Fiction

Angst! Teen Verses from the Edge - Karen Tom (2001)
ANGST! compiles the best of Planet Kiki's poetry in an edgy anthology on the agony and the ecstasy of being a teenager. ANGST! covers the full spectrum
of the teenage girl's experience: the struggles with falling in love, being unpopular, breaking up, feeling alienated, searching for life's meaning, bonding with friends, even the awkwardness of not having the right clothes.

Bad - Jean Ferris (1998)
The author puts together an abrasive, volatile, and abused set of characters; at the center is Dallas, whose vacillating emotions and internal blueprint for failure come across as lived experience.

Born Blue - Han Nolan (1998)
Nolan uses boldly honest first-person narrative to recount the saga of an emotionally disturbed teen, whose life-affirming passion for music constantly conflicts with her self-destructive tendencies.

Buried Onions - Gary Soto (1997)
Set against the backdrop of a city sweltering in the grip of poverty, crime, and unfulfilled dreams, this is the unforgettable story of a young man struggling to survive in a world spiraling out of control.

Clover - Dori Sanders (1990)
Clover is a 10-year old black girl from a small town in South Carolina, whose life changes forever when her father dies and she is forced to forge a new relationship with the white stepmother she hardly knows. A beautiful, trenchant story of family lost and found.

Cut - Patricia McCormick (2002)
Grades 7-12- This compelling novel by Patricia McCormick is presented as a first-person account by Callie, who is confined to a mental health facility. Sea Pine is home to teenage "guests" with a variety of problems: substance abuse, anorexia, and behavior issues. Fifteen-year-old Callie cuts herself. While this account describes group therapy and Callie's fears, she sits silently during group and individual therapy sessions. The turning point occurs when she is gradually drawn into the lives of the other teen residents. Listeners anxiously wait to discover why Callie harms herself.

Damage - A.J. Jenkins (2001)
Gr 9 Up-High school senior Austin Reid is a star of the Parkersville Panthers football team and dates the prettiest girl in the school. Everything would seem to be going great for him; yet, at its core, this novel is about Austin's depression.

Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey - Margaret Peterson Haddux (1996)
Tish is an underachieving "big hair girl," who cracks gum in class and works after school because her mother, severely depressed, is barely able to pay the bills. When her abusive father returns after a two-year absence, Tish records many family crises, ending with an account of the abandonment of herself and her little brother by both parents. At first determined not to ask for outside help, Tish finally makes the difficult decision to ask her teacher to read the entire journal.

The Hanged Man - Francesca Lia Block (1994)
Once her father dies of cancer, Laurel hopes to purge herself from his years of sexual abuse. She becomes anorexic and gets involved in a frightening, destructive sexual relationship.

I Can Hear the Mourning Dove - James Bennett (1990)
This tale follows the painful, introspective progress of a teenage girl through years of mental illness. As in other such accounts, the patients are more intelligent than their caretakers, and Grace's ultimate move towards survival is the strongest part of the story.

Izzy Willy Nilly - Cynthia Voight (1986)
A compelling book that shows the devastating effects of drunk driving, Izzy Willy Nilly is a painful look at reality with a penetrating story.

Lisa, Bright and Dark - John Neufeld (1999)
Lisa Shilling is 16, smart, attractive--and she is losing her mind. Some days are "light," and everything is normal; during her "dark" days, she hides deep within herself, and nothing can reach her. Her teachers ignore what is happening. Her parents deny it. Lisa's friends are the only ones who are listening--and they walk with her where adults fear to tread. This classic novel of a teenager's descent into madness has remained a best seller for close to thirty years.

Not the End of the World - Rebecca Stowe (1991)
Maggie, with several split personalities, is considered a troublemaker after an incident taking place the year prior. She is a wonderful representation of what happens to sexually abused children, and her "personalities" are ways of coping with her feelings. As the story unfolds, so does this personality, Peggy; and Maggie's life, along with the depression she suffers from as well.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky (1999)
Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie is navigating through the strange worlds of love, drugs, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", and dealing with the loss of a good friend and his favorite aunt.

Shark Bait - Graham Salisbury (1997)
A suspenseful tale of a boy struggling with issues of violence, friendship, honor, and trust.

She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb (1992)
A first novel about the catastrophe- marked childhood, youth, and mangled adulthood of a tough-fibered woman who almost beaches herself in guilt and grief. At once a fragile girl and a hard-edged cynic, so tough to love yet so inimitably lovable, Dolores is as poignantly real as our own imperfections.

Shizuko's Daughter - Kyoki Mori (1993)
A beautifully written book about a bitterly painful coming of age, intensified by exquisite sensory motifs--flavors and aromas, light and color, the weight and ornamentation of clothing.

Tears of a Tiger - Sharon M. Draper (1994)
Gr. 7-10. Neither Andy's parents nor his psychologist accurately perceive the depth of Andy's depression, with tragic results--Andy, at the end, commits suicide. The story emerges through newspaper articles, journal entries, homework assignments, letters, and conversations that give the book immediacy; the teenage conversational idiom is contemporary and well written.

Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides (1993)
A compelling, highly-acclaimed debut novel of youth and innocence. On the elm-lined streets of a middle-class American city, the lives of a group of teenaged boys are forever changed by their obsession with five mysteriously doomed sisters.

What Girls Learn - Karin Cook (1997)
Karin Cook depicts the inner lives of girls on the verge of adolescence with tremendous insight, and in Tilden, she has found a narrator both eloquent and observant. What Girls Learn explores notions of family and femininity and the transcendence of love, even in the face of loss.

When She Hollers - Cynthia Voight (1997)
Voigt's searing portrait of a teenage incest victim tells of one day in the life of 17-year-old Tish, who has been raped by her stepfather.

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