Self Image Fiction

For high school senior Parker Rabinowitz, anything less than success is a failure. A dropped extracurricular, a C on a calc quiz, a non-Jewish shiksa girlfriend - one misstep, and his meticulously constructed life splinters and collapses. The countdown to HYP (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) has begun, and he will stay focused. That's why he has to keep it a secret. The pocketful of breath mints. The weird smell in the bathroom. He can't tell his achievement-obsessed father. He can't tell his hired college consultant. And he certainly can't tell Julianne.

When Elizabeth Lavenza enrolled at Ingold as its first female medical student, she knew she wouldn't have an easy time. So when she stumbles across what appears to be a faulty Bio-Mechanical - one of the mechanized cadavers created to service the school - she jumps at the chance to fix it and get ahead in the program. Only this Bio-Mechanical isn't like the others. This one seems to have thoughts, feelings...and self-awareness. Soon Elizabeth realizes that it is Victor Frankenstein - a former student who died under mysterious circumstances.

Kat and Meg couldn't be more different. Kat's anxiety makes it hard for her to talk to people. Meg hates being alone, but her ADHD keeps pushing people away. But when the two girls are thrown together for a yearlong science project, they discover they do have one thing in common: They're both obsessed with the same online gaming star and his hilarious videos. It might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship - if they don't kill each other first.

Als Mitternacht auf Mittag fiel, kam Carter ins Fürimmerhaus. Das Fürimmerhaus steht zwischen den Welten, am Ufer eines dunklen Ozeans. Es hat tausende Hallen und Säle, seine Korridore sind endlos. Und noch immer wächst es weiter und verändert sich. Im Fürimmerhaus stranden junge Heldinnen und Helden, die ihre Welten vor dem Untergang bewahrt haben. Die Herrschenden fürchten ihre Macht und schicken sie hierher ins Exil. Doch Carter ist kein Held wie die anderen. Er besitzt keine Erinnerung, ist nur von einem überzeugt: Er hat niemals eine Welt gerettet.

Planning is Zoe Rosenthal’s superpower. She has faith in a properly organized to-do list and avoids unnecessary risks. Her mental checklist goes something like this: 1) Meet soulmate: DONE! 2) Make commitment: DONE! 3) Marriage: TO COME! (after college). She isn’t sure which college yet, but it will have a strong political science department, since her perfect boyfriend, Simon, plans to “save the country,” as his sister puts it, “and the planet and everything.” Zoe will follow along, the perfect serious, supportive girlfriend - once her flirtation with fandom is over.

Dear teenager, breathe a sigh of relief. Here it is. The book you’ve been waiting for! After working with people your age for more than 20 years, I know how keen you are to make the most of the good times. You want to feel better equipped to handle life’s ups and downs. You want less drama, doubt, anger, worry, fear, and stress in your life at school, sport, and with your friends. That’s where ROC and Rise comes in.

At first, when a massive ice storm traps 14-year-old Hannah and her family in a remote cabin, it feels like a game to practice the survival skills she's been learning. That all changes when an accident leaves her mother desperately low on insulin. With no power and no way to contact the outside world, Hannah steals away with the four family dogs tied to an old dogsled. All she has to do is make it to the nearest cabin and find a working phone to save the day. But a wrong turn and worsening weather leave her in grave danger and saddled with an unexpected passenger.

Do you like coming of age stories? Stories that have romance, fear, and hope? Say hello to Heroine. Heroine and the other stories in this collection showcase hardships that are prevalant into todays world such as drugs, bullying, and self-doubt. Follow Cody, Lillie, and Hannah in their journeys of self discovery and acceptance.

Insatiable is an astonishingly moving story of four teenage girls whose shame, fear and confusion compel them to binge, purge and refuse to eat in misguided attempts to feel safe and in control of their lives.

It isn't easy being able to read minds - guys' minds, especially. Gusty Peterson, the hottest bimboy in school, is always thinking I'm sick, as in totally gross to look at. Not that it matters, since I don't have a crush on him or anything. And Mallory, my first real friend since forever, has disturbing, romantic ideas about me bouncing in his brain. Even worse, scrawny Jacob has bizarre fantasies about decorating my ginormous gazungas with mascarpone cheese.

Carley would rather have been anywhere but here: a town deep in Minnesota’s farm country, with nothing plentiful except poverty. Still, staying with his Uncle David and his family was better than reform school - which was where Carley was heading. Something was eating away at him, making him do crazy things. No one could understand why - least of all Carley himself. But then David took Carley to his blacksmith forge. And under the grim nights and days of the Minnesota fall, under the glow of hot steel, and the most exhausting work he had ever known, Carley began to see a way to shape his life.

Seventeen-year-old Jessa Gray has always felt broken inside, but she's gotten very good at hiding it. No one at school knows about the panic attacks, the therapy that didn't help, the anxiety meds that haven't worked. But when a severe accident leaves her with a brain injury and noticeable scars, Jessa's efforts to convince the world that she's okay finally crumble - now she looks as shattered as she feels.

Sixteen-year-old Rei Murata appears to have everything: good looks, brains, artistic skill, and admiring friends. But Rei is a survivor—of loss, neglect, and of self-isolation. Locked away from a world where she felt unwanted, Rei was one of the millions known as the hikikomori. A chance meeting leads Rei to discover the online world of the Dwellers. Astonished to find her former classmate Sho among their number, Rei is determined to rescue him. Rei learns she must come to terms with her past before she can face her future.

This is the story of a brave and intelligent 12-year-old girl placed in a life and death situation and fighting for survival. It’s a story about a dog who understands some people need biting and other people need a fearless friend. It’s a story about perceptions, how people behave in their private lives versus how the news media and social media portray them. It’s funny and poignant, thoughtful and exciting, a harrowing adventure celebrating the tenacity of the human spirt.

Devastated by the loss of her older brother to cancer, Bugz returns to the place where she can always find solace and strength: the Floraverse. Over the past year, she has regained her position of power in that virtual world, and while the remaining Clan:LESS members still plot against her, she is easily able to overcome their attacks. Even better, she's been secretly working on a bot that will be both an incredible weapon and a source of comfort: Waawaate.

Iris Wang is having a bit of a rough start to her summer: Her boyfriend cheated on her, she didn’t get into any colleges, and she has no idea who she is or what she wants to do with her life. She’s always felt torn about being Chinese American, feeling neither Chinese nor American enough to claim either identity. In an attempt to snap her out of her funk, Iris' parents send her away to visit family in Beijing. With this trip, Iris gets swept up in the ridiculous, opulent world of Beijing’s wealthy elite.

Eighteen-year-old Constance is not interested in marriage or in being a “young lady”. But for a young woman coming of age in the early 1800s, that’s just about all that’s available to her. When her parents arrange her a marriage with a man more than twice her age, she’s powerless to resist. Stance couldn’t possibly find her newfound husband less appealing, but what can she do? Here’s what: Four months into the marriage, she can slip out of their bed in the middle of the night, and she can put on his clothes.

In the beginning, Isaac West stole to give his younger sister Janelle little things: a new sweater, a scarf, just so she looked less like a charity case whose mother spent money on booze and more like the prep school girls he'd see on his way to school. But when Isaac's petty theft lands him in juvie, he's cut off from helping Janelle. Friendless in a dangerous world of gangs and violent offenders, he must watch his every step.

Junk. That's what the kids at school call Bobby Lang, mostly because his rundown house looks like a junkyard, but also because they want to put him down. Trying desperately to live under the radar at school—and at the home he shares with his angry, neglectful father—Bobby develops a sort of proud loneliness. The only buffer between him and the uncaring world is his love of the long, wooded trail between school and home. Life grinds along quietly and hopelessly for Bobby until he meets Rachel, an artist who sees him in a way no one ever has.

My brother is gone. My mom is too stuck in her own grief to see me, and my dad thinks pain isn’t something to ever be discussed. Even my boyfriend has let me down over and over again. It feels like there is only one way forward, only one way out. Just when I’m ready to end my own life, something sucks me back in. One note. One sweet song to keep me going. Those melodic melodies sweetly singing in my ears give me hope.