the hell I am. The tenth time I’ve had to try and work out who the hell I am. This is the tenth alteration of the person I am. Each of us has had different lives, different backgrounds and different families. But there’s always been one constant.Him.He’s the reason I keep doing this. He’s the reason I spend four years searching. If I’m lucky, I’ll get the trigger and find him quickly and we can spend those four years together before I disappear again. If I’m not, we might get a year, a month or even just a day. Once we got nothing, but that was a choice. And every time it happens, he patiently waits for me. He says that every time I come back to him, it’s like falling in love with me all over again. I say that every time I come back, I fall even more in love with him than before.It scares me that one day I won't be able to find him at all, because when that day comes, I'm not sure I'll want to keep going. He is my strength, my protector, my one and only constant.I love him.He loves me.But every four years, I lose myself. And every four years, I have to find him.This is our story.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January


Alix E. Harrow - 2019
    As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place.Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.

Black Feathers


Joseph D'Lacey - 2013
    Their task is to find a dark messiah known only as the Crowman. But is he our saviour – or the final incarnation of evil?File Under: Fantasy [ The Crowman | Joined Through Time | The Last Keeper | The Journey Begins ]

Gimme a Call


Sarah Mlynowski - 2010
    She wasted the past three years going out with Bryan—cute, adorable, break-your-heart Bryan. Devi let her friendships fade, blew off studying, didn't join any clubs . . . and now that Bryan has broken up with her, she has nothing left.Not even her stupid cell phone—she dropped it in the mall fountain. Now it only calls one number . . . hers. At age fourteen, three years ago!Once Devi gets over the shock—and convinces her younger self that she isn't some wacko—she realizes that she's been given an awesome gift. She can tell herself all the right things to do . . . because she's already done all the wrong ones! Who better to take advice from than your future self?Except . . .what if getting what you think you want changes everything?Fans of Sarah Mlynowski's Magic in Manhattan series will love this hilarious new novel with a high-concept premise .

The Waking Forest


Alyssa Wees - 2019
    To Rhea, it appears like a mirage, dark and dense, at the very edge of her backyard. But when she reaches out to touch it, the forest vanishes. She’s desperate to know more—until she finds a peculiar boy who offers to reveal its secrets. If she plays a game.To the Witch, the forest is her home, where she sits on her throne of carved bone, waiting for dreaming children to beg her to grant their wishes. One night, a mysterious visitor arrives and asks her what she wishes for, but the Witch sends him away. And then the uninvited guest returns.The strangers are just the beginning. Something is stirring in the forest, and when Rhea’s and the Witch’s paths collide, a truth more treacherous and deadly than either could ever imagine surfaces. But how much are they willing to risk to survive?

Foxworth Academy: Freshman Year - Part I


Chris Blewitt - 2013
    But that is about to change. For years rumors have circled about what goes on in Mr. Martin's ultra secretive history class, and past students have all kept quiet, leaving Brett to wonder what really goes on. Until now. When class begins, Brett is joined by Ally, who is prettier than his envious girlfriend, in a race against time. What happens next and the decisions they choose are vital, for one single misstep could alter the course of history...forever. *This is a 35,000 word novella of approximately 150 pgs and the first book in a series.

Girls Save the World in This One


Ash Parsons - 2020
    She and her two best friends plan on hitting all the panels, photo ops, and meeting the heartthrob lead of their favorite zombie apocalypse show Human Wasteland.And when they arrive everything seems perfect, though June has to shrug off some weirdness from other fans—people shambling a little too much, and someone actually biting a cast member. Then all hell breaks loose and June and her friends discover the truth: real zombies are taking over the con. Now June must do whatever it takes to survive a horde of actual brain-eating zombies—and save the world.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August


Claire North - 2014
    Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. "I nearly missed you, Doctor August," she says. "I need to send a message." This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.

PODs


Michelle K. Pickett - 2013
    Chosen to live, while others meet a swift and painful death from an incurable virus so lethal, a person is dead within days of symptoms emerging. In the POD system, a series of underground habitats built by the government, she waits with the other chosen for the deadly virus to claim those above. Separated from family and friends, it's in the PODs she meets David. And while true love might not conquer all, it's a balm for the broken soul. After a year, scientists believe the population has died, and without living hosts, so has the virus. That's the theory, anyway. But when the PODs are opened, survivors find the surface holds a vicious secret. The virus mutated, infecting those left top-side and creating... monsters. Eva and David hide from the infected in the abandoned PODs. Together they try to build a life--a new beginning. But the infected follow and are relentless in their attacks. Leaving Eva and David to fight for survival, and pray for a cure.