Book picks similar to
Missing Pieces by Nicola Haken
new-adult
romance
favorites
high-school
The Impossible Vastness of Us
Samantha Young - 2017
I’m the only one that ever has.India Maxwell hasn’t just moved across the country—she’s plummeted to the bottom rung of the social ladder. It’s taken years to cover the mess of her home life with a veneer of popularity. Now she’s living in one of Boston’s wealthiest neighborhoods with her mom’s fiancé and his daughter, Eloise. Thanks to her soon-to-be stepsister’s clique of friends, including Eloise’s gorgeous, arrogant boyfriend Finn, India feels like the one thing she hoped never to be seen as again: trash.But India’s not alone in struggling to control the secrets of her past. Eloise and Finn, the school’s golden couple, aren’t all they seem to be. In fact, everyone’s life is infinitely more complex than it first appears. And as India grows closer to Finn and befriends Eloise, threatening the facades that hold them together, what’s left are truths that are brutal, beautiful, and big enough to change them forever…
Sometimes Never
Cheryl McIntyre - 2012
She’s content with her current no-strings-attached extracurricular activity with the lead singer of her band. She’s never believed in love and commitment.Mason starts his eighth school in five years anticipating nothing more than the usual—boring classes, fighting more than making friends, and girls happily willing to succumb to his easy smile. He’s never put much stock into love at first sight—until he sees her.Regardless of their painful pasts, Hope and Mason discover that sometimes never can become forever.
*This is a mature young adult. Recommended for 17+ due to sensitive subject material, harsh language, and sexual situations.
The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things
Ann Aguirre - 2015
If she manages it, people won’t peer beyond the surface, or ask hard questions about her past. She’s learned to substitute causes for relationships, and it’s working just fine… until Shane Cavendish strolls into her math class. He’s a little antisocial, a lot beautiful, and everything she never knew she always wanted.Shane Cavendish just wants to be left alone to play guitar and work on his music. He’s got heartbreak and loneliness in his rearview mirror, and this new school represents his last chance. He doesn’t expect to be happy; he only wants to graduate and move on. He never counted on a girl like Sage.But love doesn’t mend all broken things, and sometimes life has to fall apart before it can be put back together again…
All the Little Lights
Jamie McGuire - 2018
Both Elliott and Catherine feel like outcasts, yet they find an easy friendship with each other. But when Catherine needs him most, Elliott is forced to leave town.Elliott finally returns, but he and Catherine are now different people. He’s a star high school athlete, and she spends all her free time working at her mother’s mysterious bed-and-breakfast. Catherine hasn’t forgiven Elliott for abandoning her, but he’s determined to win back her friendship…and her heart.Just when Catherine is ready to fully trust Elliott, he becomes the prime suspect in a local tragedy. Despite the town’s growing suspicions, Catherine clings to her love for Elliott. But a devastating secret that Catherine has buried could destroy whatever chance of happiness they have left.
I Dare You
Shantel Tessier - 2018
Austin Lowes is new to town. She's running from a mom who hates her to her dad who cares nothing about her. Only a few months and she will be free, or at least, that's what she hopes ... until she meets him. Cole Reynolds is the devil disguised as a man. He wants her fear, he wants her blood, and he wants her soul. Just a little game, he says, I dare you. Will Austin survive him, or will she lose herself and the game? Secrets are revealed and justice will be served, but at what cost? Who survives and who doesn't?
Midnight Sun
Trish Cook - 2017
Confined to her house during the day, her company is limited to her widowed father and her best (okay, only) friend. It isn't until after nightfall that Katie's world opens up, when she takes her guitar to the local train station and plays for the people coming and going.Charlie Reed is a former all-star athlete at a crossroads in his life - and the boy Katie has secretly admired from afar for years. When he happens upon her playing guitar one night, fate intervenes and the two embark on a star-crossed romance.As they challenge each other to chase their dreams and fall for each other under the summer night sky, Katie and Charlie form a bond strong enough to change them - and everyone around them - forever.
Leap of Faith
Jamie Blair - 2013
Chris is one of the best parts of her new life, the only person who's ever made her feel safe. And now that she's found him, there's no way she can tell the truth:Her real name is Faith, not Leah. She's seventeen, not nineteen. And the baby isn't hers—Faith kidnapped her.Faith's history catches up with her when a cop starts asking questions and Chris's aunt spots her picture in the newspaper. She knows it's time to run again, but if Faith leaves, she'll lose Chris. If Chris is in love with a lie, though, did Faith ever really have him in the first place?
After Tuesday
Renee Ericson - 2013
For the last two years, high school senior Ruby has been her own rock and solace. She has learned to depend only on herself and hides her family's issues by keeping herself somewhat unnoticeable. Despite her isolation, Ruby has intrigued the affections of someone unexpected. Finding herself loving life once again as his persistence sparks a romance awakening a well-protected heart. While Ruby’s relationship with her father is constantly teetering, her new-found affection continues to blossom into something more than she ever thought possible. Soon, Ruby comes to realize that opening up your heart means being susceptible to love and disappointment.YA-M: This book contains mature content including profanity, drug/alcohol use, and sexual situations/language.
Cruel
Raven Kennedy - 2019
Savannah, Georgia is full of debutantes and greed. The Heirs own this town. They own me, too. I don’t know what I did to ruin what we had. But their kindness turned cruel almost a year ago. I was prepared to leave it all behind and start over at a new school. But Rogue Kelly, the king of the Heirs, ruined that. He doesn’t want me anymore but doesn’t want anyone else to have me either. I know too much to be set free, but not enough to stay. The Heirs aren’t through with me yet. And I crave their cruelty too much to give up now.
Fake It Till You Break It
Jenn P. Nguyen - 2019
They’ve endured summer vacations, Sunday brunches, even dentist visits together. Their mothers, who are best friends, are convinced that Mia and Jake would be the perfect couple, even though they can’t stand to be in the same room together.After Mia’s mom turns away yet another cute boy, Mia and Jake decide they’ve have had enough. Together, they hatch a plan to get their moms off their backs. Permanently. All they have to do is pretend to date and then stage the worst breakup of all time—and then they’ll be free.The only problem is, maybe Jake and Mia don’t hate each other as much as they once thought...
The Geography of You and Me
Jennifer E. Smith - 2014
After they’re rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father.Lucy and Owen’s relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and—finally—a reunion in the city where they first met.A carefully charted map of a long-distance relationship, Jennifer E. Smith’s new novel shows that the center of the world isn't necessarily a place. It can be a person, too.
Kane's Hell
Elizabeth Finn - 2015
Eleven years later their lives are nothing like they once were. Time has changed them … and not for the better.Helene is smart, driven, and accomplished—her education and achievements a smoke screen hiding the frigid and fragile child wounded long ago. Kane is equally obsessed with his coping mechanisms—fighting … drinking … screwing … compulsively destroying himself one vice at a time.When their paths collide again, their past becomes an obstacle no coping mechanism in the world can protect them from. But confronting the past so they can heal in the present is no easy task. Can Kane reach Helene and recapture what used to burn so warmly between them, or will his own self destructive demons pull her into his hell?A woman determined to look forward. A man always looking back. A love desperate to be restored. “You’re the brightest, warmest star in my universe. You’ll never be less than everything to me.”WARNING: This book contains darker subject matter and violent content that may be difficult for some readers.
Giving it to the Bad Boy
Jenika Snow - 2013
He was rough around the edges, tattooed and pierced, and fiercer than any guy she had ever met. He knew too much about sex, got drunk, and started far too many fights. He was a bad boy, but Kiera still wanted him in the worst kind of way.Reese's life is lonely, despite always being surrounded by people. He's only wanted one thing, and that is Kiera Sheppard, the girl he has watched from afar for four years. As they grow closer, Reese wants to give her everything and show her he is worthy of her love. But his sordid past tears their bond and he doesn't know if he can redeem himself and show her she is the most important thing in his broken life.
The Anatomical Shape of a Heart
Jenn Bennett - 2015
Determined to follow in Da Vinci’s footsteps, she’s ready to tackle the one thing that will give her an advantage in a museum-sponsored scholarship contest: drawing actual cadavers. But when she tries to sneak her way into the hospital’s Willed Body program and misses the last metro train home, she meets a boy who turns her summer plans upside down.Jack is charming, wildly attractive, and possibly one of San Francisco’s most notorious graffiti artists. On midnight buses and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who Jack really is—and tries to uncover what he’s hiding that leaves him so wounded. But will these secrets come back to haunt him? Or will the skeletons in her family’s closet tear them apart?
Interim
S. Walden - 2015
That space is called the INTERIM.~High school seniors Jeremy Stahl and Regan Walters aren’t friends. Not even close. He’s a picked-on, picked-apart loser outcast. She’s a cool kid running with the popular crowd. It’s unlikely they’d ever speak to one another. Too bad he’s madly in love with her. But what does it matter anyway? He’s got no time for love. Only revenge.Meticulously detailed in the pages of his battered red notebook is his master plan: April 14, 9:30 A.M., two guns, eighty rounds of ammo, backup knives, eleven victims. He’s finally ready to answer every single taunt, jeer, and flying fist—unwarranted abuse that’s spanned six years of his lonely life. He’s justified. He’s ready. But he never readied himself for her.Regan finds his journal. She reads it, and when he discovers her intrusion, he has to switch tactics. She’s a liability now.Better fix that.Interim is a New Adult Standalone. It contains explicit language and disturbing images of violence, including gun violence. If school shootings are an especially sensitive subject for you, I encourage you to refrain from reading this book. - S. Walden