Seventeen year old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father, a former concert pianist and teacher, moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alienated from her parents, especially her father...until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she and her younger brother spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Resentful and...

Pecola Breedlove, a young eleven-year-old black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dreams grow more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity. --...

"Dorothea is an idealistic young woman whose hope for intellectual partnership leads her to marry the Reverend Edward Casaubon, a cold-blooded scholar who proves unable to appreciate or respect her. The consequences of her disastrous choice are played out amid a large and colorful cast of characters, including the vain and shallow local beauty, Rosamond Vincy; the talented Dr. Tertius Lydgate, whose ambitious are derailed by love; the pious banker...

"It's the summer of 1994 in Claypot, Wisconsin, and the lives of ten-year-old Fischer 'Fish' Branson and Dale 'Bread' Breadwin are shaped by the two fathers they don't talk about. One night, tired of seeing his best friend bruised and terrorized by his no-good dad, Fish takes action. A gunshot rings out and the two boys flee the scene, believing themselves murderers. They head for the woods, where they find their way onto a raft, but the natural terrors...

"The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship--like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor--April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around...

"When Sarah Taylor arrives at the exclusive St. Ambrose School, she's carrying more baggage than just what fits in her suitcase. She knows she's not like the other girls--if the shabby, all-black, non-designer clothes don't give that away, the bottle of lithium hidden in her desk drawer sure does. St. Ambrose's queen bee, Greta Stanhope, picks Sarah as a target from day one and the most popular, powerful, horrible girl at school is relentless in making...

"In one day, four lives weave together in unexpected ways. Virgil Salinas is shy and kindhearted and feels out of place in his crazy-about-sports family. Valencia Somerset, who is deaf, is smart, brave, and secretly lonely, and she loves everything about nature. Kaori Tanaka is a self-proclaimed psychic, whose little sister, Gen, is always following her around. And Chet Bullens wishes the weird kids would just stop being so different so he can concentrate...

Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago has been doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. She dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, but knows that is impossible. But once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break...

For as far back as he can remember, the dream of becoming a writer has burned brightly in Thorliff's heart. But when he arrives at college, things are not as he had imagined. Thorliff longs for the familiarity and nurture of his loved ones back home. The distance has created a rift between Thorliff and his childhood sweetheart. The only bright spot in his life is his job at the town newspaper. Will he be forced to leave one dream behind to pursue...

An American classic and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to the second world war. Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome,...