Pride by Ibi Zoboi
Ibi Zoboi’s sophomore novel is a retelling of Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice set in Brooklyn today. Fans of P&P will see the many similarities in Pride–the five Benitez sisters, Darcy is the name of the family with two sons, Janae is the older daughter, Georgia is the Darcy sister, and Colin is a neighbor as is Charlise, etc...
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The Agony House by Cherie Priest, illustrated by Tara O'Connor--Just in time for Halloween!
This unique book is part novel and part graphic novel, it’s a story within a story…but it is all fun, and thought-provoking.
Denise, her mom and her new stepdad are moving to New Orleans, actually Denise and her mom are coming back to New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina, also known as the Storm, took Denise’s dad and grandmother, and her home.
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The Rhino in Right Field by Stacy DeKeyser
Nick, Nikko Spirakis, loves to play baseball with his best friend, Ace. Their field is actually part of the zoo in their city. It’s 1948 and Nick works Saturdays in his family’s Elegant Shoe Repair and Hat Shop with his Pop.
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Hellworld by Tom Leveen
Abby is sixteen going on forty. She’s the responsible adult taking care of her broken father. Her mother disappeared five years ago along with the other members of her reality show production team. The show debunked ghost stories. Their last story was centered in a cave in Arizona, they never came out of the cave, and they were never found.
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Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
Diana, daughter of Hippolyta from the island of Themyscira, saves a young woman from drowning, that girl turns out to be Alia Keralis, descendant of Helen of Troy and a Warbringer. What happens next is a rollercoaster ride, mostly in a tangerine colored Fiat, through the Greek countryside, featuring Greek myths come to life, secrets, battles, friendships and more. It’s a road trip you’ll never forget.
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Scarlet Ibis by Gill Lewis, Illustrated by Susan Meyer
Twelve-year- old Scarlet Ibis Mackenzie has a lot of responsibilities on her young shoulders. She loves and takes care of her younger brother, Red, who has autism and is fascinated with feathers, and she takes care of their mum who smokes too much and barely leaves her room. Life in London isn’t easy for the Mackenzies, but Scarlet keeps up her grades and tries to keep their social worker from finding out how truly dysfunctional their mother is. Scarlet is basically the adult in her family.
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Off & Away by Cale Atkinson
Jo and her dad live by the sea, he delivers mail for the Off & Away Message in a Bottle Delivery Service. When her dad gets sick, Jo has to deliver the bottles herself, but, she’s afraid of what’s beneath the ocean.
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Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card by Sara Saedi from Alfrd A. Knopf, c2018
Sara Saedi came from Iran with her parents and older sister when she was only two years old in 1982. For all of her childhood, into her young adulthood, she was afraid of being deported. But other than that, Sara was a typical kid growing up in one of California’s suburbs. She went to school, experimented with substances and even had a serious boyfriend.
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Where I Live by Brenda Rufener from HarperTeen, c2018
Linden Rose is a smart, funny, loving girl. She's a senior in high school and writes for her school's newspaper. She has two best friends, Seung and Ham. One of them is becoming more than a friend. Linden works hard at her classes and at her jobs, but she has a secret. Linden is homeless. She sleeps at her school or on bad nights, in the dugout on the athletic field. Her mother and grandmother are both dead so she's all alone.
Linden does not inspire pity in the reader, she inspires determination and fortitude, strength and love.
This novel is an insider's view of what it's like to be totally alone in the world, only relying on one's self to survive.
It's also about love, the love of friends who become family. Friends who make you realize you're not alone.
Where I live is a heartwarming and uplifting story about a difficult but true issue, teenage homelessness.
A must-read for fans of contemporary YA fiction, or anyone looking to read a really wonderful book.
Missing – Kelley Armstrong, Crown Books for Young Readers, c2017.
From the very beginning of the book the reader is drawn into Winter Crane’s life. Living in Reeve’s End, a down on it’s luck town in Kentucky with her abusive, alcoholic father, Winter wants to get out of Reeve’s End and become a doctor. Others have left the town, including her older sister, Cadence, never to return or even contact their family and friends. Is there a more sinister reason than just the desire to get out? Did they leave on their own?
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Just Another Girl by Elizabeth Eulberg, Point, c2017.
Hope loves Brady, but Brady loves Parker. It’s a common theme in Young Adult literature, the romantic triangle with the other girl being seemingly perfect, and not very nice. But this book is not in any way common. Hope, the main protagonist has been best friends with Brady since kindergarten. But Hope wants to be more than friends. Brady is dating Parker, the ‘perfect’ girlfriend–skinny, pretty, and smart, except that Parker is hiding a secret that Brady is in on, along with his parents and other adults in town. Each chapter is told from Hope and Parker’s viewpoints, and eventually we hear from Brady, too.
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