When Loose Ends Meet

Gr. 7-12  Seventeen-year-old, swoonworthy Ashish Patel is the basketball star of Richmond Academy. Bummed after being dumped by his college girlfriend, he challenges his parents to make good on their constant threat to find him an Indian American girl to date. Their choice is Sweetie Nair, Piedmont High’s track star. When Ashish’s mother proposes the match, Sweetie’s mother adamantly insists that their children aren’t compatible—namely because Sweetie is fat. [Read More]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Adult Readers

Gr. 7-10  Freshman Aurora “Rory” Campbell is a talented artist with uninspiring grades and an unrequited crush on Toby, the boy next door. She’s convinced he doesn’t notice her because he’s mooning over her sister Merrilee, the sophomore dynamo from Bookish Boyfriends: A Date with Darcy (2018). Though Toby’s nice to her, Rory ultimately feels ignored by him and her older sisters. When Rory’s lit class reads The Great Gatsby, she is put off by Gatsby’s overt pining for Daisy […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Adult Readers

Gr. 8-11 Nick and June mean everything to each other, and they’ve created perfection inside an abandoned barn in their small community. Nick loves to paint, and June dreams of a future that includes college. But outside the barn, their lives are far from ideal. Nick’s family life is in shambles and he’s following his father’s criminal footsteps in the carjacking biz. Meanwhile, June confesses to hearing voices, which have grown louder and more frequent. [Read More]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Adult Readers

Gr. 7-10 Sophomores Ivy and Harold are longtime besties. While Harold’s at Stanford’s “smart camp” for the summer, Ivy becomes addicted to VEIL, a new, artist-centric, anonymous social-media app—though she never posts her own art, for fear of rejection. When school starts, a vile anti-gay post changes the tone of the platform and affects everyone at school. By scrutinizing VEIL posts, Ivy figures out some users’ identities and, in an effort to lighten the atmosphere and support their art, she […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Adult Readers

Gr. 9-12  In a small Wisconsin town, life is uneventful until Violet arrives. Invited to Olivia’s sixteenth birthday party, she livens things up by suggesting the girls play Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. As Violet tells each girl’s violent death story, the girls chant and “levitate” the subject. What starts out as an innocent game turns into a paranormal string of events in keeping with Violet’s predictions, which McKenna desperately needs to prevent before she and her […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Adult Readers

Gr. 7-12  Seniors Kim and Teddy, William Henry Harrison High’s golden couple, are apparently done. Quitsville. Uncoupled. The source of this hot gossip, freshman Phil Spooner, finds himself in the spotlight after passing along the story with an embellishment or two. Immediately, the school splits into Team Kim and Teddy Bear. The breakup fever spreads, and by the time the prom committee must make a final decision on the theme, there are four wildly disparate ideas (and teams) dividing the […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Adult Readers