NYU freshman Mariam Vakilian is finding it hard to adjust to her breakup with her high-school boyfriend Caleb, who is attending college in California. Although they had dated for three glorious and happy years, Caleb decided that a long-distance relationship… Read More ›
Navigating through High School
Opposite of Always
Eighteen-year-old Jack King’s two best friends in the world are Jillian and Franny (Francisco). Unfortunately, Jack has been in love with Jillian since they met at the beginning of freshman year at Elytown High, though she is unaware of how… Read More ›
Sorry for Your Loss
Pup Flanagan has spent most of his seventeen years as (in his mind) an undistinguished person compared to his seven older siblings. At school he is accepted by his classmates but generally ignored, neither liked nor disliked. He has no… Read More ›
Ordinary Girls
Here’s a modern day send-up of a Jane Austen novel: two young girls–their acclaimed novelist father deceased for many years–live with their inept artistic mother in a shabby but genteel Victorian house in a Philadelphia neighborhood. They subsist on royalties… Read More ›
famous in a small town
Ahh, summer days in a small midwestern town when you’re a high school junior-soon-to-be-senior working the usual low-wage jobs, attending summer band practice, planning for college and worrying about just how far away you want to get from home once… Read More ›
Better Than the Best Plan
Weeks before the beginning of summer vacation, seventeen-year-old Ritzy finds herself living alone in the apartment where she and her mom have been staying for the past three years. Her mom, a free-spirited devotee of holistic living and seeker of self-fulfillment,… Read More ›
Girl Gone Viral
Opal, Shane and Moyo are classmates at the very prestigious Palo Alto Academy of Science and Technology (PAAST) and partners in entering the Make-A-Splash virtual reality contest, aspiring to win a million-dollar-prize, a channel of their own on WAVE (the… Read More ›
How to Make Friends with the Dark
The protagonist of this book, Grace (aka Tiger), is a high school sophomore living in a small Arizona desert town. She does not know who her father is/was, and her mother is secretive about most other parts of her past… Read More ›
Hope and Other Punch Lines
Here’s an original book that sets its action fifteen years after the 9-11 World Trade Center disaster (making it a timely subject when you consider current congressional slowness in renewing financial support for victims dealing with resulting serious, life-threatening medical… Read More ›
The First True Thing
First of all, let me say the blurbs on these book jackets are nonsense. This particular book, while worthy of notice and thought, will not leave you “breathless,” nor is it “heartbreaking” or particularly “raw.” OK, thank you, I feel… Read More ›
Before You Buy YA 