After Iris

Lost for Words

Alice Kuipers

Sixteen-year-old Sophie struggles to find normalcy after an incident she chooses not to remember took her sister's life, and by keeping a journal, making a new friend, and seeing a therapist she finally begins to recover.

The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen

Susin Nielsen · 243 pages

When thirteen-year-old Henry and his family move to the city to leave behind a secret tragedy, Henry finds a journal is his best friend.

Commonwealth

Ann Patchett · 322 pages

"One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly--thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families. Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six

Mick Harte Was Here

Barbara Park · 89 pages

Thirteen-year-old Phoebe recalls her younger brother Mick and his death in a bicycle accident.

If I Stay

Gayle Forman · 272 pages

*Just listen, Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel. I open my eyes wide now. I sit up as much as I can. And I listen. Stay, he says.* Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love—music—even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind? Then one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, an

The Witch's Boy

Kelly Barnhill · 400 pages

When a Bandit King comes to take the magic that Ned's mother, a witch, is meant to protect, the stuttering, weak boy villagers think should have drowned rather than his twin summons the strength to protect his family and community, while in the woods, the bandit's daughter puzzles over a mystery that ties her to Ned. When a Bandit King tries to take magic from Ned's mother, a witch, the stutter

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott · 321 pages

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, *Little Women*. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War. It is no

The Gathering

Anne Enright · 266 pages

Anne Enright is a dazzling writer of international stature and one of Ireland’s most singular voices. Now she delivers The Gathering, a moving, evocative portrait of a large Irish family and a shot of fresh blood into the Irish literary tradition, combining the lyricism of the old with the shock of the new. The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan are gathering in Dublin for the wake of the

Love, Aubrey

Suzanne LaFleur · 272 pages

"I had everything I needed to run a household: a house, food, and a new family. From now on it would just be me and Sammy--the two of us, and no one else."A tragic accident has turned eleven-year-old Aubrey's world upside down. Starting a new life all alone, Aubrey has everything she thinks she needs: SpaghettiOs and Sammy, her new pet fish. She cannot talk about what happened to her. Writing lett

Revolution

Jennifer Donnelly · 491 pages

"Andi is broken. She is failing school and failing life. Since the death of her brother, all she cares about is music. Taken to Paris by her estranged father, she makes a discovery there that could transform everything. Hidden in the compartment of an old guitar case is a lost diary from Revolutionary France. Alexandrine is a street performer who is trying to save a young life from the devastation

Saving Zoë

Alyson Noel

Instead of a fresh start, high school provides more grief and isolation to Echo, whose older sister died a year earlier, but insights gained from Zoe's diary--a fifteenth birthday gift from Zoe's boyfriend--about her sister's life and death change Echo in ways she could have never expected.

Angela's Ashes

Frank McCourt · 384 pages

"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish im

Have Wheels, Will Travel

Anne Mazer · 142 pages

All Abby wants are a pair of purple rollerblades! But she needs to earn the money herself. Its hard work, will Abby be able to reach her goal???

The Last Time We Say Goodbye

Cynthia Hand · 390 pages

After her younger brother, Tyler, commits suicide, Lex struggles to work through her grief in the face of a family that has fallen apart, the sudden distance between her and her friends, and memories of Tyler that still feel all too real. After her younger brother, Tyler, commits suicide, Lexie struggles with grief in the face of a family that has fallen apart, the sudden distance between her and

Mockingbird

Kathryn Erskine · 256 pages

In Caitlin's world, everything is black or white. Things are good or bad. Anything in between is confusing. That's the stuff Caitlin's older brother, Devon, has always explained. But now Devon's dead and Dad is no help at all. Caitlin wants to get over it, but as an eleven-year-old girl with Asperger's, she doesn't know how. When she reads the definition of closure, she realizes that is what she n

Broken and Screwed

Tijan · 260 pages

Alexandra's older brother died the night he graduated. That day changed everything for her. No longer was she the party girl. No longer did she care about being popular and no longer was her family the happy unit she always thought existed. The only person who could help her heal is the same person who loved her brother as much as she did, his best friend. She only hopes to keep her entire heart f

Seven Little Australians

Ethel Turner · 152 pages

From the book:Before you fairly start this story I should like to give you just a word of warning. If you imagine you are going to read of model children, with perhaps; a naughtily inclined one to point a moral, you had better lay down the book immediately and betake yourself to 'Sandford and Merton' or similar standard juvenile works. Not one of the seven is really good, for the very excellent re

Mathilda Savitch

Victor Lodato

A fiercely funny and touching debut novel about a girl with a sharp and mischievous voice of her own – and her quest to discover the truth about her sister's death'I want to be awful. I want to do awful things and why not? Dull is dull is dull is my life. Like now, it's night, not yet time for bed but too late to be outside, and the two of them reading reading reading with their eyes moving like t

Jane in Bloom

Deborah Lytton

Janes big sister, Lizzie, has always been the center of attention. No one ever pays attention to boring, plain Jane. But when Janes twelfth birthday marks the beginning of Lizzies fi nal descent into a fatal eating disorder, Jane discovers that the only thing harder than living in her big sisters shadow is living without her.In the wake of tragedy, Jane learns to look through her camera lens and f

A Desumanização

valter hugo mae · 233 pages

The Hotel New Hampshire

John Irving · 432 pages

The Hotel New Hampshire follows the Berry family across two continents and through three hotels. Family members attract friends who substitute lust, violence, laughter and tears for the standard bourgeois components.

Bird

Crystal Chan · 295 pages

Twelve-year-old Jewel was born on the day her brother Bird died and lives in a house of silence and secrets, but a new boy in her Iowa town may help find the answers Jewel wants despite her Jamaican grandfather's warning that he is a "duppy," a malevolent spirit.

The Third Wheel

Jeff Kinney · 224 pages

Love is in the air - but what does that mean for Greg Heffley? A Valentine's Day dance at Greg's middle school has turned his world upside down. As Greg scrambles to find a date, he's worried he'll be left out in the cold on the big night. His best friend, Rowley, doesn't have any prospects either, but that's a small consolation. An unexpected twist gives Greg a partner for the dance and leaves Ro

On Dublin Street

Samantha Young · 325 pages

Jocelyn left her tragic past behind in the States and started over in Scotland, burying her grief, ignoring her demons, and forging ahead without attachments. When she moves into a new apartment on Dublin Street, she meets a man who shakes her carefully guarded world to its core. Braden Carmichael is used to getting what he wants, and he's determined to get Jocelyn into his bed. Knowing how skitti