After Graduation: A Teen Fiction Booklist

 It's graduation season!  Seniors are planning their futures and cramming in one last summer of fun before adulthood.  This week, I'm sharing stories about what happens after graduation.  Here are a few of my favorites . . . .

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

When Auden impulsively goes to stay with her father, stepmother, and new baby sister the summer before she starts college, she gets a chance to recapture the carefree teen life she missed while her parents were going through a divorce.

Shift by Jennifer Bradbury

When best friends Chris and Win go on a cross country bicycle trek the summer after graduating and only one returns, the FBI wants to know what happened.

Hello, Goodbye, and Everything In Between by Jennifer E. Smith

High school sweethearts Clare and Aidan spend the night before they leave for college reminiscing about their relationship and deciding whether they should stay together or break up.

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Having been recently dumped for the nineteenth time by a girl named Katherine, recent high school graduate and former child prodigy Colin sets off on a road trip with his best friend to try to find some new direction in life while also trying to create a mathematical formula to explain his relationships.

More Books --

A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey

Every Moment After by Joseph Moldover

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

The Foreseeable Future by Emily Adrian

Freshmen by Tom Ellen
Gap Life by John Coy

Girls Like Us by Gail Giles

Inexcusable by Chris Lynch

Keep This to Yourself by Tom Ryan

Kill All Happies by Rachel Cohn

Me Myself & Him by Christopher Tebbetts

Say Yes Summer by Lindsey Roth Culli

Start Here by Trish Doller

Stay Sweet by Siobhan Vivian

Summer of '69 by Todd Strasser

The Summer of Us by Cecilia Vinesse

Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour

Check these books out on display at the Arnold Branch through June 11, 2021.

Road Trip!

This week, I'm sharing books for teens about road trips.  Here are a few of my favorites . . .

Going Bovine by Libba Bray
Cameron Smith, a disaffected sixteen year-old who, after being diagnosed with Creutzfeld Jakob's (aka mad cow) disease, sets off on a road trip with a death-obsessed video gaming dwarf he meets in the hospital in an attempt to find a cure.

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
A young British lord embarks on an unforgettable grand tour of Europe with his best friend/secret crush in this eighteenth-century romantic adventure for the modern age.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
In a world where some people are born with extreme and often-feared skills called Graces, Katsa struggles for redemption from her own horrifying Grace, the Grace of killing, and teams up with another young fighter to save their land from a corrupt king.

You Are Here by Jennifer E. Smith
Sixteen-year-old Emma Healy has never felt that she fit in with the rest of her family, so when she discovers that she had a twin brother who died shortly after they were born, she takes off on an impulsive road trip to try to discover who she really is.

Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson
After the death of her father, Amy, a high school student and Roger, a college freshman, set out on a carefully planned road trip from California to Connecticut, but wind up taking many detours, forcing Amy to face her worst fears and come to terms with her grief and guilt.


More Books --
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
American Road Trip by Patrick Flores-Scott
Down and Across by Arvin Ahmadi
Field Notes on Love by Jennifer E. Smith
First Love by James Patterson
Four Three Two One by Courtney C. Stevens
The Geography of Lost Things by Jessica Brody
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Nowhere Near You by Leah Thomas
Paper Hearts by Ali Novak
The Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown
Return to Paradise by Simone Elkeles
Road Tripped by Pete Hautman
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
When Elephants Fly by Nancy Richardson Fischer
Wherever Nina Lies by Lynn Weingarten

Check these books out on display at the Arnold Branch through August 2, 2019.

It's A Love Written in the Stars . . . Romances for Teens

With Valentine's Day quickly approaching, many teen's thoughts turn to love.  Here are some great teen books featuring star-crossed romances . . .

Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
When Lord Death comes to claim sixteen-year-old Keturah while she is lost in the King's Forest, she charms him with her story and is granted a twenty-four hour reprieve in which to seek her one true love.

Son of the Mob by Gordon Korman
Seventeen-year-old Vince's life is constantly complicated by the fact that he is the son of a powerful Mafia boss, a relationship that threatens to destroy his romance with the daughter of an FBI agent.

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith
Sparks fly when sixteen-year-old Lucy Patterson and seventeen-year-old Owen Buckley meet on an elevator rendered useless by a New York City blackout. Soon after, the two teenagers leave the city, but as they travel farther away from each other geographically, they stay connected emotionally, in this story set over the course of one year.

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
For three years, seventeen-year-old Cas Lowood has carried on his father's work of dispatching the murderous dead, traveling with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat, but everything changes when he meets Anna, a girl unlike any ghost he has faced before.

Prince of Shadows by Rachel Caine
The star-crossed tale of Romeo and Juliet, told through the eyes of Romeo's cousin, Benvolio, a thief known as the Prince of Shadows.


More Tales of Star-Crossed Loves
Alienated by Melissa Landers
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
The Book of Broken Hearts by Sarah Ockler
Crash Into You by Katie McGarry
Drink, Slay, Love by Sarah Beth Durst
Enchanted by Alethea Kontis
Everynight by Claudia Gray
In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters
Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo
Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
Three Rivers Rising: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood by Jame Richards
Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson
The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski


These books will be on display at the Arnold Branch through February 20, 2015.

Happy Valentine's Day, Part 2

A lot of teen books include a romance story line.  For Valentine's Day, here are some of my favorite teen romances . . .

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith
Hadley and Oliver fall in love on the flight from New York to London, but after a cinematic kiss they lose track of each other at the airport until fate brings them back together on a very momentous day.

My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park by Steve Kluger
Three teenagers in Boston narrate their experiences of a year of new friendships, first loves, and coming into their own.

Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
When Lord Death comes to claim sixteen-year-old Keturah while she is lost in the King's Forest, she charms him with her story and is granted a twenty-four hour reprieve in which to seek her one true love.

The Simple Gift by Steven Herrick
A coming of age novel in verse about sixteen-year-old Billy who runs away from his alcoholic father, lives in an abandoned freight train, falls in love with a rich girl, and ultimately learns the meaning of family.

My Favorite Books, Part 2

Here are some of my favorite books for teens from 2013 . . .

Nameless: A Tale of Beauty and Madness by Lili St. Crow
Raised in luxury as the pampered, adopted heiress of Enrico Vultusino, godfather of the Seven -- the powerful Families that rule magic-ridden New Haven -- Camille knows that she is not really Family. Unlike them, she is a mortal with a past that lies buried in trauma. Then she meets the mysterious Tor and begins to uncover the secrets of her birth.

This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith
Perfect strangers Graham Larkin and Ellie O'Neill meet online when Graham accidentally sends Ellie an e-mail about his pet pig, Wilbur. The two 17-year-olds strike up an e-mail relationship from opposite sides of the country and don't even know each other's first names. What's more, Ellie doesn't know Graham is a famous actor, and Graham doesn't know about the big secret in Ellie's family tree. When the relationship goes from online to in-person, they find out whether their relationship can be the real thing.

Being Henry David by Cal Armistead
Seventeen-year-old 'Hank,' who can't remember his identity, finds himself in Penn Station with a copy of Thoreau's Walden as his only possession and must figure out where he's from and why he ran away.

Boy Nobody by Allen Zadoff
Sixteen-year-old Boy Nobody, an assassin controlled by a shadowy government organization, The Program, considers sabotaging his latest mission because his target reminds him of the normal life he craves.