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My Loose Thread

Dennis Cooper · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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Long Way Down

Jason Reynolds · 321 pages

National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestseller Jason Reynolds's fiercely stunning novel takes place in sixty potent seconds, the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he's going to murder the guy who killed his brother.

Sparse ProseTeenagersTeen ProtagonistDark
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Vernon God Little

D.B.C. Pierre · 283 pages

Teenager Vernon Gregory Little's life has been changed by the Columbine-style slaughter of a group of students at his high school. Soon his home town is blanketed under a media siege, and Vernon finds himself blamed for the killing. Vernon finds himself drawn into a series of increasingly bizarre circumstances and decides to take off for Mexico and a date, with the delectable Taylor Figueros.

TeenagersTeen ProtagonistLiterary FictionMass Shooting
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Less Than Zero

Bret Easton Ellis · 208 pages

Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980's, this coolly mesmerizing novel is a raw, powerful portrait of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age, in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money a place devoid of feeling or hope. Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of limitless

Sparse ProseTeen ProtagonistLiterary FictionDark
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All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque · 236 pages

This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army of World War I. These young men become enthusiastic soldiers, but their world of duty, culture, and progress breaks into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the hatred that meaninglessly pits young men of the s

Sparse ProseDarkTeen ProtagonistViolent
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A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess · 188 pages

A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian satirical black comedy novel by English writer Anthony Burgess, published in 1962. It is set in a near-future society that has a youth subculture of extreme violence. The teenage protagonist, Alex, narrates his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities intent on reforming him. The book is partially written in a Russian-influenced argot called "Na

TeenagersDarkLiterary FictionTeen Protagonist
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The Family of Pascual Duarte

Camilo Jose Cela, Anthony Kerrigan · 198 pages

Sparse ProseDarkLiterary FictionViolent
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Parable of the Sower

Octavia E. Butler · 299 pages

In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future. Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been d

TeenagersDarkTeen ProtagonistViolent
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The Short-Timers

Gustav Hasford · 180 pages

L'opera prima di un ex combattente che ha vissuto direttamente l'inferno della guerra. Siamo in Vietnam nel 1968. Dopo un addestramento selvaggio, i giovani marines sono precipitati in un panorama d'incubo, annerito dal napalm e infestato da cadaveri umani in decomposizione. È allora che la Guerra lascia cadere la maschera di Gloria, Onore, Virilità e Amor Patrio e mostra il suo volto vero. Il cap

Sparse ProseDarkLiterary FictionViolent
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Rumble Fish

Marcus Romer, S.E. Hinton · 123 pages

A junior high school boy idolizes his older brother, the coolest, toughest guy in the neighborhood, and wants to be just like him.

Sparse ProseTeenagersTeen ProtagonistViolent
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The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton · 192 pages

According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs f

Sparse ProseTeen ProtagonistTeenagersLiterary Fiction
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The Violent Bear It Away

Flannery O'Connor · 243 pages

Francis, an orphan who lives with his great-uncle in Powderhead, Tennessee, is called by God to be a prophet. This is against his will and causes much inner conflict.

Sparse ProseDarkTeen ProtagonistLiterary Fiction
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Canada

Richard Ford · 420 pages

After his parents are arrested and imprisoned for robbing a bank, fifteen-year-old Dell Parsons is taken in by Arthur Remlinger who, unbeknownst to Dell, is hiding a dark and violent nature that interferes with Dell's quest to find grace and peace on the prairie of Saskatchewan.

Sparse ProseTeen ProtagonistLiterary FictionDark
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Steps

Jerzy Kosinski · 142 pages

Sparse ProseDarkLiterary FictionFirst Person Narrator
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Swallows of Kabul

Yasmina Khadra · 208 pages

Sparse ProseDarkLiterary FictionViolent
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Crank

Ellen Hopkins · 537 pages

Kristina is the perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. Then she meets the monster: crank. And what begins as a wild ride turns into a struggle for her mind, her soul---her life.

Sparse ProseDarkTeenagersTeen Protagonist
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Joe

Larry Brown · 348 pages

Sparse ProseLiterary FictionDarkTeen Protagonist
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Sunrise on the Reaping (svensk utgåva)

Suzanne Collins · 340 pages

Den fantastiska femte boken i Hunger Games-serien är här! När solen går upp på slåtterdagen för 50-årsjubileet av Hungerspelen sprider sig oron och skräcken i distrikten. För att fira jubileet kommer fyra ungdomar istället för två i varje distrikt skickas till arenan för att strida på liv och död. I distrikt 12 gör sig Haymitch Abernathy redo för att gå till torget och ceremonin. Han försöker att

TeenagersDarkTeen ProtagonistViolent
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TeenagersDarkTeen ProtagonistMass Shooting
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After Dark

Haruki Murakami · 208 pages

A sleek, gripping novel of encounters set in Tokyo during the spooky hours between midnight and dawn, by an internationally renowned literary phenomenon.Murakami's trademark humor, psychological insight, and grasp of spirit and morality are here distilled with an extraordinary, harmonious mastery. Combining the pyrotechnical genius that made Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle intern

Sparse ProseTeenagersLiterary FictionDark
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Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook

Christina Henry · 297 pages

"From the national bestselling author of Alice comes a familiar story with a dark hook--a tale about Peter Pan and the friend who became his nemesis, a nemesis who may not be the blackhearted villain Peter says he is ..."-- "On an island lives a boy called Peter and his band of merry lost boys, young forever. That is, unless they get sick or killed by pirates or eaten by crocodiles or unless--i

TeenagersDarkTeen ProtagonistViolent
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Boy Nobody

Allen Zadoff · 337 pages

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.

Sparse ProseTeenagersTeen ProtagonistViolent
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De Niro's Game

Rawi Hage · 280 pages

In the Christian part of Beirut, torn by civil war, two befriended young men make a different choice about whether to flee or join the fight.

Sparse ProseDarkLiterary FictionViolent
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Antichrista

Amelie Nothomb · 107 pages

When Blanche's mother, who finds her own daughter rather colourless, bookish and dull, is also dazzled by Christa, she invites her to stay at the family house. Suddenly Christa can do no wrong and, as Blanche's parents scour their address-book for long-lost friends to invite for dinner to meet the newcomer, their friendship sours and Blanche's already negligible self-confidence goes into a steep d

Sparse ProseTeen ProtagonistDarkLiterary Fiction
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I Hunt Killers

Barry Lyga · 359 pages

*What if the world's worst serial killer...was your dad?* Jasper "Jazz" Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say. But he's also the son of the world's most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could—from the criminal's point of view. And now bodies are piling up in Lobo's

TeenagersDarkTeen ProtagonistViolent

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