Book picks similar to
A Strange Kind of Brave by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald


young-adult
bullying
middle-grade-and-kids
mystery-and-suspense

Til Death We Do Part, Too


Bruno Beaches - 2021
    She seems wonderful, and it is love at first sight, and they marry quickly. However, not all is rosy in the garden, and a lifetime’s baggage rears its ugly head. Pablo’s ex-wife re-establishes contact with him, and he desperately seeks to exorcise the demons of that betrayal and divorce, but he gets drawn into a double life. Then, one shocking day, Hellion goes to work, and inexplicably, and without warning, fails to return home. Now he has to try to understand another devastating, bewildering calamity.Til Death We Do Part, Too is a story that scrutinises the impact of unfinished business, baggage, emotional damage, and lingering love. It balances heart-breaking loss with resilience, disorientation with hope, and desperation and bitterness with true enduring love and understanding. There is much insight into the reality of relationships and the frailty of the human psyche. It is told with immense depth of feeling, humour, and faith.

Stronger Than You Know


Jolene Perry - 2014
    Now living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in a comfortable house, she’s sure she’ll never belong. Wracked by panic attacks, afraid to talk to anyone at her new school, Joy’s got a whole list of reasons why she’s crazy. With immense courage, Joy finds friends and grows closer to her new family. But just when hope is taking hold, she learns she must testify in her mother’s trial. Can she face her old life without losing her way in the new one? Will she ever truly belong in a world that seems too normal to be real?

How to Say Goodbye in Robot


Natalie Standiford - 2009
    But instead, the alphabet conspires to seat her next to Jonah, aka Ghost Boy, a quiet loner who hasn't made a new friend since third grade. Something about him, though, gets to Bea, and soon they form an unexpected friendship. It's not romance, exactly - but it's definitely love. Still, Bea can't quite dispel Jonah's gloom and doom - and as she finds out his family history, she understands why. Can Bea help Jonah? Or is he destined to vanish?

What I Carry


Jennifer Longo - 2020
    And if she's learned one thing, it is to Pack. Light.Carry only what fits in a suitcase.Toothbrush? Yes.Socks? Yes.Emotional attachment to friends? foster families? a boyfriend? Nope!There's no room for any additional baggage.Muir has just one year left before she ages out of the system. One year before she's free. One year to avoid anything--or anyone--that could get in her way.Then she meets Francine. And Kira. And Sean.And everything changes.

Film at Eleven (The Flora Fontain Files Book 2)


Maggie Bloom - 2011
    But when her old flame shows up at her high school, sparks fly—in more ways than one. . .

Backlash


Sarah Darer Littman - 2015
    They've been talking online for weeks, so what's with the sudden change? And where does he get off saying horrible things on her wall? Even worse--are they true?It's been a long time since Lara's felt this bad, this depressed, this ugly. She's worked really hard to become pretty and happy - and make new friends after what happened in middle school.Bree used to be best friends with overweight, depressed Lara, but constantly listening to Lara's issues got to be too much. Secretly, Bree's glad Christian called Lara out. Lara's not nearly as amazing as people think. But no one realized just how far Christian's harsh comments would push Lara. Not even Bree.As online life collides with real life, things spiral out of control, and not just for Lara. Because when the truth starts to come together, the backlash is even more devastating than anyone could have ever imagined

If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period


Gennifer Choldenko - 2007
    Kirsten's world is crumbling. Her parents are barely speaking to one another and her best friend has come under the spell of the queen bee Brianna. Walker's goal is to survive the new very white private school his mom has sent him to because she thinks he's going to screw up like his cousin. Ages 12+.Two kids. Two lives.For Kirsten the world is crumbling. Her parents are barely speaking to one another and her best friend has come under the spell of the queen bee Brianna. Only Kirsten's younger science-geek sister is on her side.For Walker the goal is to survive the new very white private school his mom has sent him to because she thinks he's going to screw up like his cousin."Don't have to worry, Momma, before I go bad I'll let you know, send a Hallmark card ready made for the occasion...on the eve your son messes up."But Walk is a good kid. So is his new friend, Matteo, though no one knows why Matteo will do absolutely anything that hot blond Brianna asks of him.Two worlds collide in one compelling story. Then suddenly Kirsten discovers something that shakes them to their core..."You knew all along," Walk says."No, I didn't.""You're lying. You found out and then you told the whole world..."

Cherry Crush


Cathy Cassidy - 2010
    She and Dad are moving to Somerset where a new mum and a bunch of brand-new sisters await. And on Cherry's first day there she meets Shay Fletcher - the kind of boy who should carry a government health warning. But Shay already has a girlfriend, Cherry's new stepsister, Honey. Cherry knows her friendship with Shay is dangerous - it could destroy everything. But that doesn't mean she's going to stay away from him...

Returnable Girl


Pamela Lowell - 2006
    That's how Ronnie Hartman feels after her mother and Kenny, her mom's good-for-nothing boyfriend, move to Alaska, bringing Ronnie's two younger brothers with them and leaving her behind. Now thirteen years old, Ronnie has been returned from multiple foster homes because of her impulsive lying and stealing. Her latest foster mom, Alison, is Ronnie's very last chance if she doesn't want to end up in some awful residential treatment center. Meanwhile, Ronnie wants more than anything to fit in with the popular crowd, especially with the beautiful (but stuck-up) Paige. But when Ronnie betrays her only friend, a chubby outcast named Cat, she begins a pattern of deception that can only end in disaster. As Ronnie struggles to define herself, an important letter will present her with the most heart-wrenching decision of her life: to accept the woman who wants to adopt her, or to return to the mother who once abandoned her.

Saints and Misfits


S.K. Ali - 2017
    Saints, those special people moving the world forward. Sometimes you glaze over them. Or, at least, I do. They’re in your face so much, you can’t see them, like how you can’t see your nose.2. Misfits, people who don’t belong. Like me—the way I don’t fit into Dad’s brand-new family or in the leftover one composed of Mom and my older brother, Mama’s-Boy-Muhammad.Also, there’s Jeremy and me. Misfits. Because although, alliteratively speaking, Janna and Jeremy sound good together, we don’t go together. Same planet, different worlds.But sometimes worlds collide and beautiful things happen, right?3. Monsters. Well, monsters wearing saint masks, like in Flannery O’Connor’s stories.Like the monster at my mosque.People think he’s holy, untouchable, but nobody has seen under the mask.Except me.

Maine Squeeze


Catherine Clark - 2004
    2 Lobster rolls, 1 w/xtra mayo--yuck!1 Lm'ade1 WtrIgnore Evan -- Swap Tues to avoid?Call Ben! RITE AFTR WRKGet tmrw off - qlty time w/ BenStop lookg @ EVAN!!!

Sugar


Deirdre Riordan Hall - 2015
    I’ve always been too much and yet not enough. Sugar Legowski-Gracia wasn’t always fat, but fat is what she is now at age seventeen. Not as fat as her mama, who is so big she hasn’t gotten out of bed in months. Not as heavy as her brother, Skunk, who has more meanness in him than fat, which is saying something. But she’s large enough to be the object of ridicule wherever she is: at the grocery store, walking down the street, at school. Sugar’s life is dictated by taking care of Mama in their run-down home—cooking, shopping, and, well, eating. A lot of eating, which Sugar hates as much as she loves.When Sugar meets Even (not Evan—his nearly illiterate father misspelled his name on the birth certificate), she has the new experience of someone seeing her and not her body. As their unlikely friendship builds, Sugar allows herself to think about the future for the first time, a future not weighed down by her body or her mother.Soon Sugar will have to decide whether to become the girl that Even helps her see within herself or to sink into the darkness of the skin-deep role her family and her life have created for her.

Orbiting Jupiter


Gary D. Schmidt - 2015
    Her name is Jupiter. And he has never seen her.What Jack doesn’t know, at first, is how desperate Joseph is to find his baby girl.Or how urgently he, Jack, will want to help.But the past can’t be shaken off. Even as new bonds form, old wounds reopen. The search for Jupiter demands more from Jack than he can imagine.This tender, heartbreaking novel is Gary D. Schmidt at his best.

The Wedding Date


Liz Young - 2010
    She does, however, have an imaginary boyfriend, Dominic, a little white lie designed to keep Sophy's mother off her back. Which is fine, until his presence is demanded at a family wedding.So does Sophy admit Dominic is a fantasy? Oh no. Sophy hires an escort. But when the distinctly delicious Josh Carmichael arrives on her doorstep, Sophy can tell things are going to get tricky. And the wedding is only the beginning...

Wish You Were Dead


Todd Strasser - 2009
    She is definitely first on the list. You can’t believe how it feels to be in the cafeteria and turn around and there she is staring at me like I’m some disgusting bug or vermin. Does she really think I WANT to be this way? I hate you, Lucy. I really hate you. You are my #1 pick. I wish you were dead.The day after anonymous blogger Str-S-d wishes the popular girl would die, Lucy vanishes. The students of Soundview High are scared and worried. Especially frightened and wracked with guilt is Madison Archer, Lucy’s friend and the last person to see her the night she disappeared.As days pass with no sign of the missing girl, even the attention of Tyler, an attractive new student, is not enough to distract Madison from her growing sense of foreboding. When two more popular students disappear after their names are mentioned on Str-S-d’s blog, the residents of Soundview panic. Meanwhile, Madison receives anonymous notes warning that she could be next. Desperate to solve the mystery before anyone else disappears, Madison turns to Tyler, but can she trust him when it becomes clear that he knows more than he’s sharing?The clock is ticking. Madison must uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearances . . . before her name appears in Str-S-d’s blog.In the spirit of stories like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Todd Strasser updates the teen thriller for the techno age with Wish You Were Dead, the first installment in a new “thrill”-ogy.