Relationships Friendships

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.

Liya and Kai had been best friends since they were little kids, but all that changed when a humiliating incident sparked The Biggest Misunderstanding of All Time—and they haven’t spoken since. Then Liya discovers her family's wishing lantern store is struggling, and she decides to resume a tradition she had with her beloved late grandmother: secretly fulfilling the wishes people write on the lanterns they send into the sky. It may boost sales and save the store, but she can't do it alone . . . and Kai is the only one who cares enough to help.

Reena Montero has loved Sawyer LeGrande for as long as she can remember: as natural as breathing, as endless as time. But he's never seemed to notice that Reena even exists... until one day, impossibly, he does. Reena and Sawyer fall in messy, complicated love. But then Sawyer disappears from their humid Florida town without a word, leaving a devastated - and pregnant - Reena behind.

Sam is seven years old and living in Beverly, Massachusetts. She adores her father, though he isn’t around much. Her mother struggles to make ends meet, and never fails to remind Sam that if she studies hard and acts responsibly, adulthood will be easier—more secure and comfortable. But comfort and security are of little interest to Sam. She doesn’t fit in at school, where the other girls have the right shade of blue jeans and don’t question the rules. She doesn’t care about jeans or rules. All she wants to climb.

Eve is the rock in her family of seven, the one they always depend on. Faith is the dancer all the boys want, but she only has eyes for the one she can’t have. KeeKee is a poet who won’t follow the rules, not even to please her estranged father. Nia is a prisoner longing to escape her overprotective mother. Ready or not, it’s time for these four friends to face the sun.

Best friends Neena and Josie spent high school as outsiders, but at least they had each other. Now, with college and a 2,000-mile separation looming on the horizon, they have one last chance to be together - a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest.

Fanboy has never had it good, but lately his sophomore year is turning out to be its own special hell. The bullies have made him their favorite target, and his best (and only) friend seems headed for the dark side (sports and popularity). But then fanboy meets Kyra, a.k.a. Goth Girl, he finds an outrageous, cynical friend who shares his love of comics as well as his hatred for jocks and bullies.

Best-selling author Jen Hatmaker is convinced life can be lovely and fun and courageous and kind. She reveals with humor and style how Jesus' embarrassing grace is the key to dealing with life's biggest challenge: people.

Even under the most normal circumstances, high school can be a painful and confusing time. Unfortunately, Lilianna’s circumstances are anything but normal. Only a few people know what caused her sudden change from model student to the withdrawn pessimist she has become, but her situation isn’t about to get any better. When people begin coming down with a quick-spreading illness that doctors are unable to treat, Lil’s worst fears are realized.

Benny Shaw, a sports-obsessed, carefree kid, is convinced that he can take on the world - until he spends the summer living with his grandfather and meets resident tomboy and all-around tough-girl Babe Meara. Benny may be a wise guy, but Babe is at least three steps ahead of him, especially on her territory. When a money-making business venture arises, however, Babe just might consider Benny as her partner, and possibly as a friend.

The world is a terrible place not to have a best friend. Scarlett was always the strong one, but now it’s Hailey’s turn. In the wake of Scarlett’s boyfriend's death and learning she’s pregnant, Scarlett needs a friend more than ever.

Girls started vanishing in the fall, and now winter's come to lay a white sheet over the horror. Door County, it seems, is swallowing the young, right into its very dirt. From beneath the house on Water Street, I've watched the danger swell. The residents know me as the noises in the house at night, the creaking on the stairs. I'm the reflection behind them in the glass, the feeling of fear in the cellar. I'm tied, it seems, to this house, this street, this town.

Discover the unexpected ways friends influence our personalities, choices, emotions, and even physical health in this fun and compelling examination of friendship, based on the latest scientific research and ever-relatable anecdotes. Why is dinner with friends often more laughter-filled and less fraught than a meal with family? Although some say it's because we choose our friends, it's also because we expect less of them than we do of relatives.

Over the course of four years, the traveling love rally called Together Live brought together diverse storytellers for epic evenings of laughter, music, and hard-won wisdom to huge audiences across the country. Well-known womxn (and the occasional man) from all walks of life shared their most vulnerable truths in a radical act of love, paving the way for healing in the face of adversity.

Alexi Littrell hasn't told anyone what happened to her over the summer. Ashamed and embarrassed, she hides in her closet and compulsively scratches the back of her neck, trying to make the outside hurt more than the inside does. At school, nobody sees the scratches or her pain. The only person she connects with is the mysterious Captain Lyric, who writes song lyrics on her fourth-period desk for her to complete. With pencil marks and music, Alexi carves out a comfortable space for herself as she and the Captain finish each other's songs - words on a desk feel safer than words spoken aloud.

Remy Tsai used to know how her story would turn out. But now, she doesn’t even know what tomorrow will look like. She was happy once. Remy had her boyfriend, Jack, and Elise, her best friend - her soul mate - who understood her better than anyone else in the world. But now, Jack is dead, shot through the chest...and it was Elise who pulled the trigger. Was it self-defense? Or something darker than anything Remy could have imagined?

Four girls. One unforgettable July. Britta is the bubbly drama queen. Meredith is the overachiever. Kate is the reluctant socialite. Spider is the quiet intellectual. When these four very different young women stay together for a month in the mountains, they discover that sometimes getting away from it all can only bring you back to whom you really are.

For too long, women have been told that we are terrible at being friends, that we can't help being cruel or competitive, or that we inevitably abandon each other for romantic partners. But we are rejecting those stereotypes and reclaiming the power of female friendship. In Text Me When You Get Home, journalist Kayleen Schaefer interviews more than 100 women about their BFFs, soul mates, girl gangs, and queens while tracing this cultural shift through the lens of pop culture.

It's 1944, and World War II is raging across Europe and the Pacific. The war seemed far away from Margot in Iowa and Haruko in Colorado—until they were uprooted to dusty Texas, all because of the places their parents once called home: Germany and Japan. Haruko and Margot meet at the high school in Crystal City, a "family internment camp" for those accused of colluding with the enemy. The teens discover that they are polar opposites in so many ways, except for one that seems to override all the others: the camp is changing them, day by day and piece by piece.

When Ned meets governess Phoebe Baker, he becomes intent on gaining her affections. Phoebe wants nothing more than to keep her head down, teach her students, and go unnoticed-especially by the Earl of Ashby. But his rakish secretary has the infuriating habit of constantly crossing her path. Yet Phoebe cannot deny that her pulse quickens in Ned's presence. If this prim-and-proper governess lets her heart rule, will fate intervene where Ned's luck has forsaken him?