James Mares –
The Privilege of Youth: A Teenager’s Story by Dave Pelzer
“A teenager’s story about his troubled childhood and how his parents didn’t look out for him. He has to learn to navigate this world without having his parents’ guidance earlier in life.”
Lydia Drescher –
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
“An ambitious teenage girl named Pip who re-investigates a murder that happened 5 years earlier for her Capstone Project. Along the way, she uncovers a lot of secrets and finds out a lot of ugly truths. It’s an excellent story about a headstrong female lead.”
Annika Fransen –
The Summer of Broken Rules by K.L. Walter
“This book is about a girl whose family goes to Martha’s Vineyard every year with her family but this year is different. The main character’s sister recently passed away and she’s trying to grieve while being in Martha’s Vineyard for her cousin’s wedding and constantly being reminded of her older sister when she meets a boy who helps make her grief a little easier.”
June Toward –
Little Women by Louis May Allcott
“It’s about four sisters and their mother who are left at home while their father is fighting in the civil war. All the girls struggle not knowing if their father is going to come back. While girls struggle with money and loss, as they grow they learn about love, family, and what matters in life.”
Kellen Turner –
Need by Joelle Charbonneau
“Need is a dystopian book about a government experiment designed to test the limits of what teenagers will do for things they ‘need’. The tasks that they do to get the things that they requested start innocently at first, but then ramp up into danger, eventually leading to a beloved cheerleader dying and many others in the town harmed.” What do you NEED?
Dylan Wheelwright –
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
“There are so many parts to the book where the amazing details almost brought me to tears. There is such great vocabulary and I have learned so much about life, academics, self-teaching, and more. It taught me that without the negative, there is no positive.”
Taylor Jackson –
Renegades by Marissa Meyer
“Renegades is a superhero book, this book switches perspectives. With the two main characters, one is a villain and the other is a superhero. There are a lot of cliches and they end up falling in love, whilst being in love they have to balance the struggles and hide their identities.”
