Difficult Emotions

At the Manhattan High School for the Arts, where everyone is “different” and everyone is “special,” Gretchen Yee feels ordinary. She’s the kind of girl who sits alone at lunch, drawing pictures of Spider-Man, so that she won’t have to talk to anyone; who has a crush on Titus but won’t do anything about it; who has no one to hang out with when her best (and only real) friend, Katya, is busy.

Small-town Wisconsin high school senior Allison Smith loves her life the way it is - spending quality time with her widowed father and her tight-knit circle of friends, including best friend Marian and maybe-more-than-friends Neil. Sure she is stressed out about college applications...who wouldn’t be? In a few short months, everything’s going to change, big time. But when Ally files her applications, they send up a red flag...because she’s not Allison Smith. And Ally’s - make that Amanda’s - ordinary life is suddenly blown apart.

Darren Johnson lives in his head. There, he can pine for his crush—total dream girl, Delia Dawson—in peace, away from the unsolicited opinions of his talkative family and showboat friends. When Delia announces a theme song contest for her popular podcast, Dillie D in the Place to Be, Darren’s friends—convinced he’ll never make a move—submit one of his secret side projects for consideration.

Juan has plans. He’s going to get out of El Paso, Texas, on a basketball scholarship and make something of himself - or at least find something better than his mom Fabi’s cruddy apartment, her string of loser boyfriends, and a dead dad. His best friend, JD, has plans, too. He’s going to be a filmmaker one day. Fabi doesn’t have a plan anymore. When you get pregnant at 16 and have been stuck bartending to make ends meet for the past 17 years, you realize plans don’t always pan out and that there are some things for which you just can’t plan....

A glance was all it took. That kind of connection, the immediate and raw understanding of another person, just doesn't come along very often. And as rising stars on their Texas high schools' respective basketball teams, destined for bright futures in college and beyond, it seems like a match made in heaven. But Carli and Rex have secrets. As do their families.

It’s summer 1977 and closeted lesbian Tammy Larson can’t be herself anywhere. Not at her strict Christian high school, not at her conservative Orange County church and certainly not at home, where her ultrareligious aunt relentlessly organizes antigay political campaigns. Tammy’s only outlet is writing secret letters in her diary to gay civil rights activist Harvey Milk...until she’s matched with a real-life pen pal who changes everything.

Debut author Dante Medema explores the emotional fallout after a teenage girl discovers she is the product of an affair. Told through a series of poems, text messages, and emails, this contemporary YA is perfect for fans of Ellen Hopkins and Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin. Seventeen-year-old Cordelia Koenig intended to breeze through her senior project. While her peers stressed, Cordelia planned to use the same trace-your-roots genealogy idea her older sister used years prior. And getting partnered with her longtime crush, Kodiak Jones, is icing on the cake.

Trapped by the limitations of her middle school adjective and the realities of her mother's alcohol addiction, Sophie's perspective on what being pretty really means changes drastically in the second adjective-busting novel by the author of Husky, Justin Sayre. Set three months after Husky's conclusion and narrated by Sophie, Davis' best friend, Sayre details the private and public life of someone saddled with the adjective of pretty.

It all starts with a text: Please, Wylie, I need your help. Wylie hasn't heard from Cassie in over a week, not since their last fight. But that doesn't matter. Cassie's in trouble, so Wylie decides to do what she has done so many times before: save her best friend from herself.

Gardner Dickinson is almost 15, and his life is a mess. His bedroom is littered with library books he never reads. He daydreams about building muscles, but never gets around to it. Worst of all, his recently laid-off dad is more interested in playing golf than finding a new job. But one day life starts to click for Gardner. He finishes a few of those library books, begins running after school and starts earning some spare cash - and those muscles he’s craved - by splitting wood for the neighbors.

Teenage life is never easy. Spent mostly in a storm of emotions, uncertainty, and expectations, it brings with it a lot of pressure to stand on your own feet. Unfortunately, it also brings a lot of stress that can negatively affect your life. However, the answer to your worries lies in a simple word: mindfulness.

Keir Sarafian may not know much, but he knows himself. And the one thing he knows about himself is that he is a good guy. A guy who's a devoted son and brother, a loyal friend, and a reliable teammate. And, maybe most important of all, Keir is a guy who understands that when a girl says no, she means it. But that is not what Gigi Boudakian, childhood friend and Keir's lifelong love, says at all. What Gigi says seems impossible to Keir - something inexcusable - the worst thing he can imagine, the very opposite of everything he wants to be.

George’s life is loud. On the water, though, with everything hushed above and below, she is steady, silent. Then her estranged dad says he needs to talk, and George’s past begins to wake up, looping around her ankles, trying to drag her under. But there’s no time to sink. George’s best friend, Tess, is about to become, officially, a teen mom, her friend Laz is in despair about the climate crisis, her gramps would literally misplace his teeth if not for her, and her moms fill the house with fuss and chatter. Before long, heat and smoke join the noise as dis­tant wildfires begin to burn.

Then: Ingrid traveled all over Europe with her opera star mother, Margot-Sophia. Life was beautiful and bright, and every day soared with music. Now: Ingrid is on a summertime wilderness survival trek for at-risk teens: addicts, runaways, and her. She's fighting to survive crushing humiliations, physical challenges that push her to her limits, and mind games that threaten to break her.

For as long as Alice can remember, she has dreamed of Max. Together they have traveled the world and fallen deliriously, hopelessly in love. Max is the boy of her dreams - and only her dreams. Because he doesn't exist.

Bone and his sister, Squirrel, are stray dogs born in a shed. Left mother-less as puppies, the two dogs survive together for a while, but are soon wrenched apart, and Bone must now go on, alone. Charlie is a boy who has suffered a terrible loss. And, as he's healing with the help of his dog, another tragedy occurs. All Henry has wanted is a dog of his own, and now that his best friend has moved away, his parents still won't let him.

Jem Carstairs and Tessa Gray are finally united after waiting over a century to be together, but they become aware a dark threat is looming over a child of the Shadow Market: a lost Herondale, from a line of Herondales who have used the Market to hide from their fellow Nephilim. Now is the time for the lost Herondale to be discovered. Jem and Tessa have to find him before his enemies can.

This is Jordan and Courtney, totally in love. Sure, they were an unlikely high-school couple, but they clicked. They're even going to the same college, and driving cross-country together for orientation. Then Jordan dumps Courtney for a girl he met on the Internet. It's too late to change plans, so the road trip is on. Courtney's heartbroken, but figures she can tough it out for a few days. But in a strange twist, Jordan still cares. There's a thing or two he's not telling Courtney....

Rosalinda Fitzroy has been asleep for 62 years when she is woken by a kiss. Locked away in the chemically induced slumber of a stasis tube in a forgotten subbasement, 16-year-old Rose slept straight through the Dark Times that killed millions and utterly changed the world she knew. Now her parents and her first love are long dead, and Rose -  hailed upon her awakening as the long-lost heir to an interplanetary empire - is thrust alone into a future in which she is viewed as either a freak or a threat. Rose must face the ghosts of her past with open eyes....

Eleanor, like so many others, is used to watching her famous father from afar. To the world, Hugo Harrison is the brilliant and charismatic tech genius whose AI inventions seem to create a better new reality. But to Eleanor, whose mother had an affair with Hugo years ago, he is something even more intriguing, and dangerous—a secret. When Eleanor’s spying leads her to a posting for a live-in summer nanny job for Hugo's young son—her half-brother—she knows she has to apply. This is finally her chance to learn about her father, his family, and the life that could have been hers.