Showing results for "Publishing" in Coming of Age

Hailed as a bold foray into new literary territory, Kawakami’s novel is told in the voice of a 14-year-old student subjected to relentless torment for having a lazy eye. Instead of resisting, the boy chooses to suffer in complete resignation. The only person who understands what he is going through is a female classmate who suffers similar treatment at the hands of her tormenters.

Hawken Trent. So polite. So sweet. Such an upstanding young man. A virgin, too, I hear. He never gets naughty with a girl. Probably because Jesus told him not to. And now here he is, trying to be the hero by protecting another girl from me. He calls me a bully. Irrational. Unreasonable. A criminal. He can call me anything he wants, I’ve heard worse. And he can try to stand between me and my money, but he’s never had to fight for food. That rich, clean, school boy doesn’t have what it takes

A teenager in pre-revolutionary Tehran, Massoumeh is an average girl, passionate about learning. On her way to school she meets a local man and falls in love, but when her family discover his letters, they accuse her of bringing them dishonor. She is badly beaten by her brother, and her parents hastily arrange for her to marry a man she has never met. Facing a life without love and the prospect of no education, Massoumeh is distraught, but a female neighbor urges her to comply: “We each have a destiny, and you can’t fight yours.”

Noora’s life is a little off track. She’s an aspiring writer and amateur blogger in New York―which is a nice way of saying that she tutors rich Upper East Side kids and is currently crashing on her sister’s couch. But that’s okay. Noora has Leila, who has always been her rock, and now she has another major influence to lean on: Vinyl magazine. The pages of Vinyl practically raised Noora, teaching her everything from how to properly insert a tampon to which political ideology she subscribes to.

Buying into the dream that education is the road out of poverty, a teen mom takes a chance on bettering herself, gets on welfare rolls, and talks her way into college. But once she's there, phallocratic narratives permeate every subject, and creative writing professors depend heavily on Freytag's pyramid to analyze life. So Ariel turns to a rich subcultural canon of resistance and failure, populated by writers like Audre Lorde, Tillie Olsen, and Kathy Acker. Wryly riffing on feminist literary tropes, We Were Witches documents the survival of a demonized single mother.

In the summer of 1932, Americans are coming to realize that the financial crash of 1929 was only the beginning of hard times. May Marshall has returned from Paris to settle at her family home in rural Keswick, Virginia. She struggles to keep her family farm and market afloat through the economic downturn. May finds herself juggling her marriage with a tempting opportunity to revamp the family business to adapt to changing times.

Dee Blum has a plan. Or rather, her parents do. Graduate college. Go to law school. Become a divorce attorney. Be “successful.” But Dee wants more—more purpose, more passion, more than checking off someone else’s boxes. A surprise gig leading eco-tours of ethical coffee farms in Costa Rica offers a fresh start.

This cruel king won’t stop until he breaks me. Dutch Cross, lead singer of The Kings, is a monster. Don’t let his amber eyes, chiseled jaw line, and crooning voice fool you. He prowls the hallways of Redwood Prep like he owns every inch. Brutal. Untouchable. Beast. And when his golden eyes meet mine, I know I’m his next prey. The monster wants me out of Redwood. But the fancy private school is my last chance at a better life for my sister. No one has ever dared to go against Dutch and his equally gorgeous brothers. I’m honored to be the first.

Sarah never admits that she’s his mother, but the beautiful boy has watched her survive as a “lot lizard”: a prostitute working the West Virginia truck stops. Desperate to win her love, he decides to surpass her as the best and most famous lot lizard ever.

Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands. Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative.

Laku's tournament triumph has everyone at Dzidzo Institute watching him. While dodging accusations, outrunning deadly rumors, and keeping up with school work, he also needs to decode his grandfather secrets before anyone can expose him as a Zero.

Aleksy still remembers the last summer he spent with his mother in Northern France. At eighteen, eager to fly the nest and escape a family still grief-stricken by the death of his sister years earlier, these lazy months in the countryside are akin to torture. And then, his mother tells him she’s dying.

We plunge into the enigmatic life of River Fey, a young woman tormented by nightmares that raise questions about her obscured past. Accompanied by her confidant, Jenna, and a black cat, River embarks on an unsettling journey to seek answers from her elusive Aunt Bella, who might be hiding more than just family secrets. The narrative skillfully weaves the mysterious world of Shadow Haven orphanage, a place that holds more than just childhood memories for River. Evidence points towards a clandestine group known as The Watchers of Shadow, further deepening the mysteries surrounding her past.

Searingly honest and sexually explicit, So We Look to the Sky is a novel told in five linked stories that begin with an affair between a student, Takumi, and a woman ten years his senior. Their scandalous liaison, which the woman's husband makes public by posting a secretly taped video online, frames all of the stories, each exploring different aspects of the passages of life and the hardships ordinary people face.

My first crush. My first kiss. The boy who ripped my heart out of my chest again and again. Over and over. I let him have it every single time. Willingly. We are that toxic high school couple you hear about, the one you witness in the hallway as they avoid each other. You laugh at them in class when they’re forced to work together, their gazes full of hatred. We are the couple you gossip about when they win homecoming prince and princess their sophomore year.... The back and forth is what kills me the most. I’m not his princess, I’m the girl he toys with when he’s bored.

Some stories don't age — they evolve. Little Women is not just a novel about four sisters; it's about growing up in a world that doesn't wait for anyone. It's about ambition that doesn't always wear boots, kindness that costs everything, and the quiet revolutions that begin around the dinner table. Louisa May Alcott didn't write fairy tales. She wrote what she saw — and what she dreamed could be better. Her heroines don't need rescuing; they make choices, break molds, and leave footprints. You might recognize them. You might be one of them. This is not a story frozen in time.

“Hijo de Malinche” narra la transformación vital de Martín Cortés, un periodista de Barcelona que, obligado por su jefe, viajará por negocios a México. A punto de entrar en la cuarentena, casado con una hija pequeña, no se siente del todo feliz y, por diversas circunstancias, en el país azteca comenzará a creerse que es la reencarnación del hijo de Hernán Cortés y él mismo se sentirá a la vez conquistador y conquistado por ‘las Américas’ en pleno siglo XXI.

Seventeen-year-old Phoebe was never interested in her birth family. But on the cusp of her high school graduation, her adoptive mother, Greta, insists on a visit to meet her biological parents and siblings. The encounter is a jolt, a revelation that derails Phoebe. With the help of her best friend Luna, Phoebe runs away—as far as their friend Patrick O’Connor’s chaotic home, where she hopes to go unnoticed among his thirteen siblings. What begins as an adolescent rebellion soon spirals into a whirlwind of transformation and self-discovery.

Elle Watson had it all-or so she thought. From climbing the corporate ladder to substantial financial success, Elle's life is a master class in ambition. So why is she standing in desperation at the edge of her New Orleans balcony ready to jump? Blindsided by a betrayal at work and utterly burned-out, Elle says goodbye to the life she thought she wanted and tries to reclaim her happiness.

Howard Norman’s The Bird Artist, the first book of his Canadian trilogy, begins in 1911. Its narrator, Fabian Vas, is a bird artist: he draws and paints the birds of Witless Bay, his remote Newfoundland coastal village home. In the first paragraph of his tale, Fabian reveals that he has murdered the village lighthouse keeper, Botho August. Later, he confesses who and what drove him to his crime—a measured, profoundly engrossing story of passion, betrayal, guilt, and redemption between men and women. The Bird Artist is a 1994 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.