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Wintergirls
Laurie Halse Anderson (YA ANDERSON)
Lia just wants to be thin. The trouble is it’s killing her slowly. (Grades 9+) |
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13 Reasons Why
Jay Asher (YA ASHER)
Even though Hannah killed herself, she is still talking. She wants to let the people who hurt her know the reasons that she is no longer alive—all 13 of them. (Grades 9+) |
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A Plague Year
Edward Bloor (YA BLOOR)
A ghastly plague known as meth is cutting a deadly path through the town that Tom calls home, transforming friends and family into the real-life incarnation of the walking dead. (Grades 8+) |
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Hate List
Jennifer Brown (YA BROWN)
Valerie’s boyfriend closed our their junior year with a school shooting spree that left 7 people dead. Alive to pick up the pieces in the aftermath, she is racked with guilt about her own possible complicity. (Grades 8+) |
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Stephen Chbosky (YA CHBOSKY)
What do you do when you’re caught between trying to live your life…and trying to run from it?
(Grades 9+) |
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What Happened to Goodbye
Sarah Dessen (YA DESSEN)
McClean is used to moving so much that she reinvents a new persona for herself with each new town she lives in. (Grades 9+) |
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Touching Snow
M. Sindy Felin (YA FELIN)
Life in Haiti was hard, but living as an outsider in the United States with an abusive father may be even more difficult.. (Grades 8+) |
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My Life in Black and White
Natasha Friend (YA FRIEND)
Lexi was model-gorgeous...until the day her face hit a windshield, and everything changed.
(Grades 8+) |
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Paper Towns
John Green (YA GREEN)
“Look at all those cul-de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves...all those paper people
living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm.” (Grades 8+) |
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The Orange Houses
Paul Griffin (YA GRIFFIN)
Three NYC kids—partially deaf Tamika, refugee Fatima, and junkie war veteran Jimmy—find their lives colliding tragically. (Grades 10+) |
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Get Well Soon
Julie Halpern (YA HALPERN)
Depression, weight problems and panic attacks—Anna’s parents think she’s crazy…but is she really? (Grades 9+) |
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Willow
Julia Hoban (YA HOBAN)
Willow’s parents’ death in a car accident still haunts her, and she deals with the pain by cutting herself. It may take a special person to save her. (Grades 10+) |
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Freaks and Revelations
Davida Wills Hurwin (YA HURWIN)
An anti-gay hate crime that took place decades before spills into the present when both parties recognize each other. (Grades 9+) |
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Small Damages
Beth Kephart (YA KEPHART)
When Kenzie discovers she is pregnant before senior year, she is sent to Spain, where her mother intends for her to give the baby up to a couple she has never met. (Grades 9+) |
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Everybody Sees the Ants
A.S. King (YA KING)
Lucky escapes from daily torments by a bully by escaping into dreams where he is heroic and aids his grandfather in Vietnam, who disappeared there Will Lucky get the chance to find out that real life is worth living, too? (Grades 9+) |
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Second Chance Summer
Morgan Matson (YA MATSON)
Is a remote getaway enough to bring a family together when the father is facing his last summer on Earth? (Grades 8+) |
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Dairy Queen [Trilogy]
Catherine Murdock (YA MURDOCK)
“I just did what my parents told me, & my coaches...and [my dog] even….I was nothing but a cow on two legs.” (Grades 7-10) |
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Shine
Lauren Myracle (YA MYRACLE)
Cat’s friend is the victim of a savage hate crime in her small town. She alone must peel back the layers to uncover the truth. (Grades 9+) |
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Recovery Road
Blake Nelson (YA NELSON)
Madeline is kicking off her junior year of high school in a rehab facility. Can newfound love help her sober up? (Grades 9-12)
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Trapped
Michael Northrop (YA NORTHROP)
8 people find themselves trapped inside a rural high school during a terrible blizzard. Some will make it...others will not. (Grades 7-10) |
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The Sharp Time
Mary O’Connell (YA O’CONNELL)
Sandinista has a punk rock name; not surprisingly, authority figures have failed her. At the end of her rope and contemplating violent retribution, Sandinista looks for a glimmer of hope at her new vintage clothing job. (Grades 9+) |
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Mexican WhiteBoy
Matt de la Pena (YAPENA)
Biracial baseball prodigy Danny Lopez doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere—not with the kids in his mostly white school, and certainly not with his family in Mexico. (Grades 9+) |
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My Sister’s Keeper
Jodi Picoult (YA PICOULT)
Some platelets here, some bone marrow there—Anna was born to keep her sister alive. (Grades 9+) |
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The Things A Brother Knows
Dana Reinhardt (YA REINHARDT)
At first, Levi is overjoyed that his older brother is coming home from his tour of duty in the Middle East. Unbeknownst to him, the brother that returns is not quite the same that left… (Grades 8+) |
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How I Live Now
Meg Rosoff (YA ROSOFF)
Daisy escapes her home life in Manhattan for the greener grass of England, only to be met with
deprivation in the storm of war. (Grades 9+) |
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After Eli
Rebecca Rupp (YA RUPP)
“Some people die heroically, others accidentally.” To cope with his brother’s passing, Daniel decides to keep a ’notebook of the dead’ to chronicle the end of people’s lives. (Grades 7+) |
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He Forgot to Say Goodbye
Benjamin Alire Saenz (YA SAENZ)
Two guys from different walks of life, united by sorrow, frustration, and anger over the lifelong absence of their fathers… (Grades 9+) |
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Black Box
Julie Schumacher (YA SCHUMACHER)
Elena wants a normal family, but she has to help her sister escape depression’s “black box.”
(Grades 9+) |
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The Last Summer of the Death Warriors
Francisco X. Stork (YA STORK)
When his mentally disabled sister dies, Pancho vows revenge. It is only through D.Q., a teen dying of cancer, that he can learn to truly live as a ‘death warrior.’ (Grades 8+) |
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If I Grow Up
Todd Strasser (YA STRASSER)
DeShawn’s life in the projects is filled with poverty, violence and the lure of easy money through selling drugs. (Grades 9+) |
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The List
Siobhan Vivian (YA VIVIAN)
Every year, high school students eagerly await the release of ‘the list,’ which ranks the ’prettiest’ and ’ugliest’ girl in each grade. Needless to say, the results can be uplifting...or devastating.
(Grades 9+) |
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Waiting
Carol Lynch Williams (YA WILLIAMS)
London’s childhood best friend Zach is dead, and she is left to collect her life and move on...which is made all the more difficult by the suspicions that she was responsible for the tragedy. (Grades 9+) |
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Beneath a Meth Moon
Jacqueline Woodson (YA WOODSON)
Hurricane Katrina washed away most of her life, but Laurel is determined to get a fresh start. Then she gets introduced to a dangerous drug. (Grades 8-11) |
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Sweethearts
Sara Zarr (YA ZARR)
Revamping your image only goes so far when the past has an easy way of sneaking up and coming back to haunt you. (Grades 10+) |
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Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
Gabrielle Zevin (YA ZEVIN)
If amnesia wipes out all the memories you have of high school, you have two choices: regress, or reinvent. (Grades 8-11) |
