The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart

 Click here to put this book on hold at your library.

Ruby is seeing a shrink to deal with the panic attacks that she has been having.  (Five in one week is really too many.)  After Ruby starts explaining that she lost her boyfriend and all of her friends and became a social leper her doctor suggests that she make a list of all of her boyfriends, even if she thinks they don’t count.  She uses the list to tell the story.

This book is fantastic!  It really nails the pettiness and randomness of friendships in middle and high school.  It shows how one mistake, even something small, can change your whole world.  The characters are realistic, not over the top, and the situations are believable for the age group. There is no one “mean girl” that ruins the main character’s life.  She makes bad choices, and some other characters make bad choices.  That does not make them “bad people”.  (I would recommend this book to high school age girls that like realistic fiction.)

The List by Siobhan Vivian

Click here to put this book on hold at your library.

It is a tradition at Mount Washington High School for a list of the four prettiest girls and the four ugliest girls to be produced just before Homecoming.  One girl is chosen from each grade.  This book tells the story from the perspective of all eight girls.

I enjoyed reading the book, including the twist ending.  It’s interesting to see how the list affects the girls positively and negatively.  The girls most hurt by the list are not the ones that you would think.  The book is both realistic and eye opening.  It’s more serious and fun then I thought it would be when I picked it up, but I really liked the book.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Click here to put this book on hold at your library.

After the death of his grandfather, Jacob, starts seeing odd things and is convinced that he needs to travel to the island where his grandfather grew up in order to reconcile the things his grandfather told him and what everyone else tells him. He finds adventure and a reality that he was not expecting.

It seemed that everyone was reading this book so I resisted for a long time.  A book club that I’m a member of picked this book and I read it.  The book started out strong with an interesting premise and a realistic main character.  As the story went on I found myself predicting what would happen and being disappointed with the way the story was being told.  That said, it is a book for teens so maybe they would not see the ending coming from a mile away.  The pictures are very cool and it’s nice to have an mystery/adventure to give to teen guys. 

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

Click here to find this book at your library.

After Liz is hit by a taxi she wakes up on a giant ship bound for Elsewhere.   She is not alive but she’s not completely dead either.  Death is a part of life, so her life goes on in Elsewhere.  Here she must learn how to complete her journey and find a way to “live” what remains of her life. 

This story is interesting because Elsewhere is like Earth, but also different from Earth.  Everyone who dies goes to Elsewhere and ages backwards until they become babies again and are sent back to earth to be reborn.  The process of aging backwards is really interesting and the story makes some interesting points about life without hitting you over the head with it.  I would recommend this book for teen readers, 8^th grade and up, who are looking for a little something different to read. 

Guy Langman: Crime Scene Procrastinator by Josh Berk

Click here to find this book at your library.

Guy (16) and his best friend Anoop join the forensics club at school soon after Guy’s father’s death.  It is a way to keep his mind off of his dad.  Right from the start Guy makes jokes, slacks off, and is generally a pain in the butt.  To spite his behavior he genuinely likes learning the science, so when a real body turns up Guy and Anoop are determined to solve the crime.

I liked the story but I think it would have been better without the real crime.  There is enough going on with Guy, his mom, the cute girl in forensics, and Anoop that solving the mystery of the body was not really necessary.  The book is funny and sweet.  I would recommend this for guys who like to read humorous realistic stories. 

Curveball: the Year I Lost My Grip by Jordan Sonnenblick

Click here to find this book at your library. 

Pete is an all-star athlete, and he is set to make a big splash as a great baseball pitcher when ninth grade starts.  Life seems pretty easy until a serious injury leaves him unable to pitch ever again.  Now he has to figure out who he is if he can’t be the star pitcher anymore.  On top of all of that, his grandfather is acting strange and there is a new girl in class whose presence renders him speechless. 

Jordan Sonneblick is a great writer.  That is all there is to it.  He writes some of the best teen fiction I have ever read.  When I read his books all of the characters read true for their age.  This story sounds sad, but it is full of humor and a lot of teens will be able to identify with Pete and his family.  I would recommend this for teens who like realistic stories with lots of humor. 

Uglies: Shay’s Story by Scott Westerfeld

Click here to find this book at your library. 

Shay is living in Uglyville waiting for the operation that will make her pretty.  While out on her hoverboard she makes friends with some Crims and starts exploring outside of Uglyville.  What she learns makes her question if she wants to be a Pretty or not.

This is a great new addition to the Uglies “Trilogy”.  Scott Westerfeld has teamed up with Devin K Grayson and Steven Cummings to make the first Uglies graphic novel.  It’s great to see things from Shay’s perspective.  I hope they do a few more of these. 

Eve by Anna Carey

Click here to find this book at your library.

Eve and the other girls in The School are protected from the outside world and The Plague.  They are learning and when they finish their primary education at age 16, they will go to the secondary school to learn their trade.  Eventually they will help to rebuild society.  That is what everyone believes, but what if things don’t happen that way?  What if life is different after graduation?  When Eve discovers the truth she finds herself on the run fighting for survival. 

I like this story.  It’s a little more Handmaids Tale then Hunger Games, but the adventure and the world around Eve read true and realistic.  I like the romance (usually not my cup of tea) and the pace of the book.  I would recommend this to teen girls looking for a Hunger Games read alike or those who like a little romance with their adventure.  This is already being marketed as a trilogy so expect two more books to come out soon. 

The Night She Disappeared by April Henry

Click here to find this book at your library.

Pete’s pizza is a cool place to work. Drew takes the calls, Kayla or Gabie makes the deliveries. Everything is cool until Kayla and Gabie switch shifts and Kayla gets kidnapped. Did the kidnapper mean to take her or was it really Gabie that he was after? Is Kayla even still alive?


This is a thriller about a kidnapped girl, and the people who are left behind. The reader gets to see 14 days from the day the girl goes missing, until the end of the story. I enjoyed reading the story from several different points of view, even the kidnapper’s. I would recommend this book to guys and girls who enjoy suspense.

The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers by Lynn Weingarten

Click here to find this book at your library. 

What could be worse than being dumped? How about pining all summer for your boyfriend, and then being dumped as soon as he gets back on the first day of school. So Lucy is having the worst first day of school, when she gets an intriguing offer. Three beautiful and charismatic girls offer Lucy a way to heal her broken heart and gain real power. All she has to do is make someone fall in love with her and then break that person’s heart in the next seven days.

The premise of the book did not sound good to me, but I liked Weingarten’s last book “Wherever Nina Lies” so I gave this one a chance. It was surprisingly good. The characters are all believable, and there is some great advice about self-perception, popularity, and guys. The ending is a little sad, but overall I like the story. At different parts of the book you are not sure if Lucy’s new friends are good guys or bad guys. It makes for an interesting read. I would recommend this for girls who like humor, and romance.

Sparks: the Epic, Completely True Blue, (Almost) Holy Quest of Debbie by S.J. Adams

Click here to find this book at your library.

Debbie is a girl with a secret. When that secret is threatened she finds herself thinking about the kind of person she is and what she can do about it. At a loss, she starts a holy quest with some new friends to save a friend from Norman, the most BORING human on the earth, and to find true love.

This book was not what I thought it was going to be. I loved the cover; started reading it without knowing what I was getting into; and could not put it down. I’m not sure what I thought it would be about, but I really liked the book. Debbie has been in love with her best girl friends since sixth grade. When her friend is about to go All The Way with Norman, she feels like she needs to declare her love and hope for the best. To help her out her new friends take her on a holy quest. It’s a great story and I would recommend it to guys and girls looking for a positive story with a gay main character, or to anyone who likes to laugh their butts off.

Swim the Fly by Don Calame

Click here to find this book at your library.

Matt and his two best friends set themselves a challenge every summer. They choose something that they all must do before school starts. This summer they are 15 and their goal is to see a real, live, in person naked girl. You would think since they are all on a coed swim team it would not be that difficult, but they go to some pretty amazing lengths to get the job done.


This book is so funny! The characters are realistic and well thought out. Sean, Coop, and Matt are amazing, but the really impressive characters are the girls. When you read this story you will recognize girls that you knew in high school. The story is sweet and fun and not at all as racy as the summary would lead you to believe. I would recommend this book for 9th grade and up. It’s a great way for girls to find out what guys are really thinking. This book features Matt as the main character but the other book, Beat the Band tells a story from Coops perspective.

Blood on My Hands by Todd Strasser

Click here to find this book at your library.

Callie is at a party when she starts looking for her best frenemy. As she is walking by the dugout she trips over the body. What’s a sensible girl to do but feel for a pulse? No pulse but lots of blood all over Katherine and Callie. What’s that shiny object next to the body? Maybe Callie should pick it up…Oh it’s a knife (the murder weapon). Snap. Snap. Snap. Everyone from the party with a phone is taking pictures of Callie covered in Katherine’s blood and holding the murder weapon. Now Callie is on the run in her small town. She is trying to prove she is innocent by avoiding the cops and doing her own investigation.

The ending was a bit of a surprise, but this is my least favorite Todd Strasser book. His stories are usually a little tighter. The motive is a little shaky for my taste and some of the characters are a little one dimensional until the big reveal at the end of the story. I would read Wish You Were Dead by Strasser instead.

Gone by Michael Grant

Click here to find this book at your library.

In a quiet town in California, in the middle of class, everyone over the age of 14 disappears. Adults and older teens just blink out of existence. In the world that everyone now lives in there are no rules, no parents, no one to tell kids what to do, fix a broken arm, or make food. Add to that the fact that there are little kids and babies who need to be taken care of and you have a pretty gripping story. But why stop there? Let’s pile on. Some kids have special super abilities and some kids are powerless. When the power hungry kids from the private school come to town and clash with the public school kids anything can happen.


I enjoyed reading this book. I’m reading the sequel right now. I hardly ever read a whole series, because there are too many good stories to get to and I don’t have the time, but I really want to know what is going to happen to these kids. The book drags a little in the middle, and it takes a while to get where it’s going, but the final showdown is worth it, and there are some amazing action sequences that would translate really well to a movie. There is a lot of violence so if you are sensitive to that sort of thing don’t read the book. The main characters are mostly 14 and that is the youngest aged teen I think I would recommend the book to.

Every You, Every Me by David Levithan

Click here to find this book at your library.



Evan had a friend named Ariel. Ariel is gone now, but Evan starts finding photos that make him believe that she is back somehow and looking to get back at him. He becomes more and more paranoid as the photos pileup.


I picked up this book because I liked the idea of the story being told with photos as well as with the writing. The pictres are a little creepy and I wanted to see how they related to the story.  I read the book and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. Evan is the unreliable narrator. He writes things and then scratched them out, so the reader is never really certain of the truth. Weird is what I think about this book. It has received some starred reviews and a lot of people have liked the story. I guess I’m not really a fan of psychological thrillers because it left me feeling a little flat.

All these Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin

Click here to find this book at your library. 

In about 70 years the world’s resources are going to be spread very thin. Chocolate and caffeine are illegal, and paper is hard to come by. Because resources are so scarce water and food are rationed, new clothes are no longer produced, and people who were once inside the law are now on the outside. Annie’s family make chocolate. They have been making it for over 100 years. They still make it and sell it legally in places around the world where it’s not outlawed, but in the U.S. where Annie lives, she is part of an infamous crime family. When she is implicated in an attempted poisoning she must do everything she can to survive and protect her family.


Annie is a very likable character and the story has a lot going on; romance, friendship, and crime. A lot of event stake place in the book, but the ending was kind of a letdown. There is no big dramatic ending. The story just stops and we are left wondering what will happen in the future. The story is wrapped up, but since it’s about this girl’s life, we see that she will have to keep making hard decisions. I liked it, but at the same time I wanted a little more. I would recommend this to girls who like complicated plots and well thought out characters.

The Future of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler

Click here to find this book at your library.

It’s 1996 and Emma just got her very first PC. She loads AOL and clicks on her favorites. Facebook pops up even though it won’t exist until 2004. She starts seeing what her life will be like fifteen years in the future. At first she thinks it’s a trick, but when she tells her friend Josh they start to take it seriously. Facebook knows things that no one could know, and there are pictures posted that they have not even developed yet. Once they believe Facebook is showing them their future they start to make minor changes that and soon they see the effects of knowing their future.


I have been waiting since 13 Reasons Why for a new Asher book and I’m not disappointed. This book is not deep and gut wrenching like 13 Reasons Why, but it is a fun read and it has an interesting take on the way our lives are shaped. I loved the idea that even the smallest change could have astounding consequences in our lives. Because it’s told in alternating chapters from the point of view of a boy and a girl, I think anyone will like the story.

Blink and Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones

Click here to find this book at your library.

Blink is a sixteen year old runaway who spends his time stealing rich kid’s clothes so he can sneak into hotels and eat left over room service before housekeeping cleans up the hallways. Caution is a runaway living with an abusive, drug dealing boyfriend. When Blink sees a not quite kidnapping, and Caution runs away with some serious drug money their lives are thrown into turmoil. Fortunately they find and try to help each other. Unfortunately they are facing double the trouble trying to solve the kidnapping mystery and stay alive.


Why is it that whenever I read a gritty and unusual urban fiction book it’s almost always set in Canada? Those Canadians know how to keep me interested, even without spells or the walking dead. This book is written in a fast and exciting way. Guys who don’t want to read will be sucked into Blink’s story. There’s no flowery prose here, but somehow the story gets told…and it’s told well. The blunt way the story is told mirrors the blunt and rough way these teens are living, without being to over the top.  There’s some cussing, and drugs, and a whole lot of violence, but what do you expect from a mystery book written about runaways. My advice is to Read It.

The Anti Prom by Abby McDonald

Click here to find this book at your library.

The cool girl, the outcast, and the wall flower. What do they all have in common? Prom of course. All three girls show up expecting different things and none of them get exactly what they thought they were going to out of their prom night.


Told in alternating chapters we see from each girl’s point of view. I like the way the story is told, and the way it’s all wrapped up. Each girl is incredibly believable and I think a lot of teen girls will see themselves or someone they know in the book. I would recommend for 9th grade and up because of some mild language and implied sexual content. (Nothing explicit in the book and no F bombs.) This is a good girlie teen book.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Click here to find this book at your library.

In Tally’s world everyone normal is an Ugly. It’s ok, because when you turn 16 you get an operation and you become a Pretty. You get to leave your ugly life behind and move to New Pretty Town, where you can party and have fun. Tally has snuck out and seen the parties and the pretty people for herself so she can’t wait for her operation. When there are only a few weeks left until her operation she makes a new friend who challenges what Tally thinks about being pretty. Soon Tally is given an ultimatum; she can turn on her friend or stay ugly forever.


This is one of those books that I read so long ago, and I just assume everyone has read it, but of course not everyone has. I LOVE THIS BOOK!! If you only read one book I recommend this is the one. It’s set in the distant future. The old governments failed, and a virus destroyed all of the worlds’ oil. New ways of living and doing this had to be created. The government decided that the reason people hated and made war was because people where jealous and hated people who were different, so their solution was to make everyone the same; Beautiful. I love the concept and the delivery. This is a clean read, with a lot of action. I recommend it for guys and girls. I predict you will get sucked in.

This is my favorite cover for the book.  It's been reprinted and recovered a lot.