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Born on the poor side of El Paso, Juan and JD fight for their dreams, knowing the odds are stacked against them. Mendez (Twitching Heart, 2012) tells the touching story of two teenage buddies, their troubled families, and the injustices they endure as a result of being poor and brown. Juan wants to play college basketball. JD wants to be a filmmaker. But following a single bad decision at a party in a wealthy neighborhood, their dreams begin to fall like dominoes. In a setting of police profiling and violent streets, it becomes obvious that the pain in this community is intergenerational. The boys must cope with parental secrets—Juan's mother never told him who his father is, and JD's father makes him an accomplice in a dishonest affair. As they seek answers, readers see that the future is a tidal wave pushing them to the brink even as they act with courage and good intentions. Studying, working hard on the court, impressing coaches and teachers, the teens come to understand that the world has labeled them failures no matter how hard they try. In this novel with a deep sense of place and realistic dialogue, characters who are vivid and fallible add deep psychological meaning to a heart-wrenching story. At once accessible and artful, this is an important book about Mexican teens holding onto hope and friendship in the midst of alcoholism, poverty, prejudice, and despair.

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Middle school can be daunting, even under ideal conditions. But if, like Rex, you are also dealing with a father who abandoned you, a mother and her boyfriend who beat you, food and housing insecurity, and the stigma of free lunch, the results can be overwhelming. Ogle's memoir details the first semester of sixth grade, where his grade-school friends desert him for football; some teachers prejudge him because he is poor and Hispanic; and the elderly, deaf lunch lady never remembers his name, forcing him to loudly announce his situation daily. Eventually, he meets fellow outsider Ethan, who introduces him to the world of comics and true friendship. Ogle's engrossing narrative is rich in lived experience, offering a window into the ways that poverty can lead to domestic violence and feelings of unworthiness. The abuse Rex and his mother suffer will disturb many; too many others will recognize Rex's circumstances as their own. Appended with an author's note, Q&A, and social services resources, this is an important and ultimately hopeful memoir.

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Ireland delivers a necessary, subversive, and explosive novel with her fantasy-laced alternate history. America is changed forever when the dead begin to prowl battlefields during the Civil War. The horror births a new nation and a different type of slavery, in which laws force Native and Negro children to attend combat schools and receive training to put down the dead. Jane McKeene attends Miss Preston's School for Combat in Baltimore. She studies to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette, to protect the white well-to-do. For Negro girls like Jane, it's a chance for a better life; however, as she nears the completion of her education, she longs simply to return to her Kentucky home. But when families around Baltimore go missing, Jane finds herself entangled in a conspiracy that results in a fight for her life against powerful enemies. Ireland crafts a smart, poignant, thrilling novel that does the all-important work of exploring topics of oppression, racism, and slavery, while simultaneously accomplishing so much more. It explores friendship, love, defying expectations, and carving out your own path instead of submitting to the one thrust upon you. From page one, Jane is a capable, strong heroine maneuvering through a world that is brilliant and gut-wrenching. This will take readers on a breathless ride from beginning to end.

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Judy and Art are best friends. That means Judy is always in his corner when their homophobic classmates harass him and Art would never do anything to hurt her. Which is why things get very complicated when he starts to fall for her new boyfriend, Reza. And they get even more complicated when Reza admits he's fallen for Art, too. This is a beautifully written exploration of first love's fragility in the face of a world full of hate and fear. But just as compelling is its look into a friendship that isn't shattered by a betrayal; instead, its cracks are revealed as two friends grow into the people they're meant to be. Nazemian (The Authentics, 2017) paints a picture of late '80s queer life in New York City that's neither romanticized nor viewed as only tragic. Judy's relationship with her uncle, who is living with AIDS, is important but it's his relationship with Art, as a person who can give him the love and acceptance he doesn't find at home, as well as an education in what it means to be part of the LGBTQ community, that is truly powerful. Nazemian's latest will remind readers that first love is isolating and unifying, exhilarating and terrifying, and every paradox in between.

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Enchanted wants to sing more than anything else in the world, but it's hard to make her dreams a reality when she's the oldest of five and helping her parents to take care of the kids. So when an opportunity to work, record, and have a romance with the legendary and kind Korey Fields pops up, of course she wants to take it. Touring with Korey would not only boost her career; financially, it could be life-changing for her family. That is, if things were actually what they seemed. After spiraling into a toxic cycle of abuse and narrowly escaping the wrath of her abuser, Enchanted is left to pick up the pieces of her life-including charges for the murder of Korey Fields. This title is gripping in both its content and format, as Jackson moves back and forth through time, using the fractured time line alongside related text threads and social media conversations to stir up questions surrounding what happened to Enchanted and who murdered Korey Fields. Jackson addresses the story's discussion of sexual abuse, rape, assault, kidnapping, and addiction to opioids in a content warning, and ultimately sheds light and perspective on men's abusive behaviors and the power that excuses them through the lens of the abused-in this case, an underaged Black girl.