Difficult Relationships

Ever since Dusty's mom died, life has been rough. Dusty's dad is remote and angry, and a car accident has permanently injured Dusty's back. No matter how much support her classmates in high school offer, nothing can bring back the happy family life she remembers.

Their shared sweet-16 party is just around the corner, and half-sisters Isabelle Scott and Mirabelle Monroe are ready to cut loose, even if they are the daughters of a prominent public figure. So when Izzie’s estranged aunt, Zoe, breezes into town unannounced, it just might be the change that the Monroe family needs - or not, depending on who you ask. Happy with her cute surfer boyfriend and a group of great girlfriends, Izzie has no interest in getting to know yet another long-lost family member. But Mira, who’s on a mission to try new things and meet new people - a handsome brooding painter in particular - is drawn to Izzie’s artsy aunt....

National Book Award-winning author Pete Hautman crafts a powerful tale of one tormented boy’s troubled life in Invisible. Seventeen-year-old Doug Hanson is obsessed—with his best friend Andy, with pretty Melissa Haverman, and with his model railroad town. Doug also has terrible secrets from his past, and he isn’t taking the medication his psychiatrist prescribed....

I’d always think of it as the summer that I loved a girl... Seventeen-year-old Lang Penner and his mother are spending the summer in the caretaker’s cottage at Roundelay, the sprawling East Hampton estate of legendary rocker Ben Nevada. Lang passes the time walking on the beach and hoping for a glimpse of his idol. When they finally meet, Nevada is very different from the man Lang imagined. He finds himself confiding in the retired star about his homosexuality.

This innovative, heartfelt debut novel tells the story of a girl who's literally allergic to the outside world. When a new family moves in next door, she begins a complicated romance that challenges everything she's ever known.

It’s been years since 17-year-old Becca Hart believed in true love. But when her former best friend teases her for not having had a boyfriend, Becca impulsively pretends she’s been secretly seeing someone. Brett Wells has it all. As captain of the football team and one of the most popular guys in his school, he should have no problem finding someone to date, but he’s always been more focused on his future than who to bring to prom.

Hunter, Autumn, and Summer - three of Kristina Snow's five children - live in different homes, with different guardians and different last names. They share only a predisposition for addiction and a host of troubled feelings toward the mother who barely knows them, a mother who has been riding with the monster, crank, for 20 years.

Five years. That's how long Coyote and her dad, Rodeo, have lived on the road in an old school bus, criss-crossing the nation. It's also how long ago Coyote lost her mom and two sisters in a car crash. Coyote hasn't been home in all that time, but when she learns that the park in her old neighborhood is being demolished - the very same park where she, her mom, and her sisters buried a treasured memory box - she devises an elaborate plan to get her dad to drive 3,600 miles back to Washington state in four days...without him realizing it.

Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me: Monster.

Miranda's disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the Moon closer to the Earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun?

In a single moment, everything changes. Seventeen-year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall riding along the snow-wet Oregon road with her family. Then, in a blink, she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken from the wreck.

Postcard-perfect Jar Island is home to charming tourist shops, pristine beaches, amazing oceanfront homes - and three girls secretly plotting revenge. KAT is sick and tired of being bullied by her former best friend. LILLIA has always looked out for her little sister, so when she discovers that one of her guy friends has been secretly hooking up with her, she’s going to put a stop to it. MARY is perpetually haunted by a traumatic event from years past, and the boy who’s responsible has yet to get what’s coming to him. None of the girls can act on their revenge fantasies alone without being suspected. But together…anything is possible .

Thirteen-year-old Annabelle struggles in school, no matter how hard she tries. But as soon as she dives into the pool, she's unstoppable. She's the fastest girl on the middle school swim team, and when she's asked to join the high school team over the summer, everything changes. Suddenly, she's got new friends, and a high school boy starts treating her like she's somebody special - and Annabelle thinks she'll finally stand out in a good way.

Emily’s been shipped off to Iowa to live with her uber-conservative cousins. Aria’s boyfriend is behind bars—because of her. Spencer’s afraid she was involved in Ali’s murder. But Hanna’s fate is far worse: She’s clinging to life in the hospital because she knew too much.

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.

Successful people confront well. They know that setting healthy boundaries improves relationships and can solve important problems. They have discovered that uncomfortable situations can be avoided or resolved through direct conversation. But most of us don't know how to have difficult conversations, and we see confrontation as scary or adversarial.

Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has purely obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off. Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn't help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush.

Perfect for fans of Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli, Mason Deaver's groundbreaking debut will rip your heart out before showing you how to heal from tragedy and celebrate life in the process. When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they're thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school.

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.

Stargirl. From the day she arrives at quiet Mica High in a burst of color and sound, the hallways hum with the murmur of “Stargirl, Stargirl.” She captures Leo Borlock’s heart with just one smile. She sparks a school-spirit revolution with just one cheer. The students of Mica High are enchanted. At first. Then they turn on her. Stargirl is suddenly shunned for everything that makes her different, and Leo, panicked and desperate with love, urges her to become the very thing that can destroy her: normal.