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Paradise Lodge

Nina Stibbe Β· back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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How to Build a Girl

Caitlin Moran Β· 341 pages

After she shames herself on local television, Johanna Morgan reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde--a fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero--until two years later, while eviscerating bands as a music critic, she realizes she's built Dolly with a fatal flaw.

BildungsromanDry HumorTeen ProtagonistContemporary Fiction
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Paper Towns

John Green Β· 320 pages

One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q's neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears.

BildungsromanDry HumorTeen ProtagonistContemporary Fiction
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Prep

Curtis Sittenfeld Β· 427 pages

Curtis Sittenfeld's debut novel, Prep, is an insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition.Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate famil

BildungsromanDry HumorTeen ProtagonistContemporary Fiction
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Slam

Nick Hornby Β· 309 pages

Just when everything is coming together for Sam, his girlfriend Alicia drops a bombshell. Make that ex-girlfriend-- because by the time she tells him she's pregnant, they've already called it quits. Sam does not want to be a teenage dad. His mom had him at sixteen and has made it very clear how having a baby so young interrupted her life. There's only one person Sam can turn to--his hero, skating

BildungsromanDry HumorTeen ProtagonistContemporary Fiction
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Lake Wobegon Summer, 1956

Garrison Keillor Β· 304 pages

"The Doo Dads are singing "My Girl" on the radio and on the porch of the big green house on Green Street, fourteen-year-old Gary is studying pictures of naked women, aware that Grandpa is looking down from the window of heaven and wondering how a Sanctified Brethren boy could turn out so badly.". "He has never so much as kissed a girl, except his rebellious cousin Kate, a sophisticate of seventee

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistContemporary FictionFirst Person Narrator
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The Catcher in the Rye

Jerome David Salinger Β· 277 pages

With the author's recent passing, the classic novel about young Holden Caulfield's disillusionment with the adult world and its phoniness will only rise in popularity--and controversy, since it is a favorite target of censors, who often cite profan

BildungsromanDry HumorTeen ProtagonistFirst Person Narrator
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Cold Sassy Tree

Olive Ann Burns Β· 395 pages

Had difficulty with the unfamiliar language spoken by the characters, but once I was able to figure it out I enjoyed the family dynamics. Upon finishing this book, I immediately borrowed "Leaving Cold Sassy".

BildungsromanDry HumorTeen ProtagonistFirst Person Narrator
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Red Sky at Morning

Richard Bradford Β· 256 pages

The experiences of a teenager growing up in a small town in New Mexico are, at various times, funny, sad, and poignant.

BildungsromanDry HumorTeen ProtagonistFirst Person Narrator
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Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys

Kate Brian Β· 266 pages

When she was nine, Megan Meade met a group of terrible, mean, Popsicle-goo-covered boys, the sons of her father's friend -- the McGowan boys. Now, seven years later, Megan's army doctor parents are shipping off to Korea and Megan is being sent to live with the little monsters, who are older now and quite different than she remembered them. Living in a house with seven boys will give Megan, who ha

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistFirst Person NarratorContemporary Fiction
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Winger

Andrew Smith

Two years younger than his classmates at a prestigious boarding school, fourteen-year-old Ryan Dean West grapples with living in the dorm for troublemakers, falling for his female best friend who thinks of him as just a kid, and playing wing on the Varsity rugby team with some of his frightening new dorm-mates.

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistContemporary FictionFunny
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The Excellent Lombards

Jane Hamilton Β· 273 pages

"From the internationally bestselling author of The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World, a heartfelt coming-of-age story that Karen Joy Fowler calls "a timeless classic book you will read and reread." Mary Frances "Frankie" Lombard is fiercely in love with her family's sprawling apple orchard and the tangled web of family members who inhabit it. Content to spend her days planning capers with her b

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistContemporary FictionFirst Person Narrator
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48 Shades of Brown

Nick Earls Β· 304 pages

BildungsromanContemporary FictionTeen ProtagonistFunny
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The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things

Carolyn Mackler Β· 288 pages

Feeling like she does not fit in with the other members of her family, who are all thin, brilliant, and good-looking, fifteen-year-old Virginia tries to deal with her self-image, her first physical relationship, and her disillusionment with some of the people closest to her.

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistContemporary FictionFirst Person Narrator
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Second Helpings

Megan McCafferty Β· 349 pages

Dry HumorTeen ProtagonistContemporary FictionFunny
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The Life All Around Me By Ellen Foster

Kaye Gibbons Β· 218 pages

This sequel to Gibbon's beloved classic Ellen Foster stands on its own as an unforgettable portrait of a redoubtable adolescent making herself up out of whole cloth. Now fifteen, Ellen is settled into a permanent home with a new mother. Strengthened by adversity and blessed with enough intelligence to design a salvation for herself, she still feels ill at ease in the world. Her sole surviving ritu

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistContemporary FictionFirst Person Narrator
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Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Carol Rifka Brunt Β· 384 pages

It is 1987, and only one person has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus -- her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn's company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June's world is turned upside d

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistContemporary FictionFirst Person Narrator
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The House on Mango Street

Sandra Cisneros Β· 110 pages

NATIONAL BESTSELLER β€’ A coming-of-age classic, acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the worldβ€”from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for he

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistContemporary FictionFirst Person Narrator
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Crum: The Novel

Lee Maynard Β· 262 pages

In Crum, a gritty coal town on the West Virginia-Kentucky border, the boys fight, swear, chase and sometimes catch girls. The adults are cramped in and clueless, hemmed in by the mountains. The weight of wonder, dejection, and even possibility loom over this tiny, suffocating town. This story is the tale of Jesse Stone, who doesn't know where he's going, but knows he is leaving, and whose rebellio

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistContemporary FictionFirst Person Narrator
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Human Punk

John King Β· 352 pages

Summary:For fifteen year old Martin, growing up in Slough, the summer of 1977 means punk rock, reggae, disco, stolen cars, cut-throat gangs, and a job picking cherries for the gypsies. Life is sweet until hes beaten up and thrown in the Grand Union canal with his best friend, Smiles. Fast forward to 1988 and Joe is heading home on the Trans-Siberian Express after three years working in a Hong Kong

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistFirst Person NarratorContemporary Fiction
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The Gargoyle Hunters

John Freeman Gill Β· 339 pages

"Griffin Watts is 13 years old in 1974 New York, a city which, at the brink of financial collapse, seems to crumble around him at roughly the same rate as his family. Desperate to forge a connection to his father, Griffin gets co-opted into his illicit and dangerous architectural salvage business, which allows him to discover the centuries old sculptures (gargoyles) carved into buildings all over

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistFirst Person NarratorContemporary Fiction
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Anita and Me

Meera Syal Β· 336 pages

BildungsromanContemporary FictionFirst Person NarratorFunny
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Stargirl

Jerry Spinelli Β· 192 pages

A celebration of nonconformity; a tense, emotional tale about the fleeting, cruel nature of popularity--and the thrill and inspiration of first love. Ages 12+ Leo Borlock follows the unspoken rule at Mica Area High School: don't stand out--under any circumstances! Then Stargirl arrives at Mica High and everything changes--for Leo and for the entire school. After 15 years of home schooling, Star

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistContemporary FictionFirst Person Narrator
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The Silver Star

Jeannette Walls Β· 304 pages

Two motherless sisters--Bean and Liz--are shuttled to Virginia, where their Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that's been in their family for generations. When school starts in the fall, Bean easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz becomes increasingly withdrawn. Then something happens to Liz and Bean is left to challenge the injustice of the adult world.

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistContemporary FictionFirst Person Narrator
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Some Things That Stay

Sarah Willis Β· 275 pages

Tamara Anderson grew up on the move-crossing the country, leaving behind people and bedrooms and belongings. Now she's turning fifteen, and she wants to stay in Mayville, New York.

BildungsromanTeen ProtagonistContemporary FictionFirst Person Narrator

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