Emotional Teens

I was drowning when I met him, hoping he could be my life raft. Little did I know that he was already at the bottom of the sea, adrift in pain. But then he offered me a hand, and you know what they say: "Shared pain is lessened, shared joy is increased." So, I took it and gladly let myself get pulled to the bottom of the ocean, but what I found there is more shocking than I could ever imagine.

Luke spends his days hanging out at the beach, working shifts at the local supermarket, and trying to stay out of trouble at school until he can be on his own. Bongo gets wasted, blocking out memories of the little brother Social Services took away from his addict mom and avoiding the stepdad who hits him. And Casey, the girl they both love, longs to get away from her strict, controlling father and start anew in a place where she can be free. When their lives all take very different and surprising paths, will these three friends find a way to come together again?

Here is a gripping, chilling, beautifully observed tale of what a teenage girl will do to keep her friends, by one of Australia's finest writers. Growing up during the 1980s in the safe complacency of the Australian suburbs, Plum Coyle should be happy. But on the cusp of her 14th birthday - and on the fringe of her peer group - she lives in terror of the disapproval of her cruel and fickle girlfriends and, most of all, she hates her awkward, changing body with a passion.

Ruth, Magda, and Isabel are different from everyone else. They can see beneath the seemingly perfect, cookie-cutter exterior of their small town of Highbone, Long Island. They know that below the surface, each house is filled with secrets, indifference, and violence. These girls refuse to become willing participants of these fake lives. Instead they are determined to fight every condescending comment, every unwelcome touch, and every lie they've been told.

Allie lost everything the night her boyfriend, Trip, died in a horrible car accident - including her memory of the event. As their small town mourns his death, Allie is afraid to remember because doing so means delving into what she’s kept hidden for so long: the horrible reality of their abusive relationship.

Lucky Linderman has been the target of Nader McMillan’s relentless bullying for as long as he can remember. But he has a secret—one that helps him wade through the mundane torture of his life. In his dreams, Lucky escapes to the war-ridden jungles of Laos, where his grandfather, who never came home from the Vietnam War, is still trapped. There, Lucky can be a real man and maybe even a hero.

Genius girl, Bounce, and her two drifter sidekicks, Wiggins and Orange, are holding the Frog hostage. As the stakes grow higher and the guilt and tension mount, Wiggins begins to question his complicity and must choose where his loyalties lie. Not for the faint of heart, Adam Rapp’s mesmerizing narrative told in alternating viewpoints ventures deep into disturbing territory. A powerful, unforgettable story.

India Maxwell hasn't just moved across the country - she's plummeted to the bottom rung of the social ladder. It's taken years to cover the mess of her home life with a veneer of popularity. Now she's living in one of Boston's wealthiest neighborhoods with her mom's fiancé and his daughter, Eloise. Thanks to her soon-to-be stepsister's clique of friends, including Eloise's gorgeous, arrogant boyfriend, Finn, India feels like the one thing she hoped never to be seen as again: trash.

Abby doesn’t remember what happened the night she woke up in soot-stained clothes, lying next to a burning building with an unfamiliar boy at her side. But her connection with Sam is immediate and intense. And she has no one else: no family, no home, not even a last name. She and Sam start a new life, just the two of them, and Abby’s deliriously happy - until memories from her past begin to haunt her. And suddenly everything she’s learned to love turns sinister....

It's 1968, and "Itch" Colchester loves everything about her home in rural Florida. But she especially loves Gramps - with his quiet wisdom and loving understanding. That's why it hurts so much when Gram finds him dead one morning. It also hurts to leave the piney woods of Beaver Creek for a double-wide trailer in Cousin Effie's small town Ohio.

1962, Anchor Bend, Oregon. The sea calls to Eleanor. Like the turn of the waves it beckons her from the heart of the town she’s always known, from her husband Hob and their young daughter, Agnes, to the unfathomable depths of the ocean. 1985. Agnes’s daughter Eleanor is six years old. She shares her name with the grandmother she never knew and everything else with her identical twin, Esmerelda. But to Agnes, only Eleanor is a constant reminder of the past.

Third-grader Jamie sees his baby sister being tossed across the room by his stepfather. His mother miraculously catches the baby, and what follows are the effects of the incident on Jamie.

Then: Ever since Mabby died while picking beans in their garden - with the pock-a-pock of a helicopter overhead - Valkyrie knows what her job is: hide in the underground den with her brother, Bo, while Da is working, because Those People will kill them like coyotes. One Year Ago: Those People have come. It has to be them; because when Valkyrie and Bo return from a lesson of alert and ready, everything is on fire and Da is gone. But they‘ve been trained by their Da for this....

Seventeen-year-old Becky Martin, smart, funny, ambitious, aspires to be a stand-up comic. While setting out to make her goal a reality, she meets Kip Costello, a rising star in the San Francisco comedy club scene. Where Becky once felt invisible around guys, she now basks in Kip's adoration. And what could be better than an attractive, intense boyfriend who cares about every detail of her life?

Some chains are meant to be broken...When Elise makes a fateful decision, her world is changed forever. Now she and her friends find themselves trapped with a deadly secret and they're running out of time. The clock is ticking. The palace is on the brink of a royal wedding and courtiers have journeyed from every corner of the realm. Torn between a life of servitude and the threat of capture, the friends are faced with a sudden decision, and once they make it, there will be no turning back. Will they stay in the palace or make a desperate bid for freedom?

Sofía es una niña muy distinta a las demás. Odia enfrentarse todos los días al ejército de monjas bigotonas y regañonas que tiene como profesoras. Además, siente que su madre la subestima: «Si repruebas de año, te rapo y te meto de criada». ¿Por qué sus compañeras parecen tan contentas? ¿Sus madres no las atosigan con el mismo sermón? Sofía odia el mundo real, sobre todo el de los adultos, por ello a veces recurre a unos polvos mágicos que le sirven para hacerse invisible y aislarse en un mundo sin enojos ni reclamos.

For the past eight years, 16-year-old Emilia DeJesus has done her best to move on from the traumatic attack she suffered in the woods behind her elementary school. She's forced down the memories. Most of all, she's tried to forget about Jeremy Lance, the boy responsible, the boy who caused her such pain. Emilia believes that the crows who watched over her that day, who helped her survive, are still on her side, encouraging her to live fully. And with the love and support of her mother, brother, and her caring boyfriend, Emilia is doing just that.

Though Savannah Rose - “Sparrow” to her friends and family - is a gifted ballerina, her real talent is keeping secrets. Schooled in silence by her long-dead mother, Sparrow has always believed that her lifelong creed - “I’m not the kind of girl who tells” - will make her just like everyone else: Normal. Happy. Safe. But in the aftermath of a brutal assault by her seemingly perfect boyfriend Tristan, Sparrow must finally find the courage to confront the ghosts of her past, or lose herself forever....

Reiko loves the endless sky and electric colors of the Californian desert. It is a refuge from an increasingly claustrophobic life of family pressures and her own secrets. Then she meets Seth, a boy who shares a love of the desert and her yearning for a different kind of life. But Reiko and Seth both want something the other can't give them. As summer ends, things begin to fall apart. But the end of love can sometimes be the beginning of you....

Jennifer was born in 1997, when the consumer society had reached a golden age. She was born in a city that was being built on top of a valley that was a beautiful example of the gifts that Mother Nature presented to us. Jennifer's father had become addicted to heroin, while Jennifer's mother was struggling to make enough money to survive since she worked a retail job that only paid minimum wage.