Season Butler

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Texas

A Novel

Winner of the Writers' Guild Award for Best First Novel

An utterly original coming-of-age tale, marked by wrenching humor and staggering charisma, about a young woman resisting the savagery of adulthood in a community of the elderly rejecting the promise of youth.

"Season Butler has written an imaginative, atmospheric and original novel that lingers in the memory long after reading. She is a bright new voice in literature."  --Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other

"It's too hot for most of the clothes I packed to come here, when I thought this would only be for a week or two. My mother kissed me with those purple-brown lips of hers and said, we'll be back, hold tight."

The seventeen-year-old Kid doesn't know where her parents are. They left her with her grandmother Lolly, promising to return soon. That was months ago. Now Lolly is dead and the Kid is alone, stranded ten miles off the coast of New Hampshire on tiny Swan Island. Unable to reach her parents and with no other relatives to turn to, she works for a neighbor, airbrushing the past by digitally retouching family photos and movies to earn enough money to survive.

Surrounded by the vast ocean, the Kid's temporary home is no ordinary vacation retreat. The island is populated by an idiosyncratic group of the elderly who call themselves Wrinklies. They have left behind the youth-obsessed mainland--"the Bad Place"--to create their own alternative community, one where only the elderly are welcome. The adolescent's presence on their island oasis unnerves the Wrinklies, turning some downright hostile. They don't care if she has nowhere to go;they just want her gone. She is a reminder of all they've left behind and are determined to forget.

But the Kid isn't the only problem threatening the insular community. Swan Island is eroding into the rising sea, threatening the Wrinklies' very existence there. The Kid's own house edges closer to the seaside cliffs each day. To find a way forward, she must come to terms with the realities of her life, the inevitability of loss, and an unknown future that is hers alone to embrace.

Season Butler makes her literary debut with an ambitious work of bold imagination. Tough and tender, compassionate and ferocious, understated and provocative, Cygnet is a meditation on death and life, past and future, aging and youth, memory and forgetting, that explores what it means to find acceptance--of things gone and of those yet to come.

Cygnet

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#hardcover #nonfiction #psychology #socialmedia #teenager #comingofage #nancyjosales #parenting 

Pennsylvania

Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers

Explores the changes in the way teenage girls are growing up in America, discussing the new norms, from extreme behaviors to lack of basic communication skills.

American Girls

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Comes with publisher note (can be ignored/tossed out) #hardcover #fiction #comingofage #convent #girlfriends #nuns #sarahdomet 

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Ohio

"In the vein of The Virgin Suicides, a dazzling debut novel about four girls inexplicably named Guinevere, all left by their parents to be raised by nuns"--

The Guineveres

31d3b47c-e4c0-438b-a040-355a21df7277-1

Matthew Quick

Nanette O'Hare is an unassuming teen who has played the role of dutiful daughter, hardworking student, and star athlete for as long as she can remember. But when a beloved teacher gives her his worn copy of The Bugglegum Reaper--a mysterious, out-of-print cult classic--the rebel within Nanette awakens. As she befriends the reclusive author, falls in love with a young but troubled poet, and attempts to insert her true self into the world with wild abandon, Nanette learns the hard way that rebellion sometimes comes at a high price. A celebration of the self and the formidable power of story, Every Exquisite Thing is Matthew Quick at his finest.

Every Exquisite Thing

661d0fc8-a8df-44cb-a191-bc746a8a19f9-1

Nikki Loftin

Indiana

In this twist on "The Nightingale," Little John, despite his own poverty and grief, reaches out to Gayle, an unhappy foster child living next-door who sings beautifully and hides a great secret.

Nightingale's Nest

21f804dc-fe17-4a47-9bdc-54fb870ba4f4-1

Randy Ribay

Four friends from wildly different backgrounds have bonded over Dungeons & Dragons since the sixth grade. Now they're facing senior year and a major shift in their own universes. Math whiz Archie is struggling with his parents' divorce after his dad comes out as gay. Mari is terrified of her adoptive mother's life-altering news. Dante is carrying around a huge secret that is proving impossible to keep hidden. And when Sam gets dumped by the love of his life, everyone is ready to join him on a cross-country quest to win her back. The four quickly discover that the road is not forgiving, and that real life is no game. They must face a test of friendship where the stakes are more than just a roll of the dice--they are life and death.

An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes ARC

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#hardcover #comingofage #fiction #aa #blacklit #blackhistorymonth

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

Jacqueline Woodson's first middle-grade novel since National Book Award winner Brown Girl Dreaming celebrates the healing that can occur when a group of students share their stories.

It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat--by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for "A Room to Talk"), they discover it's safe to talk about what's bothering them--everything from Esteban's father's deportation and Haley's father's incarceration to Amari's fears of racial profiling and Ashton's adjustment to his changing family fortunes. When the six are together, they can express the feelings and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world. And together, they can grow braver and more ready for the rest of their lives.

Harbor Me

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Louisa May Alcott

Deanna McFadden

Arthur Pober

New York

Presents an abridged version of the novel chronicling the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters as they grow into young women in mid-nineteenth-century New England.

Classic Starts®: Little Women

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#hardcover #histfic #fiction #historical #adventure #comingofage #diamond #family #zimbabwe 

My father says that a journey should always change your life in some way. Well, when you have nothing, I suppose a journey promises everything.

"Diamonds for everyone." That's what fifteen-year-old Patson Moyo hears when his family arrives in the Marange diamond fields. Soon Patson is working in the mines along with four friends, pooling their profits for a chance at a better life. Each of them hopes to find a girazi, a priceless stone that could change their circumstances forever. But when the government's soldiers come to Marange, Patson's world is shattered.

Set against the backdrop of Zimbabwe's brutal recent history, Diamond Boy is the story of a young man who succumbs to greed but finds his way out through a transformative journey to South Africa in search of his missing sister, in search of freedom, and in search of himself.

A high-stakes, harrowing adventure in the blood-diamond fields of southern Africa, from the critically acclaimed author of Now Is the Time for Running.

Diamond Boy

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#hardcover #fiction #comingofage #allgirls #contemporary #emilylayden #girlsschool #prepschool 

Alabama

“All Girls is an exciting, innovative debut from a fresh and assured new voice. Emily Layden renders the fictional Atwater School in nuanced, honest, and rich depth, guiding its young characters with a tender and knowing hand. This is a sincere, poignant, and moving story of a group of teenage girls coming to terms with the world they've inherited.” ––Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones and the Six A keenly perceptive coming of age novel for fans of Sally Rooney, Curtis Sittenfeld, and J. Courtney Sullivan, All Girls follows nine young women as they navigate their ambitions and fears at a prestigious New England prep school, all pitched against the backdrop of a scandal the administration wants silenced. But as the months unfold, and the school's efforts to control the ensuing crisis fall short, these extraordinary girls are forced to discover their voices, and their power. A tender and unflinching portrait of modern adolescence told through the shifting perspectives of an unforgettable cast of female students, All Girls explores what it means to grow up in a place that promises you the world––when the world still isn't yours for the taking. You grow to love a place... and then you grow up.

All Girls

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#hardcover #fiction #ya #youngadult #youngadultfiction #romance #comingofage #aapi 

“Weepingly funny.” —The Wall Street Journal “Delightful.” —Buzzfeed “Charmed my socks off.” —David Arnold, New York Times bestselling author of Kids of Appetite and Mosquitoland Four starred reviews for this incisive, laugh-out-loud contemporary debut about a Taiwanese-American teen whose parents want her to be a doctor and marry a Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer despite her squeamishness with germs and crush on a Japanese classmate. At seventeen, Mei should be in high school, but skipping fourth grade was part of her parents’ master plan. Now a freshman at MIT, she is on track to fulfill the rest of this predetermined future: become a doctor, marry a preapproved Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, produce a litter of babies. With everything her parents have sacrificed to make her cushy life a reality, Mei can’t bring herself to tell them the truth—that she (1) hates germs, (2) falls asleep in biology lectures, and (3) has a crush on her classmate Darren Takahashi, who is decidedly not Taiwanese. But when Mei reconnects with her brother, Xing, who is estranged from the family for dating the wrong woman, Mei starts to wonder if all the secrets are truly worth it. Can she find a way to be herself, whoever that is, before her web of lies unravels? From debut author Gloria Chao comes a hilarious, heartfelt tale of how, unlike the panda, life isn’t always so black and white.

American Panda

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One Summer with Lillian Hellman

In 1978, Rosemary Mahoney, an aspiring young writer of seventeen, wrote a letter to one of her personal idols, inquiring whether this great lady of American letters might need some domestic help during the summer. When Lillian Hellman responded affirmatively, Mahoney was ecstatic, and wasted no time imagining that the summer in Hellman's employ might cement a friendship with the iconic writer, or that the proximity to greatness might spur her own fledgling literary efforts. In reality, Mahoney was lonesome and anxious, hiding behind a facade of self-confidence at a private New England boarding school, harboring the secrets of her complex Irish family.  Mahoney saw in Hellman an escape and a salvation from the rigors of growing up. But once she secured the job, her hopes were swiftly shattered as the summer unfolded into an exquisite and grueling exercise in humiliation at the hands of the famously acerbic Hellman and her retinue of celebrated friends. Contrasting the vanity of a seventeen-year-old with that of a seventy-three-year-old, this book is ultimately about the limitations of age, the complexities of literary ambition, and our need for heroes.  By turns heartbreaking and uproariously funny,A Likely Storyportrays the painful coming of age of a brilliant young writer and, by extension, the universal story of innocence lost.

A Likely Story

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#hardcover #nonfiction #memoir #autobiography #homelessness #comingofage #contemporary #firstedition #inspirational #college

Florida

A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard

Breaking Night

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David Wroblewski

Light wear on dust sleeve. No other flaws.

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

A tale reminiscent of "Hamlet" that also celebrates the alliance between humans and dogs follows speech-disabled Wisconsin youth Edgar, who bonds with three yearling canines and struggles to prove that his sinister uncle is responsible for his father's death.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

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A story infused with warmth and emotion about finding something all your own while the world changes around you.

2015 BCCBBulletinBlue Ribbon Selection

Determined to make some extra money, twelve-year-old Missy and her older brother Patrick get summer jobs picking blueberries at a local farm. For Missy, though, blueberry picking quickly becomes about more than just money- it's the perfect distraction from the fact that her two best friends have gone off to summer camp without her and that her dad is getting remarried. Why can't everything go back to the way it used to be? Back to normal?

Missy soon discovers, though, that the summer is full of secrets- the secrets to making her family feel whole again; the secrets to keeping her two best friends from changing and leaving her behind; the secrets of a local farm's blood feud; and most importantly, the secrets of blueberries.

"Heart-rendingly unflagging in the face of life-changing events, Missy's a funny, compelling heroine that readers will cheer for." -Kirkus Reviews

" A quiet, deftly written coming-of-age novel." -School Library Journal

"The Secrets of Blueberriesis a new twist on growing up." -VOYA

The Secrets of Blueberries, Brothers, Moose and Me

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Robert Morgan

Missouri

The Story of a Marriage

A New York Times Bestseller & Oprah's Book Club Pick Young Julie Harmon works “hard as a man,” they say, so hard that at times she’s not sure she can stop. People depend on her to slaughter the hogs and nurse the dying. People are weak, and there is so much to do. At just seventeen she marries and moves down into the valley of Gap Creek, where perhaps life will be better. But Julie and Hank’s new life in the valley, in the last years of the nineteenth century, is more complicated than the couple ever imagined. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what to fear most—the fires and floods or the flesh-and-blood grifters, drunks, and busybodies who insinuate themselves into their new life. To survive, they must find out whether love can keep chaos and madness at bay. Their struggles with nature, with work, with the changing century, and with the disappointments and triumphs of their union make Gap Creek a timeless story of a marriage.

Gap Creek

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Has a single black mark on bottom of book as pictured, besides that it is in perfect condition! #hardcover #selectionday #aravindadiga #bookerprize #whitetiger #ya #comingofage #sports #netflix #fiction

AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES and WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK

From Aravind Adiga, the bestselling, Booker Prize­-winning author of The White Tiger, a dazzling new novel about two brothers in a Mumbai slum who are raised by their obsessive father to become cricket stars, and whose coming-of-age threatens their relationship, future, and sense of themselves.

Manjunath Kumar is fourteen and living in a slum in Mumbai. He knows he is good at cricket--if not as good as his older brother, Radha. He knows that he fears and resents his domineering and cricket-obsessed father, admires his brilliantly talented sibling, and is fascinated by curious scientific facts and the world of CSI. But there are many things, about himself and about the world, that he doesn't know. Sometimes it even seems as though everyone has a clear idea of who Manju should be, except Manju himself. When Manju meets Radha's great rival, a mysterious Muslim boy privileged and confident in all the ways Manju is not, everything in Manju's world begins to change, and he is faced by decisions that will challenge his understanding of it, as well as his own self.

Filled with unforgettable characters from across India's social strata--the old scout everyone calls Tommy Sir; Anand Mehta, the big-dreaming investor; Sofia, a wealthy, beautiful girl and the boys' biggest fan--this book combines the best of The Art of Fielding and Slumdog Millionaire for a compulsive, moving story of adolescence and ambition, fathers, sons, and brothers. Selection Day is Adiga's most absorbing, big-hearted novel to date, and proves why "with his gripping, amusing glimpse into the contradictions and perils of modern India, Aravind Adiga has cemented his reputation as the preeminent chronicler of his country's messy present" (Newsweek).

Selection Day

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Arkansas

Robert "'Cali" Callahan is a teen runaway, living on the streets of Venice Beach, California. He's got a pretty sweet life: a treehouse to sleep in, a gang of surf bros, a regular basketball game...even a girl who's maybe-sorta interested in him.


What he doesn't have is a plan.


All that changes when a local cop refers Cali to a private investigator who is looking for a missing teenager. After all, Cali knows everyone in Venice. But the streets are filled with people who don't want to be found, and when he's hired to find the beautiful Reese Abernathy--who would do anything to stay hidden--Cali enters a new world filled with mysterious characters, dangerous choices, and his first chance at real love.

The Prince of Venice Beach

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During a summer internship as an obituary writer for her local northern New Jersey newspaper, 16-year-old Samantha D'Angelo makes some momentous realizations about politics, ethics, her family, romance and most importantly—herself.

Famous Last Words

b86a18d3-dd44-418d-80ec-6f62a044b511-1

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

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

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Jordan Sonnenblick

After being assigned to perform community service at a nursing home, sixteen-year-old Alex befriends a cantankerous old man who has some lessons to impart about jazz guitar playing, love, and forgiveness.

Notes from the Midnight Driver (New Hardcover)

9bd8570b-9a87-4e77-beef-178012c53108-1

#hardcover #youngadult #ya #fiction #exclusive #comingofage #illumicrate #fairyloot 

From the author of the “intense coming-of-age story” (School Library Connection) The Great Unknowable End and the “beyond refreshing…irreverent” (Booklist, starred review) Tash Hearts Tolstoy comes an introspective, atmospheric novel about sisterhood, coming-of-age, and learning that it’s never too late to reconnect with those you love. Time changes things. That painful fact of life couldn’t be truer for the Sullivan sisters. Once, they used to be close, sharing secrets inside homemade blanket castles. Now, life in the Sullivan house means closed doors and secrets left untold. Fourteen-year-old Murphy, an aspiring magician, is shocked by the death of Siegfried, her pet turtle. Seventeen-year-old Claire is bound for better things than her Oregonian hometown—until she receives a crushing rejection from her dream college. And eighteen-year-old Eileen is nursing a growing addiction in the wake of life-altering news. Then, days before Christmas, a letter arrives, informing the sisters of a dead uncle and an inheritance they knew nothing about. The news forces them to band together in the face of a sinister family mystery…and, possibly, murder. The Sullivan Sisters is an unforgettable novel about the ghosts of the past, the power of connection, and the bonds of sisterhood.

The Sullivan Sisters

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#hardcover #fiction #comingofage #debutantes #femalefriendships #motherhood 

Joan Fortier is the epitome of Texas glamour and the center of the 1957 Houston social scene. Best friends with Joan since pre-school, Cece Buchanan is either Joan's chaperone or her partner in crime, depending on the night and whom you ask. When Joan starts to drift out of reach and beyond the borders of their confined world the summer they are twenty-five, Cece considers it her responsibility to bring her back to the fold, for better or for worse.

The After Party

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#hardcover #booktok #comingofage #fiction #jenniferwilson #newrelease #ya #yafiction 

"A riveting coming-of-age story about a girl sleepwalking through a hot Midwestern summer until the sudden reappearance of her mother--and a new boy in town--challenge her to dream bigger. Readers will eagerly follow Bliss as she discovers some rainbows are worth chasing." --Laura Ruby, two-time National Book Award Finalist and author of Bone Gap 

Seventeen-year-old Bliss Walker has been stuck in a home that doesn't feel like hers for six years. Ever since Mama dropped her off and never came back.

Then, the summer before her senior year of high school, two things happen: Mama returns out of the blue, and Bliss meets Blake, a boy who listens like everything she has to say is worth hearing.

It should be a dream come true. But as the summer spins on, Bliss finds herself facing a painful choice: between the life she's always longed for, and the world she's starting to make for herself.

Raw and unvarnished, Jennifer Wilson's debut about one girl's messy, unglamorous, very real summer in central Illinois is perfect for fans of Emergency Contact and Far from the Tree.



Save this search

Season Butler

Cygnet

Nancy Jo Sales

American Girls

Sarah Domet

The Guineveres

Matthew Quick

Every Exquisite Thing

Nikki Loftin

Nightingale's Nest

Randy Ribay

An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes ARC

Jacqueline Woodson

Harbor Me

Louisa May Alcott; Deanna McFadden; Arthur Pober

Classic Starts®: Little Women

Michael Williams

Diamond Boy

Emily Layden

All Girls

Gloria Chao

American Panda

Rosemary Mahoney

A Likely Story

Liz Murray

Breaking Night

David Wroblewski

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Sara Nickerson

The Secrets of Blueberries, Brothers, Moose and Me

Robert Morgan

Gap Creek

Aravind Adiga

Selection Day

Blake Nelson

The Prince of Venice Beach

Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

Famous Last Words

Clay Hutto

The Adventures of Audie Dale Smith

Jordan Sonnenblick

Notes from the Midnight Driver (New Hardcover)

Kathryn Ormsbee

The Sullivan Sisters

Anton DiSclafani

The After Party

Jennifer Wilson

Someday We'll Find It