IN THE HEIGHTS READ ALIKES

With her daughter to care for and her abuela to help support, high school senior Emoni Santiago has to make the tough decisions, and do what must be done. The one place she can let her responsibilities go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.

Still, she knows she doesn’t have enough time for her school’s new culinary arts class, doesn’t have the money for the class’s trip to Spain—and shouldn’t still be dreaming of someday working in a real kitchen. But even with all the rules she has for her life—and all the rules everyone expects her to play by—once Emoni starts cooking, her only real choice is to let her talent break free.

Place: Philadelphia, PA

When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can't stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding. But with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick's changing landscape, or lose it all.

Place: Bushwick, Brooklyn, NYC

"She wasn’t sure which of them leaned in first. For a moment nothing existed outside the brush of their lips, tentative at first, and then the heat of their mouths, all-consuming."

When apprentice librarian Elisabeth is implicated in sabotage that released the library's most dangerous grimoire, she becomes entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy that could mean the end of everything.

Place: Garden Heights (fictional- same setting as The Hate U Give)

Brooklyn, 1998. Biggie Smalls was right: Things done changed. But that doesn't mean that Quadir and Jarrell are cool letting their best friend Steph's music lie forgotten under his bed after he's murdered--not when his rhymes could turn any Bed Stuy corner into a party. With the help of Steph's younger sister Jasmine, they come up with a plan to promote Steph's music under a new rap name: the Architect. When his demo catches the attention of a hotheaded music label rep, the trio must prove Steph's talent from beyond the grave.

Place: Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, NYC

Fabiola Toussaint, a young Haitian immigrant to the United States, must navigate her life, school and relationships, while dealing with her loud cousins after her mother is detained by the United States immigration department.

Place: Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, NYC

Fifteen-year-old Ana Canción never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year's Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights.

Place: Washington Heights, NYC