Difficult Family Relationships

Smart-mouthed and funny, sometimes raunchy, Richard Casey is in most ways a typical 17-year-old boy. Except Richie has cancer, and he's spending his final days in a hospice unit. His mother, his doctors, and the hospice staff are determined to keep Richie alive as long as possible. But in this place where people go to die, Richie has plans to make the most of the life he has left. Sylvie, the only other hospice inmate under 60, then tells Richie she has a few plans of her own. What begins as camaraderie quickly blossoms into real love.

A fast-paced, nerve-fraying contemporary thriller that questions loyalties and twists truths. Appearances can be deceiving. Lyla Hamilton is a loyal member of the Community. Her family was happy to be chosen by Pioneer to join such an lovely gated neighborhood. Here, life seems perfect. But after meeting Cody, an outsider boy, Lyla starts questioning Pioneer, her friends, her family - everything. And if there's one thing not allowed in the Community, it's doubt.

When a blue-haired boy (Ryan) meets a pink-haired boy (Avery) at a dance—a queer prom—both feel an inexplicable but powerful connection. Follow them through their first ten dates as they bridge their initial shyness and fall in love—through snow storms, groundings, meeting parents (Avery's) and not (Ryan's), cast parties, heartbreak, and every day and date in between.

When Najwa Bakri walks into her first Scrabble competition since her best friend’s death, it’s with the intention to heal and move on with her life. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to choose the very same competition where said best friend, Trina Low, died. It seems that even though Najwa is trying to change, she’s not ready to give up Trina just yet. But the same can’t be said for all the other competitors. With Trina, the Scrabble Queen herself, gone, the throne is empty, and her friends are eager to be the next reigning champion.

This unforgettable novel tells a universal coming-of-age story about Taja Brown, a young African American girl growing up in Houston, Texas, and deftly and beautifully explores the universal struggles of growing up, battling family expectations, discovering a sense of self, and finding a unique voice and purpose. Told in 53 short, episodic, moving, and iridescent chapters, Calling My Name follows Taja on her journey from middle school to high school.

Willa is lucky: She has a loving blended family that gets along. Not all families are so fortunate. But when a bloody crime takes place hundreds of miles away, it has an explosive effect on Willa's peaceful life. The estranged father she hardly remembers has murdered his new wife and children, and is headed east toward Willa and her mother. Under police protection, Willa discovers that her mother has harbored secrets that are threatening to boil over. Has everything Willa believed about herself been a lie?

Grace Williams has her future all mapped out. A high school senior in her beloved state of Texas, Grace plans to move to New York City after graduation to study at Barnard College, and maybe, someday, win a Nobel Prize in biology. When she's asked to tutor Jack Nelson, the star baseball player who's flunking bio, she thinks it'll be just another activity to list on her college application. Studying turns to flirting, flirting becomes secret hookups, and despite her expertise in bio, Grace gets pregnant.

Lena has lived her whole life near the beach, walking for miles up and down the shore and breathing the salty air, swimming in the cold water, and watching the surfers rule the waves. The problem is, she's spent her whole life just watching. As her 16th birthday approaches, Lena vows she will no longer watch from the sand: she will learn to surf. But her father, a former surfer himself, refuses to allow her to take lessons. After a near drowning in his past, he can't bear to let Lena take up the risky sport. Yet something lures Lena to the water - an ancient, powerful magic.

Best friends Syd, Rain, and Brie grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in the stifling California desert, desperately wishing for a way out. In the end, each of them will escape—but not in the way they expect. One will do it by dying, another by lying, a third by taking the fall. A deadly fire is set two weeks before the end of their senior year of high school and nothing will ever be the same.

The Tragedy Paper follows the story of Tim Macbeth, a seventeen-year-old albino and a recent transfer to the prestigious Irving School, where the motto is “Enter here to be and find a friend.” A friend is the last thing Tim expects or wants - he just hopes to get through his senior year unnoticed. Yet, despite his efforts to blend into the background, he finds himself falling for the quintessential “It” girl, Vanessa Sheller, girlfriend of Irving’s most popular boy. To Tim's surprise, Vanessa is into him, too, but she can kiss her social status goodbye if anyone ever finds out.

Natalie Sterling wants to be in control. She wants her friends to be loyal. She wants her classmates to elect her student council president. She wants to find the right guy, not the usual jerk her school has to offer. She wants a good reputation, because she believes that will lead to good things. But life is messy, and it's very hard to be in control of it. Slut or saint? Winner or loser? Natalie is getting tired of these forced choices - and is now going to find a way to live life in the sometimes messy, sometimes wonderful in-between.

It was bad enough that they had to move to Brooklyn. Brooklyn Heights, as Tucker Woolf's dad instructs him to tell everyone after he loses his job. Now his father has suddenly developed an allergy to Tucker's cat, Nader, a nine-month-old calico Tucker found underneath a Chevrolet. Tucker's beloved pet finds a new home with overweight, outrageous Susan "Dinky" Hocker, the only person to answer Tucker's ad. As Tucker starts paying regular visits to Dinky's house to check up on Nader, his life begins to change.

Bobby Seed has questions. What's another word for 'thesaurus'? How can I tell Bel I want her as my girl friend, not my girlfriend? How much pain is Mum in today? Has she taken her pills? And sometimes, secretly, Why us? Bobby's little brother, Danny, has questions, too. Will Bobby let him have Rice Krispies for dinner? And can he stay up late on the computer? And why won't Mum's stupid illness just go away? But it's Mum's question for Bobby that could turn everything on its head. It's the Big One. The Unthinkable One. If Bobby agrees, he won't just be soothing her pain. He'll be helping to end it. Would he? Could he?

Lupita, a budding actor and poet in a close-knit Mexican American immigrant family, comes of age as she struggles with adult responsibilities during her mother's long illness. As the oldest of eight siblings, Lupita is used to taking the lead—and staying busy behind the scenes to help keep everyone together. But when she discovers Mami has been diagnosed with cancer, Lupita is terrified by the possibility of losing her mother, the anchor of her close-knit Mexican American family.

Sammy Wallach has epic plans for the end of junior year: Sneak out to the city to see her favorite band. Get crush-worthy Jamie Moss to ask her to prom. Rock all exams (APs and driver's). With a few white lies, some killer flirting, and tons of practice, Sammy's got things covered. That is until the bank her dad works for is attacked by hacktivists who manage to steal everything in the Wallach family's private cloud, including Sammy's entire digital life. Literally the whole world has access to her emails, texts, photos, and, worst of all, journal. Life. Is. Over.

Viola is finally where she belongs - back home in Brooklyn, where there are no khakis or sherbet-colored sweaters and people actually think her yellow flats are cool. With two whole months of nothing to do but hang with her two best friends, Andrew and Caitlin, this is going to be the best break ever! But her BFFAA, Andrew, has started acting weird around her, and a new boyfriend has her friend Caitlin ditching her every chance she gets. When Viola's roommates from Prefect Academy show up for a visit, she starts to wonder - is Brooklyn where she wants to stay?

Virginia Euwer Wolff takes on the biggest questions about life and love, certainly, but also about girls and women, sacrifice and compassion and has something quite revelatory to say about them in this full house.

Leo can’t remember what happened the night of the accident. All she knows is that she left the party with her older sister, Nina, and Nina’s boyfriend, East. And now Nina is dead, killed by a drunk driver and leaving Leo with a hole inside her that’s impossible to fill. East, who loved Nina almost as much as Leo did, is the person who seems to most understand how she feels, and the two form a friendship based on their shared grief. But as she struggles to remember what happened, Leo discovers that East remembers every detail of the accident—and he won’t tell her anything about it.

When Lori’s Dorothy Parker-loving grandmother dies, Lori’s world is turned upside down. Grandma Sheryl was everything to Lori—and not just because Sheryl raised Lori when Lori’s mom got a job out of town. Now Lori’s mom is insisting on moving her away from her beloved Boston right before senior year. Desperate to stay for as long as possible, Lori insists on honoring her grandmother’s last request before she moves: to scatter Sheryl’s ashes near things that grow.

Ginny Blackstone thought that the biggest adventure of her life was behind her. She spent last summer traveling around Europe, following the tasks her aunt Peg laid out in a series of letters before she died. When someone stole Ginny's backpack - and the last little blue envelope inside - she resigned herself to never knowing how it was supposed to end. Months later, a mysterious boy contacts Ginny from London, saying he's found her bag. Finally, Ginny can finish what she started. But instead of ending her journey, the last letter starts a new adventure....