Freshman Year

Read Me Like a Book

Liz Kessler · 304 pages

Ashleigh Walker is a mediocre student with an assortment of friends, a sort-of boyfriend, and no plans for the future. Then a straight-from-college English teacher, Miss Murray, takes over Ash s class and changes everything. Miss Murray smiles a lot. She shares poetry with curse words in it. She s, well, cool. And she seems to really care about her students. About Ashleigh. For the first time, Ash

So Hard to Say

Alex Sanchez · 230 pages

Thirteen year old Xio,a Mxican American girl, and Frederick, who has just moved to California from Wisconsin,quickly become close friends, but when Xio starts thinking of Frederick as her boyfriend, he must cconfront his feelings of confusion and face the fear of him might being gay.

Annie on My Mind

Nancy Garden · 233 pages

This groundbreaking book is the story of two teenage girls whose friendship blossoms into love and who, despite pressures from family and school that threaten their relationship, promise to be true to each other and their feelings. This book is so truthful and honest, it has been banned from many school libraries and even publicly burned in Kansas City.

Dance on My Grave

Aidan Chambers · 251 pages

Hal's summer affair with Barry Goldman ends tragically when Hal discovers he is much more committed to the relationship than his friend.

Swimming in the Monsoon Sea

Shyam Selvadurai · 274 pages

From back cover: ... it is the season of monsoons. 14 year old Amrith is submerged in the cheerful, well-to-do lifestyle in which his vibrant Auntie Bundle and kindly Uncle Lucky have raised him. Still, Amrith can't seem to shake the blurred memories of his life "before," when his doting mother was still alive. School is out for the summer and Amrith's holiday plans seem unpromising. Until, like a

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

John Green, David Levithan · 331 pages

One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two teens—both named Will Grayson—are about to cross paths. As their worlds collide and intertwine, the Will Graysons find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, building toward romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history’s most fabulous high school musical.Hilarious, poignant, and deeply insightful, John Green and D

Every Day

David Levithan · 330 pages

Every morning A wakes in a different person's body, in a different person's life, learning over the years to never get too attached, until he wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon.

A Secret Edge

Robin Reardon · 304 pages

Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World

Janet E. Cameron · 375 pages

It's the spring of 1987 and 17-year-old Stephen Shulevitz has less than three months left in high school in the small town in rural Nova Scotia where he's spent most of his life. But as Stephen prepares to leave Riverside behind he falls in love with exactly the wrong person. And just like that everything changes. What follows is emotionally devastating but Stephen survives with his compassion and

My Tiki Girl

Jennifer McMahon · 240 pages

Maggie was looking for a friend in Dahlia. She never guessed shed find love, too.All the tenth-grade girls hate Dahlia Wainwrighta smart, natural beauty and freaky outsider all in one. And thats exactly what Maggie Keller is drawn to, for she herself is an outsider, having withdrawn from the high school elite crowd after a car accident that killed her mother - an accident for which she blames hers

Little & Lion

Brandy Colbert · 341 pages

When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn't sure if she'll ever want to go back. LA is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support. But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new; the same girl h

Honor Girl: A Graphic Memoir

Maggie Thrash · 272 pages

Maggie Thrash has spent basically every summer of her fifteen-year-old life at the one-hundred-year-old Camp Bellflower for Girls, set deep in the heart of Appalachia. She's from Atlanta, she's never kissed a guy, she's into Backstreet Boys in a really deep way, and her long summer days are full of a pleasant, peaceful nothing . . . until one confounding moment. A split-second of innocent phys

Gravity

Leanne Lieberman

Ellie Gold is an orthodox Jewish teenager living in Toronto in the late eighties. Ellie has no doubts about her strict religious upbringing until she falls in love with another girl at her grandmother's cottage. Aware that homosexuality clashes with Jewish observance, Ellie feels forced to either alter her sexuality or leave her community. Meanwhile, Ellie's mother, Chana, becomes convinced she ha

The Summer I Wasn't Me

Jessica Verdi · 342 pages

"Ever since her mom found out she was in love with a girl, seventeen-year-old Lexi's afraid that what's left of her family is going to fall apart for good. New Horizons summer camp promises a new life for Lexi--she swears she can change. She can learn to like boys. But denying her feelings is harder than she thinks"--

Crush

Carrie Mac · 106 pages

Sent to live with her sister in New York while her parents travel for the summer, Hope starts a new friendship with a local girl that turns into something she didn't quite expect, in a tale about love, acceptance, and self-awareness.

Girl Walking Backwards

Bett Williams · 242 pages

In Girl Walking Backwards, Skye wants what all teenagers want--to survive high school. She lives in Southern California, though, which is making that difficult. Her mother has fallen victim to the pseudo-New Age culture and insists on dragging her to consciousness-raising workshops and hypnotists. As if this weren't difficult enough, Skye falls in love with Jessica, a troubled gothic punk girl who

Sugar Rush

Julie Burchill · 243 pages

After fifteen-year-old Kim transfers to a new school, she finds herself falling in love with the glamorous Maria "Sugar" Sweet.

South of Sunshine

Dana Elmendorf · 254 pages

Kaycee Jean McCoy hides the fact that she's gay from her small southern town of Sunshine, Tennessee. But when Bren Dawson moves to town, she's forced to decide between love or giving in to the social prejudice of her town.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Becky Albertalli · 336 pages

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the bo

Keeping You a Secret

Julie Anne Peters · 250 pages

A fantastically written book that follows the life of student Holland Jaegar in her last year of high school. Holland begins her last semester of school by meeting CeCe Goddard, a transfer student from Washington Central. As the days progress Holland learn about CeCe and the fact that she is a lesbian. Holland is drawn to the charisma and strength of Cece and a friendship forms. When Holland suspe

Perfect

Ellen Hopkins · 656 pages

Everyone has something, someone, somewhere else that they’d rather be. For four high-school seniors, their goals of perfection are just as different as the paths they take to get there. Cara’s parents’ unrealistic expectations have already sent her twin brother Conner spiraling toward suicide. For her, perfect means rejecting their ideals to take a chance on a new kind of love. Kendra covets the p

Empress of the World

Sara Ryan · 213 pages

Nicola Lancaster is spending eight weeks at the Siegel Institute Summer Program for Gifted Youth, a hothouse of smart, articulate, intense teenagers. She soon falls in with Katrina (Manic Computer Chick), Isaac (Nice-Guy-Despite-Himself), Kevin (Inarticulate Composer) . . . and Battle. Battle Hall Davies is a beautiful blonde dancer, and everything Nic isn't. The two become friends-and then, start

Her Name in the Sky

Kelly Quindlen

Hannah has big plans for senior year: football games, Mardi Gras parties, and spring break on the beach with her tight-knit group of friends. No drama, no detours. Just a year to remember. Falling for another girl—her best friend, Baker—was not part of the plan. Hannah knows she should date Wally, the earnest, dependable boy her sister is always teasing her about. She should be happy when Cl

The Sky Always Hears Me: And the Hills Don't Mind

Kirstin Cronn-Mills · 281 pages

Sixteen-year-old Morgan struggles with her growing attraction to a co-worker, her unsatisfactory relationship with her boyfriend, and with her own sexual orientation after a girlfriend is rumored to be gay.