YA Fiction

Echo and her younger brothers are growing up in a family with limited economic resources and parents who find respite from their struggles with drugs and alcohol.

High school senior Lulu regularly uploads photos and video to a platform called Flash (think Snapchat).

Nishat is thrilled to see new student Flávia at her Catholic girls’ school in Dublin.

Bisou was a little girl when her father killed her mother.

Del has had a crush on Kiera since grade school, and she’s finally boyfriend-free. He volunteers to join a youth group at church in which Kiera is involved as a way to impress her, only to discover that he’s unwittingly committed to a Purity Pledge: No sex until marriage.

High school senior Rosa Santos’s mother was born at sea during her grandparent’s escape from Cuba. Rosa’s grandfather drowned on that journey. Rosa’s own father died at sea before she was born. Rosa, who’s been shaped by both the love and the pain of her grandmother and mother, avoids the water, believing her family has a curse.

High school senior Frank Li is first generation Korean American. He’s grown up solidly middle class thanks to his parents’ drive. They work almost constantly as owner/operators of a store in a poor urban neighborhood an hour away. Frank’s older sister, Hanna, has become persona non grata at home (but not to Frank) since dating and marrying a Black man.

Suspended from school for challenging a teacher’s Islamophobia, West Indian/Pakistani American Zayneb spends an extended break in Doha, Qatar, with her aunt. Adam (Chinese/White) has returned to Doha for spring break from college in London.

Tired of the sexual harassment perpetrated by the swim coach at her private girls’ academy in Sydney, Amelia Westlake publishes a cartoon calling him out in the school paper. Encouraged by the approval of her fellow students, her acts of resistance (a.k.a. “pranks”) continue, and soon school administration is bent on stopping her

Jay Reguero came from the Philippines to the U.S. with his Filipino dad and American white mom as a baby. He hasn’t been back since he was 10, but has maintained a friendship with his cousin Jun across the years. When he learns Jun has died, Jay feels equal parts grief, guilt—he hadn’t written Jun much recently—and frustration: No one will tell him what happened.