Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Coming of Age

Blair might be a little type-A, but she never thought of herself as completely overbearing … that is, until her two best friends drop her from their housing arrangement a week before her pre-college summer coding program is about to start. Blair knows if she switches to an on-campus dorm, her parents will make her give up her expensive sculpture class with her dream mentor in order to pay for it. Desperate, she agrees to be the fifth roommate to four off-campus sophomores who are also in a last-minute bind.

A father, a friend, and a favorite book help a teen boy understand love and loss in this moving and vivid YA novel in verse, now available in Spanish. Have you ever encountered a book that turned your world upside-down? For sixteen-year-old poet and b-baller Marcos Cadena, that book is the...

At the University of North Carolina, Ronny's made some friends, kept his secrets, survived dorm life, and protected his heart. Until he can't. Ben is in some ways Ronny's opposite; he's big and solid where Ronny is small and slight. Ben's at UNC on a football scholarship. Confident, with that easy jock swagger and an explosive temper always simmering. He has a steady stream of girlfriends. Ben's aware of the overwhelming effect he has on Ronny. It's like a sensation of power. So easy to tease Ronny, throw playful insults, but it all feels somehow...loaded.  

First-time novelist Jenny Han has penned a realistic story that all middle-graders will surely be able to relate to. Meet 12-year-old Annemarie “Shug” Wilcox. What’s not to like about her? She’s smart, she’s tall, and she has lots of freckles. She lives in a small Georgia town with her popular, gorgeous older sister and intellectual mother. Shug is excited about starting the seventh-grade, but she’s not prepared for all the vicious teasing that comes with the new school year.

This stunning debut novel from Australian author Lucy Christopher generated considerable buzz for its nonstop suspense and breathtaking imagery. Sixteen-year-old Gemma is on a layover at Bangkok Airport, headed to Vietnam with her parents. Then the vaguely familiar Ty drugs Gemma’s drink and steals her away. Her head swirling in confusion, Gemma soon finds herself fighting to survive in the unforgiving Outback.

When Mari jumps in the back of her rideshare to a music festival, the last thing she expects is for the car to pick up a cute guy along the way. Mari doesn’t believe in dating - it can only end with a broken heart. Besides, she’s only staying at her dad’s house in Chicago for the weekend. How close can you get to a guy in three days? T.J. wants to study art in college, but his family’s expectations cast a long shadow over his dreams. When he meets Mari in the back of a rideshare, he feels alive for the first time in a long time.  

This exceptional and powerful anthology explores the joys, heartbreaks and triumphs of immigration, with stories by critically acclaimed and best-selling YA authors who are shaped by the journeys they and their families have taken from home - and to find home. 

Marco should be at university, studying biomedicine. Instead, he’s been sent to live on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean with his estranged uncle, all because of a “blip” everyone else is convinced was a panic attack. (Which it most definitely was not.) And even though Marco’s trip is supposed to provide answers—about himself, about his family—all he finds on board the Ocean Melody are more and more questions.

Laila Piedra doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and definitely doesn’t sneak into the 21-and-over clubs on the Lower East Side. The only sort of risk Laila enjoys is the peril she writes for the characters in her stories: epic sci-fi worlds full of quests, forbidden love, and robots. Her creative writing teacher has always told her she has a special talent. But three months before graduation, Laila’s number one fan is replaced by Nadiya Nazarenko, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who sees nothing at all special about Laila’s writing.

Marion High, an inner-city school in Indianapolis, has never had a state championship. It’s D-Bow’s senior year, his A-game is ready, big-time colleges are taking notice, and he’s dreaming big. The doctor says the rehabbed knee is ready for ball. D-Bow celebrates with new kicks, the LeBron XIIIs. Still, his life is not easy. First, there’s the girl trouble. Lia is his steady, but his ex, Jasmine, starts texting him late at night. At home, his mom is acting crazy, because, well … she’s pregnant! Still, the heart of Quicks is basketball.

After Zahra Paracha makes a decision at odds with her beliefs, her mother forces Zahra to make an impossible choice about her future. So Zahra runs away. A train and a plane ride later, she finds herself in New York, where she relinquishes her past in favor of a new future. There, she must learn who she is without the marionette strings of control in her mother’s hands. There, she must learn who she wishes to become.

Will is a 17-year-old on the cusp of freedom—freedom from providing and caring for their abusive, addicted mother, freedom from their small town with an even smaller mindset, and freedom from having to hide who they truly are. When their mother dies months before their 18th birthday, Will is granted this freedom earlier than expected. They begin to dream of escaping to the big city of Baltimore, of dating the magnetic and gorgeous Julian, and of living, unencumbered and free.

Pedro and Daniel are Mexican American brothers growing up in 1970s Ohio. Their mom doesn’t like that Pedro is a spitting image of their darker-skinned father, that Daniel plays with dolls, that neither boy loves sports like the other kids in their neighborhood. Life at home can be rough—but the boys have an unshakable bond that will last their entire lives.

Sixteen-year-old Amina Conteh has always believed in using her tongue as her weapon—even when it gets her into trouble. After cursing at a classmate, her father forces her to volunteer at their church with Pastor Johnson. But Pastor Johnson isn’t the holy man everyone thinks he is. The same voice Amina uses to fight falls quiet the night she is sexually assaulted by Pastor Johnson. After that, her life starts to unravel: her father is frustrated that her grades are slipping, and her best friend and boyfriend don’t understand why the once loud and proud girl is now quiet and distant.

Seventeen-year-old Fatima Tate, aspiring baker (100% against her conservative parents’ wishes), leads a pretty normal life in Albuquerque: long drives with BFF Zaynab, weekly services at the mosque, big family parties, soup kitchen volunteering (the best way to perfect her flaky dough recipe!), stressing about college. But everything changes when she meets a charming university student named Raheem. Knowing the 'rents would FREAK, Fatima keeps their burgeoning relationship a secret... and then, one day, her parents and his parents decide to arrange their marriage.

Three strangers who also happen to be cousins: Matt. Evangelical Christian. Earnest. Film nerd. Carrying a dream to make movies—despite the future his father has planned for him. Ethan. Jewish. Gay. Sci-fi nerd. Carrying a phone that contains his entire relationship with Levi—unless they finally get to meet IRL on this trip. Oscar. Stoner. Smartass. Too cool to be a nerd. Carrying a letter that haunts him—no matter how hard he tries to escape it.

Lydia Jones and her younger sister Penny have had it with boy drama. Last year was marred by relationship disasters for both of them, threatening Lydia’s standing with her school’s theater tech club and Penny’s perfect GPA. Penny has, naturally, diagnosed the problem and prescribed a drastic solution: a summer off from boys. Lydia and Penny decide to stay with their Aunt Grace and her boyfriend Oscar in Los Angeles while their parents are off on a European cruise. Penny follows her dreams with an internship at Oscar’s office, and Lydia gets a part-time job at Grace’s neighborhood coffeeshop.

16-year-old Raquel lives in a small town in Portugal, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Her parents are divorced and she’s just been suspended for cursing out a school aide asking about her father’s new marriage. She has two best friends, Luísa and Fred, but wants something more. Then, from afar, she sees Pardalita, a senior and a gifted artist who’s moving to Lisbon to study in the fall. The two girls get to know each other while working on a play. And Raquel falls in love.

Brian, a 20-something reporter on the Niagara Cascade's City Desk, is navigating life as the only Indigenous writer in the newsroom, being lumped into reporting on stereotypical stories that homogenize his community, the nearby Tuscarora reservation. But when a mysterious roadside assault lands Tim, the brother of Brian's mother's late boyfriend in the hospital, Brian must pick up the threads of a life that he's abandoned.  

Poppy Pullman has her life all planned out. Her social media is carefully curated. Her list of extracurriculars is flawless. All so she can achieve her ultimate goal: Stanford. Her best friends say she’s missing out. But Poppy’s playing a long game. And the morning of her Stanford alumni interview, she’s positive everything is going to work out.