Cinnamon loves the shadows, because that's where no one can find her... For Cinnamon, dreaming of imaginary worlds and characters is her only escape from her mother's breakdowns. Her grandmother's overbearing control. Her family's turmoil. But Cinnamon is discovering something special about herself, a gift from deep within that sets her apart: a talent for the theater that would finally give her a chance...to truly escape.
Queen of Mean Amanda Beeson, 13, gets the shock of her life when she wakes up one morning to find herself in the body of one of her victims, Tracey Devon. Amanda discovers that Tracey, ignored at home and school, has the ability to become invisible. When Amanda finds herself in a special class that Tracey usually attends, it becomes clear that at Meadowbrook Middle School the definition of “gifted” has a whole other meaning. Can Amanda rescue her one-time target from obscurity and get her own life back on track? In order to do so, she will have to reveal her own startling gift and take her rightful place among Meadowbrook’s very secret clique.
Seven months ago, on a rainy March night, sixteen year- old Willow’s parents died in a horrible car accident. Willow was driving. Now her older brother barely speaks to her, her new classmates know her as the killer orphan girl, and Willow is blocking the pain by secretly cutting herself. But when one boy —one sensitive, soulful boy—discovers Willow’s secret, it sparks an intense relationship that turns the “safe” world Willow has created for herself upside down. Told in an extraordinary fresh voice, Willow is an unforgettable novel about one girl’s struggle to cope with tragedy, and one boy’s refusal to give up on her.
Mackenzie is a good liar. She has to be - especially to herself. Alone at night in the bush, alone with her demons - what will this city girl discover about herself and her place in the world? An intense story of psychological struggle, from an acclaimed writer of YA fiction. Mackenzie has had a tough life. Aa a teenage daughter of drug-damaged parents, she has little reason to trust other people, or even herself.
In this engaging first novel, narrator Dolores Price recounts her life story from age four to age 40. The troubled product of a stormy marriage, she is already sipping Maalox in grade school. Then her father walks out on her mother, who suffers a nervous collapse, and Dolores moves to her repressive grandmother's house in Rhode Island. By the time she reaches eighth grade, she has only one friend: a boarder who eventually rapes her. Anesthetizing herself with junk food and soap operas, Dolores becomes an obese, isolated young woman who attempts suicide during her first semester in college and spends seven years in a mental institution.
