Difficult Adult Children

Anna Bloom is depressed - so depressed that her parents have committed her to a mental hospital with a bunch of other messed-up teens. Here, she meets a roommate with a secret (and a plastic baby), a doctor who focuses way too much on her weight, and a cute, shy boy who just might like her. But wait! Being trapped in a loony bin isn’t supposed to be about making friends, losing weight, and having a crush, is it?

Tim Mason was "the boy most likely to" find the liquor cabinet blindfolded, need a liver transplant, and drive his car into a house. Alice Garrett was "the girl most likely to"...well, not date her little brother’s baggage-burdened best friend, for starters. For Tim, it wouldn’t be smart to fall for Alice. For Alice, nothing could be scarier than falling for Tim. But Tim has never been known for making the smart choice, and Alice is starting to wonder if the “smart” choice is always the right one. When these two crash into each other, they crash hard.

Drifting in the dark waters of a mysterious river, the only thing Amelia knows for sure is that she's dead. With no recollection of her past life - or her actual death - she's trapped alone in a nightmarish existence. All of this changes when she tries to rescue a boy, Joshua, from drowning in her river. As a ghost, she can do nothing but will him to live. Yet in an unforgettable moment of connection, she helps him survive.

Newbery Honor winner Joan Bauer's new novel will touch your heart.

Mara Dyer once believed she could run from her past. She can’t. She used to think her problems were all in her head. They aren’t. She couldn’t imagine that after everything she’s been through, the boy she loves would still be keeping secrets. She’s wrong.

When Ginny receives13 little blue envelopes and instructions to buy a plane ticket to London, she knows something exciting is going to happen. What Ginny doesn't know is that she will have the adventure of her life, and it will change her in more ways than one. Life and love are waiting for her across the Atlantic, and the thirteen little blue envelopes are the key to finding them in this funny, romantic, heartbreaking novel.

This thoughtful, wry story is about two girls - a 'punk' and a 'priss' - who find themselves facing each other in a peer-counseling program and discover that they have some surprising things in common.

Eve is haunted by her dead cats, Willie is not content to turn a blind eye to suffering, and Maria carries on lengthy conversations with a silent caller. Theirs are the odd, but strangely realistic stories you will find in this collection. Avi’s stories address real concerns in a way young people can relate to. Always entertaining, they broach difficult topics like divorce, teenage runaways, adolescent cruelty, and homelessness.

Leo Caraway - president of the Young Republicans club, 4.0 GPA, future Harvard student - had his entire future perfectly planned out. That was, until the X factor. As in Marion X. McMurphy, aka King Maggot, the lead singer of Purge, the most popular, most destructive punk rock band he has ever seen. As in Leo's biological father. At first, Leo is horrified to find out his real father is punk rock's most notorious bad boy.

Joss McMillan’s perfect life crashes down the night he witnesses his sister’s murder - at the hands of a vampire. He then finds out his family’s secret heritage: They are part of the Slayer Society, a group whose mission is to rid the world of vampires. Joss is their new recruit. As Joss trains, bent on seeking revenge for his sister, he discovers powers that could make him the youngest, strongest Slayer in history. But there is a traitor in the Society, one whose identity would shake Joss to the core... if the traitor doesn’t kill him first.

After investigating multiple homicides and her family's decades-old skeletons in the closet, Tandy Angel is finally reunited with her lost love in Paris. But as he grows increasingly distant, Tandy is confronted with disturbing questions about him, as well as what really happened to her long-dead sister. With no way to tell anymore who in her life she can trust, how will Tandy ever get to the bottom of the countless secrets her parents kept from her?

Lauren DeStefano’s Wither was called a “thought-provoking debut, reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale” by Kirkus Reviews. Its chilling follow-up, Fever, continues 16-year-old Rhine’s tale - set in a dark future in which men and women die by age 25, and young girls are sold into marriage to keep the population growing. Rhine has finally escaped her marriage. But what hope can the outside world offer when death looms ever closer?

Parisian teenager Lou has an IQ of 160, OCD tendencies, and a mother who has suffered from depression for years. But Lou is about to change her life - and that of her parents - all because of a school project about homeless teens. While doing research, Lou meets No, a teenage girl living on the streets. As their friendship grows, Lou bravely asks her parents if No can live with them, and is astonished when they agree. No's presence forces Lou's family to come to terms with a secret tragedy.

Help young listeners understand the problems of poverty and hunger in Third World countries with this powerful, moving story by award-winning author Gary Paulsen. An orphan in a Mexican border town meets an American army sergeant - and hopes the sergeant will help him cross the border to a better life in the United States.

Sarah Miller's accomplished debut presents a fictionalized account of Anne Sullivan's life and her time as Helen Keller's teacher. Arriving at Ivy Green in 1887, Anne was a partially blind orphan who had been tasked with teaching the difficult blind, deaf, and mute girl to communicate. Anne quickly learned, along with Helen, that "words are a miracle".

Struck by Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal follows the story of outcast high school senior Carson Phillips who blackmails the most popular students in his school into contributing to his literary journal to bolster his college application; his goal in life is to get into Northwestern and eventually become the editor of The New Yorker. At once laugh-out-loud funny, deliciously dark, and remarkably smart, Struck By Lightning unearths the dirt that lies just below the surface of high school.

In the violent country of Ludania, the language you speak determines what class you are, and there are harsh punishments if you forget your place - looking a member of a higher class in the eye can result in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina (Charlie for short) can understand all languages, a dangerous ability she's been hiding her whole life. Her only place of release is the drug-filled underground club scene, where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in.

World War II, 1942. A court decision makes women subject to the draft and eligible for service. The unproven American army is going up against the greatest fighting force ever assembled: the armed forces of Nazi Germany. Three girls sign up to fight. Rio Richlin, Frangie Marr, and Rainy Schulterman are average girls, girls with dreams and aspirations, at the start of their lives, at the start of their loves.

Angie is the only one in her family - maybe the only one in the world - who believes her captured war-hero sister is still alive. Angie needs to believe it. It’s better than thinking about last year, when she tried to kill herself in front of a packed gym. Better than trying to steer clear of Stacy Ann Sloan and her posse of ultra-mean girls. Better than dealing with her corporate-lawyer mother, who wants to know only one thing: When is Angie going to lose exactly 29 pounds? Then a new girl, KC, arrives in Dryfalls, Ohio. She’s beautiful, hip, and smart, and everyone wants to know her. From the minute they meet, KC sees the real Angie....

Jen Noonan's father thinks a move to Harmony House is the key to salvation, but to everyone who has lived there before, it is a portal to pure horror. After her alcoholic mother's death, Jen's father cracked. He dragged Jen to a dilapidated old manor on the shore of New Jersey to start their new lives - but Jen can tell that the place has an unhappy history. She can feel it the same way she can feel her anger flowing out of her, affecting the world in strange ways she can't explain.