Tearjerkers, Gritty, Thought Provoking

Dancing at the Pity Party by Tyler Feder

Tyler Feder shares her story of her mother’s first oncology appointment to facing reality as a motherless daughter in this frank and refreshingly funny graphic memoir.

Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany Jackson

Monday Charles is missing, and Claudia seems to be the one person who notices. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable – more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia starts to worry. When she doesn’t show for the second day, or the second week, Claudia knows that something is wrong. Monday wouldn’t just leave her to endure tests and bullies alone. With her grades on the line, Claudia needs her best – and only – friend now more than ever. But Monday’s mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and Monday’s sister April is even less help. As Claudia digs deeper into her friend’s disappearance, she discovers that no one seems to remember the last time they saw Monday. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone? In her dark, thrilling, and timely sophomore novel, acclaimed author Tiffany D. Jackson unravels a complex mystery and explores the traumatic effects of the truth

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

A beautiful and distinguished family. A private island. A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy. A group of four friends — the Liars — whose friendship turns destructive. A revolution. An accident. A secret. Lies upon lies. True love. The truth. Spending the summers on her family’s private island off the coast of Massachusetts with her cousins and a special boy named Gat, teenaged Cadence struggles to remember what happened during her fifteenth summer. We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. Read it. And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

Evie Thomas doesn’t believe in love anymore. Especially after the strangest thing occurs one otherwise ordinary afternoon: She witnesses a couple kiss and is overcome with a vision of how their romance began… and how it will end. Afterall, even the greatest love stories end with a broken heart, eventually. As Evie tries to understand why this is happening, she finds herself at La Brea Dance studio, learning to waltz, fox-trot, and tango with a boy named X. X is all that Evie is not: adventurous, passionate, daring. His philosophy is to say yes to everything– including entering a ballroom dance competition with a girl he only just met. Falling for X is definitely not what Evie had in mind. If her visions of heartbreak have taught her anything, it’s that no one escapes love unscathed. But as she and X dance around toward each other, Evie is forced to question all that she thought she knew about life and love. In the end, is love worth the risk?

Speak Cover Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Melinda’s freshman year is a nightmare. No one sits next to her on the bus, her best friends from junior high have new cliques and the other students call her names and harass her. But that’s not the worst of it. There’s something wrong with Melinda’s voice. It’s getting harder and harder for her to speak out loud, and she’s not sure why. It all started at the party over summer, the one where she called the cops, the one that ended with several of the kids getting arrested. That’s when everyone started to hate her, but that’s not the worst of Melinda’s problems.

Monster Cover Monster by Walter Dean Myers

They call him a monster. Steve is 16 and on trial for murder. The prosecutor says he was the lookout for the convenience store robbery that ended with the owner dead. Steve’s lawyer says he was just unlucky – the wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. They call Steve a monster; all he ever wanted to do was make movies. And so Steve tells his story as though it’s a movie, putting his life, his trial and his time in prison into the script. Now he’s just waiting to find out what the final scene will be.

Truth About Forever Cover The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

When Macy’s father dies it’s almost as though she stops living herself. To cope with her grief Macy makes an effort to keep everything in control, her life is strictly ordered, her activities carefully planned and everything is as it should be. Then she gets a summer job at Wish Catering and meets Wes, who couldn’t be more different from her if he tried. Wes’s chaotic lifestyle and Macy’s well planned life collide and she finds herself opening up to him. Macy thought her life ended when her father died, Wes is helping her realize that forever is all about beginnings.

True Confessions Cover True Confessions of a Heartless Girl by Martha Brooks

17-year-old Noreen arrives in the tiny town of Pembina Lake in a stolen truck, stolen money in her pockets and a baby growing in her belly. Noreen has made mistakes in her life, so many mistakes she thinks that running from the people she loves is the only way to solve them. Soon, she finds that running away doesn’t solve your problems, and learns that she’s not the only person with troubles in Pembina Lake. When Noreen starts to make mistakes in her new home town she has to make a decision… will she run again?

The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

Soon after his mother’s death, Matt takes a job at a funeral home in his tough Brooklyn neighborhood and, while attending and assisting with funerals, begins to accept her death and his responsibilities as a man.

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