Difficult Teens

Eden Monro came to California for a summer of sun, sand and celebrities - what better way to forget about the drama back home? Until she meets her new family of strangers: a dad she hasn't seen in three years, a step-monster and three stepbrothers. Eden gets her own room in her dad's fancy house in Santa Monica. A room right next door to her oldest stepbrother, Tyler Bruce. Whom she cannot stand. He's got angry green eyes and ego bigger than a Beverly Hills mansion. She's never felt such intense dislike for someone.

To get away from his chaotic, often violent parents, 17-year-old Jesse has moved into an apartment with his brother. They are both taking community college courses in Fresno. But to pay for them, they must take whatever jobs they can find, even backbreaking field work. The path to a good education isn't going to be an easy one for these two young Mexican-Americans. As Jesse absorbs information in his classes, he learns harsher lessons from the people around him.

In the affluent town of Weslyn, Connecticut, where most people worry about what to be seen in and who to be seen with, Emma Thomas would rather not be seen at all. She’s more concerned with feigning perfection - pulling down her sleeves to conceal the bruises, not wanting anyone to know how far from perfect her life truly is. Without expecting it, she finds love. It challenges her to recognize her own worth - at the risk of revealing the terrible secret she’s desperate to hide.

Tyrell is a young African-American teen who can't get a break. He's living (for now) with his spaced-out mother and little brother in a homeless shelter. His father's in jail. His girlfriend supports him, but he doesn't feel good enough for her - and seems to be always on the verge of doing the wrong thing around her. There's another girl at the homeless shelter who is also after him, although the desires there are complicated. Tyrell feels he needs to score some money to make things better. Will he end up following in his father's footsteps?

With a rocky start to senior year, cheerleaders and lifelong best friends Eleanor and Chanel have a lot on their minds. Eleanor is still in physical therapy months after a serious concussion from a failed cheer stunt. Chanel starts making questionable decisions to deal with the mounting pressure of college applications. But they have each other's backs - just as always, until Eleanor's new relationship with star quarterback Three starts a rift between them.

Always be ready for the worst day of your life. This is the mantra that Becca Aldaine has grown up with. Her family is part of a community of doomsday preppers, a neighborhood that prioritizes survivalist training over class trips or senior prom. They're even arranging Becca's marriage with Roy Kang, the only eligible boy in their community. Roy is a nice guy, but he's so enthusiastic about prepping that Becca doesn't have the heart to tell him she's planning to leave as soon as she can earn a full ride to a college far, far away.

Brie's life ends at sixteen: Her boyfriend tells her he doesn't love her, and the news breaks her heart - literally. But now that she's in heaven, Brie is about to discover that love is way more complicated than she ever imagined. Back in Half Moon Bay, her family has begun to unravel. Her best friend knows a secret about Jacob, the boy she loved and lost - and the truth behind his shattering betrayal. And then there's Patrick, Brie's mysterious new guide and resident Lost Soul...

Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in fragile bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the thinnest. But then Cassie suffers the ultimate loss - her life - and Lia is left behind, haunted by her friend's memory and racked with guilt for not being able to help save her.

Eden was always good at being good. Starting high school didn’t change who she was. But the night her brother’s best friend rapes her, Eden’s world capsizes. What was once simple, is now complex. What Eden once loved—who she once loved—she now hates. What she thought she knew to be true, is now lies. Nothing makes sense anymore, and she knows she’s supposed to tell someone what happened but she can’t. So she buries it instead. And she buries the way she used to be.

Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. She still had her parents and her big brother; she still had her home. She had a normal teenager’s life. Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors daily. Secretly, though, she is desperate to find a way out of her beloved country before her sister-in-law, Layla, gives birth. So desperate, that she has manifested a physical embodiment of her fear in the form of her imagined companion.

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die. Cassia has always trusted the Society’s choices. And when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, she is certain he’s the one - until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now she is faced with impossible choices: Between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s ever known and a path no has dared to follow...between perfection and the truth.

When Brittany Ellis walks into chemistry class on the first day of senior year, she has no clue that her carefully created perfect life is about to unravel before her eyes. She's forced to be lab partners with Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, and he is about to threaten everything she's worked so hard for her flawless reputation, her relationship with her boyfriend, and the secret that her home life is anything but perfect.

Life at 15 isn't easy for a girl if she's shy and hates the way she looks. Each day is heaven or hell, depending on who talks to her, or who doesn't. So when she's finally accepted by a group, she doesn't refuse their party games, even if it means taking LSD. Soon she's taking little pills to wake up and others to go to sleep, and the days begin to blur. Based on a 15-year-old's diary, Go Ask Alice is the intimate account of one girl's fatal journey into the world of drug addiction.

First-generation American LatinX Liliana Cruz does what it takes to fit in at her new nearly all-white school. But when family secrets spill out and racism at school ramps up, she must decide what she believes in and take a stand.

When a letter that was never meant to be seen by anyone draws high school senior Evan Hansen into a family's grief over the loss of their son, he is given the chance of a lifetime: to belong. He just has to stick to a lie he never meant to tell: that the notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend. Suddenly, Evan isn't invisible anymore - even to the girl of his dreams. And Connor Murphy's parents, with their beautiful home on the other side of town, have taken him in like he was their own, desperate to know more about their enigmatic son from his closest friend.

Carver Briggs never thought a simple text would cause a fatal crash, killing his three best friends, Mars, Eli, and Blake. But now Carver can't stop blaming himself for the accident, and, even worse, a powerful judge is pressuring the district attorney to open up a criminal investigation. Luckily, Carver has some unexpected allies: Eli's girlfriend, the only person to stand by him at school; Dr. Mendez, his new therapist; and Blake's grandmother, who asks Carver to spend a "goodbye day" together to share their memories and say a proper farewell.

Wilhelmina Hart is part of the infamous class of 2020. Her high school years began with a shocking presidential election and ended with a pandemic. In the midst of this global turmoil, she also lost one of her beloved aunts, a loss she still feels keenly. Having deferred college, Wilhelmina now lives in a limbo she can see no way out of, like so many of her peers.

Seventeen-year-old Pavol has watched his country's freedoms disappear in the wake of the Soviet Union's invasion. He's seen his own dreams disappear too. In a desperate, fatal act of protest against the oppressive new government, he sets himself on fire in public, hoping to motivate others to fight for change.

Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for Girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal—which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home; it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile, or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways.

Fed up with her wild behavior, 16-year-old Lex’s parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure. He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach Lex the family business. She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next.