El Principe de la Niebla por Carlos Ruiz Zafon

When Max's father drags his family to a seaside town to escape the pressures of WWII, they think it will be pretty boring. As soon as they arrive in the train station, strange things start happening. Soon Max and his older sister are involved in a creepy mystery that has their lives in danger.

Highly Recommended

Good Girls by Laura Ruby

Audrey is the over-achieving. good girl until a picture of a private moment is leaked to the entire school, including her parents. Now she has to figure out what it means to be "good" and if it's really all it's cracked up to be.


Highly Recommended

Fourth Comings by Megan McCafferty

Jessica Darling has graduated from college and is attempting to live her dream in NYC. She has no full-time job, is sharing a bunk bed with Hope and now has one week to make a life-changing decision: accept Marcus' marriage proposal or not.

Highly Recommended

I Hate Myself and Want to Die: the 52 most depressing songs you've ever heard
by Tom Reynolds

Despite what you might think from the title, this book is hilarious. Tom Reynolds dissects what he thinks are the most hideously depressing songs ever recorded leading up to the "Perfect Storms."

Highly Recommended

Summer Reading (June, July, & August):

Saint Dale by Sharyn McCrumb
The Accidental Florist by Jill Churchill
Invisible by Pete Hautman
The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga
Secret Society Girl: an ivy league novel by Diana Peterfreund
Why I Let My Hair Grow Out by Maryrose Wood
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Pedro and Me by Judd Winick
Ultimate X-Men: Tomorrow People, Volume 1 by Mark Millar and Adam Kubert
Mars, Volume 1 by Fuyumi Soryo
100 Demons by Lynda Barry
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (recorded for librivox.org)
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (recorded for librivox.org)
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (recorded for librivox.org)
This is Chick-Lit edited by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Fables For the Frivolous by Guy Wetmore Carryl (recorded for librivox.org)
Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones
The Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith
No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July

Ethan, Suspended by Pamela Ehrenberg

When Ethan is suspended from school, his mom sends him to stay with his grandparents in Washington, DC. Soon he's dealing with being the only white kid at Parker Junior High and his parent's separation. Will he ever find his place?


Highly Recommended

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

A 19th century magicians' feud has unintended consequences that affect future generations.



Highly Recommended

Cupcake by Rachel Cohn

The third book about Cyd Charisse. CC has graduated high school and moved in with her half-brother in NYC. She is supposed to go to culinary school but she keeps getting distracted, even with her soul-mate Shrimp far away in New Zealand.

Highly Recommended

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

You can do a lot of things in nineteen minutes, like saving a life or taking one.


Highly Recommended

Devilish by Maureen Johnson

Jane and Allison are outcasts at their Catholic girls' school until Allison is made an offer that she can't refuse.

Highly Recommended

13 Little blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

When Ginny's eccentric Aunt dies, she leaves her 13 envelopes and instructions that will take her on a life-changing journey.


Highly Recommended

The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson

When Nina comes back from the first summer she's ever spent apart from her best friends Mel and Avery, she is not too surprised that their relationship has changed. She just doesn't realize how much.

Highly Recommended

The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

Growing up in a family of PIs gives Izzy a different perspective on privacy than most people. There's also the problem of blurring the line between work and home, especially when you work with your parents and live above the office.

Highly Recommended

Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

When DJ Schwenk agrees to train the quarterback for the rival high school's football team, she has no idea that it will end up changing her life.

Highly Recommended

The Mislaid Magician or Ten Years After by Patricia C. Wrede and Carolyn Stevermer

In this sequel to The Grand Tour, it's been 10 years since their honeymoon and now Kate and Cecy have growing families. Soon they and their families are embroiled in a magical mystery. A
magician working for the railroad has seemingly disappeared into thin air and they must find out what happened.

This time around we get letters from James and Thomas as well.

Highly Recommended

The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron

Lucky cleans up after all the 12 step meetings in Hard Pan, she also eavesdrops on all of them. She becomes convinced that if she finds her "higher power" then all of her problems would be solved but what if she has to hit rock bottom first?


Recommended

Family Tree by Barbara Delinsky

When Dana Clarke gives birth to her first child, she and her husband are overjoyed. Soon, however, everyone is gossiping about them when it is revealed that their child has African-American features. Could they be from the father she never knew?


Recommended

Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan and Art by Niko Henrichon

A powerful graphic novel based on the true story of a pride of lions set free from the Baghdad zoo during the American bombing in 2003.


Highly Recommended

Diva by Alex Flinn

Last year Caitlin was dealing with her abusive ex-boyfriend but this year she's ready for something new. She's off to Miami High School for the Arts but does she have what it takes to be a diva?

Highly Recommended

Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn

Nick is going through a hard time. His girlfriend Caitlin has dumped him and taken out a restraining order and now he has to go to anger management classes. How can he let Caitlin go when she's the best thing to ever happen to him and the only one who knows about his dad's temper?


Highly Recommended

Winning the City by Theodore Weesner

Dale Wheeler is all set to take his Detroit school's basketball team to the city championships until a rich dad kicks him off to make room for his sons.


Highly Recommended

Am I the Last Virgin?: Ten African American Reflections on Sex & Love ed. by Tara Roberts

A great collection of memoirs on a wide variety of sexual and coming-of-age issues. They will make you laugh and cry but you will feel stronger for it. Definitely a book that should be updated.


Highly Recommended

The Uses of Enchantment by Heidi Julavits

Fifteen years after her supposedly faked abduction, Mary returns home for her mother's funeral only to be sucked back into the web of deceit.


Highly Recommended

Remember Me: a lively tour of the new American way of death by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen

With humor and respect Mrs. Cullen explores the latest innovations in the funeral business and the people who choose them.


Highly Recommended

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Told in three alternating story lines: the story of the Monkey King, Jin Yang trying to adjust to life as one of a handful of Asians in a White school, and a sitcom: "Everyone Ruvs Chin-Kee."


If you only read one graphic novel this year, make it this one.


Highly Recommended

SchoolGirls: young women, self-esteem and the confidence gap by Peggy Orenstein

Peggy Orenstein does spectacular job of examining the school and home cultures that contribute to low self-esteem in females during adolescence. In her book she follows girls at two different schools: one mostly White, middle-class and suburban, the other mostly African-American and Latino, working class and urban.

Highly Recommended

Nothing But The Truth (and a few white lies) by Justina Chen Headley

Patty Ho never thought being half-white and half-Chinese was anything special. Especially when it seemed like her older brother Abe had gotten all the non-gawky genes. Then she goes to math camp at Stanford and realizes how hot being hapa can be.


Highly Recommended

The Librarian by Larry Beinhart

A political thriller about a Republican attempt to steal the election from a female Democratic candidate. Unfortunately for them, there's a librarian on the case.


Highly Recommended

The Dewey Decimal System of Love by Josephine Carr

A celibate, spinster Librarian falls in love and solves a mystery.


Highly recommended

Girl Talk by Julianna Baggott

When Lissy Jablonski's father runs away with another woman the summer she turns 15, she couldn't realize how much her life would be changed.


Highly Recommended

Sin (Rush Hour Volume 1) edited by Michael Cart

Some of your favorite YA authors address the theme of sin in short stories, poetry, excerpts and more.


Highly Recommended

love is a mix tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time by Rob Sheffield

Rob Sheffield celebrates the life and early death of his wife Renee through the mix tapes she left behind.


Highly Recommended

Sandpiper by Ellen Wittlinger

Sandpiper has a reputation as the go-to girl for oral sex. At first it made her feel powerful, now it just sickens her. She's trying to change but someone won't let her forget.


Highly Recommended

Forever in Blue: the fourth summer of the sisterhood by Ann Brashares

The magic pants that allowed them to be apart, show them how to come back together.


Recommended

Devil in a Blue Dress
Bad Boy Brawly Brown by Walter Mosley

Easy Rawlins is a WWII vet back in LA. helping his friends out with their problems using his own special skills.


Highly Recommended

Blankets by Craig Thompson

A compelling and bittersweet memoir of growing up when you never quite fit in.


Highly Recommended

Fun Home: a family tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

A bittersweet memoir of coming out and dealing with its unexpectedly tragic repercussions.


Highly Recommended

The Thing About Jane Spring by Sharon Krum

What happens when a high-powered, military-bred attorney takes on a new strategy in the game of love? Anything and everything when her new role model is Doris Day. Que sera, sera indeed.


Highly Recommended

Valentine Princess by Meg Cabot

Mia relives her first Valentine's Day with Michael when she finds her old diary.

Recommended

Nailed by Patrick Jones

Bret's father always tells him, "the nail that sticks out the farthest gets hammered the hardest." What do you do if the that nail is always you?


Highly Recommended

Naughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

Imagine a society, not unlike our own, where racial segregation is still going strong. There are separate schools and most of the "inferior" race are poor but there is one difference: the "superior" race is black.

Recommended

Runaways (Vols. 1-4) by Brian K. Vaughn and Adrian Alphona

What if you found out that your parents are evil super-villains, what would you do?

Highly Recommended

Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes

With the help of her friends and family, Anna Walsh deals with the aftermath of a horrible car accident.


Recommended

Princess on the Brink by Meg Cabot

Volume VIII of the Princess Diaries

Mia is just starting her Junior year when her boyfriend drops a bomb: He's going to Japan for a year (at least!) to build a robot. How will she survive without him?

Highly Recommended

Small Steps by Louis Sachar

Armpit has been out of Camp Green Lake for two years but he is still trying to prove himself. When he goes along with X-Ray's ticket scalping scheme, he almost loses everything.

Highly Recommended

Marketed as a sequel to Holes but it is really the continuation of Armpit's and tangentially X-Ray's stories.

Blind Submission by Debra Ginsberg

The Devil Wears Prada meets Gaslight. Who knew editing the great American novel would be so dangerous?

Highly Recommended

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan looks at the journey from field to plate of four meals: fast food, Big organic, little organic, and hunted and gathered. What he discovers will change the way you look at eating.

Highly Recommended

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party
by M. T. Anderson

An almost surreal look at the life of a slave, Octavian, who has been raised by the Novanglian College of Lucidity as an experiment in intelligence. As he comes of age and fully realizes his situation, the Colonies are being thrust into the beginning of the Revolution.

Highly Recommended

Are We There Yet? by David Levithan

Two estranged brothers, one about to go to college and one in the rat race, go on a trip to Italy and find they have more in common than they think.

Highly Recommended

The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld

A sequel to Peeps that focuses on a band made up of various young musicians, including a Peep, who find that their music has supernatural powers.

Highly Recommended

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

Bella and Edward are back in another adventure but this time Bella is on her own. That is until she discovers Jacob Black's secret.


Highly Recommended

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Colin is a child prodigy who wants to be a genius and has a thing for Katherines. After he is dumped by Katherine XIX, his friend Hassan convinces him to go on a road trip where he tries to discover the Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability. There's lots of footnotes but the math is optional.

Highly Recommended

Street Pharm by Allison Van Diepen

Tyrone Johnson is only 16 but he's already got his life on lock. He's taken over the family drug-dealing business and everything is running smoothly. That is until someone tries to muscle in on his territory.


Highly Recommended

How to be Popular by Meg Cabot

Ever since Steph Landry spilled a Big Gulp on the most popular girl in school, her name has been synonymous with screwing up. But all of that is going to change now that she has found the secret to popularity.

Highly Recommended

Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser

The story of a school shooting told by those who experienced it with lots of gun and school shooting footnotes.

I found it very didactic and boring.

The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank by David Plotz

When The Repository for Germinal Choice was started, it was meant to be a way to breed better humans by using sperm from Nobel Prize winners to impregnate MENSA women. What actually happened to the men who donated and the women who were impregnated is much more interesting than that.

An insightful look at what was intended to be an experiment in eugenics but became more of a study in nature vs. nurture.

Highly Recommended

Dancing in the Void by Robert Edward Levin

Dr. Hubble Webster is an eccentric psychiatrist who gets caught up in a web of murder, sex and drugs that threatens his pursuit of happiness.


Recommended

King Dork by Frank Portman

Tom Henderson has varied interests: making up bands, listening to bubble-gum pop and investigating his father's life/death. In between all of this, and avoiding torture at the hands of his classmates, Tom discovers something unexpected.


Highly Recommended

Bass Ackwards and Belly Up by Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain

When Harper lies to her friends about why she's not going to NYU it sets off four adventures that will change their lives forever.

Like a more grown-up Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Highly Recommended

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

While exploring one day, Coraline finds herself in an alternate, more exciting world but she decides to go home. Unfortunately her alternate mother is not letting go so easily and in order to go home, and save her real parents, Coraline must use all her skills.

Highly Recommended

Whisper in the Dark by Joseph Bruchac

Maddy likes scary stories but she never expected to live one.

A fast-paced, scary thriller based on a Narragansett legend.

Highly Recommended

Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You by Dorian Cirrone

When Kayla Callaway loses the lead in the senior ballet because of her non-balletic figure, she feels she must decide between her breasts and her passion.


Highly Recommended

The Dashwood Sisters' Secrets of Love by Rosie Bushton

Due to family tragedy, the Dashwood sisters are forced to move from their ancestral home in Sussex to the sleepy, little sailing village Norfolk. Fortunately there are cute boys there.

Recommended

Malpractice in Maggody by Joan Hess

The latest installment in the Maggody series brings a wanna-be detox retreat for the Stars to this rural Arkansas locale. Mayhem ensues.


Recommended

Insatiable: tales from a life of delicious excess by Gael Greene

An epic memoir of the sensuality of food and sex in New York, Europe and beyond as only the Insatiable Critic can tell it.


Highly Recommended

Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot

Lizzie Nichols has big mouth that frequently gets her in trouble. After her latest slip-up almost lands her would-be boyfriend in jail, she knows she has to leave. Unfortunately she's visiting him in England. Luckily her best friend is just across the Channel in France. Hilarity ensues as she navigates falling for a taken man, helping save a wedding and finishing that pesky thesis on the history of fashion.

Highly Recommended

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

When Isabella Swan AKA Bella moved from sunny Arizona to rainy Forks, Washington she never expected to be happy there. That is until she meets Edward. Edward is beautiful, charming and a vampire.


Highly Recommended

Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson

When three totally different teenage girls get thrown together in Georgia peach orchard, anything can happen and it probably will.

Highly Recommended

Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty

The latest installment of Jessica Darling's story takes us to Columbia while Marcus Flutie is off at Buddhist college in California. Jessica's trials and tribulations include: falling for a married man and trying to figure out how to fund college when her parents cut her off. Hilarious and real.

Highly Recommended

Sixteen: stories about that sweet and bitter birthday Edited by Megan McCafferty

17 stories by some of the best YA writers around, including Zoe Trope, Carolyn Mackler and Steve Almond. Includes a new Jessica Darling story.

Highly Recommended

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter

The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women looks like your typical girls' boarding school except for one thing, they train spies! Cammie Morgan (AKA The Chameleon) is not just a student, she's the headmistress' daughter and her sophomore year is about to bring her first and possibly most dangerous mission: falling in love.

Highly Recommended

Party Princess & Sweet Sixteen Princess by Meg Cabot

Volumes VII and VII 1/2 of the Princess Diaries

A musical about Genovia, student gov't debt, her boyfriend acting cold and her grandmother's bid to get her on My Super Sweet Sixteen are just some of Mia's adventures in these latest two installments.

Highly Recommended

Confessions of a Super Mom by Melanie Lynne Hauser

A fun read about a divorced, stay-at-home mom who develops super powers after a horrible Swiffer accident.

Recommended

March by Geraldine Brooks

March tells the other side of the Little Women story, that of the March girls' father. This is a wonderfully written and compelling story of Mr. March's experience as a chaplain in the Union Army.

Highly Recommended

Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak

A well-researched and interesting history of the Stratemeyer Syndicate and their role in the creation of Nancy Drew. But the Syndicate wasn't solely responsible for the character development and popularity of Nancy Drew and documenting the other authors and influences is where is book excels.

Highly Recommended

Sloppy Seconds by Megan McCafferty

Jessica Darling is back! It's her Senior year now but she's still as angst-filled as ever. From 9/11 to deciding on a college to He Who Must Not Be Named, she definitely has her hands full.


Highly Recommended

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Translated by Lucia Graves

On the day Daniel awakes and cannot remember his deceased mother's face, his father shows him something marvelous, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. There he finds The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax. He is so taken by the novel that he embarks on a mission to discover all he can about Julian and why a mysterious stranger wants to destroy all his books.

Set in post-Civil War Barcelona, this story is part gothic romance, part mystery and never gives away the ending.

Highly Recommended

Uglies
Pretties
Specials by Scott Westerfeld

What if you lived in a world where everyone got plastic surgery when they turned 16? Would you go along and become a Pretty or would you run away?

This is an intriguing trilogy about life in the not so distant future.

Highly Recommended

Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love by Maryrose Wood

Despite the racy title, this is a very chaste story. Felicia, the poet, has a crush on Matthew, the science prodigy, and decides to enlist his help for a science experiment of their own: discovering the Secret of Love. As their friends get involved it becomes more complicated than they ever imagined, and more fun.


Highly Recommended

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

Annabel Greene appears to have it all (teen modeling gig, perfect family) but underneath the surface things are not so perfect. After being ostracized by her best friend, she hooks up with Owen, another outsider. Through music and Owen's unrelenting honesty, she is able to finally reveal her true nature.

Highly Recommended

Mermaid Park by Beth Mayall

When Amy Rush gets to stay in Wildwood, NJ with her godmother instead of her bullying stepfather and indifferent mother and sister, she is relieved. Soon she's ecstatic because she has finagled a job at Mermaid Park. Little does she know how pivotal it will prove to be.

Highly Recommended

Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty

Jessica Darling has just had her best friend move away and she is heartbroken. No one seems to understand, from her shallow "friends" to her overly critical parents. Told alternately in letters to her friend and diary entries, Jessica really finds out what it means to be herself.

Highly Recommended

How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life by Kaavya Viswanathan

This plagiarized book is fluffy Indian-American chick-lit. I read Sloppy Firsts immediately afterwards and even though the main characters' outlooks and tone were different, it really felt like a cheap knock-off.

Since the articles said the publisher thought her original idea was too "dark", I am curious if it would actually been better written and not plagiarized.

Not Recommended

Falcondance by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

In this sequel to Snakecharm, a young Falcon must decide between loyalty to his family or to his Wyvern princess.

Highly Recommended

Girls For Breakfast by David Yoo

Nick Park is a Korean-American growing up in the WASPiest town in Connecticut. He loves girls, adores them but somehow he can't get them. Is it because he's Asian or is it something deeper?

Highly Recommended

my saucy stuffed ravioli by Cherry Whytock

Angelica Cookson Potts is back and this time she's going on holiday in Italy with her family and her best friends. But something isn't quite right. Her mom seems much more "normal" than usual and is always mysteriously "out." Could she be having an affair with a gorgeous Italiano?


Highly Recommended

The Healing Time of Hickeys by Karen Rivers

Haley is about to start her senior year of high school which she is convinced will be the greatest. That is until she gets labeled "hickey girl", she gets severe chicken pox, her best friends starts dating her crush, and her hippy dad gets busted. Is this year salvageable?

Recommended

A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl by Tanya Lee Stone

Told in verse, three high school girls fall to charms of a popular senior buy only to find that he's just using them. To get back, and warn others, they write about him in the endpapers of the school library's copy of Forever.

Highly Recommended

Are Men Necessary? by Maureen Dowd

New York Times columnist Dowd takes on gender relations in a variety of settings, from politics to the mall, in an insightful, thought-provoking and funny way. You may not agree with her but she'll certainly give you something to think about.


Highly Recommended

Size 12 Is Not Fat by Meg Cabot

Heather Wells is a former teen pop star who is now working as an assistant director of an undergraduate dorm, I mean Residence Hall. As if dealing with being dumped by her boy-band boyfriend and rooming with his hunky, older, PI brother isn't enough, now there are girls mysteriously dying at work. Can Heather solve the mystery before another girl dies?

The first in the Heather Wells mystery series.

Highly Recommended

Inexcusable by Chris Lynch

Keir is a good guy. Everyone says so including his childhood friend Gigi. That's why he doesn't understand why Gigi is saying he raped her. He loves her and good guys don't do things like that, right?

Highly Recommended

High Heels and Homicide by Kasey Michaels

Another book in the Maggie Kelly mystery series. This time Maggie, St. Just and crew are headed to England for the filming of a movie of one of her St. Just books.

Highly Recommended

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld

Peeps are parasite positives or, for those of you not in the know, vampires. Cal is a carrier working for Night Watch. He has just tracked down the last of the girls he infected but he still has to find the girl who infected him. But something else is going on, something Cal has never seen before. Can he figure out the mystery before it's too late.

Highly Recommended

Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005

Another great edition with an intro by Beck. One of my favorite pieces was "The Death of Mustango Salvaje" by Jessica Anthony

Highly Recommended

Avalon High by Meg Cabot

The teenage daughter of Medieval scholars finds herself smack in the middle in a modern day version of the King Arthur legend when she starts school at Avalon High in Annapolis, MD.

Highly Recommended

The Book of Bunny Suicides by Andy Riley

It's sick, it's twisted, it's hilarious. Cartoons of bunnies committing suicide.

Highly Recommended

how i live now by Meg Rosoff

Evil stepmothers, anorexia, terrorism, forbidden love, and war.

Do I have your attention yet? how i live now touches on all of this and more when Daisy moves in with her English cousins just as war breaks out.


Highly Recommended

Emily's Reasons Why Not by Carrie Gerlach

Emily is in her thirties and having trouble finding love. She decides to go to therapy. It is there that her doctor tells her to enumerate the 10 reasons why she shouldn't have dated her exes in the hopes that it will help her choose someone more appropriate.

Recommended

A Heart Divided by Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld

When wanna-be playwright Kate Pride is forced to move to Tennessee from New Jersey for a year she is not pleased. That soon changes as she gets involved in the controversy over the high school mascot, the Rebels, and the flying of the Confederate flag.


Highly Recommended

The Blind Man of Seville by Robert Wilson

A very dark, suspense-filled mystery that starts with the brutal killing of a wealthy businessman. But as the death toll mounts, Inspector Jefe Javier Falcon starts finding connections to his recently dead father. And as he reads more of his journals, he realizes that things are not always what they seem.

Highly Recommended