Difficult Family Relationships

Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible. Her dad is forever planning how to boost business at the family restaurant. Her mom is constantly going off to meditate. Her sister, Sarah, who’s taking a year off after high school, is too busy finding ways not to work, and her brother Holden is totally focused on his new "friend". And then there’s Charlie: three years old, a "surprise" baby, and the center of everything. If it wasn’t for her friend Ran, there would be nowhere to turn. Ran is always calm, always positive.

It's been one year since graduation, and Beatrice Hartley has mixed feelings about joining her friends a weekend reunion. She's right to be worried. After a night out, they narrowly avoid a collision with a car on a deserted road. Or so they believe... Back at the mansion where they are staying, a mysterious man knocks on the door during a raging storm. He tells them that they must make a choice: one of them will live, and the rest will die. And the decision must be unanimous.

They say Delia burned herself to death in her stepfather's shed. They say it was suicide. But June doesn't believe it. June and Delia used to be closer than anything. Best friends in that way that comes before everyone else - before guys, before family. It was like being in love, but more. They had a billion secrets tying them together like thin silk cords. But one night a year ago, everything changed. June, Delia, and June's boyfriend, Ryan, were just having a little fun. Their good time got out of hand.

Four high school seniors put their hopes, hearts, and humanity on the line as an asteroid hurtles toward Earth in this contemporary novel. They always say that high school is the best time of your life. Peter, the star basketball player at his school, is worried "they" might actually be right. Meanwhile Eliza can't wait to escape Seattle - and her reputation - and perfect-on-paper Anita wonders if admission to Princeton is worth the price of abandoning her real dreams.

Hotshot pilot Vesper dreams of becoming a captain, but when she loses her spot to a wisecracking boy from the wrong side of the asteroid belt, she begins to question everything she thought she knew. Trapped on the toxic planet Deva, Cormak will take any chance he can to join the Academy—even if he has to steal someone's identity to get there. Arran was always an outcast on icy Chetire and is looking for a place to belong. He just never thought it would be in the arms of the hottest guy in the galaxy.

Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything. So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone - the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to? Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: Smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.

Freshman footballers Jason Roddin and Tom Jefferson are a perfect pair: Jason is a blazing-fast wide-receiver, while his best friend Tom has all the skills a standout quarterback needs. After summer football camp at an elite sports-focused boarding school, the boys are thrilled to be invited back with full-ride scholarships. But on day one of practice, they're shocked when the team's coaching staff makes Tom, a black kid, a receiver and Jason, a white kid, a quarterback.

Bobby Phillips is an average 15-year-old boy. Until the morning he wakes up and can't see himself in the mirror. Not blind, not dreaming, Bobby is just plain invisible. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to Bobby's new condition; even his dad the physicist can't figure it out. For Bobby that means no school, no friends, no life. He's a missing person. Then he meets Alicia. She's blind, and Bobby can't resist talking to her, trusting her.

Cassel always thought he was an ordinary guy, until he realized his memories were being manipulated by his brothers. Now he knows the truth - he’s the most powerful curse worker around. A touch of his hand can transform anything - or anyone - into something else. That was how Lila, the girl he loved, became a white cat. Cassel was tricked into thinking he killed her, when actually he tried to save her. Now that she’s human again, he should be overjoyed. Trouble is, Lila’s been cursed to love him. And if Lila’s love is as phony as Cassel’s made-up memories, then he can’t believe anything she says or does.

Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the 16-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her "power" to sense dead bodies or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes the dead leave behind in the world . . . and the imprints that attach to their killers.

After a near-fatal family catastrophe and an unexpected romantic upheaval, Adelaide Buchwald finds herself catapulted into a summer of wild possibility, during which she will fall in and out of love a thousand times—while finally confronting the secrets she keeps, her ideas about love, and the weird grandiosity of the human mind.

Cocky seventh-grade super-jock Crash Coogan got his nickname the day he used his first football helmet to knock his cousin Bridget flat on her backside. And he has been running over people ever since, especially Penn Webb, the dweeby, vegetarian Quaker kid who lives down the block. Through the eyes of Crash, listeners get a rare glimpse into the life of a bully in this unforgettable and beloved story about stereotypes and the surprises life can bring.

Summer means beach time to Christy. But her best friend, Katie, has a different idea - let's be camp counselors! Christy warms to the plan until Katie announces at the last minute that she has to back out. Christy takes on the challenge and soon finds she is bewildered and overwhelmed by her fifth-grade girls, who have boundless energy for anything except what Christy wants them to do.

Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated polygamous community without questioning her father's three wives and her twenty brothers and sisters. Or at least without questioning them much—if you don't count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her. But when the Prophet decrees that Kyra must marry her 60-year-old uncle—who already has six wives—Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family.

Anna Bloom is depressed - so depressed that her parents have committed her to a mental hospital with a bunch of other messed-up teens. Here, she meets a roommate with a secret (and a plastic baby), a doctor who focuses way too much on her weight, and a cute, shy boy who just might like her. But wait! Being trapped in a loony bin isn’t supposed to be about making friends, losing weight, and having a crush, is it?

Angie is the only one in her family - maybe the only one in the world - who believes her captured war-hero sister is still alive. Angie needs to believe it. It’s better than thinking about last year, when she tried to kill herself in front of a packed gym. Better than trying to steer clear of Stacy Ann Sloan and her posse of ultra-mean girls. Better than dealing with her corporate-lawyer mother, who wants to know only one thing: When is Angie going to lose exactly 29 pounds? Then a new girl, KC, arrives in Dryfalls, Ohio. She’s beautiful, hip, and smart, and everyone wants to know her. From the minute they meet, KC sees the real Angie....

High school quarterback and town golden boy Brady used to be the best of friends with Willa - she even had a crush on him when they were kids. But that's all changed now: Her life choices have made her a different person from the girl he used to know. Gunner used to be friends with Willa and Brady, too. He, too, is larger than life and a high school football star - not to mention that his family basically owns the town of Lawton. He loves his life and doesn't care about anyone except himself. But Willa is the exception.

Ten-year-old Jamie Matthews has just moved to the Lake District with his Dad and his teenage sister, Jasmine for a 'Fresh New Start'. Five years ago his sister's twin, Rose, was blown up by a terrorist bomb. His parents are wrecked by their grief, Jasmine turns to piercing, pink hair and stops eating. The family falls apart. But Jamie hasn't cried in all that time. To him Rose is just a distant memory.

Natalie Sterling wants to be in control. She wants her friends to be loyal. She wants her classmates to elect her student council president. She wants to find the right guy, not the usual jerk her school has to offer. She wants a good reputation, because she believes that will lead to good things. But life is messy, and it's very hard to be in control of it. Slut or saint? Winner or loser? Natalie is getting tired of these forced choices - and is now going to find a way to live life in the sometimes messy, sometimes wonderful in-between.

Mallory killed her boyfriend, Brian. She can't remember the details of that night but everyone knows it was self-defense, so she isn't charged. But Mallory still feels Brian's presence in her life. Is it all in her head? Or is it something more? In desperate need of a fresh start, Mallory is sent to Monroe, a fancy prep school where no one knows her . . . or anything about her past.But the feeling follows her, as do her secrets. Then, one of her new classmates turns up dead.