Difficult Teens

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 performers of the Playhouse are as worshipped as they are feared, their enchanting shows bending hearts, minds, and even reality itself. Eighteen-year-old Riven Hesper knows the dangers better than anyone, after her own encounter with a Player resulted in a curse that is slowly killing her. When the Playhouse announces the spectacle of a lifetime, Riven sees her last chance to live. Desperate for answers, she infiltrates the competition. There, she finds Jude, the Playhouse’s Lead Player, whose charm is as dangerous as his Craft, and strikes a deadly bargain to save her life.

In the third book of the "Bloody Jack" series, unlikely heroine Jacky Faber, a pirate at heart, returns to the sea in a truly swashbuckling tale filled with good humour, wit, and courage. After leaving the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls in Boston--under dire circumstances, of course - Jacky boards a whaling ship bound for London, where she hopes to find her beloved Jaimy. But things don't go as planned, and she is off on a wild misadventure at sea.

In the late 1940s, the minor league Milwaukee Brewers are foundering yet again and manager Arthur Murphy is desperate. When he sees 17-year-old Mickey Tussler throwing apples into a barrel, he knows he has found the next pitching phenom. But not everyone is so hopeful. Mickey’s autism - a disorder still not truly understood even today - has alienated the boy from the world, and he is berated by other players and fans. Mickey faces immense trials in the harsh and competitive world of baseball while coping with the challenges inherent to his disorder.

For years, Sebastian has been lying to himself, doing whatever it took to convince himself that Mikey was just his best friend and the pain in the ass that he couldn’t stop thinking about; and now... He would do absolutely anything to stop screwing this up, but that probably wasn’t going to happen, not with his brother determined to help him. With every soul-crushing piece of advice his brother threw his way, Sebastian found himself thinking about everything that he had to lose if Mikey didn’t feel the same way and wondered if he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.

It is hard enough being a teenager in London during the Blitz, finding yourself in love and wondering every night whether you will survive the bombs. But it is even harder for Anna, who is still officially classified as an 'enemy alien'. Those bombs are coming from Germany – the country that was once her own. If Hitler invades, can she and her beloved refugee family possibly survive?

Eden Monro came to California for a summer of sun, sand and celebrities - what better way to forget about the drama back home? Until she meets her new family of strangers: a dad she hasn't seen in three years, a step-monster and three stepbrothers. Eden gets her own room in her dad's fancy house in Santa Monica. A room right next door to her oldest stepbrother, Tyler Bruce. Whom she cannot stand. He's got angry green eyes and ego bigger than a Beverly Hills mansion. She's never felt such intense dislike for someone.

Lauren DeStefano makes a stellar debut with this chilling tale. The first installment of a planned trilogy, Wither introduces listeners to a bleak world where a mysterious disease kills most women by the age of 20 and men by the age of 25. Like many girls her age, 16-year-old Rhine has been captured and forced into marriage in an effort to keep the population growing. But, despite her new husband’s wealth, she wants nothing more than to escape her servitude and return home before time runs out.

The year is 1910, and the working conditions at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory are deplorable. Bella, Yetta, and Jane all become passionately involved in a workers' strike: then bear witness to a catastrophic fire that changes everything.

When you’re the new white kid in an Oklahoma town hemorrhaging with racial and class divisions, accidentally taking the wallet from a dead black man isn’t a simple matter for the police. James embarks on a tortuous journey to navigate tensions in the town while trying to correct the mistake he never should have made.

Thirteen lives. One garden. Set in Cleveland, Newbery-Award-winning author Paul Fleischman's poignant book is a large lesson in connectedness and community for all. When a derelict vacant lot is gradually transformed into a community garden in inner city Cleveland, the people of this community find their differences are less apparent and their isolation dissolved. Performed by thirteen multicuturally and age-authentic voices, this audiobook is designed for listeners of all ages.

After his twin sister's death, a teenage filmmaker tries to track down the recipients of her organs in hopes that it will help his parents move on from the loss of their daughter.

Seventeen-year-old Bianca Piper is cynical and loyal, and she doesn’t think she’s the prettiest of her friends by a long shot. She’s also way too smart to fall for the charms of man-slut and slimy school hottie Wesley Rush. In fact, Bianca hates him. And when he nicknames her “the Duff,” she throws her Coke in his face. But things aren’t so great at home right now, and Bianca is desperate for a distraction. She ends up kissing Wesley. Worse, she likes it.

Claire Danvers has her share of challenges---like being a genius in a school that favors beauty over brains, dealing with the homicidal girls in her dorm, and above all, finding out that her college town is overrun with vampires. On the up side, she has a great roommate (who tends to disappear at sunup) and a new boyfriend named Shane, whose vampire-hunting dad has called in backup: cycle punks who like the idea of killing just about anything.

When Janie first realized she was the missing child on the milk carton, her whole world fell apart. At first, she wondered if the parents she loved so much had actually kidnapped her, but it turns out that they were only trying to protect her. Now that the mystery of Janie's kidnapping has been unraveled, she is caught on the horns of a huge dilemma.

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.

Poland, 1940. The Russian army invades the beautiful city streets of Vilna. Soldiers storm 10-year-old Esther Rudomin's house and arrest her entire family. The Rudomins, the soldiers say, are "capitalists - enemies of the people". Forced from their home and friends, the Rudomins are herded onto crowded cattle cars. Their destination: the endless steppe of Siberia.

When 15-year-old Jules Mathis comes home from school to find a strange girl sitting in her kitchen, her psychiatrist mother reveals that Mae is one of her patients at the hospital and will be staying with their family for a few days. But soon Mae is wearing Jules' clothes, sleeping in her bedroom, edging her out of her position on the school paper, and flirting with Jules' crush. And Mae has no intention of leaving. Then things get weird.

A deadly virus killed every adult on Earth, leaving only the kids behind. With her parents gone, Lisa is responsible for her little brother, Todd. She has to make sure they stay alive. Many kids are sick or starving, and fierce gangs are stealing and destroying everything they find. Lots of people have given up, but on Grand Avenue, some kids are surviving. Because of Lisa. Lisa figured out how to give the kids on Grand Avenue food, homes, and protection against the gangs.

Dash and Lily have had a tough year since listeners watched the couple fall in love in Dash & Lily's Book of Dares. Lily's beloved grandfather suffered a heart attack, and his difficult road to recovery has taken a major toll on her typically sunny disposition. Lily's spark has dimmed so much that Langston, her brother, has put aside his grudge against Dash to team up and remind Lily what there is to love about life.