Mental Fiction

Welcome to my world. I'm Amal Abdel-Hakim, a 17-year-old Australian-Palestinian-Muslim still trying to come to grips with my various identity hyphens. It's hard enough being cool as a teenager when being one issue behind the latest Cosmo is enough to disqualify you from the in-group. Try wearing a veil on your head and practicing the bum's up position at lunchtime and you know you're in for a tough time at school.

They say the thirst of blood is like a madness - they must sate it. Even with their own kin. On the eve of her divining, the day she'll discover her fate, 17-year-old Lil and her twin sister, Kizzy, are captured and enslaved by the cruel Boyar Valcar, taken far away from their beloved traveller community. Forced to work in the harsh and unwelcoming castle kitchens, Lil is comforted when she meets Mira, a fellow slave who she feels drawn to in a way she doesn't understand.

A few years from now, in a world similar to ours, there exists a sort of “depression plague” that people refer to simply as “The Grey.” No one can predict whom it will afflict, or how, but once infected, there’s no coming back. A young Hong Kong based scientist, Lily Barnes, is trying to maintain her inner light in an increasingly dark world. The human race is dwindling, and people fighting to push forward are increasingly rare. One day, Lily comes across something that seems to be addressing her directly, calling to her, asking her to follow a path.

Chloe Gatti will do whatever it takes to win her elite boarding school’s annual competition, the Wilde Trials. In the two weeks leading up to graduation from Wilde Academy, a dozen seniors are chosen to compete in a series of seven ultimate physical and mental tests, and the winner will take home over half a million dollars—money that Chloe needs to help her sick sister. But the competition is fierce and includes her brooding ex-boyfriend, Hayes Stratford, whose brother was the only student to die during the trials a few years ago.

If you are a parent of a teen who is struggling, or you are a teen who is struggling, then keep listening. This book was written for you. How to Be Your Own Hero was written by request. The author is a mom and a teacher who works with teens every day.

It's been a year since the Catalog Killer terrorized the sleepy seaside town of Camera Cove, killing four people before disappearing without a trace. Like everyone else in town, 18-year-old Mac Bell is trying to put that horrible summer behind him - easier said than done since Mac's best friend Connor was the murderer's final victim.

There are many ways the world could end. A fire. A catastrophic flood. A super eruption that spews lakes of lava. Ellis Kimball has made note of all possible scenarios, and she is prepared for each one. What she doesn’t expect is meeting Hannah Marks in her therapist’s waiting room. Hannah calls their meeting fate. After all, Ellis is scared about the end of the world; Hannah knows when it’s going to happen.

James and Alex have barely anything in common anymore - least of all their experiences in high school, where James is a popular senior and Alex is suddenly an outcast. But at home, there is Henry, the precocious 10-year-old across the street, who eagerly befriends them both. And when Alex takes up running, there is James’s friend Nathen, who unites the brothers in moving and unexpected ways.

Emma O'Donovan is 18, beautiful, and fearless. It's the beginning of summer in a quiet Irish town and, tonight, she and her friends have dressed to impress. Everyone is at the party, and all eyes are on Emma. The next morning, Emma's parents discover her collapsed on the doorstop of their home, unconscious. She is disheveled, bleeding, and disoriented, looking as if she had been dumped there. To her distress, Emma can't remember what happened the night before.

First time I saw her was in the mirror on my locker door. I'd kicked my swim gear onto the bottom shelf and was reaching to the top for my calc book when she opened her locker across the hall. She had a streaked blonde ponytail dangling out the back of her baseball cap.... We slammed our lockers in unison and turned. Her eyes met mine. "Hi," she said, smiling. My stomach fluttered. "Hi," I answered automatically. She was new. Had to be. I would've noticed her. She sauntered away, but not before I caught a glimpse of her T-shirt. It said: IMRU? Am I what?

David Scheinman is the popular president of his senior class, battling cystic fibrosis. Jamie Turner is a quiet sophomore, struggling with depression. The pair soon realizes that they’re able to be more themselves with each other than they can be with anyone else, and their unlikely friendship starts to turn into something so much more. But neither Jamie nor David can bring themselves to reveal the secrets that weigh most heavily on their hearts - and their time for honesty may be running out.

When high school senior Jonas moves to Seattle, he is glad to meet Levi, a nice, soft-spoken guy and fellow basketball player. Suspense builds like a slow drumbeat as listeners start to smell a rat in Ryan Hartwell, a charismatic basketball coach and sexual predator. When Levi reluctantly tells Jonas that Hartwell abused him, Jonas has to decide whether he should risk his future career to report the coach.

This is not how soccer-star Zack Martin thought his summer would go. When the captain's prank means trouble for the whole squad, Zack’s left with no choice but to take one for the team and cover for him. Now he’s trading parties and beach days for community service at a seaside conservation center—fair enough. But thanks to his new reputation, the cute intern, Chip, won’t even give him a shot. Still, Zack finds himself falling for Chip between dolphin encounters and shark costume disasters, which means he suddenly has way more on the line than he ever expected.

As a technology pioneer at MIT and as the leader of three successful start-ups, Kevin Ashton experienced firsthand the all-consuming challenge of creating something new. Now, in a tour-de-force narrative 20 years in the making, Ashton leads us on a journey through humanity's greatest creations to uncover the surprising truth behind who creates and how they do it.

Critically acclaimed author of We Are the Ants - described as having "hints of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five" (School Library Journal) - opens up about what led to an attempted suicide in his teens, and his path back from the experience.

Prince Jones is the guy with all the answers—or so it seems. After all, at seventeen, he has his own segment on Detroit’s popular hip-hop show, Love Radio, where he dishes out advice to the brokenhearted. Prince has always dreamed of becoming a DJ and falling in love. But being the main caretaker for his mother, who has multiple sclerosis, and his little brother means his dreams will stay just that and the only romances in his life are the ones he hears about from his listeners. Until he meets Dani Ford.

On the surface, Denny Voss’s life in rural Minnesota is a quiet one. At thirty years old, he lives at home with his elderly mother and his beloved blind and deaf Saint Bernard, George. He cleans up roadkill to help pay the bills. Though his prospects are limited by a developmental delay—the result of an accident at birth—Denny has always felt that he has “a good life.” So how did he wind up being charged with the murder of a mayoral candidate—after crashing a sled full of guns into a tree?

Evie has just barely acknowledged that she has an eating disorder when she’s admitted to an inpatient treatment facility. Now her days are filled with calorie loading, therapy sessions, and longing—for home, for control, and for the time before her troubles began. As the winter of her treatment goes on, she gradually begins to face her fears and to love herself again, with the help of caregivers and of peers who are fighting their own disordered-eating battles.

Karina Ahmed has a plan. Keep her head down, get through high school without a fuss, and follow her parents’ rules - even if it means sacrificing her dreams. When her parents go abroad to Bangladesh for four weeks, Karina expects some peace and quiet. Instead, one simple lie unravels everything. Karina is my girlfriend. Tutoring the school’s resident bad boy was already crossing a line. Pretending to date him? Out of the question. But Ace Clyde does everything right. Though Karina agrees, she can’t help but start counting down the days until her parents come back.

An ambitious and complex novel with a multi-faceted and vivid depiction of a group of young people in the grip of drug addiction, told in many different voices, from the addicts themselves to the friends watching from the outside who try to prevent tragedy. It was a love story. Me, Gemma and junk. I thought it was going to last forever. It was the biggest adventure of my life. Tar loves Gemma, but Gemma doesn’t want to be tied down - not to anyone or anything. Gemma wants to fly. But no one can fly forever. One day, somehow, finally, you have to come down.