Difficult Family Relationships

Ashton is getting tired of being good, of impressing her parents and playing ideal girlfriend to Sawyer Vincent. Sawyer is perfect, a regular Prince Charming, but when he leaves town for the summer, it’s his cousin Beau who catches Ashton’s eye. Beau is the sexiest guy she’s ever seen, and even though he’s dangerous, Ashton is drawn to him. Beau loves his cousin like a brother, so the last thing he wants to do is make a move on Sawyer’s girl. Ashton is off-limits, absolutely. That’s why he does his best to keep his distance, even though he’s been in love with her forever.

Just when 17-year-old Matt thinks he can't handle one more piece of terrible news, he meets a girl who’s dealt with a lot more - and who just might be able to clue him in on how to rise up when life keeps knocking him down - in this wry, gritty novel from the author of When I Was the Greatest. Matt wears a black suit every day. No, not because his mom died - although she did, and it sucks.

London is everything to Cynthia, so when her parents move her to a place where there is only one bus an hour and the faint smell of horse manure continuously permeates the air, it's a culture shock, to say the least. As is transitioning to a private school. At her new school, Cynthia immediately finds herself caught between two brothers—head boy Thomas, who is white, and his adopted Black brother, Isaac. There is something about Isaac she cannot quite get enough of...but her father wants her to partner up with someone like Thomas.

Francesca is at the beginning of her second term in Year 11 at an all boy's school that has just started accepting girls. She still misses her old friends, and, to make things worse, her mother has had a breakdown and can barely move from her bed.

Simone Thibodeaux is about to switch things up. Check her life: It’s sealed in a boy-proof container. Her Haitian immigrant parents send Simone to an all-girls high school and enforce strict no-dating rules. As for prom? Simone is allowed to go on one condition: Her parents will select her date (a boy from a nice Haitian-immigrant family, obviously). Simone is desperate to avoid the setup - especially since she has a serious crush on another boy. It’s time to take action.

Best friends Syd, Rain, and Brie grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in the stifling California desert, desperately wishing for a way out. In the end, each of them will escape—but not in the way they expect. One will do it by dying, another by lying, a third by taking the fall. A deadly fire is set two weeks before the end of their senior year of high school and nothing will ever be the same.

In the end, all that's left is an Echo. Before, Violet's morbid ability to sense the dead led her to uncover dark murders and long-buried secrets in her small town. Now that she's workingwith a special investigative team, Violet hopes she can help even more people - whether by saving a life or catching a killer. Although she's relieved to finally be honest about what she can do, her instant connection with her mysterious partner, Rafe, is both confusing and unsettling, and their unique bond creates tension with her boyfriend, Jay. When she discovers the body of a college student murdered by "the collector," Violet refuses to give upon the case.

Katsuyamas never quit - but 17-year-old CJ doesn’t even know where to start. She’s never lived up to her mom’s type A ambition, and she’s perfectly happy just helping her aunt Hannah at their family’s flower shop. She doesn’t buy into Hannah’s romantic ideas about flowers and their hidden meanings, but when it comes to arranging the perfect bouquet, CJ discovers a knack she never knew she had. A skill of which she might even be proud. Then her mom decides to sell the shop - to the family who swindled CJ’s grandparents during WWII.

Sixteen-year-old Samar - aka Sam - is an Indian American teenager whose mom has kept her away from her old-fashioned family. It’s never bothered Sam, who is busy with school, friends, and a demanding boyfriend. But things change after 9/11. A guy in a turban shows up at Sam’s house - and turns out to be her uncle.

Matt and Mike are best friends, just two working-class guys trying to earn some money in Montauk for the summer. When they meet Driana, JoJo, and Stef, three friends who live much different lives of privilege, Matt and Mike find themselves in a sticky situation where temptation rivals sensibility. Worlds collide when the group ventures out to sea aboard a small boat that Stef sneaks out from her dad's dock. As the waves rise and the fragile vessel weakens, things go horribly wrong. Adrift at sea for days, who will have what it takes to survive?

Simone Garcia-Hampton is starting over at a new school, and this time things will be different. She's making real friends, making a name for herself as student director of Rent, and making a play for Miles, the guy who makes her melt every time he walks into a room. The last thing she wants is for word to get out that she's HIV-positive, because last time...well, last time things got ugly.

Caroline “Chuck” Wilson has big plans for spring break - hit up estate sales to score vintage-fashion finds and tour the fashion school she dreams of attending. But her dad wrecks those plans when he asks her to spend vacation working the counter at Bigmouth’s Bowl, her family’s failing bowling alley. Making things astronomically worse, Chuck finds out her dad is way behind on back rent - meaning they might be losing Bigmouth’s, the only thing keeping Chuck’s family in San Francisco.

It's not so easy being Rosemary Goode and tipping the scales at almost 200 pounds - especially when your mother runs the most successful (and gossipiest!) beauty shop in town. After a spectacularly disastrous Christmas break when the scale reaches an all-time high, Rosemary realizes that things need to change. (A certain basketball player, Kyle Cox, might have something to do with it.)

Award-winning author Melina Marchetta reopens the story of the group of friends from her acclaimed novel Saving Francesca - but five years have passed, and now it's Thomas Mackee who needs saving. After his favorite uncle was blown to bits on his way to work in a foreign city, Tom watched his family implode. He quit school and turned his back on his music and everyone that mattered, including the girl he can't forget. Shooting for oblivion, he's hit rock bottom, forced to live with his single, pregnant aunt; work at the Union pub with his former friends; and reckon with his grieving, alcoholic father.

Frank loves soccer, codes, riding his bike, and playing with his friends. His brother Max is five. Max only eats foods that are beige or white, hates baths, and if he has to wear a t-shirt that isn't gray with yellow stripes he melts down down down. Max is autistic and Frank longs for the brother he was promised by his parents before Max was born - someone who was supposed to be his biggest fan so he could be the best brother in the world. Instead, Frank has trouble navigating Max's behavior and their relationship.

More trouble at school and at home - and the discovery of a missive from her late soldier sister - send Angie and a long-ago friend on an RV road trip across Ohio.

Giselle Boyer and her identical twin, Isabelle, are as close as sisters can be, even as their family seems to be unraveling. Then the Boyers are caught in a car crash that will shatter everyone's world forever. Giselle wakes up in the hospital, injured and unable to speak or move. Trapped in the prison of her own body, Giselle must revisit her past in order to understand how the people closest to her - her friends; her parents; and above all Isabelle, her twin - have shaped and defined her. Will she allow her love for her family and friends to lead her to recovery?

This unforgettable novel tells a universal coming-of-age story about Taja Brown, a young African American girl growing up in Houston, Texas, and deftly and beautifully explores the universal struggles of growing up, battling family expectations, discovering a sense of self, and finding a unique voice and purpose. Told in 53 short, episodic, moving, and iridescent chapters, Calling My Name follows Taja on her journey from middle school to high school.

If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. She wouldn't have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn't have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn't have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. She certainly would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She might even have remembered why she fell in love with him in the first place. She would understand why her best friend, Will, keeps calling her "Chief".

Graduation was supposed to be a relief. Except Quinn can't avoid the barrage of well-intentioned questions about her college plans. Why does no one understand that it's hard for her to think about the future - or feel as if she even deserves one - when her best friend is dead? Spending the summer with her aunt on the Jersey shore may just be the fresh start Quinn so desperately needs. And when she meets Malcolm, a musician with his own haunted past, she starts to believe in second chances. Can Quinn find love while finding herself?