Showing titles in Loners & Outcasts

Twins Mary Lee and Madrigal are living double lives - with some shocking secrets. Mary Lee and Madrigal are twin sisters, beautiful and deeply attached to each other. Then in high school, Mary Lee and Madrigal's parents decide to send Mary Lee away to boarding school - cruelly separating the girls. The twins have only been apart a handful of times in their lives. Mary Lee is devastated at first, and then horrified as Madrigal betrays her by approving of their parents' shocking plan.

Fourteen-year-old Jamie, aka “Punkzilla,” is on a mission: to see his older brother, Peter (“P”), before P dies of cancer. Hopping a bus while still buzzing from his last hit of meth, Jamie embarks on a days-long bus trip from Portland, Oregon, to Memphis, Tennessee, writing letters to his family and friends - letters so honest he may never send them.

Dove "Birdie" Randolph works hard to be the perfect daughter and follow the path her parents have laid out for her: She quit playing her beloved soccer, she keeps her nose buried in textbooks, and she's on track to finish high school at the top of her class. But then Birdie falls hard for Booker, a sweet boy with a troubled past...whom she knows her parents will never approve of. When her estranged aunt, Carlene, returns to Chicago and moves into the family's apartment above their hair salon, Birdie notices the tension building at home.

When Pacy Mercado and Cecil Holloway spot each other during the first week of freshman year, it’s love at first sight. Well, more like love at first fleeting, injury-riddled glance, since the moment is ruined thanks to clumsiness and a criminal case of IBS. Despite their total lack of game, Pacy and Cecil are drawn to each other. Seven seconds of eye contact turns into days of yearning and stress as they make the mistake of following misguided advice from their friends, dysfunctional families, and strangers on the internet.

Some days it's just easier not to go to school at all. Adam has been slacking off lately, but today he stuck around to see his girlfriend. When Josh, who has been bullied mercilessly, brings a gun to school, the building is locked down and Adam is forced to risk everything to save himself and to find Zoe before Josh does. Calling on reserves he didn't know he had, Adam could end up a hero—or a victim.

Born with a rare neurological condition, seventeen-year-old Quinn can't feel physical pain. It's a surprise he's still alive—a fact that has caused him to be left to his own devices for most of his life. No school, no friends, no rules. At the mercy of his older sister Caitlin, who has spent the past few years caring for their dying father, he spends his days drinking at a nearby bar, testing his limits, and working on a graphic novel about a mysterious vigilante called Shadow Man. Lately, even his art has taken a turn for the worse, and now he can't decide how his book should end.

I’d do anything for Bianca...except introduce her to my family. I know she wants to meet them, but I can’t predict what my dad might do. How can I tell her that? Our ugly family secret stays locked within our house, just the way Mum wants it to be. I won’t expose Bianca to it. But she’s starting to pull away from me. I can feel the wedge growing between us, and I don’t know how to stop it. Maybe she’s hiding something from me too. The light in her eyes doesn’t shine so bright these days. I wish I could figure out what is eating at her.

Since a deadly virus and the violence that followed wiped out his parents and most of his community, Finn has lived alone on the rugged coast with only his loyal dog, Rowdy, for company. He has stayed alive for two winters—hunting and fishing and trading food, and keeping out of sight of the Wilders, an armed and dangerous gang that controls the north, led by a ruthless man named Ramage. But Finn’s isolation is shattered when a girl runs onto the beach. Rose is a Siley—an asylum seeker—and she has escaped from Ramage, who had enslaved her and her younger sister, Kas.

Between her dad’s pest-control company, her mom’s pond-cleaning service, and her side gig at Caddysnack (Santa Barbara’s premier small plates and minigolf destination), Hallie Mayhew puts the “work” in working class. But Hal has qualms about gassing gophers, she’s tired of ditching friends to skim dead fish from fountains, and she’s freaking weary of divorced-parent politics. So she has a plan: win the prestigious Verhaag Scholarship, go to an east-coast school, never come back.

Four high-school friends suffer daily humiliation at the hands of three bullies. When the friends accidentally open a portal to another dimension, they unintentionally allow terrifying, other-worldly creatures to invade their small Arkansas town. Discovering that they are now endowed with strange superpowers, the four teens dub themselves “Freaks”, the very name their tormentors used to ridicule them. The Freaks must fight to save the lives of family and friends now in mortal peril and thwart a secret government task force that appears to be hunting them.

Cat lives in her high school. She never leaves, and for a long time her school has provided her with everything she needs. But now things are changing. The hallways contract and expand along with the school’s breathing, and the showers in the bathroom run a bloody red. Cat’s best friend is slowly turning into cardboard, and instead of a face, Cat has a cat mask made of her own hardened flesh.

From author SC Alban comes a tender and humorous, coming-of-age novel that follows the journey of a girl who must give up her heart in order to find love. For the past five years, 17-year-old Megan Cooper has built a wall around her heart with little room to experience true feelings. However, her entire world shifts the moment she hits Cupid with her car driving home from finals. With his shooting arm significantly injured, she has no choice but to take his place. This YA debut is a touching and heartwarming shot through the heart for all listeners - a perfect holiday listen!

Eighteen-year-old Brenna Whit is entering college as a freshman and starting to meet new people, but she hides a dark secret. Because of an accident that happened three years ago, her spirit wanders the Fade whenever she falls asleep. It's something she wants to keep hidden from the world, but when she sees someone watching her in spirit form, she fears the secret's out.

When Megan Van Helsburg gets kicked off the USA climbing team, she has no choice but to return home and leave her climbing career behind. With no coach, no money, and no prospects, she joins the corps de ballet determined to improve her strength and agility. But the ballet theater is in dire straits. Not only do a series of murders break loose, but the ballerinas are becoming deathly thin and brain-dead. Megan must find a way to not only save her climbing career, but balance her feelings for Bellamy, and stop the murders and dying girls before she, too, is numbered among the dead.

Fifteen-year-old RJ Armante has never known a life outside his dead-end hometown of Arcangel, CA. The Blackjacks rule as they have for generations, luring the poorest kids into their monopoly on petty crime. For years, they’ve left RJ alone, but now they have a job for him: Prey upon an old loner in town. In spite of the danger, RJ begins to resist.

On the run from the king who banished her and the allies who betrayed her, Enebish travels with Serik and a band of rebels to find the deposed king of Verdenet, who is their only hope of uniting the Protected Territories and bringing peace to Ashkar. Meanwhile, the Sky King’s patience with Ghoa has run its course. Enemy forces are bearing down on the Sky Palace, and when Ghoa throws all her power into a last-ditch effort to prove herself, the Sky King and her fellow warriors abandon her. Captured by enemy Zemyans, Ghoa is imprisoned and tortured by the merciless Kartok.

In a series of interwoven fictionalized stories, Deborah Noyes gives voice to the marginalized women in P. T. Barnum’s family - and the talented entertainers he built his entertainment empire on. Barnum was a legendary showman, entrepreneur, marketing genius, and one of the most famous nineteenth-century personalities. For those who lived in Barnum’s shadow, however, life was complex.

If Indie had it her way, she would never choose to river raft with three other high school seniors, mostly strangers to each other, from her journalism class. A loner, a jock, an outsider, an Instagram influencer. As the trip unfolds, the unpredictable river forces them to rely on each other. Social masks start to fall as, one by one, each teen reveals a deep secret. One is harboring immense grief, unwilling to forgive after the death of a loved one. One is dealing with a new disability and an uncertain future. One is fearful of the repercussions of coming out....

Told in three loosely connected but inextricably intertwined stories, National Book Award longlisted author Bryan Bliss’ Thoughts & Prayers follows three high school students in the aftermath of a school shooting. Thoughts & Prayers is a story about gun violence, but more importantly it is the story of what happens after the reporters leave and the news cycle moves on to the next tragedy. It is the story of three unforgettable teens who feel forgotten.

It's 1987, and unfortunately it's not all Madonna and cherry lip balm. Mayhem Brayburn has always known there was something off about her and her mother, Roxy. Maybe it has to do with Roxy's constant physical pain, or maybe with Mayhem's own irresistible pull to water. Either way, she knows they aren't like everyone else. But when May's stepfather finally goes too far, Roxy and Mayhem flee to Santa Maria, California, the coastal beach town that holds the answers to all of Mayhem's questions about who her mother is, her estranged family, and the mysteries of her own self.