Between Perfect and Real

Between Perfect and Real
Author: Ray Stoeve
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2021-04-27
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1683359518

Dean Foster knows that he’s a trans man. He's watched enough YouTube videos and done enough questioning to be sure. But everyone at his high school thinks he’s a lesbian—including his girlfriend Zoe. Maybe he can just wait to openly transition until he’s off at college. Besides, he's got enough to worry about: He’s cast as Romeo in the school play (in what the theater teacher thinks is an interesting gender swap), he’s falling in love with Zoe, and he's applying to the NYU theater program. It’s not everything, but it’s pretty good. But playing a boy every day in rehearsals, Dean realizes he wants everyone to see him as he really is now––not just on the stage, but everywhere in his life. Emboldened by stepping out on the stage as Romeo each day and the trans youth support group he's started attending, he knows what he needs to do. The only question remains: can he try to achieve everything he needs without losing all he has?


Between the Lines

Between the Lines
Author: Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2013-06-25
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1451635818

Told in their separate voices, sixteen-year-old Prince Oliver, who wants to break free of his fairy-tale existence, and fifteen-year-old Delilah, a loner obsessed with Prince Oliver and the book in which he exists, work together to seek his freedom.


If He Had Been with Me

If He Had Been with Me
Author: Laura Nowlin
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2013-04-02
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1402277849

If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...


All This Could Be Different

All This Could Be Different
Author: Sarah Thankam Mathews
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2023-08-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593489144

2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST ONE OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES' TOP 5 FICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF TIME AND SLATE'S TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR Named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by NPR, Vogue, Vulture, BuzzFeed, Harper's Bazaar, and more “One of the buzziest, most human novels of the year…breathless, dizzying, and completely beautiful.” —Vogue “Dazzling and wholly original...[written] with such mordant wit, insight, and specificity, it feels like watching a new literary star being born in real time.” —Entertainment Weekly From a brilliant new voice comes an electrifying novel of a young immigrant building a life for herself—a warm, dazzling, and profound saga of queer love, friendship, work, and precarity in twenty-first century America Graduating into the long maw of an American recession, Sneha is one of the fortunate ones. She’s moved to Milwaukee for an entry-level corporate job that, grueling as it may be, is the key that unlocks every door: she can pick up the tab at dinner with her new friend Tig, get her college buddy Thom hired alongside her, and send money to her parents back in India. She begins dating women—soon developing a burning crush on Marina, a beguiling and beautiful dancer who always seems just out of reach. But before long, trouble arrives. Painful secrets rear their heads; jobs go off the rails; evictions loom. Sneha struggles to be truly close and open with anybody, even as her friendships deepen, even as she throws herself headlong into a dizzying romance with Marina. It’s then that Tig begins to draw up a radical solution to their problems, hoping to save them all. A beautiful and capacious novel rendered in singular, unforgettable prose, All This Could Be Different is a wise, tender, and riveting group portrait of young people forging love and community amidst struggle, and a moving story of one immigrant’s journey to make her home in the world.


The Soulmate Equation

The Soulmate Equation
Author: Christina Lauren
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2021-05-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1982179716

The New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners returns with a witty and effervescent novel about what happens when two people with everything on the line are thrown together by science—or is it fate? Perfect for fans of The Rosie Project and One Plus One. Single mom Jess Davis is a data and statistics wizard, but no amount of number crunching can convince her to step back into the dating world. Raised by her grandparents—who now help raise her seven-year-old daughter, Juno—Jess has been left behind too often to feel comfortable letting anyone in. After all, her father’s never been around, her hard-partying mother disappeared when she was six, and her ex decided he wasn’t “father material” before Juno was even born. Jess holds her loved ones close, but working constantly to stay afloat is hard...and lonely. But then Jess hears about GeneticAlly, a buzzy new DNA-based matchmaking company that’s predicted to change dating forever. Finding a soulmate through DNA? The reliability of numbers: This Jess understands. At least she thought she did, until her test shows an unheard-of 98% compatibility with another subject in the database: GeneticAlly’s founder, Dr. River Pena. This is one number she can’t wrap her head around, because she already knows Dr. Pena. The stuck-up, stubborn man is without a doubt not her soulmate. But GeneticAlly has a proposition: Get to know him and we’ll pay you. Jess—who is barely making ends meet—is in no position to turn it down, despite her skepticism about the project and her dislike for River. As the pair are dragged from one event to the next as the “Diamond” pairing that could make GeneticAlly a mint in stock prices, Jess begins to realize that there might be more to the scientist—and the science behind a soulmate—than she thought. Funny, warm, and full of heart, The Soulmate Equation proves that the delicate balance between fate and choice can never be calculated.


One of Us Is Lying

One of Us Is Lying
Author: Karen M. McManus
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2017-06-01
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0141375647

The international bestselling YA thriller by acclaimed author Karen M. McManus - now available in a bold new cover look complete with a blood red background and matching sprayed edges. Five students walk into detention. Only four come out alive. Yale hopeful Bronwyn has never publicly broken a rule. Sports star Cooper only knows what he's doing in the baseball diamond. Bad boy Nate is one misstep away from a life of crime. Prom queen Addy is holding together the cracks in her perfect life. And outsider Simon, creator of the notorious gossip app at Bayview High, won't ever talk about any of them again. He dies 24 hours before he could post their deepest secrets online. Investigators conclude it's no accident. All of them are suspects. Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you'll go to protect them. 'Tightly plotted and brilliantly written, with sharp, believable characters, this whodunit is utterly irresistible' - HEAT 'Twisty plotting, breakneck pacing and intriguing characterisation add up to an exciting single-sitting thrillerish treat' -THE GUARDIAN 'A fantastic murder mystery, packed with cryptic clues and countless plot twists. I could not put this book down' - THE SUN 'Pretty Little Liars meets The Breakfast Club' - ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY But the story doesn't end here, it continues with One of Us Is Next. . .


We Used to Be Friends

We Used to Be Friends
Author: Amy Spalding
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2020-01-07
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1683356454

Two best friends grow up—and grow apart—in this innovative contemporary YA novel Told in dual timelines—half of the chapters moving forward in time and half moving backward—We Used to Be Friends explores the most traumatic breakup of all: that of childhood besties. At the start of their senior year in high school, James (a girl with a boy’s name) and Kat are inseparable, but by graduation, they’re no longer friends. James prepares to head off to college as she reflects on the dissolution of her friendship with Kat while, in alternating chapters, Kat thinks about being newly in love with her first girlfriend and having a future that feels wide open. Over the course of senior year, Kat wants nothing more than James to continue to be her steady rock, as James worries that everything she believes about love and her future is a lie when her high-school sweetheart parents announce they’re getting a divorce. Funny, honest, and full of heart, We Used to Be Friends tells of the pains of growing up and growing apart.


The Perfect Storm

The Perfect Storm
Author: Sebastian Junger
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 252
Release: 1997
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780393040166

A true story of men against the sea.


Arden Grey

Arden Grey
Author: Ray Stoeve
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2022-04-26
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1683359496

An insightful, raw YA novel about a young photographer navigating toxic relationships and how they influence her identity Sixteen-year-old Arden Grey is struggling. Her mother has left their family, her father and her younger brother won't talk about it, and a classmate, Tanner, keeps harassing her about her sexuality—which isn't even public. (She knows she likes girls romantically, but she thinks she might be asexual.) At least she's got her love of film photography and her best and only friend, Jamie, to help her cope. Then Jamie, who is trans, starts dating Caroline, and suddenly he isn't so reliable. Arden's insecurity about their friendship grows. She starts to wonder if she's jealous or if Jamie's relationship with Caroline is somehow unhealthy—and it makes her reconsider how much of her relationship with her absent mom wasn't okay, too. Filled with big emotions, first loves, and characters navigating toxic relationships, Ray Stoeve's honest and nuanced novel is about finding your place in the world and seeking out the love and community that you deserve.