Difficult Teens

During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with her widowed mother and grandfather. Mattie spends her days avoiding chores and making plans to turn the family business into the finest Philadelphia has ever seen. But then the fever breaks out. Disease sweeps the streets, destroying everything in its path and turning Mattie's world upside down. At her feverish mother's insistence, Mattie flees the city with her grandfather. But she soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in a city frantic with disease.

Lauren DeStefano’s New York Times best-selling Chemical Garden trilogy has drawn immense praise from an ever-growing fan base. In the saga’s chilling conclusion, Rhine’s race against time brings her to Vaughn’s eccentric brother, Reed. Elsewhere, Rowan’s involvement in the underground resistance reaches dangerous new heights. When Rhine’s search for answers finally comes to an end, the truth about her past will forever change her view of the future.

Libby Dodge is in a place she's never been before: prison.

Caleb Springer is the up-and-coming star freshman quarterback on the high school football team, which isn't a surprise considering his dad, Sammy Springer, was an NFL superstar and is now the town celebrity. College scouts are already snooping around Caleb, and his future seems set. But just as Caleb's glory days begin, his dad starts to change. He's forgetting things and getting angry at random times. Caleb is forced to confront a bleak possibility: The sport that gives him so much status and self-worth might be the cause of his dad's strange behavior.

In a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man - a bioengineered war beast named Tool - who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses.

The phenomenon that's been sweeping the country seems to be here to stay. Not only are the teenagers who have come back from their graves still here, but newlydeads are being unearthed all the time. While scientists look for answers and politicians take their stands, the undead population of Oakvale have banded together in a group they're calling the Sons of Romero, hoping to find solidarity in segregation.

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.

Since a deadly virus and the violence that followed wiped out his parents and most of his community, Finn has lived alone on the rugged coast with only his loyal dog, Rowdy, for company. He has stayed alive for two winters—hunting and fishing and trading food, and keeping out of sight of the Wilders, an armed and dangerous gang that controls the north, led by a ruthless man named Ramage. But Finn’s isolation is shattered when a girl runs onto the beach. Rose is a Siley—an asylum seeker—and she has escaped from Ramage, who had enslaved her and her younger sister, Kas.

A seven-year-old girl has been bludgeoned to death and buried in a pile of leaves. Although the police have no leads, they are pressured to close the case as soon as possible. So they call in a master interrogator to question 12-year-old Jason, the victim's friend and the last person to see her alive. Although Jason is innocent, he is shy, insecure, and wants to give answers that will satisfy everyone.

Seventeen-year-old Kyle was blinded when a chemistry experiment exploded. His doctors don't know whether he'll get his vision back, and he's deeply depressed. Carley understands how miserable it is to be in the hospital. At sixteen, she's had plenty of experience. But Carley is keeping a secret from Kyle. She knows boys like girls who are pretty - and she's not. Scarred by a facial deformity, she has always used her sense of humor to cope. But now that she's become so close to Kyle, she's worried that if his bandages are removed and he sees her, it will be the end of their relationship.

For 18-year-old Sidney Shaw, life pretty much sucks. Her mom's a drunk. Her dad's worse. At school, she's bullied by her ex-best friend. And cutting no longer brings the relief she craves. When Sidney is forced into group counseling, she meets perfect, popular Arianna, the type of girl who grieves over a broken nail. But Arianna has secrets of her own. She might prove herself a friend - if Sidney can let her guard down. Then, there's Lucas, the sweet and funny new guy who sees straight through her tough, snarky facade.

The 50 contestants in the Miss Teen Dream pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of the cameras. But sadly, their airplane had another idea, crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner. What’s a beauty queen to do? Continue to practice for the talent portion of the program - or wrestle snakes to the ground? Get a perfect tan - or learn to run wild? And what should happen when the sexy pirates show up?

Lucky loves her grandparents, and they are all the family she really has. True, her grandma forgets things … like turning off the stove, or Lucky’s name. But her grandpa takes such good care of them that Lucky doesn’t realize how bad things are. That is until he’s gone. When her grandma accidentally sets the kitchen on fire, Lucky can’t hide what’s happening any longer, and she is sent into foster care. She quickly learns that some foster families are okay. Some aren’t. And some really, really aren’t.

It’s 1938 in Dusseldorf, Germany, and Paul is feeling pressured to join the Hitler Youth. The last thing he wants to do is march around with a bunch of bullies, supporting the Gestapo and abusing the city’s Jews, but even Paul’s parents think he should go along with his classmates in order to keep himself safe. Just when he’s starting to despair, Paul meets the Edelweiss Pirates, a group of teenage boys and girls who are working to undermine the growing power of the Nazis. When he joins the rebel organization, he finds out just how hair-raising and dangerous it is.

When eighteen-year-old Dylan wakes up, she’s in an apartment she doesn’t recognize. The other people there seem to know her, but she doesn't know them—not even the pretty, chiseled boy who tells her his name is Connor. A voice inside her head keeps saying that everything is okay, but Dylan can’t help but freak out. Especially when she borrows Connor’s phone to call home and realizes she’s been missing for three days. Dylan has lost time before, but never like this.

The Hope Juvenile Treatment Center is ironically named. No one has hope for the delinquent teenagers who have been exiled there; the world barely acknowledges that they exist. Then the guards at Hope start acting strange. And one day … they don’t show up. But when the teens band together to make a break from the facility, they encounter soldiers outside the gates. There’s a rapidly spreading infectious disease outside, and no one can leave their houses or travel without a permit.

"Boys, let us get up a club." Six restless young men raided the linens at a friend's mansion, pulled pillowcases over their heads, hopped on horses, and cavorted through the streets of Pulaski, Tennessee. The six friends named their club the Ku Klux Klan, and, all too quickly, their club grew into the self-proclaimed Invisible Empire with secret dens spread across the South. This is the story of how a secret terrorist group took root in America's democracy.

Although Amy is helping out with the horses at Heartland again, she is still weighted by a sense of guilt for her mother's death. And she misses her mom too much to dismiss her fear that she was responsible for the trailer crash.

In 1996, Scott was nineteen and lost in adulthood with an endless job and no future ambitions. Teenage Degenerate is his story about drug addiction, music and growing up. Over the course of ten months, he quickly descends into the dark and dangerous world of crystal methamphetamine. Scott experiments with crystal meth in a dark, deserted parking lot in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado and soon after his crew of misfits will do almost anything for their next high.

August is a misfit with a pyro streak, and Jack is a golden boy on the varsity rugby team - but their intense friendship goes way back. Jack begins to see increasingly vivid hallucinations that take the form of an elaborate fantasy kingdom creeping into the edges of the real world. With their parents' unreliable behavior, August decides to help Jack the way he always has - on his own. He accepts the visions as reality, even when Jack leads them on a quest to fulfill a dark prophecy.