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New Fiction
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieCall Number: FIC ADI
The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad
Compounding the unusualness of being an 80-year-old first novelist, Ahmad gives his work the unusual form of a progression of stories featuring a character who is the protagonist of the novel but not of any of the stories. In the first, a young couple staggers into a military outpost on Pakistan’s western border, requesting refuge and receiving food and shelter “for as long as you want to stay.” Soon, a son is born; five years later, the couple’s tribesmen arrive. He shoots her dead; they stone him to death, and the boy is abandoned. His growth from small child to young man ready to take a wife strings the subsequent stories together. Intertribal pecking orders and protocols repeatedly lead to murderous violence, and the protagonist is left behind more than once again. Drawing on his decades of welfare work in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Ahmad aims to sear the region’s harsh and stringent tribal culture indelibly into the reader’s consciousness. Writing as sparely as any Hemingway, he succeeds brilliantly.
Call Number: FIC AHM
What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
Arimah, a young writer of the UK, Nigeria, and the U.S., debuts with a slender yet mighty short story collection that delivers one head-snapping smack after another. Arimah’s potently concentrated portrayals of young women who can’t stop themselves from doing the wrong thing, especially by refusing to adhere to traditional Nigerian expectations for females to be obedient and self-sacrificing, possess tremendous psychological and social depth and resonance. Like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, she writes with subtlety and poignancy about the struggles of love and hope between daughters and mothers and fathers, including relationships complicated by the legacy of the Biafran War, class divides, and transatlantic separations, as in “Wild,” in which an in-trouble American teen is sent to live with her aunt in Lagos. Arimah’s emotional and cultural precision and authenticity undergird her most imaginative leaps. She flirts with horror fiction, presents a ghost story, and creates an arresting form of magic realism in sync with that of Shirley Jackson, George Saunders, and Colson Whitehead. Babies are made of yarn, hair, and mud. In the title story, “Mathematicians” devote themselves to “calculating and subtracting emotions, drawing them from living bodies like poison from a wound.” Arimah’s stories of loss, grief, shame, fury, and love are stingingly fresh and complexly affecting.
Call Number: FIC ARI
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.
Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.
Call Number: FIC BAC
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him "the bitter neighbor from hell." But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.
Call Number: FIC BAC
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
Batuman, winner of a Whiting Award and The Paris Review’s Terry Southern Prize for Humor, lifted a title from Dostoevsky for her first book, the superb essay collection, The Possessed (2010). She does it again with her debut novel, a droll, semiautobiographical tale set in 1995 and narrated by a high-strung freshman at Harvard. A tall Turkish American from New Jersey, Selin is at once enthralled and frustrated by language, while finding mundane aspects of life indecipherable. She takes a mishmash of classes; struggles to tutor adults trying to earn their GED; becomes friends with Svetlana, a cosmopolitan Serb; and obsesses over Ivan, a Hungarian mathematics major. Selin feels dangerously overwhelmed, yet declares, “I wanted to be unconventional and say meaningful things.” Ivan is similarly disassociated from the norm, and the two conduct a hilariously cryptic courtship that culminates with Selin spending the summer teaching English in a Hungarian village and enduring a sequence of alarming excursions. Batuman’s brainy, polymorphously curious innocent, her “idiot,” ponders profound questions about how culture and language shape feelings and experiences, how differently men and women are treated, and how baffling love is. Selin is entrancing—so smart, so clueless, so funny—and Batuman’s exceptional discernment, comedic brilliance, and soulful inquisitiveness generate a charmingly incisive and resonant tale of the messy forging of a self.
Call Number: FIC BAT
Marlena by Julie Buntin
In Buntin’s vivid debut, Cat, now a New York City public librarian in her thirties, tells the story of the friendship that changed her forever. Fifteen and stinging from her parents’ recent divorce, Cat has already decided that she’ll be different in freezing, rugged Silver Lake, Michigan, from the nerdy, do-gooder “Cathy” she was back in Pontiac. On cue, wild, beautiful, unpredictable Marlena, her new neighbor, appears as Cat, her mother, and brother pull up to the tiny home that’s apparently theirs. Cat is suddenly and completely drawn to Marlena: ethereal though chemically fueled, brilliant but reckless, so comforting when she’s not angry or, worse, too honest. An early revelation that Marlena will soon die increases the suspense. Cat, an aggressively truant smoker in her new identity, knows that Marlena’s dad is up to no good in his rail car deep in the woods, that he’s cooking a better version of the meth Marlena’s boyfriend makes and sells, and Marlena’s constant pill-popping isn’t nothing, but this friendship and the life that comes with it are closer to belonging than Cat has ever felt. Though Cat tells her story in flashbacks, Buntin’s prose is emotional and immediate, and the interior lives she draws of young women and obsessive best friends are Ferrante-esque.
Call Number: FIC BUN
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Patty Yumi Cottrell
Sitting on the brand-new couch—her roommate’s—in her shared studio apartment in Manhattan, Helen gets a call from her Uncle Geoff. (She has an Uncle Geoff?) Her younger brother has died; he killed himself. Her adoptive parents aren’t expecting her—she’s missed years’ worth of holidays at this point—but she decides to go back to her suburban Milwaukee home and attend the funeral, for their sake. Why did her brother, also adopted, she never forgets to add, though from a different Korean family, take his own life? Helen launches an investigation, and as she examines the past and ambles through her home and town in search of clues, we see in her actions and others’ responses that she’s unhinged, perhaps ill, or at the very least unreliable, despite the nickname “Sister Reliability” she earned as a caretaker of troubled youth back in New York (a job her family shakes their heads over). Helen’s foggy view of reality is a dark, dark comedic well, and debut novelist Cottrell tells her story with gutsy style, glowing sentences, and true feeling.
Call Number: FIC COT
Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller
A wife writes letters to her husband about the truth of her marriage and hides them in the thousands of book she has collected over the years, but when she disappears off a beach in Dorset, England, clues to what really happened are found in her writings.
Call Number: FIC FUL
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
n a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet--sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors--doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. . . .
Call Number: FIC HAM
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu
Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution for a new start in the United States. Now he finds himself running a failing grocery store in a poor African-American section of Washington, D.C., his only companions two fellow African immigrants who share his bitter nostalgia and longing for his home continent. Years ago and worlds away Sepha could never have imagined a life of such isolation. As his environment begins to change, hope comes in the form of a friendship with new neighbors Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter. But when a series of racial incidents disturbs the community, Sepha may lose everything all over again.
Call Number: FIC MEN
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
It begins with a murder. It’s not clear who was killed, but it was definitely someone at the Audrey and Elvis Trivia Night fund-raiser at Piriwee Public School on the coast of Australia. Back up six months, to when Madeline Mackenzie celebrated her fortieth birthday with kindergarten orientation for her youngest daughter, Chloe. She runs into the gorgeous, if spacey, Celeste White and her twin boys; new kid Ziggy Chapman and his mom, shy, jumpy, Jane; and, unfortunately, her ex-husband and his New Age wife, Bonnie, and their daughter, Skye. When a little girl accuses Ziggy of choking her, the class moms begin to divide. As antibullying fervor escalates, Jane grows closer to Madeline, with whom she shares her terrible secret, and Celeste, who is hiding an insidious secret of her own, not that she will admit it. What starts as a send-up of suburban helicopter parenting turns darker as the pages flip by, building to a tense climax at Trivia Night, where one too many fizzy pink cocktails leads to . . . well, murder. Funny and thrilling, page-turning but with emotional depth, Big Little Lies is a terrific follow-up to The Husband’s Secret (2013).
Call Number: FIC MOR
Romeo and/or Juliet by Ryan NorthCall Number: FIC NOR
To Be or Not to Be by Ryan North
When Shakespeare wrote Hamlet he gave the world just one possible storyline, drawn from a constellation of billions of alternate narratives. And now you can correct that horrible mistake! Play as Hamlet and avenge your father's death--with ruthless efficiency this time. Play as Ophelia and change the world with your scientific brilliance. Play as Hamlet's father and die on the first page, then investigate your own murder... as a ghost! Featuring over 100 different endings, each illustrated by today's greatest artists, incredible side quests, fun puzzles, and a book-within-a-book instead of a play-within-a-play, To Be or Not To Be offers up new surprises and secrets every time you read it.
Call Number: FIC NOR
Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple
Eleanor knows she's a mess. But today, she will tackle the little things. She will shower and get dressed. She will have her poetry and yoga lessons after dropping off her son, Timby. She won't swear. She will initiate sex with her husband, Joe. But before she can put her modest plan into action-life happens. Today, it turns out, is the day Timby has decided to fake sick to weasel his way into his mother's company. It's also the day Joe has chosen to tell his office-but not Eleanor-that he's on vacation. Just when it seems like things can't go more awry, an encounter with a former colleague produces a graphic memoir whose dramatic tale threatens to reveal a buried family secret.
TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is a hilarious, heart-filled story about reinvention, sisterhood, and how sometimes it takes facing up to our former selves to truly begin living.
Call Number: FIC SEM
The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
The last party at the ancient von Lingenfels castle is the occasion of a meeting of a group that is committed to resisting the Nazis. Among them is Marianne von Lingenfels’ husband. Another resister is her childhood sweetheart, who extracts from her a promise to look after Benita, his pregnant wife-to-be. When the resisters are executed in 1944 for their part in the plot to assassinate Hitler, Marianne rescues Benita and her son from dire conditions in Berlin and takes them to the castle to live with her and her own three children. Later, they are joined by Ania, who has been identified as another resister’s widow and has fled with her two sons from the Russian advance in the east. The narrative unfolds in a fluid way, with most of the action taking place in 1945, when the women struggle through the harrowing last days of the war, and 1950, when they adjust to new, postwar realities. The reader is fully immersed in the experiences of these women, the choices they make, and the burdens they carry. Shattuck (Perfect Life, 2009) has crafted a rich, potent, fluently written tale of endurance and survival
Call Number: FIC SHA
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti
Tinti follows her acclaimed first novel, The Good Thief (2008), with another atmospheric, complexly suspenseful saga centered on an imperiled child under the care and tutelage of an outlaw. Sam Hawley’s sole reason for living after the drowning death of his wife, Lily, is his daughter. As for Loo, she is mostly content living on the run with her father, driving cross-country in a truck full of guns and staying in shabby motels in which Sam carefully sets up a bathroom shrine to Lily comprising photographs and her makeup, shampoo, and robe. But as Loo nears 12, Sam decides she needs a more stable life and risks settling down in the coastal Massachusetts town where Lily grew up and where Lily’s angry mother, Mabel, still lives, certain that Sam is responsible for her daughter’s demise. As Loo and Sam take measure of the troubles at hand, Tinti turns back the wheel of time and tells the hair-raising stories of each of the 12 bullet wounds scarring Sam’s battle-ready body. In between these wild flashbacks, Loo comes of age and embarks on her own dangerous escapades. With life-or-death struggles in dramatic settings, including a calving glacier, and starring a fiercely loving, reluctant criminal and a girl of grit and wonder, Tinti has forged a breathtaking novel of violence and tenderness.
Call Number: FIC TIN
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent, having met banker Tinker Grey while hanging out at a Greenwich Village jazz bar, finds her way into the upper echelons of New York society, and, as she makes new friends and waits for circumstances to bring Tinker back into her life, she begins to realize she regrets some of the choices she has made.
Call Number: FIC TOW
New Teen Fiction
The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli
Seventeen-year-old Molly has had 26, count ’em, 26 crushes and not one boyfriend. But wait, here comes number 27: sweet, adorable Reid. Could a relationship finally be in the offing? But what about flirtatious, hipster-cool Will? Doesn’t he count? Love sure is complicated, and for Molly, this annoying fact of life is exacerbated by her anxiety, hypersensitivity, doubts, and even self-hatred. At least partially responsible for all this Sturm und Drang is the fact that Molly is, as her grandmother indelicately puts it, zaftig. As Molly herself exasperatedly thinks, “chubby girls don’t get boyfriends.” But why shouldn’t she have the same kind of loving relationship with a boy that her twin sister, Cassie, has with a girl? In her second, relationship-rich novel, Albertalli has done an excellent job of creating in Molly a sympathetic, if occasionally exasperating, character. And her take on the agonies and ecstasies of adolescent love are spot-on, as she demonstrates, once again, that the heart, indeed, has its reasons the mind cannot know.
Call Number: FIC ALB
North of Happy by Adi Alsaid
When Carlos’ footloose brother Felix is killed in a senseless shooting, Carlos goes on a quest. Leaving Mexico City behind, he heads for the States and a Seattle-area restaurant that his brother—whose ghost has improbably begun haunting him—had wanted to visit. Once there, he meets Emma, the daughter of the restaurant’s intimidating celebrity chef, and quickly falls in love. Getting a job there as a dishwasher, Carlos also falls in love with the restaurant, a nicely realized setting that will fascinate foodies, who will also eat up the recipes that preface each chapter. Then, as luck would have it, Carlos gets an opportunity that may lead to his realizing his dream of becoming a chef, but that might destroy his budding relationship with Emma. Which will he choose? Alsaid does a nice job with the element of magical realism that lends spice to the story, and though the chef is a bit stereotypical, Carlos and Emma are well-developed and appealing characters. Altogether, it’s a savory reading experience. Bon appétit.
Call Number: FIC ALS
Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett
In this delightfully charming teen spin on You've Got Mail, the one guy Bailey Rydell can't stand is actually the boy of her dreams—she just doesn't know it yet.
Classic movie buff Bailey "Mink" Rydell has spent months crushing on a witty film geek she only knows online by "Alex." Two coasts separate the teens until Bailey moves in with her dad, who lives in the same California surfing town as her online crush.
Call Number: FIC BEN
A Moment Comes by Jennifer Bradbury
As the partition of India nears in 1947 bringing violence even to Jalandhar, Tariq, a Muslim, finds himself caught between his forbidden interest in Anupreet, a Sikh girl, and Margaret, a British girl whose affection for him might help with his dream of studying at Oxford.
Call Number: FIC BRA
The Whole Thing Together by Ann Brashares
"Summer for Sasha and Ray means the sprawling old house on Long Island. Since they were children, they've shared almost everything--reading the same books, running down the same sandy footpaths to the beach, eating peaches from the same market, laughing around the same sun-soaked dining table. Even sleeping in the same bed, on the very same worn cotton sheets. But they've never met. Sasha's dad was once married to Ray's mom, and together they had three daughters: Emma, the perfectionist; Mattie, the beauty, and Quinn, the favorite. But the marriage crumbled and the bitterness lingered. Now there are two new families--and neither one will give up the beach house that holds the memories, happy and sad, of summers past. The choices we make come back to haunt us; the effect on our destinies ripples out of our control--or does it? This summer, the lives of Sasha, Ray, and their siblings intersect in ways none of them ever dreamed, in a novel about family relationships, keeping secrets, and most of all, love."
Call Number: FIC BRA
The Last of August by Brittany Cavallaro
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson descendants, Charlotte and Jamie, while on winter break from their Connecticut boarding school, team up again to try to find Charlotte's uncle, Leander, who goes missing while on his latest assignment in a German art forgery ring.
Call Number: FIC CAV
Alex and Eliza by Melissa De la Cruz
As battle cries of the American Revolution echo in the distance, servants flutter about preparing for one of New York society's biggest events: the Schuylers' grand ball. Descended from two of the oldest and most distinguished bloodlines in New York, the Schuylers are proud to be one of their fledgling country's founding families, and even prouder still of their three daughters--Angelica, with her razor-sharp wit; Peggy, with her dazzling looks; and Eliza, whose beauty and charm rival those of both her sisters, though she'd rather be aiding the colonists' cause than dressing up for some silly ball.
Still, Eliza can barely contain her excitement when she hears of the arrival of one Alexander Hamilton, a mysterious, rakish young colonel and General George Washington's right-hand man. Though Alex has arrived as the bearer of bad news for the Schuylers, he can't believe his luck--as an orphan, and a bastard one at that--to be in such esteemed company. And when Alex and Eliza meet that fateful night, so begins an epic love story that would forever change the course of American history.
Call Number: FIC DE
Bull by David Elliott
A modern twist on the Theseus and Minotaur myth, told in verse. Much like Lin-Manuel Miranda did in Hamilton, the New York Times best-selling author David Elliott turns a classic on its head in form and approach, updating the timeless story of Theseus and the Minotaur for a new generation. A rough, rowdy, and darkly comedic young adult retelling in verse, Bull will have readers reevaluating one of mythology's most infamous monsters.
Call Number: FIC ELL
The Good Braider by Terry Farish
Like Mark Bixler’s adult book The Lost Boys of Sudan (2005), this powerful novel tells today’s refugee story from a young viewpoint, but here the Sudanese teen is a girl. In free-verse poems, Viola, 16, remembers being driven from home in the brutal civil war, then the long, barefoot trek to Khartoum and Cairo, escaping land mines and suffering hunger along the way, until at last she and her mother get refugee status, board a plane, and join her uncle in Portland, Maine’s Sudanese community. Never exploitative, Viola’s narrative will grip readers with its harsh truths: the shame of her rape in Sudan and the loss of her “bride wealth”; the heartbreak when her little brother dies during their escape; her wrenching separation from her grandmother. The contemporary drama in Maine is also moving and immediate. At 17, Viola is thrilled to go to school, and she makes friends, even a boyfriend who teaches her to drive: but can he get over her rape? Always there is her mother, enraged by the new ways. An essential addition to the growing list of strong immigrant stories for youth.
Call Number: FIC FAR
Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow
As she struggles to recover and survive, seventeen-year-old homeless Charlotte "Charlie" Davis cuts herself to dull the pain of abandonment and abuse.
Call Number: FIC GLA
Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow by Faiza Guene; Sarah Adams (Translator); Hachette Staff (Other Primary Creator)
In the rough Paris housing projects, Doria, 15, a child of Muslim immigrant parents, sets her soap-opera dreams against the grim daily struggle, even as she does sometimes find the bold and the beautiful in herself and in her neighborhood. "It's like a film script. . . . Trouble is, our scriptwriter's got no talent. And he's never heard of happily ever after."Author Guene, 19, has grown up in the neighborhood she writes about, and her irreverent commentary never denies how hard it is. The first-person contemporary narrative, translated from the French, is touching, furious, sharp, and very funny. Since Doria's dad moved back to Morocco to marry again (he wants a son), Mom cleans hotel rooms, and Doria wants to drop out of school. The boy she loves is in trouble with drugs and loves someone else. Honest about the oppression of women and about the prejudice, both ways, Guene also shows those who break free. Much like enduring the pain of her wisdom teeth, she discovers that "it hurts to learn."
Call Number: FIC GUE
Grendel's Guide to Love and War by A. E. Kaplan
Tom Grendel is used to being the youngest in his retiree-friendly neighborhood of Lake Heorot, where he lives with his dad, a U.S. Army major who came back from Iraq broken. Tom, whose mom died when he was young, anticipates a quiet Virginia summer, spent mowing his elderly neighbors’ lawns and hanging with Ed, his wine-brewing, Korean-not-Japanese best friend. Then the Rothgars arrive: behemoth jock Rex and his sister, Willow, Tom’s childhood crush. When Rex’s loud parties start to have a debilitating effect on Tom’s dad, Tom and Ed take matters into their own hands. Several pranks later, it seems like they have the upper hand, until Rex’s cousin Wolf shows up to turn the tables. This modern adaptation contains numerous sly references to Beowulf (keep an eye on those draconian old ladies!) as it sympathizes with the villain—didn’t Grendel just want quieter neighbors? Tom himself is utterly sympathetic, and buoyant supporting characters help make this a particularly clever and sometimes poignant tale of summertime pranks gone wrong.
Call Number: FIC KAP
Literally by Lucy Keating
Short, sweet, and brazenly meta, Keating’s (Dreamology, 2016) sophomore novel finds perfectionist Annabelle (or AB) wondering what has happened to the sublime life she’s always known on Venice Beach. Her parents are unexpectedly divorcing and selling the House, her beloved and picturesque childhood home. Things aren’t all bad, though: new student Will shows up halfway through their senior year of high school and seems to be made for her. They have everything in common, and he always says exactly the right swoonworthy thing. But when class guest-speaker Lucy Keating reveals that AB is the protagonist in her new novel, AB is not content to have someone else write her life . . . literally. Cleverly and at times hilariously playing with YA romance tropes and its own self-awareness, Literally has its characters secretly conspiring against their author in bathrooms: “The one place a writer never writes about.” It is a quirky little love story that might end a bit predictably but takes an avant-garde route on the way there.
Call Number: FIC KEA
Just Fly Away by Andrew McCarthy
When fifteen-year-old Lucy Willows discovers that her father has a child from a brief affair, an eight-year-old boy who lives in her own suburban New Jersey town, she begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her home and her life. How could Lucy's father have betrayed the entire family? How could her mother forgive him? And why isn't her sister rocked by the news the way Lucy is?
As her father's secret becomes her own, Lucy grows more and more isolated from her friends, her family, and even her boyfriend, Simon, the one person she thought understood her. When Lucy escapes to Maine, the home of her mysteriously estranged grandfather, she finally begins to get to the bottom of her family's secrets and lies.
Call Number: FIC MCC
Thunder over Kandahar by Sharon E. McKay; Rafal Gerszak (Photographer)
Teenagers Tamanna and Yasmine, having seen their dream to become educated ruined when their school building was burned down by the Taliban, find themselves fleeing from the terrorist organization and facing mortal dangers in their travels through mountain passes.
Call Number: FIC MCK
If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
Eighteen-year-old Amanda, the new girl at Lambertville High, has a closely guarded secret. At her old school, she was Andrew, battered and abused for being different. Following surgery, Amanda is now transsexual and has come to live with her divorced father, hoping to spend her last year in her new school as invisibly as possible—she is emotionally numb from the ordeal of her life so far, the circumstances of which readers learn in a series of dramatic flashbacks. But then she meets sweet, gentle Grant and, despite herself and her fears, finds herself falling in love, and it’s obvious he returns those feelings. But what will happen if he learns the truth? Russo, a trans woman, writes with authority and empathy, giving readers not only an intellectual but also an emotional understanding of Amanda and her compelling story. Never didactic, this debut is a valuable contribution to the slender but growing body of literature about trans teens.
Call Number: FIC RUS
The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love by Sarvenaz Tash
Graham is in love with his best friend, Roxy—he just isn’t sure how to tell her. So when the author of their favorite comic-book series appears on the schedule of New York Comic Con, it seems like a sign. Unfortunately, during Comic Con weekend every romantic gesture Graham puts into motion gets crushed, leaving him to wonder if he’ll ever be the geek to get the girl. Tash mixes just the right number of pop-culture references into her familiar teen love story, utilizing the Comic Con setting to truly set the novel apart. Though the predictability of certain plot points risks turning characters into stock high-schoolers, the realistic dialogue saves them. The story’s pacing allows readers to feel as if they’re experiencing the conference in real time, making Tash’s lighthearted romance easy to get swept up in. This book will appeal to fans of geek culture, particularly those who have daydreamed about getting the guy or girl, all while wearing a cape.
Call Number: FIC TAS
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
"In the aftermath of a war between gods and men, a hero, a librarian, and a girl must battle the fantastical elements of a mysterious city stripped of its name."
Call Number: FIC TAY
The Takedown by Corrie Wang
Park Prep senior Kyla Cheng owns her school: shoo-in for valedictorian, debate team champ, and one of a group of four popular girls who always have one another’s back. She’s also finally snagged the attention of reigning hottie Mac Rodriguez. Then a (fake) video of her having sex with the attractive English teacher turns up online and suddenly Kyla’s facing trouble on every front. Wang’s debut, set in a barely future Brooklyn, hinges on privacy and betrayal, with cleverly placed clues to guide the reader as Kyla searches for her unknown tormentor. Tech geeks will revel in the unapologetic computerspeak that permeates the text, as well as the humorous (and sometimes stereotyped but always positive) depiction of techies, female and male. In Wang’s future world, one’s cell phone takes on primary importance, something most teens can certainly identify with. Snappy dialogue, a keen empathy for the pressure cooker of high school, and a wryly self-conscious narrative tone combine for a page-turner that may feel dated in 10 years but is extremely relevant right now.
Call Number: FIC WAN
By Your Side by Kasie West
One quick trip to the library bathroom at closing time later, and Autumn finds herself locked in a building closed down for the weekend, right before she is supposed to take off with friends for an overnighter (“I was locked in the library, trying not to panic. Literally locked. As in no escape”). Her backpack—and cell phone—is already in the car. It’s cold. It’s scary. And she’s not alone. A mysterious loner from school, Dax Miller, is also locked in, although he planned it that way to escape his abusive foster family. Readers might be skeptical of Autumn’s inability to contact the outside world, but that would take away the more compelling Breakfast Club backdrop of this evolving romance. When a shocking explanation reveals why Autumn’s friends, and even her parents, do not come back to find her, this engaging story takes off. West skillfully zeroes in on peer pressure, a complex labyrinth of friendships, and Autumn’s anxiety issues and conflicted feelings about boyfriends in a realistic and insightful way.
Call Number: FIC WES
Gem and Dixie by Sara Zarr
"Gem has never known what it is to have security. She's never known an adult she can truly rely on. But the one constant in her life has been Dixie. Gem grew up taking care of her sister when no one else could: not their mother, whose issues make it hard for her to keep food on the table, and definitely not their father, whose intermittent presence is the only thing worse than his frequent absence. Even as Gem and Dixie have grown apart, they've always had each other"
Call Number: FIC ZAR
New Nonfiction/Graphic Novels
Option B by Sheryl Sandberg; Adam Grant
Sandberg, author of the mega-hit Lean In (2013) and COO for Facebook, teams up with Wharton’s top professor, Grant, also a best-selling author, most recently of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World (2016), in this powerful treatise about overcoming life’s toughest challenges. After Sheryl’s husband, Dave, passed away unexpectedly in 2015, she was consumed by grief and terrified that their two children wouldn’t have a normal, healthy childhood without their father. With the support of family, friends, and psychologist Grant, she was able to find her way back to happiness. Sandberg and Grant explore how we deal with adversity, but perhaps more important, they discuss how we can be fiercely resilient in the face of tragedy. Sandberg embraced the idea that when option A fails you, you must find another way. And so she moved on to option B. Sandberg and Grant weave her personal journey into a larger, more inclusive framework of adversity in this well-researched book of facts and sound advice that will serve as a guide to those impacted by life’s wicked curve balls. Option B is not simply a self-help book for those who are suffering; rather, it is a richly informed, engaging read that will broaden readers’ understanding of empathy and reveal the strength of the human spirit.
Call Number: 155.9 SAN
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
In this personal, eloquently-argued essay--adapted from her much-admired TEDx talk of the same name--Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award-winning author of Americanah, offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness. Drawing extensively on her own experiences and her deep understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics, here is one remarkable author's exploration of what it means to be a woman now--and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.
Call Number: 305.42 ADI
Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie's letter of response.
Here are fifteen invaluable suggestions--compelling, direct, wryly funny, and perceptive--for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman. From encouraging her to choose a helicopter, and not only a doll, as a toy if she so desires; having open conversations with her about clothes, makeup, and sexuality; debunking the myth that women are somehow biologically arranged to be in the kitchen making dinner, and that men can "allow" women to have full careers, Dear Ijeawele goes right to the heart of sexual politics in the twenty-first century. It will start a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today.
Call Number: 305.42 ADI
The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes
Delves into the history of sugar, its uses as a preservative, and its overuse in American culture.
Call Number: 613.2 TAU
Wires and Nerve by Marissa Meyer; Douglas Holgate (Illustrator)
"When rogue packs of wolf-hybrid soldiers threaten the tenuous peace alliance between Earth and Luna, Iko takes it upon herself to hunt down the soldiers' leader. She is soon working with a handsome royal guard who forces her to question everything she knows about love, loyalty, and her own humanity. With appearances by Cinder, Cress, Scarlet, Winter, and the rest of the Rampion crew"
Call Number: 741.5 MEY
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
During the early 1920s, many members of the Osage Indian Nation were murdered, one by one. After being forced from several homelands, the Osage had settled in the late nineteenth century in an unoccupied area of Oklahoma, chosen precisely because it was “rocky, sterile, and utterly unfit for cultivation.” No white man would covet this land; Osage people would be happy. Then oil was soon discovered below the Osage territory, speedily attracting prospectors wielding staggering sums and turning many Osage into some of the richest people in the world. Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, 2010) centers this true-crime mystery on Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman who lost several family members as the death tally grew, and Tom White, the former Texas Ranger whom J. Edgar Hoover sent to solve the slippery, attention-grabbing case once and for all. A secondary tale of Hoover’s single-minded rise to power as the director of what would become the FBI, his reshaping of the bureau’s practices, and his goal to gain prestige for federal investigators provides invaluable historical context. Grann employs you-are-there narrative effects to set readers right in the action, and he relays the humanity, evil, and heroism of the people involved. His riveting reckoning of a devastating episode in American history deservedly captivates.
Purple Hibiscus by 
The Wandering Falcon by
Compounding the unusualness of being an 80-year-old first novelist, Ahmad gives his work the unusual form of a progression of stories featuring a character who is the protagonist of the novel but not of any of the stories. In the first, a young couple staggers into a military outpost on Pakistan’s western border, requesting refuge and receiving food and shelter “for as long as you want to stay.” Soon, a son is born; five years later, the couple’s tribesmen arrive. He shoots her dead; they stone him to death, and the boy is abandoned. His growth from small child to young man ready to take a wife strings the subsequent stories together. Intertribal pecking orders and protocols repeatedly lead to murderous violence, and the protagonist is left behind more than once again. Drawing on his decades of welfare work in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Ahmad aims to sear the region’s harsh and stringent tribal culture indelibly into the reader’s consciousness. Writing as sparely as any Hemingway, he succeeds brilliantly.
What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by
Arimah, a young writer of the UK, Nigeria, and the U.S., debuts with a slender yet mighty short story collection that delivers one head-snapping smack after another. Arimah’s potently concentrated portrayals of young women who can’t stop themselves from doing the wrong thing, especially by refusing to adhere to traditional Nigerian expectations for females to be obedient and self-sacrificing, possess tremendous psychological and social depth and resonance. Like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, she writes with subtlety and poignancy about the struggles of love and hope between daughters and mothers and fathers, including relationships complicated by the legacy of the Biafran War, class divides, and transatlantic separations, as in “Wild,” in which an in-trouble American teen is sent to live with her aunt in Lagos. Arimah’s emotional and cultural precision and authenticity undergird her most imaginative leaps. She flirts with horror fiction, presents a ghost story, and creates an arresting form of magic realism in sync with that of Shirley Jackson, George Saunders, and Colson Whitehead. Babies are made of yarn, hair, and mud. In the title story, “Mathematicians” devote themselves to “calculating and subtracting emotions, drawing them from living bodies like poison from a wound.” Arimah’s stories of loss, grief, shame, fury, and love are stingingly fresh and complexly affecting.
Beartown by
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.
Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.
A Man Called Ove by
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him "the bitter neighbor from hell." But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.
The Idiot by
Batuman, winner of a Whiting Award and The Paris Review’s Terry Southern Prize for Humor, lifted a title from Dostoevsky for her first book, the superb essay collection, The Possessed (2010). She does it again with her debut novel, a droll, semiautobiographical tale set in 1995 and narrated by a high-strung freshman at Harvard. A tall Turkish American from New Jersey, Selin is at once enthralled and frustrated by language, while finding mundane aspects of life indecipherable. She takes a mishmash of classes; struggles to tutor adults trying to earn their GED; becomes friends with Svetlana, a cosmopolitan Serb; and obsesses over Ivan, a Hungarian mathematics major. Selin feels dangerously overwhelmed, yet declares, “I wanted to be unconventional and say meaningful things.” Ivan is similarly disassociated from the norm, and the two conduct a hilariously cryptic courtship that culminates with Selin spending the summer teaching English in a Hungarian village and enduring a sequence of alarming excursions. Batuman’s brainy, polymorphously curious innocent, her “idiot,” ponders profound questions about how culture and language shape feelings and experiences, how differently men and women are treated, and how baffling love is. Selin is entrancing—so smart, so clueless, so funny—and Batuman’s exceptional discernment, comedic brilliance, and soulful inquisitiveness generate a charmingly incisive and resonant tale of the messy forging of a self.
Marlena by
In Buntin’s vivid debut, Cat, now a New York City public librarian in her thirties, tells the story of the friendship that changed her forever. Fifteen and stinging from her parents’ recent divorce, Cat has already decided that she’ll be different in freezing, rugged Silver Lake, Michigan, from the nerdy, do-gooder “Cathy” she was back in Pontiac. On cue, wild, beautiful, unpredictable Marlena, her new neighbor, appears as Cat, her mother, and brother pull up to the tiny home that’s apparently theirs. Cat is suddenly and completely drawn to Marlena: ethereal though chemically fueled, brilliant but reckless, so comforting when she’s not angry or, worse, too honest. An early revelation that Marlena will soon die increases the suspense. Cat, an aggressively truant smoker in her new identity, knows that Marlena’s dad is up to no good in his rail car deep in the woods, that he’s cooking a better version of the meth Marlena’s boyfriend makes and sells, and Marlena’s constant pill-popping isn’t nothing, but this friendship and the life that comes with it are closer to belonging than Cat has ever felt. Though Cat tells her story in flashbacks, Buntin’s prose is emotional and immediate, and the interior lives she draws of young women and obsessive best friends are Ferrante-esque.
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by
Sitting on the brand-new couch—her roommate’s—in her shared studio apartment in Manhattan, Helen gets a call from her Uncle Geoff. (She has an Uncle Geoff?) Her younger brother has died; he killed himself. Her adoptive parents aren’t expecting her—she’s missed years’ worth of holidays at this point—but she decides to go back to her suburban Milwaukee home and attend the funeral, for their sake. Why did her brother, also adopted, she never forgets to add, though from a different Korean family, take his own life? Helen launches an investigation, and as she examines the past and ambles through her home and town in search of clues, we see in her actions and others’ responses that she’s unhinged, perhaps ill, or at the very least unreliable, despite the nickname “Sister Reliability” she earned as a caretaker of troubled youth back in New York (a job her family shakes their heads over). Helen’s foggy view of reality is a dark, dark comedic well, and debut novelist Cottrell tells her story with gutsy style, glowing sentences, and true feeling.
Swimming Lessons by
A wife writes letters to her husband about the truth of her marriage and hides them in the thousands of book she has collected over the years, but when she disappears off a beach in Dorset, England, clues to what really happened are found in her writings.
Exit West by
n a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet--sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors--doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. . . .
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by
Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution for a new start in the United States. Now he finds himself running a failing grocery store in a poor African-American section of Washington, D.C., his only companions two fellow African immigrants who share his bitter nostalgia and longing for his home continent. Years ago and worlds away Sepha could never have imagined a life of such isolation. As his environment begins to change, hope comes in the form of a friendship with new neighbors Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter. But when a series of racial incidents disturbs the community, Sepha may lose everything all over again.
Big Little Lies by
It begins with a murder. It’s not clear who was killed, but it was definitely someone at the Audrey and Elvis Trivia Night fund-raiser at Piriwee Public School on the coast of Australia. Back up six months, to when Madeline Mackenzie celebrated her fortieth birthday with kindergarten orientation for her youngest daughter, Chloe. She runs into the gorgeous, if spacey, Celeste White and her twin boys; new kid Ziggy Chapman and his mom, shy, jumpy, Jane; and, unfortunately, her ex-husband and his New Age wife, Bonnie, and their daughter, Skye. When a little girl accuses Ziggy of choking her, the class moms begin to divide. As antibullying fervor escalates, Jane grows closer to Madeline, with whom she shares her terrible secret, and Celeste, who is hiding an insidious secret of her own, not that she will admit it. What starts as a send-up of suburban helicopter parenting turns darker as the pages flip by, building to a tense climax at Trivia Night, where one too many fizzy pink cocktails leads to . . . well, murder. Funny and thrilling, page-turning but with emotional depth, Big Little Lies is a terrific follow-up to The Husband’s Secret (2013).
Romeo and/or Juliet by 
To Be or Not to Be by
When Shakespeare wrote Hamlet he gave the world just one possible storyline, drawn from a constellation of billions of alternate narratives. And now you can correct that horrible mistake! Play as Hamlet and avenge your father's death--with ruthless efficiency this time. Play as Ophelia and change the world with your scientific brilliance. Play as Hamlet's father and die on the first page, then investigate your own murder... as a ghost! Featuring over 100 different endings, each illustrated by today's greatest artists, incredible side quests, fun puzzles, and a book-within-a-book instead of a play-within-a-play, To Be or Not To Be offers up new surprises and secrets every time you read it.
Today Will Be Different by
Eleanor knows she's a mess. But today, she will tackle the little things. She will shower and get dressed. She will have her poetry and yoga lessons after dropping off her son, Timby. She won't swear. She will initiate sex with her husband, Joe. But before she can put her modest plan into action-life happens. Today, it turns out, is the day Timby has decided to fake sick to weasel his way into his mother's company. It's also the day Joe has chosen to tell his office-but not Eleanor-that he's on vacation. Just when it seems like things can't go more awry, an encounter with a former colleague produces a graphic memoir whose dramatic tale threatens to reveal a buried family secret.
TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is a hilarious, heart-filled story about reinvention, sisterhood, and how sometimes it takes facing up to our former selves to truly begin living.
The Women in the Castle by
The last party at the ancient von Lingenfels castle is the occasion of a meeting of a group that is committed to resisting the Nazis. Among them is Marianne von Lingenfels’ husband. Another resister is her childhood sweetheart, who extracts from her a promise to look after Benita, his pregnant wife-to-be. When the resisters are executed in 1944 for their part in the plot to assassinate Hitler, Marianne rescues Benita and her son from dire conditions in Berlin and takes them to the castle to live with her and her own three children. Later, they are joined by Ania, who has been identified as another resister’s widow and has fled with her two sons from the Russian advance in the east. The narrative unfolds in a fluid way, with most of the action taking place in 1945, when the women struggle through the harrowing last days of the war, and 1950, when they adjust to new, postwar realities. The reader is fully immersed in the experiences of these women, the choices they make, and the burdens they carry. Shattuck (Perfect Life, 2009) has crafted a rich, potent, fluently written tale of endurance and survival
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by
Tinti follows her acclaimed first novel, The Good Thief (2008), with another atmospheric, complexly suspenseful saga centered on an imperiled child under the care and tutelage of an outlaw. Sam Hawley’s sole reason for living after the drowning death of his wife, Lily, is his daughter. As for Loo, she is mostly content living on the run with her father, driving cross-country in a truck full of guns and staying in shabby motels in which Sam carefully sets up a bathroom shrine to Lily comprising photographs and her makeup, shampoo, and robe. But as Loo nears 12, Sam decides she needs a more stable life and risks settling down in the coastal Massachusetts town where Lily grew up and where Lily’s angry mother, Mabel, still lives, certain that Sam is responsible for her daughter’s demise. As Loo and Sam take measure of the troubles at hand, Tinti turns back the wheel of time and tells the hair-raising stories of each of the 12 bullet wounds scarring Sam’s battle-ready body. In between these wild flashbacks, Loo comes of age and embarks on her own dangerous escapades. With life-or-death struggles in dramatic settings, including a calving glacier, and starring a fiercely loving, reluctant criminal and a girl of grit and wonder, Tinti has forged a breathtaking novel of violence and tenderness.
Rules of Civility by
Twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent, having met banker Tinker Grey while hanging out at a Greenwich Village jazz bar, finds her way into the upper echelons of New York society, and, as she makes new friends and waits for circumstances to bring Tinker back into her life, she begins to realize she regrets some of the choices she has made.
The Upside of Unrequited by
Seventeen-year-old Molly has had 26, count ’em, 26 crushes and not one boyfriend. But wait, here comes number 27: sweet, adorable Reid. Could a relationship finally be in the offing? But what about flirtatious, hipster-cool Will? Doesn’t he count? Love sure is complicated, and for Molly, this annoying fact of life is exacerbated by her anxiety, hypersensitivity, doubts, and even self-hatred. At least partially responsible for all this Sturm und Drang is the fact that Molly is, as her grandmother indelicately puts it, zaftig. As Molly herself exasperatedly thinks, “chubby girls don’t get boyfriends.” But why shouldn’t she have the same kind of loving relationship with a boy that her twin sister, Cassie, has with a girl? In her second, relationship-rich novel, Albertalli has done an excellent job of creating in Molly a sympathetic, if occasionally exasperating, character. And her take on the agonies and ecstasies of adolescent love are spot-on, as she demonstrates, once again, that the heart, indeed, has its reasons the mind cannot know.
North of Happy by
When Carlos’ footloose brother Felix is killed in a senseless shooting, Carlos goes on a quest. Leaving Mexico City behind, he heads for the States and a Seattle-area restaurant that his brother—whose ghost has improbably begun haunting him—had wanted to visit. Once there, he meets Emma, the daughter of the restaurant’s intimidating celebrity chef, and quickly falls in love. Getting a job there as a dishwasher, Carlos also falls in love with the restaurant, a nicely realized setting that will fascinate foodies, who will also eat up the recipes that preface each chapter. Then, as luck would have it, Carlos gets an opportunity that may lead to his realizing his dream of becoming a chef, but that might destroy his budding relationship with Emma. Which will he choose? Alsaid does a nice job with the element of magical realism that lends spice to the story, and though the chef is a bit stereotypical, Carlos and Emma are well-developed and appealing characters. Altogether, it’s a savory reading experience. Bon appétit.
Alex, Approximately by
In this delightfully charming teen spin on You've Got Mail, the one guy Bailey Rydell can't stand is actually the boy of her dreams—she just doesn't know it yet.
Classic movie buff Bailey "Mink" Rydell has spent months crushing on a witty film geek she only knows online by "Alex." Two coasts separate the teens until Bailey moves in with her dad, who lives in the same California surfing town as her online crush.
A Moment Comes by
As the partition of India nears in 1947 bringing violence even to Jalandhar, Tariq, a Muslim, finds himself caught between his forbidden interest in Anupreet, a Sikh girl, and Margaret, a British girl whose affection for him might help with his dream of studying at Oxford.
The Whole Thing Together by
"Summer for Sasha and Ray means the sprawling old house on Long Island. Since they were children, they've shared almost everything--reading the same books, running down the same sandy footpaths to the beach, eating peaches from the same market, laughing around the same sun-soaked dining table. Even sleeping in the same bed, on the very same worn cotton sheets. But they've never met. Sasha's dad was once married to Ray's mom, and together they had three daughters: Emma, the perfectionist; Mattie, the beauty, and Quinn, the favorite. But the marriage crumbled and the bitterness lingered. Now there are two new families--and neither one will give up the beach house that holds the memories, happy and sad, of summers past. The choices we make come back to haunt us; the effect on our destinies ripples out of our control--or does it? This summer, the lives of Sasha, Ray, and their siblings intersect in ways none of them ever dreamed, in a novel about family relationships, keeping secrets, and most of all, love."
The Last of August by
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson descendants, Charlotte and Jamie, while on winter break from their Connecticut boarding school, team up again to try to find Charlotte's uncle, Leander, who goes missing while on his latest assignment in a German art forgery ring.
Alex and Eliza by
As battle cries of the American Revolution echo in the distance, servants flutter about preparing for one of New York society's biggest events: the Schuylers' grand ball. Descended from two of the oldest and most distinguished bloodlines in New York, the Schuylers are proud to be one of their fledgling country's founding families, and even prouder still of their three daughters--Angelica, with her razor-sharp wit; Peggy, with her dazzling looks; and Eliza, whose beauty and charm rival those of both her sisters, though she'd rather be aiding the colonists' cause than dressing up for some silly ball.
Still, Eliza can barely contain her excitement when she hears of the arrival of one Alexander Hamilton, a mysterious, rakish young colonel and General George Washington's right-hand man. Though Alex has arrived as the bearer of bad news for the Schuylers, he can't believe his luck--as an orphan, and a bastard one at that--to be in such esteemed company. And when Alex and Eliza meet that fateful night, so begins an epic love story that would forever change the course of American history.
Bull by
A modern twist on the Theseus and Minotaur myth, told in verse. Much like Lin-Manuel Miranda did in Hamilton, the New York Times best-selling author David Elliott turns a classic on its head in form and approach, updating the timeless story of Theseus and the Minotaur for a new generation. A rough, rowdy, and darkly comedic young adult retelling in verse, Bull will have readers reevaluating one of mythology's most infamous monsters.
The Good Braider by
Like Mark Bixler’s adult book The Lost Boys of Sudan (2005), this powerful novel tells today’s refugee story from a young viewpoint, but here the Sudanese teen is a girl. In free-verse poems, Viola, 16, remembers being driven from home in the brutal civil war, then the long, barefoot trek to Khartoum and Cairo, escaping land mines and suffering hunger along the way, until at last she and her mother get refugee status, board a plane, and join her uncle in Portland, Maine’s Sudanese community. Never exploitative, Viola’s narrative will grip readers with its harsh truths: the shame of her rape in Sudan and the loss of her “bride wealth”; the heartbreak when her little brother dies during their escape; her wrenching separation from her grandmother. The contemporary drama in Maine is also moving and immediate. At 17, Viola is thrilled to go to school, and she makes friends, even a boyfriend who teaches her to drive: but can he get over her rape? Always there is her mother, enraged by the new ways. An essential addition to the growing list of strong immigrant stories for youth.
Girl in Pieces by
As she struggles to recover and survive, seventeen-year-old homeless Charlotte "Charlie" Davis cuts herself to dull the pain of abandonment and abuse.
Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow by
In the rough Paris housing projects, Doria, 15, a child of Muslim immigrant parents, sets her soap-opera dreams against the grim daily struggle, even as she does sometimes find the bold and the beautiful in herself and in her neighborhood. "It's like a film script. . . . Trouble is, our scriptwriter's got no talent. And he's never heard of happily ever after."Author Guene, 19, has grown up in the neighborhood she writes about, and her irreverent commentary never denies how hard it is. The first-person contemporary narrative, translated from the French, is touching, furious, sharp, and very funny. Since Doria's dad moved back to Morocco to marry again (he wants a son), Mom cleans hotel rooms, and Doria wants to drop out of school. The boy she loves is in trouble with drugs and loves someone else. Honest about the oppression of women and about the prejudice, both ways, Guene also shows those who break free. Much like enduring the pain of her wisdom teeth, she discovers that "it hurts to learn."
Grendel's Guide to Love and War by
Tom Grendel is used to being the youngest in his retiree-friendly neighborhood of Lake Heorot, where he lives with his dad, a U.S. Army major who came back from Iraq broken. Tom, whose mom died when he was young, anticipates a quiet Virginia summer, spent mowing his elderly neighbors’ lawns and hanging with Ed, his wine-brewing, Korean-not-Japanese best friend. Then the Rothgars arrive: behemoth jock Rex and his sister, Willow, Tom’s childhood crush. When Rex’s loud parties start to have a debilitating effect on Tom’s dad, Tom and Ed take matters into their own hands. Several pranks later, it seems like they have the upper hand, until Rex’s cousin Wolf shows up to turn the tables. This modern adaptation contains numerous sly references to Beowulf (keep an eye on those draconian old ladies!) as it sympathizes with the villain—didn’t Grendel just want quieter neighbors? Tom himself is utterly sympathetic, and buoyant supporting characters help make this a particularly clever and sometimes poignant tale of summertime pranks gone wrong.
Literally by
Short, sweet, and brazenly meta, Keating’s (Dreamology, 2016) sophomore novel finds perfectionist Annabelle (or AB) wondering what has happened to the sublime life she’s always known on Venice Beach. Her parents are unexpectedly divorcing and selling the House, her beloved and picturesque childhood home. Things aren’t all bad, though: new student Will shows up halfway through their senior year of high school and seems to be made for her. They have everything in common, and he always says exactly the right swoonworthy thing. But when class guest-speaker Lucy Keating reveals that AB is the protagonist in her new novel, AB is not content to have someone else write her life . . . literally. Cleverly and at times hilariously playing with YA romance tropes and its own self-awareness, Literally has its characters secretly conspiring against their author in bathrooms: “The one place a writer never writes about.” It is a quirky little love story that might end a bit predictably but takes an avant-garde route on the way there.
Just Fly Away by
When fifteen-year-old Lucy Willows discovers that her father has a child from a brief affair, an eight-year-old boy who lives in her own suburban New Jersey town, she begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her home and her life. How could Lucy's father have betrayed the entire family? How could her mother forgive him? And why isn't her sister rocked by the news the way Lucy is?
As her father's secret becomes her own, Lucy grows more and more isolated from her friends, her family, and even her boyfriend, Simon, the one person she thought understood her. When Lucy escapes to Maine, the home of her mysteriously estranged grandfather, she finally begins to get to the bottom of her family's secrets and lies.
Thunder over Kandahar by
Teenagers Tamanna and Yasmine, having seen their dream to become educated ruined when their school building was burned down by the Taliban, find themselves fleeing from the terrorist organization and facing mortal dangers in their travels through mountain passes.
If I Was Your Girl by
Eighteen-year-old Amanda, the new girl at Lambertville High, has a closely guarded secret. At her old school, she was Andrew, battered and abused for being different. Following surgery, Amanda is now transsexual and has come to live with her divorced father, hoping to spend her last year in her new school as invisibly as possible—she is emotionally numb from the ordeal of her life so far, the circumstances of which readers learn in a series of dramatic flashbacks. But then she meets sweet, gentle Grant and, despite herself and her fears, finds herself falling in love, and it’s obvious he returns those feelings. But what will happen if he learns the truth? Russo, a trans woman, writes with authority and empathy, giving readers not only an intellectual but also an emotional understanding of Amanda and her compelling story. Never didactic, this debut is a valuable contribution to the slender but growing body of literature about trans teens.
The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love by
Graham is in love with his best friend, Roxy—he just isn’t sure how to tell her. So when the author of their favorite comic-book series appears on the schedule of New York Comic Con, it seems like a sign. Unfortunately, during Comic Con weekend every romantic gesture Graham puts into motion gets crushed, leaving him to wonder if he’ll ever be the geek to get the girl. Tash mixes just the right number of pop-culture references into her familiar teen love story, utilizing the Comic Con setting to truly set the novel apart. Though the predictability of certain plot points risks turning characters into stock high-schoolers, the realistic dialogue saves them. The story’s pacing allows readers to feel as if they’re experiencing the conference in real time, making Tash’s lighthearted romance easy to get swept up in. This book will appeal to fans of geek culture, particularly those who have daydreamed about getting the guy or girl, all while wearing a cape.
Strange the Dreamer by
"In the aftermath of a war between gods and men, a hero, a librarian, and a girl must battle the fantastical elements of a mysterious city stripped of its name."
The Takedown by
Park Prep senior Kyla Cheng owns her school: shoo-in for valedictorian, debate team champ, and one of a group of four popular girls who always have one another’s back. She’s also finally snagged the attention of reigning hottie Mac Rodriguez. Then a (fake) video of her having sex with the attractive English teacher turns up online and suddenly Kyla’s facing trouble on every front. Wang’s debut, set in a barely future Brooklyn, hinges on privacy and betrayal, with cleverly placed clues to guide the reader as Kyla searches for her unknown tormentor. Tech geeks will revel in the unapologetic computerspeak that permeates the text, as well as the humorous (and sometimes stereotyped but always positive) depiction of techies, female and male. In Wang’s future world, one’s cell phone takes on primary importance, something most teens can certainly identify with. Snappy dialogue, a keen empathy for the pressure cooker of high school, and a wryly self-conscious narrative tone combine for a page-turner that may feel dated in 10 years but is extremely relevant right now.
By Your Side by
One quick trip to the library bathroom at closing time later, and Autumn finds herself locked in a building closed down for the weekend, right before she is supposed to take off with friends for an overnighter (“I was locked in the library, trying not to panic. Literally locked. As in no escape”). Her backpack—and cell phone—is already in the car. It’s cold. It’s scary. And she’s not alone. A mysterious loner from school, Dax Miller, is also locked in, although he planned it that way to escape his abusive foster family. Readers might be skeptical of Autumn’s inability to contact the outside world, but that would take away the more compelling Breakfast Club backdrop of this evolving romance. When a shocking explanation reveals why Autumn’s friends, and even her parents, do not come back to find her, this engaging story takes off. West skillfully zeroes in on peer pressure, a complex labyrinth of friendships, and Autumn’s anxiety issues and conflicted feelings about boyfriends in a realistic and insightful way.
Gem and Dixie by
"Gem has never known what it is to have security. She's never known an adult she can truly rely on. But the one constant in her life has been Dixie. Gem grew up taking care of her sister when no one else could: not their mother, whose issues make it hard for her to keep food on the table, and definitely not their father, whose intermittent presence is the only thing worse than his frequent absence. Even as Gem and Dixie have grown apart, they've always had each other"
Option B by
Sandberg, author of the mega-hit Lean In (2013) and COO for Facebook, teams up with Wharton’s top professor, Grant, also a best-selling author, most recently of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World (2016), in this powerful treatise about overcoming life’s toughest challenges. After Sheryl’s husband, Dave, passed away unexpectedly in 2015, she was consumed by grief and terrified that their two children wouldn’t have a normal, healthy childhood without their father. With the support of family, friends, and psychologist Grant, she was able to find her way back to happiness. Sandberg and Grant explore how we deal with adversity, but perhaps more important, they discuss how we can be fiercely resilient in the face of tragedy. Sandberg embraced the idea that when option A fails you, you must find another way. And so she moved on to option B. Sandberg and Grant weave her personal journey into a larger, more inclusive framework of adversity in this well-researched book of facts and sound advice that will serve as a guide to those impacted by life’s wicked curve balls. Option B is not simply a self-help book for those who are suffering; rather, it is a richly informed, engaging read that will broaden readers’ understanding of empathy and reveal the strength of the human spirit.
We Should All Be Feminists by
In this personal, eloquently-argued essay--adapted from her much-admired TEDx talk of the same name--Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award-winning author of Americanah, offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness. Drawing extensively on her own experiences and her deep understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics, here is one remarkable author's exploration of what it means to be a woman now--and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.
Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by
A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie's letter of response.
Here are fifteen invaluable suggestions--compelling, direct, wryly funny, and perceptive--for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman. From encouraging her to choose a helicopter, and not only a doll, as a toy if she so desires; having open conversations with her about clothes, makeup, and sexuality; debunking the myth that women are somehow biologically arranged to be in the kitchen making dinner, and that men can "allow" women to have full careers, Dear Ijeawele goes right to the heart of sexual politics in the twenty-first century. It will start a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today.
The Case Against Sugar by
Delves into the history of sugar, its uses as a preservative, and its overuse in American culture.
Wires and Nerve by
"When rogue packs of wolf-hybrid soldiers threaten the tenuous peace alliance between Earth and Luna, Iko takes it upon herself to hunt down the soldiers' leader. She is soon working with a handsome royal guard who forces her to question everything she knows about love, loyalty, and her own humanity. With appearances by Cinder, Cress, Scarlet, Winter, and the rest of the Rampion crew"
Killers of the Flower Moon by
During the early 1920s, many members of the Osage Indian Nation were murdered, one by one. After being forced from several homelands, the Osage had settled in the late nineteenth century in an unoccupied area of Oklahoma, chosen precisely because it was “rocky, sterile, and utterly unfit for cultivation.” No white man would covet this land; Osage people would be happy. Then oil was soon discovered below the Osage territory, speedily attracting prospectors wielding staggering sums and turning many Osage into some of the richest people in the world. Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, 2010) centers this true-crime mystery on Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman who lost several family members as the death tally grew, and Tom White, the former Texas Ranger whom J. Edgar Hoover sent to solve the slippery, attention-grabbing case once and for all. A secondary tale of Hoover’s single-minded rise to power as the director of what would become the FBI, his reshaping of the bureau’s practices, and his goal to gain prestige for federal investigators provides invaluable historical context. Grann employs you-are-there narrative effects to set readers right in the action, and he relays the humanity, evil, and heroism of the people involved. His riveting reckoning of a devastating episode in American history deservedly captivates.