Difficult Relationships

When 16-year-old Polly O'Keefe journeys to Athens, she feels confused and betrayed. The past eight months at home were different from any other time in her life. She met the brilliant, wealthy Maximiliana Horne, who gave her encouragement and made her feel self-confident. Polly idolized Max - until she learned a startling truth that left her wounded and angry. Now on a trip to Greece arranged by Max, Polly finds romance, danger, and unique friendships.

When 16-year-old Alice is diagnosed with leukemia, her prognosis is grim. To maximize the time she does have, she vows to spend her final months righting wrongs - however she sees fit. She convinces her friend Harvey, who she knows has always had feelings for her, to help her with a crazy bucket list that's as much about revenge (humiliating her ex-boyfriend and getting back at her archnemesis) as it is about hope (doing something unexpectedly kind for a stranger).

Quinlan McKee has spent her life acting as other people. She was a closer - a person hired to play the roles of the recently deceased in order to give their families closure. Through this process, Quinn learned to read people and situations, even losing a bit of herself to do so. But she couldn't have guessed how her last case would bring down her entire world.

For best friends Miliani, Inez, Natalie, and Jasmine, Providence, Rhode Island has a magic of its own. From the bodegas and late-night food trucks on Broad Street to The Hill that watches over the city, every corner of Providence glows with memories of them practicing spells, mixing up potions and doing séances with the help of the magic Miliani’s Filipino grandfather taught her.

If you or someone you love grew up with an emotionally unavailable, narcissistic, or selfish parent, you probably struggle with residual feelings of anger, abandonment, loneliness, or shame. For anyone who endured a nightmare or a wasteland instead of a nurturing childhood, The Toxic Parents Survival Guide will offer you the clinical insights and the day-to-day tools so you can break the chains of toxicity that bind you in a mess you didn't create.

Since the day her mother died, Jem has known about the numbers. Numbers that pop into her head when she looks into someone’s eyes. They’re dates, the numbers. Dates predicting with brute accuracy each person’s death. Burdened by such grim knowledge, Jem avoids relationships. Until she meets Spider, another outsider, and takes a chance. Maybe they can find happiness together, if only in the brief time that remains before his expiration date.

Low broke Cage’s heart by getting with Marcus in Because of Low. Cage went into a tailspin that ended in a DUI. In order to salvage his baseball scholarship - the one thing he truly valued besides Low - Cage must take a summer job. At a farm. Away from Sea Breeze. With lots of cows, but no hot girls. Maybe that’s what Cage needs to get back on track. But wait - there’s that hostile daughter of the farm boss. She’s pretty and occasionally sweet, and there seems to be a lot of sadness and mystery behind her anger.

It was bad enough that they had to move to Brooklyn. Brooklyn Heights, as Tucker Woolf's dad instructs him to tell everyone after he loses his job. Now his father has suddenly developed an allergy to Tucker's cat, Nader, a nine-month-old calico Tucker found underneath a Chevrolet. Tucker's beloved pet finds a new home with overweight, outrageous Susan "Dinky" Hocker, the only person to answer Tucker's ad. As Tucker starts paying regular visits to Dinky's house to check up on Nader, his life begins to change.

Harry wants nothing more than to write Hollywood screenplays. He knows the first step toward achieving that goal is winning a screenwriting competition that will seal his admission into the college of his dreams, so he’s determined to spend his summer free of distractions—also known as boys—and finish his script. After last year, Harry is certain love only exists in the movies anyway.

It's senior year at St. Joan's Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys' texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can't. First it's the school's queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: Seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan's buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.

Seventeen-year-old honors student Coretta White's Tumblr, Little White Lies - her witty thoughts on pretty much...everything - has gone viral. She's got hundreds of thousands of followers; she's even been offered a TV deal. But Coretta has a secret. She hasn't been writing all her own posts. Stressed from the demands of the sudden attention, she hired an expert ghostwriter, 41-year-old Karl Ristoff, to keep the Tumblr going.

Have you ever felt burdened by shame and secrecy? Do you want to reclaim your voice and your worth? If so, then you are not alone. Many people grapple with the weight of their past and the pain that often accompanies it. In Stronger in the Difficult Places, Dr. Zoe Shaw shares her unflinchingly honest story of finding self-forgiveness and triumph over a lifetime of shame, stemming from racial identity struggles as a Black girl, a teen pregnancy, a forced adoption, a dysfunctional marriage, and the mistaken belief that having a child with special needs was a punishment.

Meet Simone, the bohemian transfer student from London, who is thrust into the strange new reality of an American high school; Mallory, the hypercompetitive queen bee; and Stephen, the first-generation genius who struggles with crippling self-doubt. Each one is shocked when a popular classmate takes his own life...except not too shocked. It's happened before. With so many students facing their own demons, can they find a way to save each other - as well as themselves?

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe meets I'll Give You the Sun in an exhilarating and emotional novel about the growing relationship between two teen boys, told through the letters they write to one another. Jonathan Hopkirk and Adam "Kurl" Kurlansky are partnered in English class, writing letters to one another in a weekly pen-pal assignment. With each letter, the two begin to develop a friendship that eventually grows into love. But with homophobia, bullying, and devastating family secrets, Jonathan and Kurl struggle....

Through the telling of events from his own life, Wes Moore (author of the best-selling adult title The Other Wes Moore) explores the issues that separate success and failure. He also counterpoints his story with another man, someone who shared the same name, was almost the same age, grew up fatherless in a similar Baltimore neighborhood, but is serving a life sentence for murder. Compelled to write to the other Wes, the author was surprised to receive a reply. And so began a friendship, as letters turned into visits and the two men got to know one another.

Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated polygamous community without questioning her father's three wives and her twenty brothers and sisters. Or at least without questioning them much—if you don't count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her. But when the Prophet decrees that Kyra must marry her 60-year-old uncle—who already has six wives—Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family.

Cassel always thought he was an ordinary guy, until he realized his memories were being manipulated by his brothers. Now he knows the truth - he’s the most powerful curse worker around. A touch of his hand can transform anything - or anyone - into something else. That was how Lila, the girl he loved, became a white cat. Cassel was tricked into thinking he killed her, when actually he tried to save her. Now that she’s human again, he should be overjoyed. Trouble is, Lila’s been cursed to love him. And if Lila’s love is as phony as Cassel’s made-up memories, then he can’t believe anything she says or does.

Every human being has the same number of hours each day, no more no less. Yet, you’re surrounded by people who accomplish more in one day than you have in one week. Why is that? You can’t buy time, nor slow it down. No matter how much time you’ve wasted, you still have an entire tomorrow. Don’t let it go to waste because it’s never too late to seek transformation in your life.

The two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt delivers the shattering story of Joseph, a father at 13 who has never seen his daughter, Jupiter. After spending time in a juvenile facility, he’s placed with a foster family on a farm in rural Maine. Here Joseph, damaged and withdrawn, meets 12-year-old Jack, who narrates the account of the troubled, passionate teen who wants to find his baby at any cost. In this riveting novel, two boys discover the true meaning of family and the sacrifices it requires.

Mackenzie, Ava, Caitlin, Julie, and Parker have done some not-so-perfect things. Even though they all talked about killing rich bully Nolan Hotchkiss, they didn't actually go through with it. It's just a coincidence that Nolan died in exactly the way they planned...right? Except Nolan wasn't the only one they fantasized about killing. When someone else they named dies, the girls wonder if they're being framed. Or are they about to become the killer's next targets?