Showing titles in Difficult Situations

A story about everything and nothing, a boy in a plum tree, and a 7th grader no longer sure that anything means anything.

It’s 2002, a year after 9/11. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like Shirin, a 16-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped. Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. So she’s built up protective walls and refuses to let anyone close enough to hurt her. Instead, she drowns her frustrations in music and spends her afternoons break dancing with her brother. But then she meets Ocean James. He’s the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin.

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother. But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880s America.

When a car crash sidelines Mickey just before softball season, she has to find a way to hold on to her spot as the catcher for a team expected to make a historic tournament run. Behind the plate is the only place she’s ever felt comfortable, and the painkillers she’s been prescribed can help her get there. The pills do more than take away pain; they make her feel good. But as the pressure to be Mickey Catalan heightens, her need increases, and it becomes less about pain and more about want, something that could send her spiraling out of control.

Nothing is going as planned for Macy this summer. Not the job at Wish Catering, and definitely not Wes. But Macy soon discovers that the things you expect least are sometimes the things you need most.

Kaeleigh and Raeanne are 16-year-old identical twins, the daughters of a district court judge father and politician mother running for U.S. Congress. Everything on the surface seems fine, but underneath run very deep and damaging secrets. When the girls were nine, Daddy turned to his beloved Kaeleigh in ways a father never should. Raeanne needs to numb the pain of not being Daddy's favorite; Kaeleigh wants to do everything she can to feel something normal, even if it means cutting herself and vomiting after every binge.

Marin hasn't spoken to anyone from her old life since the day she left everything behind. No one knows the truth about those final weeks. Not even her best friend, Mabel. But even thousands of miles away from the California coast, at college in New York, Marin still feels the pull of the life and tragedy she's tried to outrun. Now, months later, alone in an emptied dorm for winter break, Marin waits. Mabel is coming to visit, and Marin will be forced to face everything that's been left unsaid and finally confront the loneliness that has made a home in her heart.

This is Noah Oakman → 16, Bowie believer, concise historian, disillusioned swimmer, son, brother, friend. Then Noah → gets hypnotized. Now Noah → sees changes - inexplicable scars, odd behaviors, rewritten histories - in all those around him. All except his Strange Fascinations....

Megan Crewe has received both critical accolades and popular acclaim for her young adult novels. The Way We Fall launches a new series featuring 16-year-old Kaelyn, whose island community is quarantined after the outbreak of a deadly virus. Before long, people begin to turn against each other as they fight for dwindling supplies. Remarkably, in the midst of this chaos, Kaelyn discovers both an unlikely ally and a surprising love interest. And with prospects for survival growing dimmer with each passing moment, she will need all the help she can get.

The acclaimed author of Flipped delivers a powerful and healing story that’s perfect for anyone who’s ever thought that something was impossible. Listeners will revel in the story of a girl who puts herself back together - and learns to dream bigger than ever before - after she’s told she’ll never run again. Jessica thinks her life is over when she loses a leg in a car accident. She's not comforted by the news that she'll be able to walk with the help of a prosthetic leg. Who cares about walking when you live to run?

Five months ago, Valerie Leftman's boyfriend, Nick, opened fire on their school cafeteria. Shot trying to stop him, Valerie inadvertently saved the life of a classmate, but was implicated in the shootings because of the list she helped create. A list of people and things she and Nick hated. The list he used to pick his targets. Now, after a summer of seclusion, Val is forced to confront her guilt as she returns to school to complete her senior year.

Ruby's world has changed more than she ever could have imagined. She's in love with a powerful Frost King. She's the heir to the Fire Throne. And she may be a Nightblood - the spawn of a vengeful deity hellbent on releasing an imprisoned army of shadowy wraiths. Once freed, these beasts will roam the earth, devouring the spirits of every last person until he or she is nothing but an empty husk. Ruby is able to control the shadows to a degree, even hosting one in her own body. But will this tenuous connection - which threatens to consume her - be enough to hold the beasts back?

Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania - derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever. In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.

Henri “Halti” Haltiwanger can charm just about anyone. He is a star debater and popular student at the prestigious FATE academy, the dutiful first-generation Haitian son, and the trusted dog walker for his wealthy New York City neighbors. But his easy smiles mask a burning ambition to attend his dream college, Columbia University. There is only one person who seems immune to Henri’s charms: his “intense” classmate and neighbor Corinne Troy.

It's the perfect idea for a romantic week together: traveling across America by train. But then Hugo's girlfriend dumps him. Her parting gift: the tickets for their long-planned last-hurrah-before-uni trip. Only, it's been booked under her name. Nontransferable, no exceptions. Mae is still reeling from being rejected from USC's film school. When she stumbles across Hugo's ad for a replacement Margaret Campbell (her full name!), she's certain it's exactly the adventure she needs to shake off her disappointment and jump-start her next film.

Saints and Misfits is an unforgettable debut novel that feels like a modern-day My So-Called Life...starring a Muslim teen.

For Penny Lee high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn't actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it's 79 miles and a zillion light-years away from everything she can't wait to leave behind.

From Emmy Award winner Jonathan Van Ness of Queer Eye and #1 New York Times bestselling author Julie Murphy comes a bighearted story about friendship, love—and discovering the secrets and beauty of your own hometown. Sully is ready to get out of Hearst, Pennsylvania. With a fashion internship secured, the gender-nonconforming eighteen-year-old is trading in their stifling small town for the big city. Sully even sells their beloved car, to Bread—er, Brad—the most boring (and maybe only other) gay kid in town.

In Bed Stuy, New York, a small misunderstanding can escalate into having a price on your head - even if you’re totally clean. This gritty, triumphant debut captures the heart and the hardship of life for an urban teen. A lot of the stuff that gives my neighborhood a bad name, I don’t really mess with. The guns and drugs and all that, not really my thing. Nah, not his thing. Ali’s got enough going on, between school and boxing and helping out at home. His best friend Noodles, though. Now there’s a dude looking for trouble - and, somehow, it’s always Ali around to pick up the pieces.

A story of romance, adventure, and humor, Between the Lines features high-schooler and social outsider Delilah, who discovers a charming fairy tale in the school library and can’t resist turning to it again and again. But one day she finds the book has hidden depths—and that the story’s handsome prince has somehow stepped from the page into her very own world.