Croak by Gina Damico

Damico, Gina. Croak. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. Print.  ISBN 978-0-547-60832-7; Paperback; $8.99.

Annotation: 

Lex is angry and out of control so she gets shipped to the country to live with her uncle Mort where she can put her skills to use, as a Grim Reaper.

Book Talk:

Lex Bartleby used to be a good girl but all that has changed.  Sarcastic, volatile, prone to smashing people in the face, Lex is on her last straw with school authorities when her parents send her off to visit her weird uncle Mort in the country to see if she can sort out her "anger issues."  Instead of chanting Kumbaya and churning butter, Lex quickly learns that Croak, the tiny town where Mort lives, is the home of reapers who haunt the dead and Lex is there to learn the family business.  Now that Lex has an explanation for her sudden fascination with death and endless anger, what will happen when she is turned loose with the power to take lives without seeming consequence?  Is Lex even a little too hardcore for the residents of Croak? 

Available in paperback, hardcover, and ebook. 

Teen quote:

"Anyone will love this book."

~Marie, 16.

Glory O'Brien's History of the Future by A.S. King

King, A.S. Glory O'Brien's History of the Future.  New York: Little, Brown, 2014.  Print.  ISBN 978-0-316-22272-3; Hardcover; $18.00.

Annotation: Glory O'Brien can see the future and the past but she isn't sure if she wants to stick around long enough to see if it comes true.

Book Talk:
After one night of doing something really stupid and gross, Glory and her best friend Ellie acquire the uncanny ability to see both the past and the future of everyone around them, except for themselves.  As Glory tries to unravel what her visions of war, female oppression, and unexpected love reveal, her best friend must confront her own demons of sexual promiscuity and betrayal.  Read A.S. King's brave and powerful new novel to find out what Glory O'Brien knows about the History of the Future and whether or not she can save it.

Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio CD.

Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King

King, A S. Everybody Sees the Ants. New York: Little, Brown, 2012. Print.  ISBN 978-0-316-12927-5; Paperback; $9.99.

Annotation: 
Lucky Linderman escapes from Nader, the Squid and the Turtle by visiting his grandfather in his dreams and imagining ants seek revenge on his behalf.

Book Talk: 
Lucky Linderman doesn't feel so lucky.  He has no real friends and no girlfriend.  He has been bullied by Nader McMillan for as long as he can remember, and it is getting worse.  But no one seems to care.  His granddad never came home from the Vietnam War and no one in his family has recovered.  His mother hides from her problems at the local public pool and his dad works too much.  After Nader's last attack leaves him disfigured, depressed and vengeful, Lucky begins hallucinating tiny ants to enact his revenge.  In order to escape oppressive reality Lucky travels into his dreams where he tries to rescue his grandfather from the jungle and rescue himself from Nader McMillan.  Read A.S. King's engaging and haunting novel to discover how Lucky, and everyone else who is suffering, sees the ants.

Available in paperback, hardcover, eBook and audio CD.

Awards: 2011 Cybils Award finalist
2011 Andre Norton Award finalist

Teen quote:
"I really like this book because it talked about how your (sic) the one who builds your own prisons so your (sic) the only one who can tear them down. I also liked that whenever he woke up from a dream he had an object from the dream. That was COOL."
~Jill, 15.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Alexie, Sherman, and Ellen Forney. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2009. Print.  ISBN 978-0-316-01368-0; Hardcover; $20.00.

Annotation: 
Junior leaves the reservation to attend the all-white high school 20 miles down the road.  Will he survive tragedy and illness to get the girl and graduate?

Book Talk:
Junior is a nerdy, sickly, reading and drawing obsessed Spokane Native who leaves his friends and family behind on the reservation to attend a racist all-white high school in the next town.  Despite meeting the girl of his dreams, Penelope, and making new friends, like Gordy, tragedy strikes and one horrible thing after another happens, until Junior isn't sure if he can go on.  Does being Native destine him to a life of drunken poverty, unhappiness and early death?  He says, 

"I used to think the world was broken down by tribes...By black and white.  By Indian and white.  But I know that isn't true.  The world is only broken into two tribes: The people who are assholes and the people who are not."

Read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian to discover if Junior is willing to change everything in order to change his life.  When given the choice, which tribe will he choose?

Available in paperback, hardcover, eBook and audio CD. 

Awards:

2007 National Book Award for Young People's Literature
2008 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Fiction and Poetry
2009 Odyssey Award as the year's "best audiobook for children or young adults"
2010 California Young Reader Medal, Young Adult Book

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Moyes, Jojo. Me Before You. New York, N.Y: Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, 2012. Print. 978-0-14-312454-2; Paperback; $16.00.

Annotation: 
Louisa Clark loses her job and is forced to confront her small town life and small time ambitions when she begins looking after a gorgeous young man with a paralyzed body and a terrible secret.


Book Talk:

Louisa Clark was a spunky, adventuresome adolescent until the unspeakable happened seven years ago and now she lives a quiet life in a tiny town shuffling to and from work, seeing her boyfriend Patrick and squabbling with her sister under her parents’ roof.  When she is laid off from her coffee girl job and faced with the big unknown she discovers a surprising ally in her cantankerous, bullying, and devastatingly gorgeous new boss, Will.  Will Traynor has also come up against his own unspeakable tragedy, an accident which has left him wheelchair-bound and mostly paralyzed. 

Here’s an example of their dialogue when Will and Louisa attend a fancy marriage of Will’s former girlfriend.  She’s been feeding him and helping him at the reception:

“You know, you would never have let those breasts so close to me if I weren’t in a wheelchair,’ he murmured.
I looked back at him steadily. ‘You would never have looked at my breasts if you hadn’t been in a wheelchair.’
‘What? Of course I would.’
‘Nope. You would have been far too busy looking at the tall blonde girls with the endless legs and the big hair, the ones who can smell an expense account at forty paces. And anyway, I wouldn’t have been here. I would have been serving the drinks over there. One of the invisibles.’
He blinked.
‘Well? I’m right, aren’t I?’
Will glanced over at the bar, then back at me. ‘Yes. But in my defense, Clark, I was an arse.” 

As Louisa begins to uncover the sensitive, endearing personality Will is trying so hard to mask, she also learns of a Will’s plan to take control back over his own life – at any cost.  Read this intriguing tale to find out if Louisa and Will can learn to live with their own personal tragedies and help each other along the way.

Available in ebook, hardcover, paperback, audio CD, and audio download.  It is also being made into a movie!

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Marion, Isaac. Warm Bodies: A Novel. New York: Atria Books, 2011. Print.  978-1-4391-9232-0; Paperback; $15.00.

Annotation: 
R is a lonely zombie with a crush on a real live girl he kidnaps and befriends.

Book Talk:
Just who are these warm bodies Isaac Marion is talking about in his book, they surely couldn't be the zombies roaming around after the apocalypse chewing on the leftover humans that have managed to survive?  R is a lonely zombie wandering around an dilapidated airport grunting with his fellow “fleshies” and nibbling on the occasional brain which gives him flashbacks of the deceased’s memories.  The difference between R and his brethren is that he doesn’t really like eating people, he spends most of his time listening to old records in an abandoned airplane and feeling sorry for himself.  Until one day, on a hunt for food, he meets Julie, a real live human girl, who he rescues but only after devouring her boyfriend.  He begins to fall in love with Julie and sets out to show her, and her friends and father, that zombies aren’t such dead beats after all.  Who said the dead lack warmth?

This book would be a great read for any teen interested in post-apocalyptic horror or paranormal romance.  Recommended for ages 13 and up due to the gruesome content.  If you like the book be sure to check out the movie:

Available in paperback, hardcover, ebook, and audiobook.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars. Brilliance Audio, 2011. CD.  978-1-4558-6974-9; 6 CDs; $24.99.

Annotation: 

Hazel and Augustus are the perfect couple, except they have terminal cancer.

Book Talk:

The title of this book is based on a Shakespeare quote from the play Julius Caesar: Cassius says, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings."  In other words, we are not Gods, we are human, it is not fate that destroys us, but the human condition.  On the surface this seems to be another sappy, syrupy love story about two white, upper-middle-class, heterosexual teens who fall madly in love only to have their requisite tragic ending.  But Hazel and Augustus don't have your typical North American teen lifestyle, they have terminal cancer.  Anyone who's ever watched someone they love die from cancer knows the complicated feelings that come from wanting to see an end to their suffering and desperately needing to keep them around just a little bit longer.  Just so you can smell them and hear them laugh, and see their soul behind their eyes.  This book will also appeal to anyone who has ever loved someone and needed to let them go, for whatever reason.

Available in paperback, hardcover, e-book, audio CD, audio MP3 and it has also been made into a movie:

Check out the movie trailer below:

Award:

2013 Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production