Teen Reads

Description: Amanda Kelly is deeply invested in her boyfriend, real estate heir Carter Shaw. He's kind, ambitious, the town golden boy-- and behind her back, he's also dating Rosalie. Rosalie Bell is fighting to remain true to herself and her girlfriend while concealing her orientation from her Christian fundamentalist parents. After years spent in and out of conversion 'therapy,' maintaining a fake, straight relationship is killing her from the inside. When an anonymous texter ropes Amanda and Rosalie into a bid to take Carter down, they become collateral damage, and unlikely allies. -- adapted from jacket

Description: Mia and Jake have known each other their whole lives. They've endured summer vacations, Sunday brunches, even dentist visits together. Their mothers, who are best friends, are convinced that Mia and Jake would be the perfect couple, even though they can't stand to be in the same room together. After Mia's mom turns away yet another cute boy, Mia and Jake decide they've have had enough. Together, they hatch a plan to get their moms off their backs. Permanently. All they have to do is pretend to date and then stage the worst breakup of all time -- and then they'll be free. The only problem is, maybe Jake and Mia don't hate each other as much as they once thought...

Description: Kimi Nakamura loves nothing more than transforming the outfits of her friends into expressions of their "Ultimate Selves" but her mother thinks it is a waste of time. After a huge fight, Kimi makes the decision to accept her grandparents' invitation to Kyoto where she is surrounded by her heritage, which is simultaneously foreign and familiar, and the environment helps her understand her mother better than ever before.

Description: "Anders Thorson, front man of his metal band, Last Things, is unusually gifted for a teenager, but strange things in the Minnesota woods near his hometown are threatening him. Thea, the new girl in town, says she's there to protect him, but is that the whole truth?"-- Provided by publisher.

Description: "All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer's Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery -- magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power. Then an act of sabotage releases the library's most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth's desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them. As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she's been taught -- about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined." -- Provided by publisher.

Description: On the day of Saskia's kenning--a special bone reading that determines the apprenticeships of all seventeen-year-olds--her worst fear comes true. She receives an assignment to train as a Bone Charmer, a seer, like her mother. Saskia knows her mother saw multiple paths for her, yet chose the one she knew Saskia wouldn't want. Their argument leads to a fracture in one of the bones with the devastating result of splitting Saskia's future. Now she will live with two potential paths simultaneously: one where she's forced to confront her magic, and one where she tries to run from it. When both paths become entangled in the plot of a rogue Charmer, Saskia learns no future is safe and some choices have unimaginable consequences. Only one future can survivie, and Saskia's life is in danger in both.

Description: "Kira Bennett's earliest memories are of living alone and wild in the woods. She has no idea how long she was on her own or what she had to do to survive, but she remembers the moment that Cady Bennett and one of her search-and-rescue dogs found her. Adopted into the Bennett family, Kira still struggles with human interaction years later, but she excels at the family business: search-and-rescue. Together with Cady's son, Jude, and their neighbor, Free, Kira works alongside Cady to train the world's most elite search-and-rescue dogs. Someday, all three teenagers hope to put their skills to use, finding the lost and bringing them home. But when Cady's estranged father, the enigmatic Bales Bennett, tracks his daughter down and asks for her help in locating a missing child-one of several visitors who has disappeared in the Sierra Glades National Park in the past twelve months-the teens find themselves on the frontlines sooner than they could have ever expected. As the search through 750,000 acres of unbridled wilderness intensifies, Kira becomes obsessed with finding the missing child. She knows all too well what it's like to be lost in the wilderness, fighting for survival, alone." -- Jacker

Description: "Ruby Chernyavsky has been told the stories since she was a child: The women in her family, once possessed of great magical abilities to remake lives and stave off death itself, were forced to flee their Russian home for America in order to escape the fearful men who sought to destroy them. Such has it always been, Ruby’s been told, for powerful women. Today, these stories seem no more real to Ruby than folktales, except for the smallest bit of power left in their blood: when each of them comes of age, she will have a vision of who she will be when she dies—a destiny as inescapable as it is inevitable. Ruby is no exception, and neither is her mother, although she ran from her fate years ago, abandoning Ruby and her sisters. It’s a fool’s errand, because they all know the truth: there is no escaping one’s Time. Until Ruby’s great-aunt Polina passes away, and, for the first time, a Chernyavsky’s death does not match her vision. Suddenly, things Ruby never thought she’d be allowed to hope for—life, love, time—seem possible. But as she and her cousin Cece begin to dig into the family’s history to find out whether they, too, can change their fates, they learn that nothing comes without a cost. Especially not hope." -- Jacket

Description: "A year has passed since the fall of Lightspire. The Inquisitor Miles Hampstedt rules Noveris with a blood-soaked iron fist. Tilla and her friends have become hardened rebels in the Unbroken, a band of guerilla fighters hiding out on the fringes of the Kingdom protecting the true queen, Lyriana Volaris. Even as they fight, they know their cause is doomed--that with every passing day Miles's army of Bloodmages spreads across the continent. But at least they have each other . . . and some halfway-decent drinks. After a daring rescue mission, the group frees two vital prisoners: the Raven, a mysterious informant with a deep personal connection to Tilla, and Syan Syee, a strange girl from the Red Wastes who demonstrates an incredible new kind of magic and speaks of a secret civilization hidden in her isolated homeland. With Miles's forces closing in, a ragtag team sets out on an eleventh-hour mission: form an alliance with Syan's people that could turn the tide of the war. But what they discover in the Red Wastes changes everything, including their very understanding of the magic that runs through Noveris--magic that has brought the Kingdom to the brink of ruin." -- Jacket

Description: "In Samsboro, Kentucky, Kalyn Spence's name is inseparable from the brutal murder her father committed when he was a teenager. Forced to return to town, Kalyn must attend school under a pseudonym . . . or face the lingering anger of Samsboro's citizens, who refuse to forget the crime. Gus Peake has never had the luxury of redefining himself. A Samsboro native, he's either known as the "disabled kid" because of his cerebral palsy, or as the kid whose dad was murdered. Gus just wants to be known as himself. When Gus meets Kalyn, her frankness is refreshing, and they form a deep friendship. Until their families' pasts emerge. And when the accepted version of the truth is questioned, Kalyn and Gus are caught in the center of a national uproar. Can they break free from a legacy of inherited lies and chart their own paths forward?"

Description: Carley Allison was an up-and-coming young figure skater and singer who died tragically at the age of 18 of a very rare cancer. Here you will come to know Carley in her own words and in the words of the people who knew and loved her. Alice Kuipers weaves the memories of Carley's friends and family with the blog Carley kept throughout her journey, from the moment she was diagnosed until her final months of searching for treatment. This book is built around the words she lived by, both in sickness and in health. Again and again, she summed up her philosophy in two words: always smile.

Description: An informative and project-filled book for middle graders to explore the meaning and history behind LGBTQ rights movements, including biographies of key figures in gender and gay/lesbian history, the context behind today's transgender "bathroom wars" and dozens of activities and research ideas for perspectives and further learning.

Description: This nonfiction book for teens examines the ongoing fight for abortion rights and reproductive justice.