#paperback #fiction #tourettesyndrome #comingofage #illness #kentucky #orphan #womanhood 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

North Carolina

A New York Times Notable Book and the March 2001 selection of Oprah's Book Club® ! Icy Sparks is the sad, funny and transcendent tale of a young girl growing up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky during the 1950’s. Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s beautifully written first novel revolves around Icy Sparks, an unforgettable heroine in the tradition of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird or Will Treed in Cold Sassy Tree. At the age of ten, Icy, a bright, curious child orphaned as a baby but raised by adoring grandparents, begins to have strange experiences. Try as she might, her "secrets"—verbal croaks, groans, and physical spasms—keep afflicting her. As an adult, she will find out she has Tourette’s Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder, but for years her behavior is the source of mystery, confusion, and deep humiliation. Narrated by a grown up Icy, the book chronicles a difficult, but ultimately hilarious and heartwarming journey, from her first spasms to her self-acceptance as a young woman. Curious about life beyond the hills, talented, and energetic, Icy learns to cut through all barriers—physical, mental, and spiritual—in order to find community and acceptance. Along her journey, Icy faces the jeers of her classmates as well as the malevolence of her often-ignorant teachers—including Mrs. Stilton, one of the most evil fourth grade teachers ever created by a writer. Called willful by her teachers and "Frog Child" by her schoolmates, she is exiled from the schoolroom and sent to a children’s asylum where it is hoped that the roots of her mysterious behavior can be discovered. Here Icy learns about difference—her own and those who are even more scarred than she. Yet, it isn’t until Icy returns home that she really begins to flower, especially through her friendship with the eccentric and obese Miss Emily, who knows first-hand how it feels to be an outcast in this tightly knit Appalachian community. Under Miss Emily’s tutelage, Icy learns about life’s struggles and rewards, survives her first comical and heartbreaking misadventure with romance, discovers the healing power of her voice when she sings, and ultimately—takes her first steps back into the world. Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s Icy Sparks is a fresh, original, and completely redeeming novel about learning to overcome others’ ignorance and celebrate the differences that make each of us unique.

Icy Sparks

ad767c7e-10d7-4717-bee4-a50377ba44cc-1

#hardcover #youngadult #youngadultfiction #ya #comingofage 

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

West Virginia

A forbidden attraction grows even more complicated when the guy Lane Jamison has crushed on for years suddenly becomes her step-brother in this sexy and gorgeously written debut novel about the lines between love, desire, and obsession. What happens when the boy you want most becomes the one person you can’t have? Lane Jamison’s life is turned upside down the week before her senior year when her father introduces her to his new fiancée: mother of Grey McIntyre, Lane’s longtime secret crush. Now with Grey living in Lane’s house, there’s only a thin wall separating their rooms, making it harder and harder to deny their growing mutual attraction—an attraction made all the more forbidden by Grey’s long-term girlfriend Sadie Hall, who also happens to be Lane’s friend. Torn between her feelings for Grey and her friendship with Sadie—not to mention her desire to keep the peace at home—Lane befriends Sadie’s older brother, Connor, the black sheep of the strict, evangelical Hall family. Connor, a metalworking artist who is all sharp edges, challenges Lane in ways no one else ever has. As the two become closer and start to open up about the traumas in their respective pasts, Lane begins to question her conviction that Connor is just a distraction. Tensions come to a head after a tragic incident at a party, forcing Lane to untangle her feelings for both boys and face the truth of what—and who—she wants, in this gripping and stunningly romantic debut novel.

Together We Caught Fire

8a8e98e0-f6fe-478e-bb4c-c65a291252f7-1

#hardcover #class #race #sexuality #grief #comingofage 

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Oregon

A Novel

Former high school classmates reckon with the death of a friend in this stunning debut novel.


Along the Intracoastal waterways of North Florida, Daniel and Aubrey navigated adolescence with the electric intensity that radiates from young people defined by otherness: Aubrey, a self-identified "Southern cracker" and Daniel, the mixed-race son of Jamaican immigrants. When the news of Aubrey's death reaches Daniel in New York, years after they'd lost contact, he is left to grapple with the legacy of his precious and imperfect love for her. At ease now in his own queerness, he is nonetheless drawn back to the muggy haze of his Palm Coast upbringing, tinged by racism and poverty, to find out what happened to Aubrey. Along the way, he reconsiders his and his family's history, both in Jamaica and in this place he once called home.

Buoyed by his teenage track-team buddies--Twig, a long-distance runner; Desmond, a sprinter; Egypt, Des's girlfriend; and Jess, a chef--Daniel begins a frantic search for meaning in Aubrey's death, recklessly confronting the drunken country boy he believes may have killed her. Sensitive to the complexities of class, race, and sexuality both in the American South and in Jamaica, All the Water I've Seen Is Running is a novel of uncommon tenderness, grief, and joy. All the while, it evokes the beauty and threat of the place Daniel calls home--where the river meets the ocean.

All the Water I've Seen Is Running

13facaba-cf29-458b-ad88-d42af8b8bc12-1

DJ is complete with typical shelf wear and a couple of small tears.  Book feels as if never read, as spine is still tight and square. Cover corners are still sharp. (J1) ———— **SUMMARY** From beloved bestselling author Barbara Taylor Bradford comes the enthralling saga of three generations of extraordinary women--of the fate that befalls them, and the choices that define their lives…

IN THE NAME OF LOVE.
Orphaned after the death of her mother, well-bred Audra Kenton rose from selfless nurse to servant of an affluent suffragette, to a fiercely independent bride whose passionate marriage was overtaken by an unforeseeable tragedy. Now Audra has but one dream--to bestow upon her brilliantly artistic daughter, every opportunity that she was denied…

AT THE HEART OF AMBITION.
Given the world, the stubborn Christina has forsaken the wishes of her noble mother to forge the career of her choice--that of a glittering Manhattan fashion empire she hopes to bequeath to her own daughter. But in young and beautiful Kyle stirs a spirit that is inherently headstrong, equally independent, and just as ironically resistant to the sacrifices made in the name of love.

FOR THE SAKE OF A DREAM.
From the picturesque Yorkshire Dales to the haute couture luxuries of Paris and London to the bittersweet respite of home and family, three women face stunning betrayals and astonishing reversals of fate as each brings her own intimate struggle to their need of personal success and to a triumphant and heartening understanding of devotion, duty, and destiny. #motherlylove #motherdaughter #drama #mother #bradford #fiction #adventure #comingofage 

Texas

Act of Will (1986)

#hardcover #fiction #boardingschool #twisty #womensfiction #comingofage #contemporary #mystery 

Illinois

This compulsively readable literary debut set in a secluded boarding school explores the intoxicating, destructive relationships between teenage girls.

The Divines

8a3ea994-f9c8-4616-b974-c42ddf488bb6-1

#hardcover #fiction #watchoverme #youngadult #comingofage #ninalacour 

Florida

A newly graduated Mila emerges from foster care to accept a job on an isolated Northern California Coast farm where she confronts haunting memories and the traumas of her fellow residents.

Watch over Me

cfc614b2-0eea-4afa-9a8a-a38e97508682-1

#paperback #fiction #youngadult #johngreen #youngadultfiction #comingofage #ya #clues #upallnight 

Connecticut

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. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Reprint.

Paper Towns

a2ab397e-b278-43d0-a0c4-733e819732b0-1

#hardcover #fiction #youngadult #aapi #aapiauthor #comingofage #yaromance #contemporary #film

New York

My So-Called Bollywood Life

0bfe4d04-333c-4057-95da-8aea697aebe5

#hardcover #fiction #epic #comingofage #drama #small-town #growingup 

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

An epic novel of a boy growing up in a religious community and how his intellectual development creates controversy for him and how his unconventional attitude threatens his romance with a beautiful but devout girl.

The Adventures of Audie Dale Smith

c18d62ee-410c-438d-a70b-246565fe3110-1

#hardcover #fiction #youngadult #contemporary #comingofage 

Pennsylvania

She was looking for a place to land. Anna is a fifteen-year-old girl slouching toward adulthood, and she's had it with her life at home. So Anna "borrows" her stepmom's credit card and runs away to Los Angeles, where her half-sister takes her in. But LA isn't quite the glamorous escape Anna had imagined. As Anna spends her days on TV and movie sets, she engrosses herself in a project researching the murderous Manson girls—and although the violence in her own life isn't the kind that leaves physical scars, she begins to notice the parallels between herself and the lost girls of LA, and of America, past and present. In Anna's singular voice, we glimpse not only a picture of life on the B-list in LA, but also a clear-eyed reflection on being young, vulnerable, lost, and female in America—in short, on the B-list of life. Alison Umminger writes about girls, sex, violence, and which people society deems worthy of caring about, which ones it doesn't, in a way not often seen in YA fiction.

American Girls

3d0d478a-c539-49c7-af98-253b0153e3c1-1

#hardcover #nonfiction #katchow #comingofage #memoir #seeingghosts 

California

A Memoir

For readers of Helen Macdonald and Elizabeth Alexander, an intimate and haunting portrait of grief and the search for meaning from a singular new talent as told through the prism of three generations of her Chinese American family. Born two years after her parents' only son died just hours after his birth, Kat Chow became unusually fixated with death. She worried constantly about her parents dying -- especially her mother. One morning, when Kat was nine, her mother, a vivacious and mischievous woman, casually made a morbid joke: When she eventually dies, she said laughing, she'd like to be stuffed and displayed in Kat's future apartment in order to always watch over her. Four years later when her mother dies unexpectedly from cancer, Kat, her two older sisters, and their father are plunged into a debilitating, lonely grief. With a distinct voice that is wry and heartfelt, Kat weaves together what is part ghost story and part excavation of her family's history of loss spanning three generations and their immigration from China and Hong Kong to America and Cuba. This redemptive coming-of-age story uncovers the uncanny parallels in Kat's lineage, including the strength of sisterhood and the complicated duty of looking after parents, even after death. Seeing Ghosts asks what it means to claim and tell your family's story: Is writing an exorcism or is it its own form of preservation? What do we owe to our families in our grief, and how does it shape us? In order to answer these questions and to understand her family's ghosts, Kat unearths their sorrow and challenges the power structures of race, class, and gender. The result is an extraordinary new contribution to the literature of grief and the American family, and a provocative and transformative meditation on who we become under the specter of loss.

Seeing Ghosts

d5d0a74c-358e-4e16-bb06-a291fa9d0675-1

#fiction #comingofage #90s #hardcover #botm

Georgia

In vein of Daisy Jones & The Six and Everything I Never Told You, this debut novel probes the dark side of fame after a former pop star ends her own life. Cassidy Holmes isn't just a celebrity. She is "Sassy Gloss," the fourth member of the hottest pop group America has ever seen. Before Britney stunned everyone with "Toxic," before Christina went dirrty, Gloss was the pop act that everyone idolized. Fans couldn't get enough of them, their music, and the drama that followed them like moths to a flame--until the group's sudden implosion in 2002. And at the center of it all was Sassy Cassy, the Texan with a signature smirk that had everyone falling for her. But now she's dead. Suicide. The world is reeling from this unexpected news, but no one is more shocked than the three remaining bandmates. Fifteen years ago, Rose, Merry, and Yumi had been the closest to Cassidy, and this loss is hitting them hard. Before the group split, they each had a special bond with Cassidy--truths they told, secrets they shared. After years apart, each is wondering: what could they have done? Told in multiple perspectives--including Cassidy herself--and different timelines, this is a behind-the-scenes look into the rise and fall of a pop icon, and a penetrating examination of the dark side of celebrity and the industry that profits from it.

The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes

4a4cdae2-757a-4ce0-8c64-218343d9b2da-1

#hardcover #romance #adult #ya #mystery #suspense #comingofage #bestseller 

Virginia

It was not complicated, and, as my mother pointed out, not even personal: They had a hotel; they didn't want Jews; we were Jews...It's the early 1960s and Natalie Marx is stunned when her mother inquires about vacation accommodations in Vermont and receives a response that says, "The Inn at Lake Devine is a family-owned resort, which has been in continuous operation since 1922. Our guests who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are Gentiles." So begins Natalie's fixation with the Inn and the family who owns it.  And when Natalie finagles an invitation to join a friend on vacation there, she sets herself upon a path that will inextricably link her adult life into this peculiar family and their once-restricted hotel. The Inn at Lake Devinewill enchant readers with the beguiling voice, elegant charm, and deft storytelling that have been hallmarks of Elinor Lipman's previous novels and have made her beloved by her fans.  Her characters sparkle on the page and delight us with their wit and grace--even when anti-Semitism rears its head in Vermont and the tables are turned in the Catskills.  Elinor Lipman is the undisputed master of the art of screwball comedy.

The Inn at Lake Devine

73146767-7b9c-430b-b346-d980084cf76a-1

#hardcover #fiction #themostdangerousplaceonearth #comingofage #botm #bookofthemonth #highschool #teens #lindseyleejohnson

BOTM Edition

In an idyllic community of wealthy California families, new teacher Molly Nicoll becomes intrigued by the hidden lives of her privileged students. Unknown to Molly, a middle school tragedy in which they were all complicit continues to reverberate for her students. Theirs is a world in which every action may become public: postable, shareable, viral.

The Most Dangerous Place on Earth

ff31730c-c068-42a2-aa97-495ca2de7ab4-1

#hardcover #fiction #lgbt #comingofage #contemporary #helenedunbar 📚 

Kentucky

Includes afterwords by Ron Goldberg and Jeremiah Johnson and Jason Walker.

We Are Lost and Found

97dcc300-e088-40d0-9821-cdecc9c8db44-1

#hardcover #memoir #beautifulboy #mother #son #comingofage #boy #nonfiction #robertleleux slight flaw on first page at top (see pic) otherwise book is in excellent like new condition 

Kansas

In the Dear John letter Daddy left for Mother and me, on a Saturday afternoon in early June 1996, on the inlaid Florentine table in the front entry of our house, which we found that night upon returning from a day spent in the crème-colored light of Neiman's, Daddy wrote that he was leaving us because Mother was crazy, and because she'd driven me crazy in a way that perfectly suited her own insanity.


In a memoir studded with delicious lines and unforgettable set pieces, Robert Leleux describes his East Texas boyhood and coming of age under the tutelage of his eccentric, bewigged, flamboyant, and knowing mother.

Left high and dry by Daddy and living on their in-laws' horse ranch in a white-pillared house they can't afford, Robert and Mother find themselves chronically low on cash. Soon they are forced into more modest quarters, and as a teenaged Robert watches with hilarity and horror, Mother begins a desperate regimen of makeovers, extreme plastic surgeries, and finally hairpiece epoxies---all calculated to secure a new, wealthy husband. 

Mother's strategy takes her, with Robert in tow, from the glamorous environs of the Neiman Marcus beauty salon to questionable surgery offices and finally to a storefront clinic on the wrong side of Houston. Meanwhile, Robert begins his own journey away from Mother and through the local theater's world of miscast hopefuls and thwarted ambitions---and into a romance that surprises absolutely no one but himself.

Written with a warmth and a wicked sense of fun that lighten even the most awful circumstances,The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy is a sparkling debut. 

The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy

99ab03dc-a528-474f-8c97-14671d549951-1

The book is in excellent condition but it was a library copy so there is evidence left of the library binding and a library stamp. Pencil marks reading "18+" can be erased. #hardcover #youngadult #ya #comingofage #maleprotaganist #fiction #yafiction

Oklahoma

As kids, they were tight. Now they've grown up--and apart. Before they go their separate ways for good, they decide to get together one last time on the night of the county fair. But, twisted by personal histories and fueled by pharmaceuticals, old jealousies soon surface. The group splinters off, their brief reunion a failure. Days later, a girl is found dead, her body dumped in the river. The prime suspect? Raymond, the one member of the old gang who'd always seemed a little strange. Pete doesn't know what to believe: Raymond once made the bizarre claim that his beloved black rabbit spoke to him, whispering secrets and commands. But could Pete's former childhood friend really be a deranged killer? Capturing the thoughts and words of teens as only Kevin Brooks can, Black Rabbit Summer is a trademark tense, smart mystery. It's also a profound exploration of the many subtle influences that can change--that can end-- relationships.

Black Rabbit Summer

9c3afa50-f0d3-4471-a2f2-3e7301132a5f-1

#hardcover #richardprobert #thatgoodnight #comingofage #secondchance #fiction #mystery

Utah

ONE OF TEN LONGLISTED IN THE 2021 SHELF UNBOUND BEST INDIE BOOK COMPETITION

1993. For 18-year-old Beth Adamski, life is just starting to take shape. She's set to attend Indiana University in the fall, her boyfriend and her best friend are like family, and the graveyard shifts she works at Walmart will help her save up for an apartment of her own. But when her parents die in a tragic car accident, Beth not only discovers that she has a sister; she also finds that her parents weren't exactly who she thought they were. Determined to find her sister, Beth sets out on a journey that leads her to discover more about herself than she could have ever imagined.

1953. Every day, Milwaukee-born Jim Robinson watches his mother wait for his MIA father to return home from the Korean War. As the years pass and his father never appears, young Jim grows lonely, resigned to a life of solitude, until Sal Conti--a crusty, old, Italian stone carver living nearby--takes Jim under his wing. As Jim grows older, his life's journey takes him from a sheltered and secure life in Milwaukee, to the war-torn jungle of southern Vietnam. Back in the U.S. after his service ends, Jim searches for a place to call home and the one thing he longs for most: connection.

Spanning decades and continents, Whereabouts Unknown links two unlikely characters who may just have what the other one is looking for. Insightful, captivating, and timeless, Whereabouts Unknown is about the bonds of family--the family we're born with and the one we create.

Whereabouts Unknown

e0947dba-03c6-49ee-a164-ffafa0096f6b-1

#hardcover #daniellesteel #romance #comingofage #popular

South Carolina

"Pike Logan must pull two major world powers back from the brink of war in the latest pulse-pounding thriller from New York Times bestselling author and former Special Forces officer Brad Taylor"--

Neighbors

a9e4bb97-5ed1-42cc-982e-729c4320c8bf

#hardcover #fiction #relationships #historical #jenniferweiner #comingofage #contemporary #1 

An instant New York Times bestseller “A multigenerational narrative that’s nothing short of brilliant.” —People “Simply unputdownable.” —Good Housekeeping “The perfect book club pick.” —SheReads Named a Best Book of Summer by Entertainment Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Woman’s Day, PopSugar, HelloGiggles, and Refinery29 From Jennifer Weiner, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Who Do You Love and In Her Shoes comes a smart, thoughtful, and timely exploration of two sisters’ lives from the 1950s to the present as they struggle to find their places—and be true to themselves—in a rapidly evolving world. Do we change or does the world change us? Jo and Bethie Kaufman were born into a world full of promise. Growing up in 1950s Detroit, they live in a perfect “Dick and Jane” house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life. But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies. As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and women’s lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture and is up for anything (except settling down). Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, nor has a life that feels authentic or brings her joy. Is it too late for the women to finally stake a claim on happily ever after? In her most ambitious novel yet, Jennifer Weiner tells a story of two sisters who, with their different dreams and different paths, offer answers to the question: How should a woman be in the world?

Mrs. Everything

915b9f75-81f9-4492-aefd-0905311391a7-1

#hardcover #fiction #alladultshere #familydrama #relationships #domesticfiction #comingofage 

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR A PARADE BEST BOOK of 2020 * A GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BEST BOOK of 2020 A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK! "In a time when all we want is hope, it’s a beautiful book to reach for." -Jenna Bush Hager A warm, funny, and keenly perceptive novel about the life cycle of one family--as the kids become parents, grandchildren become teenagers, and a matriarch confronts the legacy of her mistakes. From the New York Times bestselling author of Modern Lovers and The Vacationers. When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days decades earlier. Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she'd been to her three, now-grown children. But to what consequence? Astrid's youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Her daughter is pregnant yet struggling to give up her own adolescence. And her eldest seems to measure his adult life according to standards no one else shares. But who gets to decide, so many years later, which long-ago lapses were the ones that mattered? Who decides which apologies really count? It might be that only Astrid's thirteen-year-old granddaughter and her new friend really understand the courage it takes to tell the truth to the people you love the most. In All Adults Here, Emma Straub's unique alchemy of wisdom, humor, and insight come together in a deeply satisfying story about adult siblings, aging parents, high school boyfriends, middle school mean girls, the lifelong effects of birth order, and all the other things that follow us into adulthood, whether we like them to or not.

All Adults Here

c8e5f1be-8e72-4b22-9ccb-d8e5d84609d3-1

#hardcover #ya #youngadult #teen #tween #fantasy #angels #love #comingofage 

Ohio

Freya's intense passion for angels led her into years of mental illness. Now, just when she's starting to believe she's normal again, a dark angel starts to follow her. Soon she learns a stunning truth: She is an angel herself. And an angel's job is nothing like she imagined it would be...

Angel 

6748b276-9352-4adf-9986-766cbd70e9e4-1

#hardcover #fiction #comingofage #psychologicalfiction #summer #beach #bestseller #ya #cool

A haunting and provocative debut novel about the stratospheric rise of an enigmatic Hollywood star and her legacy, from Columbia MFA graduate Dan Bevacqua. A tragic death was not part of the script. Molly Bit is a great actress. From her first acting classes to her big break, she is different from the others struggling to make it. But fame is perilous. She uses—and is used by—the Hollywood system. Her collaborator is an addict. The producer who promises her stardom is ruthless and unhinged by grief. Fans, friends, strangers—they want and want. And one dangerously obsessed fan wants to take away everything. Funny, touching, and heartrending, Molly Bit explores the high stakes of our culture’s complicated fascination with celebrities and our complicity in their rise and fall. Molly Bit is an ode to the strange magic of moviemaking and a haunting reflection on fame, obsession, and art’s power to redeem loss. It announces a dazzling new voice in contemporary fiction.

Molly Bit

a6f313b7-12c1-44ae-8d74-a641674ad212-1

#hardcover #fiction #mystery #murder #southern #south #thesouth #comingofage #adventure #suspense 

Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Icy Sparks

Eva V. Gibson

Together We Caught Fire

Elias Rodriques

All the Water I've Seen Is Running

Barbara Taylor Bradford

Act of Will (1986)

Ellie Eaton

The Divines

Nina LaCour

Watch over Me

John Green

Paper Towns

Nisha Sharma

My So-Called Bollywood Life

Clay Hutto

The Adventures of Audie Dale Smith

Alison Umminger

American Girls

Kat Chow

Seeing Ghosts

Elissa R. Sloan

The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes

Elinor Lipman

The Inn at Lake Devine

Lindsey Lee Johnson

The Most Dangerous Place on Earth

Helene Dunbar

We Are Lost and Found

Robert Leleux

The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy

Kevin Brooks

Black Rabbit Summer

Richard Probert

Whereabouts Unknown

Danielle Steel

Neighbors

Jennifer Weiner

Mrs. Everything

Emma Straub

All Adults Here

Cliff McNish

Angel

Dan Bevacqua

Molly Bit

Lewis

The Essence of Nathan Biddle