Book picks similar to
Home Truths by Jill MacLean


young-adult
red-maple
realistic-fiction
teen

Eleanor & Park


Rainbow Rowell - 2012
    “Bono met his wife in high school,” Park says.“So did Jerry Lee Lewis,” Eleanor answers.“I’m not kidding,” he says.“You should be,” she says, “we’re 16.”“What about Romeo and Juliet?”“Shallow, confused, then dead.”“I love you,” Park says.“Wherefore art thou,” Eleanor answers.“I’m not kidding,” he says.“You should be.”Set over one school year in 1986, Eleanor & Park is the story of two star-crossed misfits – smart enough to know first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

Thirteen Reasons Why


Jay Asher - 2007
    You can’t rewind the past.The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker–his classmate and crush–who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why. Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah’s pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.

Testify


Valerie Sherrard - 2011
    She knows right from wrong and shes never been in any serious trouble. But when her best friend, Carrie, comes to her for help, Shana agrees to break the law to save Carrie from a molester. She even feels good about it for a while.Then trouble starts. Someone in their group of friends is stealing from the others. As she searches for the truth, Shana uncovers evidence that raises a terrifying question: Has she made a horrible mistake?Faced with the reality of what shes done, Shana finds herself trapped in a web of her own lies and deceit. Can she convince the right people that shes telling the truth now? Either way its clear someone is going to pay a terrible price for her crime.

Egghead


Caroline Pignat - 2007
    In other words, he's the perfect target for Shane, the Grade 9 bully. Katie has been Will's friend in elementary school, but defending him in the high school environment comes at an unforeseen cost - she dreads the rumours that link them in a boyfriend/girlfriend way she's never considered. Devan has been part of Shane's bullyboy team until now, when he comes to realize that it's not so smart to mindlessly back up each nasty attack of Shane's. Together the three young teens are struggling to find their way out of one of the classic dilemmas of life: how not to be a bystander to bullying, how to stand up for your friends, and how to deal with consuming rage.Young readers will find lots to think about as they turn the pages of this crisp and compelling story by newcomer Caroline Pignat. Each character takes a turn at telling the story -- through the spare blank verse of Will, wrapped up in the world of his single-parent father and his own eccentric preoccupations; through the clear-eyed accounts of Katie, wrestling with her own private demons; and in the sensitive narrative of the slowly awakening Devan, who comes to notice Katie as a spunky, attractive individual whom he'd like to know better but fears thinks he's a goof. Note that Kids Help Phone's has included Egghead on their site as a book to help kids in their Get Information section under Bullying for Ages 13 and Up.

The Silent Summer of Kyle McGinley


Jan Andrews - 2013
    Fed up with being shuttled from one foster care home to another, he has stopped speaking. But at the home of Scott and Jill Wardman, with the help of a crow, and a swamp, and an excess of black paint, he begins to think that maybe, just maybe, life could be better. As long as his frigging dad doesn’t mess things up.

Sweethearts


Sara Zarr - 2008
    After losing her soul mate, Cameron, when they were nine, Jennifer, now seventeen, transformed herself from the unpopular fat girl into the beautiful and popular Jenna, but Cameron's unexpected return dredges up memories that cause both social and emotional turmoil.

Half Brother


Kenneth Oppel - 2010
    But all that changes when his mother brings home Zan — an eight-day-old chimpanzee. Ben’s father, a renowned behavioral scientist, has uprooted the family to pursue his latest research project: a high-profile experiment to determine whether chimpanzees can acquire advanced language skills. Ben’s parents tell him to treat Zan like a little brother. Ben reluctantly agrees. At least now he’s not the only one his father’s going to scrutinize.It isn’t long before Ben is Zan’s favorite, and Ben starts to see Zan as more than just an experiment. His father disagrees. Soon Ben is forced to make a critical choice between what he is told to believe and what he knows to be true — between obeying his father or protecting his brother from an unimaginable fate.Half Brother isn’t just a story about a boy and a chimp. It’s about the way families are made, the way humanity is judged, the way easy choices become hard ones, and how you can’t always do right by the people and animals you love. In the hands of master storyteller Kenneth Oppel, it’s a novel you won’t soon forget.

North of Beautiful


Justina Chen - 2009
    She's tall, blond, and has an enviable body. But with one turn of her cheek, all people notice is her unmistakably "flawed" face. Terra secretly plans to leave her stifling small town in the Northwest and escape to an East Coast college, but gets pushed off-course by her controlling father. When an unexpected collision puts Terra directly in Jacob's path, the handsome but quirky Goth boy immediately challenges her assumptions about herself and her life, and she is forced in yet another direction. With her carefully laid plans disrupted, will Terra be able to find her true path?Written in lively, artful prose, award-winning author Justina Chen Headley has woven together a powerful novel about a fractured family, falling in love, travel, and the meaning of true beauty.

Trouble Is a Friend of Mine


Stephanie Tromly - 2015
    No one does.The first time Philip Digby shows up on Zoe Webster’s doorstep, he’s rude and he treats her like a book he’s already read and knows the ending to.But before she knows it, Zoe’s allowed Digby—annoying, brilliant, and somehow…attractive? Digby—to drag her into a series of hilarious, dangerous, and only vaguely legal schemes all related to the kidnapping of a local teenage girl. A kidnapping that might be connected to the tragic disappearance of his little sister eight years ago. When it comes to Digby, Zoe just can’t say no.But is Digby a hero? Or is his manic quest an indication of a desperate attempt to repair his broken family and exorcize his own obsessive-compulsive tendencies? And does she really care anyway?This is a contemporary debut with razor-sharp dialogue, ridiculously funny action, and a dynamic duo you won’t soon forget.

The Game


Teresa Toten - 2003
    It was a secret quest to vanquish evil. The Game is now a hazy memory as Dani looks up from the floor of the isolation room at Riverwood Clinic. God, how did she get here? She remembers the vodka and pills.Slowly Dani emerges from the painful effects of substance abuse, and begins to adapt to life at Riverwood, a psychiatric treatment facility for "teens with problems."As she recovers from her physical trauma, Dani must confront a deeper emotional trauma, which at the moment she can neither explain nor recognize. There's the cool aloofness of her mother. Her father's abusive perfectionism. Kelly's refusal to answer her letters. Fragmented memories of the last Game. She can't fit all the pieces together."The Game" is an extraordinary story of betrayal, anger, guilt, confusion and dread, and their brutal effects on the mind. It also a tribute to the healing effects of compassion and friendship, and to the strength we can summon, even in our weakest moments.

Cracked


K.M. Walton - 2012
    He has no friends, gets beaten up at school, and his parents are always criticizing him. Tired of feeling miserable, Victor takes a bottle of his mother's sleeping pills—only to wake up in the hospital.Bull is angry, and takes all of his rage out on Victor. That makes him feel better, at least a little. But it doesn't stop Bull's grandfather from getting drunk and hitting him. So Bull tries to defend himself with a loaded gun.When Victor and Bull end up as roommates in the same psych ward, there's no way to escape each other or their problems. Which means things are going to get worse—much worse—before they get better….

Teach Me


R.A. Nelson - 2007
    Teach Me invites readers inside an experience that fascinates everyone—an affair between a teacher and student—and gives an up-close-and-personal answer to the question: How does this happen?

Leaving Paradise


Simone Elkeles - 2007
    Even after months of painful physical therapy, Maggie walks with a limp. Her social life is nil and a scholarship to study abroad—her chance to escape everyone and their pitying stares—has been canceled.After a year in juvenile jail, Caleb’s free . . . if freedom means endless nagging from a transition coach and the prying eyes of the entire town. Coming home should feel good, but his family and ex-girlfriend seem like strangers.Caleb and Maggie are outsiders, pigeon-holed as "criminal" and "freak." Then the truth emerges about what really happened the night of the accident and, once again, everything changes. It’s a bleak and tortuous journey for Caleb and Maggie, yet they end up finding comfort and strength from a surprising source: each other.

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You


Ally Carter - 2006
    The Gallagher Academy might claim to be a school for geniuses, but it's really a school for spies. Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man in seven different ways, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she's an ordinary girl. Sure, she can tap his phone, hack into his computer, or track him through town with the skill of a real "pavement artist"—but can she maneuver a relationship with someone who can never know the truth about her? Cammie Morgan may be an elite spy-in-training, but in her sophomore year, she's on her most dangerous mission—falling in love.

My Most Excellent Year


Steve Kluger - 2008
    Your letter will be kept in our files and someone will get back to you if there is an opening. Thank you for thinking of me.Respectfully,Alejandra PerezP.S. It's not Allie. It's Ale. Meet T.C., who is valiantly attempting to get Alejandra to fall in love with him; Alejandra, who is playing hard to get and is busy trying to sashay out from under the responsibilities of being a diplomat's daughter; and T.C.'s brother Augie, who is gay and in love and everyone knows it but him.