City of Quartz by Mike Davis

It took me a while but I finally finished this fascinating book. It is a social history of LA written in a great literary style. Would be cool if he decided to write an updated version.

Highly Recommended

Lamb by Christopher Moore

This is the story of Christ from his childhood up to his crucifixion as told, very humorously, by his childhood friend Levi known as Biff. From early revivals of dead lizards to a journey to find the three wise men, Jesus and Biff form the teachings of what is now Christianity. Told in a humorous but respectful manner.


Highly Recommended

Sleeping Freshman Never Lie by David Lubar

Scott has a lot to deal with. Not only is he trying to navigate high school but his parents have announced that his mother is pregnant. Told in a mixture of journal entries to his future brother or sister and narrative, this book is hilarious and real.

Highly Recommended

How I Paid For College by Marc Acito

17-year-old Edward Zanni thinks he has it made. He's got great friends, a beautiful girlfriend, a promising career as an actor, and his father, a successful businessman, has agreed to pay for him to go to Julliard. This all changes when his father gets remarried to a crazy Austrian photographer. Now he's cut off unless he majors in business. What's next? That's where the crazy schemes of his friend Natie come in. This is a novel of scheming, pranking, and lots of sexual experimentation. It is hilarious!

Highly Recommended

Rainbow Party by Paul Ruditis

This book is not fine literature but it does deal with an issue that is very timely for teens at the moment, oral sex. Sophomore Gin, after seeing a Dr. Donovan show on the topic, decides to host a rainbow party where each girl will wear a different color lipstick as they go down on a group of guys. The book is basically about the possible attendees and their decisions to go or not.

It's not the worst written book I've ever read but there is not much depth to the characters or the story. It is definitely obvious that someone said we need a book about oral sex, here you write it. I am sure that Sandpiper by Ellen Wittlinger will be a much better done book on this topic.

As Simple As Snow by Gregory Galloway

Anna Cayne loves puzzles and mysteries. So why is everyone so surprised when she disappears mysteriously, leaving behind her boyfriend to figure out the clues.

Shopgirl by Steve Martin, Read by Steve Martin

A nice little story about Mirabelle, a twenty-eight year-old glove saleslady at Neimans in Beverly Hills. She is a budding artist and suffers from severe depression. She finds her life turned upside-down when she starts a relationship with a wealthy customer, Ray Porter.

Recommended

Necklace of Kisses by Francesca Lia Block

Weetzie Bat is having a mid-life crisis. Ever since September 11th her Secret Agent Lover Man has not kissed her once. She escapes to the pink hotel and meets an assortment of strange characters who help her on her way.

Highly Recommended

Fresh Off the Boat by Melissa De La Cruz

When Vincenza's family abruptly moves to the US from the Philippines, she trades in her high-class lifestyle and friends for thrift store clothes and snobby private school classmates.

Recommended

Ready or Not by Meg Cabot

In this sequel to All-American Girl, Samantha Morton now has more to deal with than ever. She already has school and her Teen Ambassador duties but now her parents are making her get a job too. On top of all that her boyfriend, the President's son, has invited her to Camp David for Thanksgiving. Does this mean he wants to DO IT, and is she ready?


Highly Recommended

33 snowfish by Adam Rapp

"On top of everything else, Boobie's got the clap." (first line of 33 snowfish)

Boobie, Curl, Custis and the baby are on the run; from the law and from their lives. A gritty story of neglect and redemption.

Recommended

rhymes with witches by Lauren Myracle

Jane wants popularity and she's willing to do anything to get it. So when The Bitches choose her as their freshman member, she is elated. That is until she finds out where their popularity comes from. Just how far will she go to keep her new-found popularity?

Highly Recommended

The Brimstone Journals by Ron Koertge

The jock, the minorities, the Jesus freak, the environmentalist, the white supremacist, the gamer, the anorexic, the lesbian, something's up...

Recommended

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs* by Chuck Klosterman

This book is hilarious! He riffs on everything from serial killers to Sims to Saved By The Bell. I laughed out loud many times.

Highly Recommended

*A Low Culture Manifesto

Romiette and Julio by Sharon Draper

As you might have guessed from the title, this is a modern take on the Romeo and Juliet story. It takes place in Cincinnati, Ohio. Julio is a Mexican-American transfer student from Texas and Romiette is the African-American girl he meets in a chat room who happens to go to his school. They hit it off immediately but not everyone is happy. A new gang called the Devildogs doesn't think Romi should be with anyone who is not black and they are determined to keep it that way.

Highly Recommended

Fab by Kieran Batts Morrow, Tiffany Anderson, Adreinne Carter & Tracy Richelle High

A chick-lit novel for African-Americans. 4 upper-middle class Black women, two of whom write for Eve, write about 4 upper-middle class, Black, ivy-league women trying to find love and work they enjoy.

It's decently written and enjoyable but definitely fluffy.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Oskar Schell is a precocious nine-year-old whose father died in the World Trade Center on September 11th. This is his search for peace. But it is also the story of his grandparents who survived the bombing of Dresden.

Highly Recommended

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

A beautiful, heartbreaking novel about searching for the past and finding yourself. Alex is the young Ukrainian who helps Jonathan on his search for the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Alex writes to Jonathan with his chapters about the search and Jonathan intersperses them with chapters about his family's history. Incredibly sad and really makes you think about the real meaning of good and evil.

Highly Recommended

Alice on Her Way by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

The latest installment in the Alice series. Alice is getting ready to turn 16 and she has a lot to deal with: learning to drive, a new boyfriend and maybe even sex!

Always real, always good.

Highly Recommended

The Sledding Hill by Chris Crutcher

Billy Bartholomew is dead but that isn't keeping him from helping out his best friend Eddie Proffit and narrating this story. Eddie has lost both his father and his best friend in less than a month's time and now he has stopped talking. That is until the ultra-conservative Reverend Tarter decides to use him to help ban a book.

A really simple story about complex things, classic Crutcher.

Highly Recommended

Y: The Last Man (volumes 1-4) by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra

The premise of this comic book is that a sudden plague has hit the earth, killing every human, and other animal, with a Y chromosome. Somehow Yorick Brown and his pet monkey, Ampersand, have survived. What follows is their adventures as they travel with Agent 355 and biologist Dr. Mann to try to figure out a way to repopulate the earth. Parallel story lines involve Yorick's sister, Hero, joining the vigilante Amazons, his Congresswoman mother, and Israeli soldiers on a mission.

Highly Recommended

Brooklyn Rose by Ann Rinaldi

15-year-old Rose is the daughter of a plantation owner in Turn-of-the-Century South Carolina. After her older sister gets married, she finds that she also has a suitor: Rene Dumarest, the handsome, much older, French silk importer. Even though she marries him because of her family's financial situation, after they start making a life in Brooklyn, NY she realizes that maybe she loves him. Based on stories about the author's grandparents.

I didn't like it as much as some of her other books. Too slow and not enough conflict.

Recommended if you want a simple, chaste, period romance.

Looking For Alaska by John Green

Miles likes to learn famous peoples' last words and when he goes off to Culver Creek Prep school, for his junior year, he is looking for the Great Perhaps. Through his friendships with his roommate, The Colonel, and Alaska Young, the impulsive, crazy girl that he falls in love with, he learns a lot about himself and the world.

Highly Recommended

Bras and Broomsticks by Sarah Mlynowski, read by Ariadne Meyers

When Rachel finds out that her younger sister, Miri, is a witch, all she can see is the possibilities to improve her life: being popular in school and stopping her father's wedding. Unfortunately the results are not what she anticipated.

The audiobook was great but I've discovered that I can't really concentrate on audiobooks.

Highly Recommended

24 Girls in 7 Days by Alex Bradley

Jack Grammar has been dreaming about Senior Prom for years. So when his latest crush shoots him down, he is devastated. How will he find a date with Prom just around the corner? Unfortunately for him, his 2 best friends have a plan. After posting an online personal ad for him on the school website, they decide that he must go out with 24 girls in the next week and then choose one of them as his date.

Who will he choose? Read it and find out.

Highly Recommended

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

A humorous account of her pilgrimages to the related sites of the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. For those who love history, presidential assassinations, or just Sarah Vowell's wonderful voice.

Highly Recommended

I Was A Non-blonde Cheerleader by Kieran Scott

Annisa Grobowski is used to starting over since her English professor dad is constantly trying out new positions, but in Florida she gets more than she bargained for. She is the only brunette in the school and manages to make enemies of the popular girls, who will decide whether she makes the cheerleading squad, all in her first day. Luckily there's a cute boy who's nice to her, too bad he has a cheerleader girlfriend.

Light, fluffy and all works out in the end.

How to Deal (Someone Like You & That Summer) by Sarah Dessen

Someone Like You

When Halley's best friend Scarlett calls her at camp because her boyfriend just died in a car accident, she knows that everything is changing. From her relationship with her therapist mother to her relationships with boys and even with Scarlett, Halley realizes that things are not always as they seem. Great story of a teenagers trying to become adults.

Highly Recommended

That Summer

Haven is 15 and this summer both her dad and her older sister are getting married. Her dad to the young weather lady he left her mom for and her sister to an uptight guy whose appeal Haven just doesn't understand. When her favorite of her sister's exes comes back to town, Haven desperately tries to recapture the past magic but finds out that sometimes things are not that simple.

Highly Recommended

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

It is Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts and Voldemort is on the loose. There is quite a bit of snogging and sulking among the sixth years as they try to deal with their hormones, classes, and being on the look-out for Death Eaters. It's a year they will never forget.

I must say that I liked how she got right into the story this time with out any recapping of Harry's upbringing. I also thought that the writing was better this time around.

Highly Recommended

College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer

For those who want something more sophisticated than Harry Potter, check out this book. Faris Nallaneen has been sent to Greenlaw College by her uncle to keep her out of trouble until she takes over as duchess of Galazon when she comes of age. Even though she is skeptical about the supposed magic that is taught at Greenlaw, she and her friend Jane get caught up in a web of political intrigue and magic that almost costs them their lives.

Highly Recommended

The Rose Queen by M. E. Rabb
(#1 in the Missing Persons Series)

Sam and Sophie Shattenburg are on the lam. They have changed their identities and run away to Venice, Indiana to avoid being separated by their uncaring step-mother, now that their father has died. Unfortunately a popular teenage girl is now missing and she was last seen with Sam and Sophie. With the Venice police being inept, it's up to Sam and Sophie to clear their own names without blowing thier cover.
A quick, light read but not fluff.

Highly Recommended

One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture by Gerald Early
(revised and expanded edition, 2004)

A great, brief look at the history of Motown records, expanded with interviews of Berry Gordy, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye.

Recommended

The Music of Dolphins by Karen Hesse

Mila is a teenage girl who has been raised by dolphins since the age of four. This is her diary as she learns to speak and "be human".

Highly Recommended

Watching Alice: break the surface by Daniel Parker and Lee Miller

Supposedly the real diary of Tom Sinclair whose girlfriend Alice Brown has gone missing. This is the first of five books. It appears that the second one is Alice's diary. There is also a website with more clues and Tom's email address.

The book is okay but I don't think I'll read the rest.

Stoner and Spaz by Ron Koertge

Ben Bancroft has cerebral palsy. Colleen Minou is a drug-addict. Who would have thought they would end up being friends. A short, engaging read.

Highly Recommended

The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank

The second novel by the author of The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing.
Sophie Applebaum is the black sheep of her Jewish family. She doesn't know what she wants to do with her career, or her love life for that matter. Told in vignettes.

Highly Recommended

Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson

Ashley's best friend Nat is head of the Prom committee but Ashley could care less. That is until the math teacher runs off with all the money. Now Ashley has to jump in and help save Prom.

Highly Recommended

Fermata by Nicholson Baker

Arno Strine has a special power. He can stop time for everyone but himself. And how does he use this? To undress women, of course. Now he's writing his autobiography, Fermata, because he's ready to tell the world.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Rae, also known as Sunshine, is perfectly happy being a pastry chef at her stepfather's coffee house. Unfortunately her life is turned upside down when she is kidnapped by vampires and she manages to escape.
An incredibly well-written page-turner.

Highly Recommended

Shrimp by Rachel Cohn

This sequel to Gingerbread was very engaging and more mature than its predecessor. When Cyd Charisse returns from visiting her bio-dad in NYC she is totally ready to undo her break-up with Shrimp, but is he ready?

Kissing Vanessa by Simon Cheshire

Kevin think that he and the new girl, Vanessa, would be perfect together. Now all he has to do is get her to see it too.

Recommended

Ten Things To Do Before I Die by Daniel Ehrenhaft

When 16-year-old Ted Burger and his friends decide to make a list of the ten things he should do before he dies, it's just a joke. That is until Ted finds out he ate some poisoned fries and only has 24 hours to live.

the boyfriend list by e. lockhart

Panic attacks, friends stealing boyfriends, bathroom graffiti, and social leprosy; all in 10 days of Ruby Oliver's life. What would you do?

Highly Recommended

The Garden by Elsie V. Aidinoff

This is a novel about Eve, the Serpent, Adam, God and the Garden of Eden. Told from Eve's point of view, it is a novel about knowledge, wisdom, good, evil and what those really mean. Very interesting.

Highly Recommended

Princess in Training: Princess Diaries #6 by Meg Cabot

Mia is just starting her sophmore year of high school and already things are falling apart. Her best friend nominated her for student council president, she's worried about her new baby brother, and she's worried her college boyfriend expects her to DO IT. On top of all that, there's an international incident involving snails and algae. What's a princess to do?

Another great installment of the series. I especially loved when she ragged on the two Disney movie versions of her life.

Highly Recommended

Been There, Haven't Done That: a virgins memoir by Tara McCarthy

A 25-year-old virgin examines her life and her decision to wait until marriage for intercourse.

Highly Recommended

Vote For Larry by Janet Tashjian

Josh "Larry" Swenson comes out of hiding to run for President with the goal of getting more young people to vote. Things seem to be going well until betagold shows up again.

Recommended

Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause

When Vivian, a teenage werewolf, falls in love with a human boy, she must decide between loyalty to her feelings and loyalty to her pack.

Highly Recommended

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: the zero tolerance approach to punctuation by Lynne Truss

An entertaining look at the history and usage of punctuation.

Highly Recommended

Wolves in Chic Clothing by Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman

Julia, a northern California transplant to NYC, is a salesgirl at the tony Pelham's jewelry store where she hopes to work her way up to designing. When she is hand-picked to deliver a necklace to the Pelham heir, she finds herself invited into the world of high society. Even though she knows that she is just a pawn in the game, she gets caught up anyway with disastrous results. Although in true chick-lit style, it all turns out in the end.

Recommended

The Glass Cafe, or, The Stripper and the State; how my mother started a war with the system that made us kind of rich and a little bit famous by Gary Paulsen

This book is not much longer than the title :-) but it is engaging. When Tony decides he wants to be an artist and does portraits of his mother's co-workers down at the Kitty Kat Club, the State steps in to regulate with hilarious results.

Highly Recommended

godless by Peter Hautman

When Jason Bock invents a new religion to worship his town's water tower, he and his friends get more than they bargained for.

Highly Recommended

The Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashjian

When Josh starts an anonymous internet site that rails against commercialism under the guise of "Larry," it becomes more popular than he anticipated with unforeseen consequences.

Highly Recommended

ttyl by Lauren Myracle

Three best friends deal with boys, school, and their changing friendship as they navigate their first semester in 10th grade. Told entirely in IMs.

Highly Recommended

Bad Boys (Rush Hour Volume 2) edited by Michael Cart

The second volume in a new literary journal for young adults. The theme is bad boys and it has a mixture of shart stories, novel excepts, essays, and non-fiction excerpts by Jacqueline Woodson, Ron Koertge and Robert Lipsyte, just to name a few.

Highly Recommended

Margaux with an X by Ron Koergte

Margaux is beautiful and that is all guys seem to notice, until dorky Danny comes along and shows her that she has more to offer.


Highly Recommended

monkey business by Sarah Mlynowski

A great, funny novel about four business school students making their way through their first year in a dorm dubbed The Zoo. Sex, cheating, lying on applications, all in a years work for Kimmy, Russ, Layla, and Jamie.

Highly Recommended

Playing With Boys by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

Chick-lit with some substance to it. I didn't like it as much as Dirty Girl's Social Club but it was well-written.

Follows the lives of three very different Latinas (one Tejana, one former telenovelas star, and one from El Salvador) who become friends and help each navigate life, work and (of course) love. Also has a Cuban rapper.

Recommended

Girls in Pants: the third summer of the sisterhood by Ann Brashares

Another great installment in the traveling pants series. This one takes place in the girls' summer between high school and college. It focuses more on the girls and less on the pants.

I can't wait for the movie.

Highly recommended

Stuck in Neutral
Cruise Control by Terry Trueman

The same story told from two different perspectives. Shawn McDaniel is a 14-year-old with Cerebral Palsy and everyone thinks that he is a total vegetable but only he knows that he's not. Also, he thinks that his dad is planning to kill him. Cruise Control tells the story from the perspective of Shawn's successful, jock brother.

Fast-paced, good writing, believable.

Recommended

Girls' Night In Edited by Lauren Henderson, Chris Manby and Sarah Mlynowski

A great collection of short stories by some of the great chick-lit writers of the day.

Wonderful and light

Highly Recommended

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

A beautiful and bittersweet love story about the relationship between an artist and a time-traveling librarian. Wonderfully written, not very sci-fi.

Highly Recommended

My Scrumptious Scottish Dumplings: the Life of Angelica Cookson Potts by Cherry Whytock

The second installment of a charming series. In this episode Angel must deal with her father's protest against Harrod's for selling inferior haggis and her best friend moving to Florida.

Highly Recommended

Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher

When you have a name like The Tao Jones and you're a mixed-race adoptee of white parents in an extremely white, rural community you learn to be tough real quick. This is T. J.'s story.
It's about bringing together outsiders, becoming a team and what it means to be man.

Hilarious, heart-wrenching and real.

Highly Recommended

Every Boy's Got One by Meg Cabot

Another great chick-lit read from Cabot. Done in the style of compiled e-mails, journal entries, etc. it chronicles Jane Harris and Cal Langdon's trip to Italy to be the witnesses to their respective best friends elopement. Attraction and hilarity ensue. Made me want to visit Italy or at least eat at an authentic Italian restuarant.

My copy came with a bit at the end about how the story was based on the author's own elopement in Italy.

Highly Recommended

Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini

What if you could take a pill that would make you cool? What if it embedded a quantum super computer in your brain to give you instructions? Would you still want it? Well, Jeremy Heere does and this is his experience.

Very funny, realistic (with a sci-fi twist) story of what it means to be "cool".

Highly Recommended

Beyond The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Takes place at the end of the Spring semester, details the aftermath of the events in The Chocolate War.

Eh, I wasn't sucked in by it but I don't recall really liking the first one either. Just indifferent.

silent to the bone by E. L. Konigsburg

When Branwell's half-sister Nikki is rushed to the ER with head injuries, he stops speaking. It is up to his friend Connor, with the help of his half-sister Margaret Rose*, to find out what happened and clear Branwell's name. An engrossing mystery that you don't want to put down.

Highly Recommended

*from The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place

the first part last by Angela Johnson

A beautiful, sad, very real story of a teenage father starting to raise his daughter as a single father.

Winner of the Printz Award

Highly recommended

Feed by M. T. Anderson

Imagine a future where part of your brain is a connection to tv, radio, and the internet. Then imagine that everything is controlled by corporations, including School tm.

This is the future that Titus lives in and he can't imagine anything else, until he meets Violet. Their relationship causes him to question everything.

Highly recommended

Hilarious line: "It has to be understood that when the President referred to the Prime Minister of the Global Alliance as a 'big shithead,' what he was trying to convey was, uh- this is an American idiom used to praise people, by referring to the sheer fertilizing power of their thoughts."

Fat Kid Rules The World by K. L. Going

When fat kid Troy is saved from committing suicide by homeless, punk-rock legend, Curt McCrae, their journey to form a band changes both their lives in surprising ways.

Wonderful characters, wonderful writing

Highly recommended

echo by Francesca Lia Block

Echo is jealous that her mother is perfect AND has the complete attention and adoration of her father. This is her story told in chapters that have different viewpoints, including herself and her parents.

I found the story very confusing and the loose ends unsatisfying.

Wasteland by Francesca Lia Block

A brother and sister's love for each other has tragic consequences. Set in LA in the 70s.

Recommended

The Rose and the Beast: fairy tales retold by Francesca Lia Block

Short retallings of classic fairy tales with a LA twist. Very dark.

Recommended

The Grand Tour, or the purloined coronation regalia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

The second installment in the story of cousins Kate and Cecelia. Now they are on their honeymoons , together, touring the Continent and getting into magical adventures.

Highly recommended

Vegan Virgin Valentine by Carolyn Mackler

Mara Valentine is an overacheiving high school senior. Her one-year younger niece, V, is a wild child with a penchant for drama thanks to her flighty mother. When V moves in with Mara and her parents, both Mara and V are forced to examine their lives and end up becoming closer than they ever thought possible.

Highly Recommended

Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation by Olivia Judson

A wonderfully accessible look at the sexual practices of all manner of organisms, including humans. Written in advice column format.

Highly Recommended

Sorcery & Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer

This is a wonderful book that started out as a letter game between the authors. It takes place in an alternate universe of Regency England where magic exists. Two cousins, one making her debut in the London Season and the other having to stay home until next year, correspond and end up helping each other find love and solve a magical problem.

Highly Recommended

The Butler Did It by Kasey Michaels

A hilarious Regency romance

Recommended

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

An unsuprising expose of the fast food industry, from the restaurants themselves to the farms and factories that provide the food they use.

Highly Recommended

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

When Christopher, a fifteen year-old autistic boy, discovers his neighbors dog killed on the lawn he sets out to investigate it. This book is his written record. Bittersweet and very moving.

Highly Recommended

The Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot

A story about mistaken identities, attempted murder and finding love in NYC told through e-mails, voice mails and other communications.

Highly Recommended

Journal of Mortifying Moments by Robyn Harding

A young career woman embarks on a hilarious journey of self discovery when her therapists has her write down all her embarassing moments with men.

Highly recommended

Bare: on women, dancing, sex, & power by Elisabeth Eaves

The author examines the stripping industry from within through her own experiences and those of her co-workers.

Highly Recommended

Confessions of a Back-up Dancer by Tucker Shaw

A fun, well-written romp through the fictional lives of a teenager who gets to be a back-up dancer to a famous pop diva.

Highly Recommended

The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson

Three teenage sisters deal with the death of their father a year later. Very moving and well-written, plus they are Orioles fans.

Highly Recommended

The Long Secret by Louise Fitzhugh

The sequel to Harriet the Spy. Harriet and her friend Beth Ellen become embroiled in a mystery while on vacation.

Recommended

Various DaVinci Code explanation books:

DaVinci Code Decoded by Martin Lunn
DaVinci Deception by Erwin W. Lutzer
Cracking Da Vinci's Code by James L. Garlow and Peter Jones

Very interesting and all biased in their own ways

Going Topless by Megan McAndrew

At first glance it's just another chick lit novel but it turned out to have a bit of substance and plot.

Nickled and Dimed: on not getting by in America by Barbara Ereinreich

A pretty quick read of the author's experiences trying to make a living in three different cities working two low wage jobs.

recommended

Catholic Girls edited by Amber Coverdale Sumrall and Patricia Vecchione

A collection of short stories by former Catholic girls about their childhoods/upbringings. Some were funny, all were interesting but mostly it was just depressing. Quite a bit of abuse both of substances and people.

One of those hideous books where the mother dies by Sonya Sones

When Ruby's mother dies of cancer, she is sent to live with her, until now absent, movie star father in LA. She misses her mom, her best friend and her boyfriend and HATES her dad. Told through poetry this is a great story about grieving and learning to forgive.

Highly Recommended

Snakecharm by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

In this sequel to Hawksong, the now married couple try to bring their two cultures together and start a family.

Recommended

Tending to Grace by Kimberly Newton Fusco

A young woman with a stuttering problem finds herself when she goes to live with her great-aunt in rural New England.

Highly recommended.