Book picks similar to
Magic City by Drew Lerman
young-adult
contemporary
on-hold-dropped
teen-life
Love Letters to the Dead
Ava Dellaira - 2014
Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May did. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to people like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart, Heath Ledger, and more -- though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating new friendships, falling in love for the first time, learning to live with her splintering family. And, finally, about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to accept what happened to May. And only when Laurel has begun to see her sister as the person she was -- lovely and amazing and deeply flawed -- can she begin to discover her own path in this stunning debut from Ava Dellaira, Love Letters to the Dead.
Black Ice
Becca Fitzpatrick - 2014
Before Britt can explore her feelings for Calvin, an unexpected blizzard forces her to seek shelter in a remote cabin, accepting the hospitality of its two very handsome occupants—but these men are fugitives, and they take her hostage.Britt is forced to guide the men off the mountain, and knows she must stay alive long enough for Calvin to find her. The task is made even more complicated when Britt finds chilling evidence of a series of murders that have taken place there…and in uncovering this, she may become the killer’s next target.But nothing is as it seems, and everyone is keeping secrets, including Mason, one of her kidnappers. His kindness is confusing Britt. Is he an enemy? Or an ally?
Mosquitoland
David Arnold - 2015
It sounds strange because it is, and it is, because I am strange.After the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in northern Ohio to the "wastelands" of Mississippi, where she lives in a medicated milieu with her dad and new stepmom. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland.So she ditches her new life and hops aboard a northbound Greyhound bus to her real home and her real mother, meeting a quirky cast of fellow travelers along the way. But when her thousand-mile journey takes a few turns she could never see coming, Mim must confront her own demons, redefining her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane.Told in an unforgettable, kaleidoscopic voice, Mosquitoland is a modern American odyssey, as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.
Honest
Mohamed Ghazi - 2015
It is just a very small square in the enormous circle that connects us all.I am the story.I am the poems.And you are my muse.
The Dark Vault
Victoria Schwab - 2018
The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was: a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.Being a Keeper isn't just dangerous-it's a constant reminder of those Mac has lost, Da's death was hard enough, but now that her little brother is gone too, Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself may crumble and fall.
In Your Dreams
Amy Martin - 2012
But when Kieran Lanier moves to town and passes out on her desk on his first day at school, Zip’s life gets complicated in a way she never dreamed. Kieran has narcolepsy, and although he sometimes struggles to stay awake, he has no trouble capturing Zip’s heart and trusting her with his most guarded secret—he sees bits and pieces of the future in his dreams. And while he didn’t know who she was at the time, Kieran had seen Zip in his dreams over five months before he moved to Titusville from North Carolina. But just when Zip thinks that maybe she can handle having a boyfriend who sees things before they happen, her budding relationship with Kieran gets a jolt. She and Kieran learn that his sleeping disorder and the future flashes were likely caused by a drug invented by his birth father, Morgan Levert, a convicted felon who plays a starring role in Kieran’s nightmares. And when Zip begins to have unsettling dreams after chance encounters with Morgan's former partner-in-crime, she must decide if she can live with the possibility of seeing the future when she doesn’t always like what she sees.
Where No Gods Came
Sheila O'Connor - 2003
. . remains a consummate artist, true to her vision of a work that is bleak, truthful, and lacking any overt sentimental overtures. Her eye, a poet's eye, misses nothing."---three candles". . . a touching odyssey of a girl poised between the emotional abyss and the reader's heart."---Minneapolis Star-Tribune"A sensitive, often disquieting book that rings true throughout. . . . It's the skill of an accomplished writer that we see Faina's extraordinary spirit, while simultaneously experiencing her pain and despair. The end result is an uplifting, even inspiring book without any of the sugarcoating often found in stories like this."---California Literary ReviewWhere No Gods Came is author Sheila O'Connor's compelling story of Faina McCoy, a young girl caught in a perilous scheme of elaborate lies created for her own harrowing system of survival. Enmeshed in a tangled family web, Faina is abruptly uprooted against her will from her father and finds herself half a continent away on the doorstep of a mother who abandoned her years before-but who can't live without Faina now. Alone, persecuted, and exploited, Faina must fend for herself as she searches for love and answers, navigating the streets of a strange city and forging bonds of feeling with liars and outlaws.
Reawakened
Odette Beane - 2013
She's been on her own since she was abandoned as a baby—that is, until the night of her twenty-eighth birthday, when Henry, a ten-year-old boy, shows up on her doorstep. He's the son Emma gave up for adoption, and this surprise visit turns her life upside down.Henry takes Emma back to his home in Storybrooke, Maine, where, Henry claims, all the residents are actually fairy tale characters who can't remember their true identities. And if Henry's right, that means that his sweet-natured, lonely schoolteacher Mary Margaret Blanchard is really Snow White, the iconic princess ... and also Emma's long-lost mother.In Fairy Tale Land, we meet Snow White as a bandit on the run, forced into exile by her stepmother, the Evil Queen. Snow's a young woman learning to become a hero, who will do anything to live happily ever after with her one true love, Prince Charming.The closer Emma comes to Henry in Storybrooke, the harder it is for her to ignore the dark curse that haunts this small New England town and binds her to Mary Margaret. If Emma can learn to accept her destiny as Storybrooke's savior and break the curse, she just might get the family reunion she's dreamed about her entire life.
The Vlogger Diaries: Confessions of an Internet Sensation
T. Collins - 2016
With thousands of subscribers, a gorgeous boyfriend and freebies coming through the door, it couldn't be going better. But Olivia has a secret. The girl on the vlog isn't her.How long can it last? Will Olivia be exposed as a fraud? And will Olivia's cat ever stop sleeping and do something cute enough to go viral? Discover the hilarious story of one teenage girl's journey from geeky nobody to online superstar . sort of.From the author of the bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Vampire series.
Legacy
Jon Davis - 2012
About to graduate high school, he has all of life to look forward to with college, parties, and girls.But a giant asteroid changes all that when it threatens to destroy all life on Earth. In only days, Vaughn, his family, and his friends are forced to confront the fact that everything ends. And nothing human can change it.Until the Avatar rises.For humanity, the world is saved when a young hero, Alex Shaw, literally flies into space, to smash the asteroid, Yama, apart. He is given the name, Avatar.But for Vaughn, it is the start of a completely new age. For Alex did not just stop an asteroid. In some strange way, humanity changes, and some, including Vaughn are empowered.Vaughn is soon caught up in the legacy that Alex leaves behind; a legacy that will lead Vaughn Hagen to become either a hero, or a victim to villainous dreams of power. Power that threatens to corrupt even his oldest friends.And ultimately, Vaughn must choose between home and friends in the new Age of Power.
Hershey Herself
Cecilia Galante - 2008
They don't. I almost don't go in. But then I think of Baby Ella. And Mom. I push open the door.... When twelve-year-old Hershey must run away with her mother to a women's shelter, she wonders how, among other things, she'll compete in the town talent show with her best friend, Phoebe; who will take care of her cat, Augustus Gloop; and if she'll survive being on a new bus route with her sworn enemy.
Evoke
Danielle Simmons - 2018
But when Laney Thomas wakes up two-months later and discovers she is the sole survivor of the accident that has claimed the lives of three of her friends, Laney quickly realizes the world she awakened to is not the one she remembers. The one thing that hasn't changed however, is Evan - one of their group of five not in the car that night. Laney and Evan have always been close. Children of best friends, their lives inextricable, connection unbreakable. He is the only person that understands her grief and can help her get through their shared nightmare. But when Evan disappears from her life she is left to manage this new world alone, as well as memories of the past, where painful truths of the friendships she'd cherished are buried.
Dumped by Popular Demand
P.G. Kain - 2007
When she arrives at her new school, she immediately sets out to determine who is the most popular and how they got that way. She quickly deduces it's a group of girls whom she dubs the Holly Trinity. And the one thing that connects them is their shared experience of having gone out with and been dumped by the arrogant Grant Braddish. One she determines this, Dorie is quickly on her way with a plan to win the heart of, and then get dumped by, Grant.Dorie soon discovers Grant isn't as arrogant as some would think and maybe she would rather be with him than with the popular girls.
Bright Girls
Clare Chambers - 2009
They have been forced to leave their home in Oxford, where they live with their father, because of threats to their safety.
So Not The Drama
Paula Chase - 2007
. . Hoping Del Rio Bay High will live up to her greatest expectations, Mina has big plans for infiltrating the school's social glitterati. After all, she's been mad popular for as long as she can remember--and she isn't about to go from Middle School Royalty to High School Ambiguity. But Del Rio Bay is a big school, so it'll take some plotting to avoid getting lost in the crowd. Good thing she isn't afraid of a little hard work and that her playground peeps--Lizzie, Michael, and JZ--have got her back. But it isn't long before Mina's big plans for securing her social status take a back seat to some drama that was so not expected. Lizzie's scored an invite from the beautiful people that Mina can only dream about, and not only is Michael tripping about being back in school, but now he's beefing with JZ. Worst of all, Mina's sociology class experiment to rid the world--or at least Del Rio Bay High--of prejudice is about to backfire. . .because it might just mean she'll have to rid herself of her very best friend. A novel about friendship, betrayal, and how far some will go for popularity, So Not the Drama takes a fresh and wickedly funny look at planet high school.