Back to School: Fiction Books for Teens

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Acevedo, Elizabeth

With her daughter to care for and her abuela to help support, high school senior Emoni Santiago has to make the tough decisions, and do what must be done. The one place she can let her responsibilities go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.

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Adler, Dahlia

Amber McCloud's dream is to become cheer captain at the end of the year, but after the football team's quarterback dies in an accident and is replaced by a girl, Amber knows she should work against this unliked Jaclyn to keep her cheer status but the two fall for each other.

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Brophy, Aislinn

Half-Black witch Shay Johnson is cast as the lead in her school musical and must decide between exposing her predatory drama teacher and getting the scholarship she desperately needs.

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Brosgol, Vera

Of all the things Anya expected to find at the bottom of an old well, a new friend wasn't one of them. Especially not a new friend who's been dead for a century. Falling down a well is bad enough, but Anya's normal life might actually be worse. She's embarrassed by her family, self-conscious about her body, and she's pretty much given up on fitting in at school. A new friend - even a dead one - is just what she needs. But Anya's new B.F.F. isn't kidding about the "forever" part ...

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Callender, Kacen

Felix Love, a transgender seventeen-year-old, attempts to get revenge by catfishing his anonymous bully, but lands in a quasi-love triangle with his former enemy and his best friend.

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Cuevas, Mayra

Neither Malena nor Ruby expected to be leaders of their high school's dress code rebellion. Meanwhile, the girls have to face their own insecurities and biases, as well as the ups and downs of their newfound friendship.

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Jaigirdar, Adiba

Everyone likes Humaira 'Hani' Khan -- she's easy going and one of the most popular girls at school. But when she comes out to her friends as bisexual, they invalidate her identity, saying she can't be bi if she's only dated guys. Panicked, Hani blurts out that she's in a relationship...with a girl her friends absolutely hate -- Ishita 'Ishu' Dey. Ishu is the complete opposite of Hani. She's an academic overachiever who hopes that becoming head girl will set her on the right track for college. But Ishita agrees to help Hani, if Hani will help her become more popular so that she stands a chance of being elected head girl. Despite their mutually beneficial pact, they start developing real feelings for each other. But relationships are complicated, and some people will do anything to stop two Bengali girls from achieving happily ever after.

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Mafi, Tahereh

It's 2002, a year after 9/11, and Shirin has just started at yet another school. It's an extremely turbulent time for the world, but also for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who's tired of being stereotyped. She's tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments--even the physical violence--she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day. She decided long ago not to trust anyone anymore, and she doesn't expect, or even try, to fit in anywhere or let anyone close enough to hurt her. But then she meets Ocean James. He's the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin. It terrifies her--they seem to come from two irreconcilable worlds--and Shirin has had her guard up for so long that she's not sure she'll ever be able to let it down.

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Medina, Meg

One morning before school, some girl tells Piddy Sanchez that Yaqui Delgado hates her and wants to kick her ass. Piddy doesn't even know who Yaqui is, never mind what she's done to piss her off. Word is that Yaqui thinks Piddy is stuck-up, shakes her stuff when she walks, and isn't Latin enough with her white skin, good grades, and no accent. And Yaqui isn't kidding around, so Piddy better watch her back. As the harassment escalates, avoiding Yaqui and her gang starts to take over Piddy's life. Is there any way for Piddy to survive without closing herself off or running away?

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Meriano, Anna

Yasmín Treviño didn't have much of a freshman year thanks to Hurricane Humphrey, but she's ready to take sophomore year by storm. That means mastering the marching side of marching band--fast!--so she can outshine her BFF Sofia as top of the flute section, earn first chair, and impress both her future college admission boards and her comfortably unattainable drum major crush Gilberto Reyes. But Yasmín steps off on the wrong foot when she reports an anonymous gossip Instagram account harassing new band members and accidentally gets the entire low brass section suspended from extracurriculars. With no low brass section, the band is doomed, so Yasmín decides to take things into her own hands, learn to play the tuba, and lead a gaggle of rowdy freshman boys who are just as green to marching and playing as she is. She'll happily wrestle an ancient school tuba if it means fixing the mess she might have caused. But when the secret gossip Instagram escalates their campaign of harassment and Yasmín's friendship with Sofia deteriorates, things at school might be too hard to bear. Luckily, the support of Yasmín's new section--especially introverted section leader Bloom, a sweet ace and aro-spectrum boy--might just turn things around.

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Morrow, Jackie

Food, friendship and drama. High school is always cooking up something unexpected. Nora, Lili, and Iris are seniors at Seaside High. Their differing schedules and mounting extracurriculars inspire the girls to form a secret club where they can hang without sacrificing their future aspirations. Enter Supper Club, the delicious solution to their problems. When life starts to crumble like a cookie under the girls' feet, they rely on comfort food to hold it together. Can Supper Club endure life's most challenging recipes without burning to a crisp?

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Philippe, Ben

Norris Kaplan is clever, cynical, and quite possibly too smart for his own good. A Black French Canadian whose family just moved to Austin, Texas, Norris finds himself cataloging everyone he meets: the Cheerleaders, the Jocks, the Loners, and even the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. He's amusing himself until it's time to go back to Canada. But soon those labels soon become actual people: loner Liam, who makes it his mission to befriend Norris; Madison the beta cheerleader, who is so nice that it has to be a trap. And Aarti the Manic Pixie Dream Girl might be a real love interest in the making. When Norris screws everything up royally on prom night, will he be able to stop hiding behind his snarky opinions, and start living his life? 

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Quindlen, Kelly

After an embarrassing loss to her ex-girlfriend in their first basketball game of the season, seventeen-year-old Scottie Zajac gets into a fender bender with her nemesis, Irene Abraham, head cheerleader for the Fighting Reindeer. When the accident sends Irene's car to the shop for repairs, the girls are forced to carpool, and their rocky start only gets worse. In trying to get back at her toxic ex, Scottie bribes Irene into a fake-dating scheme that threatens to reveal some very real feelings.

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Quintero, Isabel

Sixteen-year-old Gabi Hernandez chronicles her senior year in high school as she copes with her friend Cindy's pregnancy, friend Sebastian's coming out, her father's meth habit, her own cravings for food and cute boys, and especially, the poetry that helps forge her identity.

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Reyes, Sonora

Sixteen-year-old Mexican American Yami Flores starts Catholic school, determined to keep her brother out of trouble and keep herself closeted, but her priorities shift when Yami discovers that her openly gay classmate Bo is also annoyingly cute.

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Searle, Sarah Winifred

It's the first day of sophomore year, and now that Winifred's two best (and only) friends have transferred to a private school, she must navigate high school on her own. But she isn't alone for long. In art class, she meets two offbeat students, Oscar and April. The three bond through clandestine sleepovers, thrift store shopping, and zine publishing. Winifred is finally breaking out of her shell, but there's one secret she can't bear to admit to April and Oscar, or even to herself--and this lie is threatening to destroy her newfound friendships.

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Smith, Cynthia Leitich

When Louise Wolfe's boyfriend mocks and disrespects Native people in front of her, she breaks things off and dumps him over e-mail. She'd rather spend her senior year with her family and friends and working on the school newspaper. The editors pair her up with Joey Kairouz, an ambitious new photojournalist, and in no time the paper's staff find themselves with a major story to cover: the school musical director's inclusive approach to casting The Wizard of Oz has been provoking backlash in their mostly white, middle-class Kansas town. As tensions mount at school, so does a romance between Lou and Joey. But 'dating while Native' can be difficult. In trying to protect her own heart, will Lou break Joey's?

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Smyth, Ciara

In this witty and engaging novel, Irish author Smyth creates a flawed teen girl, Aideen, who makes a credible journey from self-protectively tough to ready and willing to face her main problem: her single mother's neglectful alcoholism.

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Velez, Angela

Overachiever Luz 'Lulu' Zavala has straight As, perfect attendance, and a solid ten-year plan ... Middle sister Milagro wants nothing to do with college or a nerdy class field trip ... On a journey from Baltimore all the way to San Francisco, Lulu and Milagro will become begrudging partners as they unpack weighty family expectations ... and maybe even discover the true meaning of sisterhood.

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Williams, Lily and Karen Schneemann

Sick of an administration that puts football before female health, the girls confront a world that shrugs―or worse, squirms―at the thought of a menstruation revolution. They band together to make a change. It’s no easy task, especially while grappling with everything from crushes to trig to JV track but they have each other’s backs. That is, until one of the girls goes rogue, testing the limits of their friendship and pushing the friends to question the power of their own voices.

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Woodfolk, Ashley

In New York City, follows the breakup of teenaged best friends Cleo and Layla, told in alternating timelines.

Summaries provided by DPL's catalog unless otherwise noted. Click on each title to view more information.