Difficult Family Relationships

Christy Miller series, audiobook four, Surprising Endings: Cheerleading tryouts are coming up, and Christy is giving it all she’s got. The competition is tough, and some of the girls are just rude, but Christy thinks she has a good chance to make the squad. Meanwhile, prom is just around the corner. Christy hopes her parents will make an exception to their “no dating until 16” rule. She’d love to go with Todd to his prom. Will things go as she planned? As the surprises keep coming, will Christy end up springing a surprise of her own?

Summer means beach time to Christy. But her best friend, Katie, has a different idea - let's be camp counselors! Christy warms to the plan until Katie announces at the last minute that she has to back out. Christy takes on the challenge and soon finds she is bewildered and overwhelmed by her fifth-grade girls, who have boundless energy for anything except what Christy wants them to do.

First-time novelist Jenny Han has penned a realistic story that all middle-graders will surely be able to relate to. Meet 12-year-old Annemarie “Shug” Wilcox. What’s not to like about her? She’s smart, she’s tall, and she has lots of freckles. She lives in a small Georgia town with her popular, gorgeous older sister and intellectual mother. Shug is excited about starting the seventh-grade, but she’s not prepared for all the vicious teasing that comes with the new school year.

Around the time that Freya loses her voice while recording her debut album, Harun is making plans to run away from home to find the boy that he loves, and Nathaniel is arriving in New York City after a family tragedy leaves him isolated on the outskirts of Washington state. After the three of them collide in Central Park, they slowly reveal the parts of their past that they haven't been able to confront, and together, they find their way back to who they're supposed to be.

Lauren DeStefano’s Wither was called a “thought-provoking debut, reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale” by Kirkus Reviews. Its chilling follow-up, Fever, continues 16-year-old Rhine’s tale - set in a dark future in which men and women die by age 25, and young girls are sold into marriage to keep the population growing. Rhine has finally escaped her marriage. But what hope can the outside world offer when death looms ever closer?

Norah has agoraphobia and OCD. When groceries are left on the porch, she can't step out to get them. Struggling to snag the bags with a stick, she meets Luke. He's sweet and funny, and he just caught her fishing for groceries. Because of course he did. Norah can't leave the house, but can she let someone in? As their friendship grows deeper, Norah realizes Luke deserves a normal girl.

Preston is one bad boy. And Amanda has harbored a crush on him for forever. When she finally makes her move on him, it does not end well. But still, she can't resist him. Especially now that he seems to be pursuing her, too. No one wants them to be together. Not Amanda's brother Marcus, who is on the verge of his marriage to Low, and definitely not any of Preston's buddies. They know way too much about Preston's dark side. Even Preston realizes he's not good enough for someone like her.

Seventeen-year-old Evan Panos doesn't know where he fits in. His strict immigrant Greek mother refuses to see him as anything but a disappointment. His quiet, workaholic father is a staunch believer in avoiding any kind of conflict. And his best friend, Henry, has somehow become distractingly attractive over the summer.

Amy and Matthew didn't know each other, really. They weren't friends. Matthew remembered her, sure, but he remembered a lot of people from elementary school that he wasn't friends with now. Matthew never planned to tell Amy what he thought of her cheerful facade, but after he does, Amy realizes she needs someone like him in her life. As they begin to spend more time with each other, Amy learns that Matthew has his own secrets and she decides to try to help him in the same way he's helped her.

November Nelson lost her boyfriend Josh when a high school hazing incident went horribly wrong. She thinks life can't get worse - then she learns she is carrying Josh's child. She seeks comfort from Josh's cousin and best friend Jericho, who himself is trying to hide the pain of his friend's death by diving into his sports and music. Listeners will get to hear November's story as well as Jericho's as they come to terms with Josh's death.

When it comes to family, Annie is in the losers bracket. While her foster parents are great (mostly), her birth family would not have been her first pick. And no matter how many times Annie tries to write them out of her life, she always gets sucked back into their drama. Love is like that. But when a family argument breaks out at Annie’s swim meet and her nephew goes missing, Annie might be the only one who can get him back. With help from her friends, her foster brother, and her social service worker, Annie puts the pieces of the puzzle together, determined to find her nephew.

The two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt delivers the shattering story of Joseph, a father at 13 who has never seen his daughter, Jupiter. After spending time in a juvenile facility, he’s placed with a foster family on a farm in rural Maine. Here Joseph, damaged and withdrawn, meets 12-year-old Jack, who narrates the account of the troubled, passionate teen who wants to find his baby at any cost. In this riveting novel, two boys discover the true meaning of family and the sacrifices it requires.

Playboy Cage owns the apartment, and he hosts a revolving door of people, in and out, at all times. Most of them are long-legged hot girls who are never there more than a night or two. When Cage’s new roommate, Marcus, enters the picture, he’s just looking to nurse a broken heart. But there’s one particular semi-frequent regular who catches his eye. Willow - 'Low' - is the one Cage wants to marry. But the two of them are night and day, and Marcus can’t see how Low puts up with all of Cage’s womanizing.

Jason is sick of living in his rock star brother’s shadow. So when he ships off to Sea Breeze, Alabama, he’s looking for a much-deserved escape and a chance to blow off some envious steam. Falling for the local bad girl was definitely not the plan. But as the new duo enjoys some naughty fun in the Alabama sun, Jason learns that even though Jax is the musician in the family, he’s not the only brother who can rock someone’s world.

If you or someone you love grew up with an emotionally unavailable, narcissistic, or selfish parent, you probably struggle with residual feelings of anger, abandonment, loneliness, or shame. For anyone who endured a nightmare or a wasteland instead of a nurturing childhood, The Toxic Parents Survival Guide will offer you the clinical insights and the day-to-day tools so you can break the chains of toxicity that bind you in a mess you didn't create.

Cage York has to choose between a love of the game and a love of the girl in this sultry Sea Breeze novel from New York Times best-selling author Abbi Glines. After waiting for his big break, bad boy Cage York is finally called up to prove his worth in the college baseball arena. But when Cage's girlfriend, Eva, mourns the sudden loss of her father, it's not Cage's comforting arms she runs to, but those of her former fiancé's twin brother, Jeremy. Torn between his baseball dream and the girl of his dreams, Cage must prove he's worthy of Eva's love, or risk losing her to Jeremy forever.

Through their love for people, yet ignorance of the unknown, the Finch Family has joined alongside their church and opened their home to an African refugee family who are moving to Connecticut. The Amabo family of four Andre, Celestine, Mattu, and Alake: father, mother, and teenage son and daughter arrive in great hope as they have escaped the tyranny of Africa. What the Finch Family doesnt know is that there are not just four refugees in this Amabo family, but five.

If you knew the world was going to end tomorrow, what would you do? This is the question that haunts Amina as she watches new and horrible stories of discord and crisis flash across the news every day. But when she starts at prestigious Gardner Academy, Amina finds a group of like-minded peers to join forces with - fast friends who dedicate their year to learning survival skills from each other, before it’s too late. Still, as their prepper knowledge multiplies, so do their regular high school problems, from relationship drama to family issues to friend blowups.

Meet Simone, the bohemian transfer student from London, who is thrust into the strange new reality of an American high school; Mallory, the hypercompetitive queen bee; and Stephen, the first-generation genius who struggles with crippling self-doubt. Each one is shocked when a popular classmate takes his own life...except not too shocked. It's happened before. With so many students facing their own demons, can they find a way to save each other - as well as themselves?

Hermione Winters is captain of her cheerleading team, and in tiny Palermo Heights, this doesn't mean what you think it means. At PHHS, the cheerleaders don't cheer for the sports teams; they are the sports team - the pride and joy of a tiny town. The team's summer training camp is Hermione's last and marks the beginning of the end of...she's not sure what. She does know this season could make her a legend. But during a camp party, someone slips something in her drink. And it all goes black.