The Freak Observer
Bythe Woolston
Fiction W888f
Sixteen-year-old Loa Lindgren's family is emotionally splintered and drifting following the death of her younger sister Asta, whose Rett syndrome necessitated constant care and kept the family on a rigid schedule. Plagued by PTSD and nightmares about death, Loa clings to household chores, watching over her younger brother, and her beloved physics to rebuild a sense of normalcy. (School Library Journal)
As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth
Lynne Rae Perkins
Fiction P419e
Sixteen-year-old Ry opens a letter en route to a summer program informing him that camp has been canceled because “a statistically improbable number of things have gone wrong.“ He hops off the train in Montana to figure out what to do, and his own series of improbable misfortunes begins—the train moves on without him (but with all his stuff), leaving him alone with a dying cell phone in the precise middle of nowhere. Oh, and one of his shoes just floated off down a river. (Booklist)
Bitter Melon
Cara Chow
Fiction C459b
Frances, a Chinese-American student at an academically competitive school in San Francisco, has always had it drilled into her to be obedient to her mother and to be a straight-A student so that she can go to Med school. But is being a doctor what she wants? It has never even occurred to Frances to question her own feelings and desires until she accidentally winds up in speech class and finds herself with a hidden talent. Does she dare to challenge the mother who has sacrificed everything for her? (Product Description)
Illyria
Elizabeth Hand
Fiction H191i
Madeleine and Rogan are first cousins, best friends, twinned souls, each other’s first love. Even within their large, disorderly family—all descendants of a famous actress—their intensity and passion for theater sets them apart. It makes them a little dangerous. When they are cast in their school’s production of Twelfth Night, they are forced to face their separate talents and futures, and their future together. (Book jacket)
Incarceron
Catherine Fisher
Fiction F531i
The vast prison Incarceron, made of metal and cutting-edge technology, was designed as a grand experiment: all undesirables would be sealed inside and given everything for a model utopia. But the experiment failed as Incarceron grew self-aware and tyrannical, resources dwindled, and prisoners divided into factions. Centuries later, prisoners exist under Incarceron’s watchful eyes with one belief: no one from Outside enters, no one from Inside escapes. Finn, however, believes he’s from Outside, and after he finds a crystal key that opens any door, he embarks on a journey to escape. (Booklist)
Sequel:
Sapphique [Fiction F531s]
