24 Girls in 7 Days by Alex Bradley

Jack Grammar, average American senior, has no date to the prom. Or so he thinks. Percy and Natalie, Jack's so-called best friends, posted an ad in the classified section of the online version of the school newspaper. They figured it couldn't hurt-after all, there's not much in this world sadder than Jack's love life. Soon Percy and Natalie have assembled a list of girls eager to go to the prom with Jack, including one mysterious girl known only as FancyPants. He has just seven days to meet and date them before he will ask one special girl to the prom.

Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson

Ashley thinks of herself as a normal kid: best friend next door, hot, but unreliable dropout boyfriend, parents a bit spacey, and a household barely hanging in there. She's not into the prom the way her best friend Natalia is, so when it nearly gets cancelled because a teacher has absconded with all the money, Ashley is not prepared for Nat's approach. Nat figures they can still have a prom, if they beg for stuff and get teachers to help and bribe the custodial staff and so on. Rather against her will, Ashley gets sucked into the lists in Nat's pink notebook. It delights her very pregnant mom; it makes dealing with all those detentions and uncompleted assignments even more of a chore; it focuses Nat's slightly addled Russian grandmother on dressmaking; and calls Ashley's hilarious aunts to the fore. Modern teen life just outside Philadelphia is vividly drawn in Ashley's first-person tale, and it's both screamingly funny and surprisingly tender.

Runner by Carl Deuker

When Chance Taylor is offered a suspicious job -- retrieving packages hidden on his daily running route and stashing them away for later pickup -- the high school senior doesn't ask many questions. Chance views the two-hundred-dollar-a-week salary as a means to pay mooring fees for the sailboat where he and his alcoholic, chronically unemployed father live, as well as buy groceries and get an occasional muffin at the coffee shop where he spends time with his wealthy yet sympathetic classmate Melissa. Although he suspects he's working for a Puget Sound drug-smuggling ring, Chance doesn't get too worried until the nature of the packages begins to change and the man who hired him dies under mysterious circumstances.

Dark Angel by David Klass

Seventeen-year-old Jeff thought he would never again have to deal with his older brother, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence. But after six years, Troy’s sentence has been overturned on a technicality and he is released from prison. He returns to a family deeply divided about having him back home. Jeff can’t forget how his life was disrupted by his brother, how his family had to move to another state and start over. Still, his parents believe things will be different now. But Troy’s return makes a mess of Jeff ’s life – at home, at school, and with his girlfriend. When Jeff ’s rival on the soccer field turns up missing, Jeff suspects Troy is involved, and he sets out to prove it. But nothing could prepare Jeff for what happens as he gets closer to the truth.

Broken China by Lori Aurelia Williams

China, 14, has learned to be a devoted mother after an episode of "messing around" with her best friend, Trip, resulted in her pregnancy two years earlier. Growing up in the same African-American Houston neighborhood as the characters who peopled Williams's earlier novels, China has never had an easy life, but when her daughter unexpectedly dies, she refuses to rely on any counsel except her own in coping with her heartbreak. Since her mother died years earlier, China has lived with Uncle Simon, who is wheelchair bound. When she insists upon taking a job at a strip club to pay off the baby's funeral bill, he chooses to keep their home life peaceful rather than attempting to control her actions and risk alienating her. Trip stands by her even when she denigrates his mother, refusing to accept her efforts to push him away.

Juice by Eric Walters

When long-time coach, Coach Reeves, retires, his replacement, Coach Barnes, moves the team into Division One, makes Michael a captain, and introduces daily summer training. Tony, the summer weight trainer, provides individual training and diet plans for each player. When the two ask Michael to take steroids to enhance his performance, he reluctantly agrees because they explain it will be good for the team, good for his own future, and (assuming a full scholarship) it will save his mother the expense of college tuition.

Black and White by Paul Volponi

Kids who are different colors don't get to be all that tight in my neighborhood. But we get past all that racial crap," says Marcus, an African American senior whose best friend, Eddie, is white. Together, the boys are known at school as Black and White. Both are basketball stars entertaining scholarship offers from local New York City colleges, but they risk everything for more spending money. Considering fast-food jobs too demeaning, they turn to armed stickups, and during their third robbery, they shoot and wound their victim. In alternating chapters, Marcus and Eddie recount the terrifying days after the event as they wait for the police to find and arrest them.

The Boy From The Basement by Susan Shaw

For Charlie, the basement is home. He's being punished. He doesn't mean to leave--Father wouldn't allow it--but when Charlie is accidentally thrust outside, he awakens to the alien surroundings of a world to which he's never been exposed. Though haunted by fear of the basement and his father's rage, Charlie embarks on a journey toward healing and blossoms when he becomes an unconditionally loved and loving member of the right foster family.

Stained by Jennifer R. Jacobson

During the summer of 1975 in small-town New Hampshire, love, sex, religion, and family shape a charged and confusing environment in which to come of age. Jocelyn's boyfriend is pulling away from her, and her lifelong friend and neighbor suddenly goes missing. Jacobson deftly builds suspense and traces complex issues (homosexuality, sexual abuse by a priest) with appropriate subtlety.

The Hippie House

The Hippie House by Katherine Holubitsky
Fourteen-year-old Emma feels safe and protected from the violent world but it about to come to her world. A young girl has gone missing. She is found raped and murdered in a small shed at the "Hippie House". And now the search is on for the killer. And the girls in town no longer feel safe and protected.

Fade To Black by Alex Flinn

Alejandro "Alex" Crusan is a seventeen-years-old Latino and HIV positive. His family moved from Miami to Pinedale, Florida. No one in his new school will touch him, much less befriend him. The only one that does not avoid Alex is Daria, the girl with Down Syndrome. Everyone avoids her too. But someone nearby hates Alex enough to learn his daily routine, followed by taking a baseball bat to Alex's car. The windows shatter, throwing tiny glass shards over Alex. The shards act as knives. Daria does not lie. She tells the police what she saw. The police go after Clinton Cole. Clinton has been very vocal on his feelings about Alex being HIV positive from the beginning. Everyone agrees with Clinton; however, no one believes Alex deserves what happened to him. When everyone begins avoiding Clinton, the teen starts to understand how Alex's isolation feels. Clinton swears he did not do it. Yet no one believes him.

Dancing In Red Shoes Will Kill You by Dorian Cirrone

Kayla never really thought of her double Ds as "problem breasts." It made them sound like children who wouldn't behave.
Kayla Callaway has prima ballerina grace and something else that most ballerinas don't have: a full figure. Her heart is set on a future in dance. Unfortunately, her proportions just got her cast as an ugly stepsister in Florida Arts High School's production of Cinderella. Kayla's disappointment makes her a prime suspect when the dance troupe receives a string of threatening messages.

When Joe Beck, a fifteen-year-old suburban kid, gets lost in a disreputable neighborhood on his way to an appointment in London, he is struck dumb by his first sight of beautiful and seemingly innocent Candy. She talks with him, teases him, but reveals nothing about herself except her phone number. Later they have a perfect day at the London Zoo, and soon Joe is as addicted to Candy as she is to heroin, in spite of the threats of her menacing pimp Iggy. Almost nothing matters except his desire to free her from her terrible life -- not his band’s chance for a recording contract, not the song he has written for her that has become a hit without him. But there is something that still matters to him, and when he rescues the young prostitute from her sordid rooming house and takes her into hiding to sweat out her addiction, Iggy finds and uses that one thing that is stronger than Joe’s passion for Candy, in a heart-thumping, breathless conclusion.

The Tequila Worm by Viola Canales

Sofia comes from a family of storytellers. Here are her tales of growing up in the barrio in McAllen, Texas, full of the magic and mystery of family traditions: making Easter cascarones, celebrating el Dia de los Muertos, preparing for quinceañera, rejoicing in the Christmas nacimiento, and curing homesickness by eating the tequila worm. When Sofia is singled out to receive a scholarship to boarding school, she longs to explore life beyond the barrio, even though it means leaving her family to navigate a strange world of rich, privileged kids. It’s a different mundo, but one where Sofia’s traditions take on new meaning and illuminate her path.

Invisible

Invisible is narrated by Dougie, and it a spare, disturbing book. Dougie’s spends most of his time working on building a bridge for his model train. His best friend is popular, football-player Andy. From the beginning, I knew that things aren’t right with Dougie. The book is all the more uncomfortable because I could also identify with the “mean” kids in high school who persecuted him. Dougie is so weird that I could easily see why he was picked on. Hautman skillfully tells the story, giving the history of Dougie and Andy’s relationship, and leading to what felt like a difficult but inevitable conclusion.

Girls in pants : the third summer of the sisterhood by Brashares, Ann.

This book deals with the girls growing up a little and realizing what each of them has inside plus the support of each other and family, they can make it in the world. They all are sad because they know at the end of this summer they will have to separate and make a way for themselves in the world, but are hoping to still stay close. Wish it was this way but for many of us, we know that life gets busy and friends grow apart. This book however the girls lean on each other a bit, but are a bit more independent. They learn to rely on themselves a bit more. Like Lena, who wants to go to art college but her dad forbids it. He won't pay for her to, so now she must work to get a scholarship. Carmen must deal with her mom and David having a new baby, just as she is ready to leave for college. Tibby must deal with her siblings and what she really feels about Brian. Bee is coaching a soccer camp and must deal with the past.

Peaches by Jodi Anderson

Three teenaged girls from very different backgrounds, thrown together to pick peaches in a Georgia orchard, spend a summer in pursuit of the right boy, the truest of friends, and the perfect peach.

This was a very fun book. The girls learned to grow together through their differences in personalities and the hardships they were facing as teenage girls. My favorite character was definitely Murphy; she was strong and independent, and had a tendency to speak rather sharply at times. She loved to get herself into mischief.

I recommend this book to any teenager who is looking for a quick enjoyable read with themes that pertain to almost every young girl.

The Perfect Shot by Elaine Marie Alphin

The Perfect Shot is a mystery thriller about a high school basketball player who may be the only person to give investigators the right information about the murders of his girlfriend, Amanda, and her mother and little brother. All quilt points to Amanda's father. Brian doesn't know he holds the missing link of the trial until his history teacher assigns all the students a lesson on famous past trials. The story is told in flashbacks as Brian compares Amanda's father's situation to the 1913 Leo Frank murder case he is researching for class. The story doesn't stop there. Brian's friend and basketball teammate Julius, one of the few blacks in the school, is arrested for driving lost in a small Indiana town. Brian now must face the realization of prejudice in the real world. Brian struggles with all of the above pressures as he tries to lead his basketball team to victory. This book will keep you turning pages to the very end.

The Perfect Shot is a wonderful look at teen life and the struggles human beings go through when dealing with a loss. This book is also an experienced look at the struggles young adults go through when trying to figure out what their place is in this world.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

"Softly he brushed my cheek, then held my face between his marble hands. 'Be very still,' he whispered, as if I wasn't already frozen. Slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, he leaned toward me. Then abruptly, but very gently, he rested his cold cheek against the hollow at the base of my throat."

Twilight, written by Stephenie Meyer is a fantasy novel about vampires. Bella moves to Forks, a gloomy Olympic Peninsula to be with her father. On the first day of her new school she meets Edward, an extremely unique young man whom Bella can’t resist. Edward and Bella fall in love and the romance continues throughout the book even though Bella discovers that Edward and his family are vampires. Bella wants nothing more than to become a vampire.

If you love fantasy, especially ones dealing with vampires, this is the book for you! It’s one of those books that once you begin reading, you can’t put it down. It will keep you up all night turning pages. It’s a book that you never want to end; however, this one does end but not the story line! I have had the privilege to read book 2, which is not for sale at the moment. I was able to get my hands on a revision copy while at the Texas Library annual conference.

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