Book picks similar to
Doormat by Kelly McWilliams


young-adult
realistic-fiction
ya
fiction

The Comeback Season


Jennifer E. Smith - 2008
    She should be in class, enduring yet another miserable day of her first year of high school. But for once, Ryan isn't thinking about what she should be doing. She's not worried about her lack of friends, or her suffering math grade, or how it's been five whole years since the last time she was really and truly happy. Because she's finally returning to the place that her father loved, where the two of them spent so many afternoons cheering on their team. And on this -- the fifth anniversary of his death -- it feels like there's nowhere else in the world she should be.Ryan is once again filled with hope as she makes her way to the game. Good luck is often hard to come by at a place like Wrigley Field, but it's on this day that she meets Nick, the new kid from her school, who seems to love the Cubs nearly as much as she does. But Nick carries with him a secret that makes Ryan wonder if anyone can ever really escape their past, or believe in the promise of those reassuring words: "Wait till next year." Is it too much for Ryan to hope that this year, this season, might be her comeback season?

Queen of Secrets


Jenny Meyerhoff - 2010
    She's made the cheerleading squad and caught the eye of the captain of the football team. However, she didn't expect her estranged cousin to join the football team. Micah is instantly branded a freak for praying during games, and Essie doesn't want anything to do with him. As the football team's teasing of Micah shifts into hazing, Essie is forced to make a choice between the boy she might love and the cousin she barely knows.

My Life as a Rhombus


Varian Johnson - 2007
    While Rhonda needs a scholarship for college, some kids at her private high school, like beautiful Sarah Gamble, seem to coast along on popularity and their parents' money.When forced to tutor Sarah in trigonometry, Rhonda recognizes all too well the symptoms-queasiness, puking, exhaustion-that Sarah is trying to mask. On a sudden impulse, Rhonda shares her past with Sarah. Exchanging their secrets adds up to more truths than either girl would have dreamed.

The V Club


Kate Brian - 2004
    Treemont, the most revered and reclusive woman in Ardsmore, Pennsylvania, passes away, she leaves behind a $160,000 scholarship fund that rocks the worlds of the students at Ardsmore High School. The successful candidate must "exemplify purity of soul, spirit, and body." Everyone agrees that this caveat can mean only one thing: The recipient of the scholarship must still be holding on to the big V.Welcome to the V Club -- where members embrace abstinence, get off on civic duties, and heat up their chances to clinch the Treemont scholarship. What better way to prove purity than to pledge allegiance to the virginity flag? Besides, chastity belts are sooo 1300s.Kai, Mandy, Debbie, and Eva have put their futures on the line. But will their deepest insecurities and darkest secrets ruin their chances at the scholarship, or worse, their relationships? Or will they discover the true meaning behind Mrs. Treemont's famous last words?

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life


Wendy Mass - 2006
    But does he have what it takes to be a teenager? He collects mutant candy, he won't venture more than four blocks from his apartment if he can help it, and he definitely doesn't like surprises. On the other hand, his best friend, Lizzy, isn't afraid of anything, even if that might get her into trouble now and then. Jeremy's summer takes an unexpected turn when a mysterious wooden box arrives in the mail. According to the writing on the box, it holds the meaning of life! Jeremy is supposed to open it on his thirteenth birthday. The problem is, the keys are missing, and the box is made so that only the keys will open it without destroying what's inside. Jeremy and Lizzy set off to find the keys, but when one of their efforts goes very wrong, Jeremy starts to lose hope that he'll ever be able to open the box. But he soon discovers that when you're meeting people named Oswald Oswald and using a private limo to deliver unusual objects to strangers all over the city, there might be other ways of finding out the meaning of life. Lively characters, surprising twists, and thought-provoking ideas make Wendy Mass's latest novel an unforgettable read.

Lemonade Mouth


Mark Peter Hughes - 2007
    Geniuses. Revolutionaries.The members of the legendary band Lemonade Mouth have been called all of these things. But until now, nobody's known the inside story of how this powerhouse band came to be. How five outcasts in Opoquonsett High School's freshman class found each other, found the music, and went on to change both rock and roll and high school as we know it. Wen, Stella, Charlie, Olivia, and Mo take us back to that fateful detention where a dentist's jingle, a teacher's coughing fit, and a beat-up ukelele gave birth to Rhode Island's most influential band. Told in each of their five voices and compiled by Opoquonsett's "scene queen," freshman Naomi Fishmeier, this anthology is their definitive history.

Better Off Famous?


Jane Mendle - 2007
    Well, she got neither. But as luck would have it, a casting director for fall’s hottest new television show happens to be at the Julliard auditions, and Annie wows him. He thinks her look is exactly what his show, a teen soap set at a posh New York school, has been missing. And just like that, Annie gets cast as the naive “new girl,” and her life is turned upside down. Sure, the perks are great, the wardrobe is awesome, and her tutor is a super hot genius… but being stalked day and night by paparazzi out to catch her in her worst light---not so fun! Can Annie learn to balance her life-- and her partying-- before the press, and the public, write her off for good?

A Dance for Three


Louise Plummer - 2000
    When fifteen-year-old Hannah becomes pregnant and her rich, popular boyfriend claims he is not responsible, she is forced to face some hard facts about her life.

Rated


Melissa Grey - 2019
    The higher it soars, the more valued you are. The lower it plummets, the harder you must work to improve yourself. For the students at the prestigious Maplethorpe Academy, every single thing they do is reflected in their ratings, updated daily and available for all to see.But when an act of vandalism sullies the front doors of the school, it sets off a chain reaction that will shake the lives of six special students -- and the world beyond.

Perfect


Natasha Friend - 2004
    Isabelle describes the scene at school with bemused accuracy--the self-important (but really not bad) English teacher, the boy that is constantly fixated on Ashley Barnum, the prettiest girl in class, and the dynamics of the lunchroom, where tables are turf in a all-eyes-open awareness of everybody's relative social position.But everything is not normal, really. Since the dealth of her father, Isabelle's family has only functioned on the surface. Her mother, who used to take care of herself, now wears only lumpy, ill-fitting clothes, cries all night, and has taken every picture of her dead husband and put them under her bed. Isabelle tries to make light of this, but the underlying tension is expressed in overeating and then binging. As the novel opens, Isabelle's little sister, April, has told their mother about Isabelle's problem. Isabelle is enrolled in group therapy. Who should show up there, too, but Ashley Barnum, the prettiest, most together girl in class.

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder


Julie Halpern - 2009
    A self-professed “mathelete,” she isn’t sure where she belongs. Her two best friends have transformed themselves into punks and one of them is going after her longtime crush. Her beloved older brother will soon leave for college (and in the meantime has shaved his mohawk and started dating . . . the prom princess!) . . .Things are changing fast. Jessie needs new friends. And her quest is a hilarious tour through high-school clique-dom, with a surprising stop along the way—the Dungeons and Dragons crowd, who out-nerd everyone. Will hanging out with them make her a nerd, too? And could she really be crushing on a guy with too-short pants and too-white gym shoes?      If you go into the wild nerd yonder, can you ever come back?

Devilish


Maureen Johnson - 2006
    Teresa's Preparatory School for Girls, where barbed wire keeps the boys out and the ancient nuns keep the girls in.Jane and Allison have always been too quirky and different to be popular, but at least they've had each other. Then, after a hideous, embarrassing disaster, Allison comes to school transformed. Suddenly she has cute hair and clothes. She's fluent in Latin, she won't even speak to Jane, and within days she's stolen Jane's ex-boyfriend, Elton.A strangely wise freshman boy, Owen, helps Jane discover the outrageous truth--that Allison has sold her soul to the devil. At first Jane doesn't quite buy it. She plays along with the weirdness--and even gambles her own soul in order to rescue Allison. But events take a turn for the real, and Jane will have to save Allison before the bizarrely exclusive Poodle Prom, a party of biblical proportions that just might blow apart the world as Jane knows it.

Runaway


Wendelin Van Draanen - 2006
    Holly is in her fifth foster home in two years and she's had enough. She's run away before and always been caught quickly. But she's older and wiser now--she's twelve--and this time she gets away clean. Through tough and tender and angry and funny journal entries, Holly spills out her story. We travel with her across the country--hopping trains, scamming food, sleeping in parks or homeless encampments. And we also travel with her across the gaping holes in her heart--as she finally comes to terms with her mother's addiction and death. Runaway is a remarkably uplifting portrait of a girl still young and stubborn and naive enough to hold out hope for finding a better place in the world, and within herself, to be.

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

Stuck in Neutral


Terry Trueman - 2000
    His life is not what it may seem to anyone looking at him. Not even those who love him best have any idea what he is truly like. In this extraordinary and powerful first novel, the reader learns to look beyond the obvious and finds a character whose spirit is rich beyond imagining and whose story is unforgettable. My life is like one of those "good news-bad news" jokes. Like, "I've got some good news and some bad news—which do you want first?" I could go on about my good news for hours, but you probably want to hear the punch line, my bad news, right? Well, there isn't that much, really, but what's here is pretty wild. First off, my parents got divorced ten years ago because of me. My being born changed everything for all of us, in every way. My dad didn't divorce my mom, or my sister, Cindy, or my brother, Paul—he divorced me. He couldn't handle my condition, so he had to leave. My condition? Well, that brings us to the guts of my bad news.