Anorexia
After happening upon the diary she kept when she was 11 years old, Gottlieb was moved to publish this chronicle of her struggle with anorexia nearly 20 years after she wrote it. In the late 1970s, she lived with her parents and brother in Beverly Hills, where Gottlieb's loneliness and concern about looking attractive to boys swiftly transformed into an obsession with dieting, although she had never been overweight.
Eighteen-year-old Lia comes to terms with her best friend's death from anorexia as she struggles with the same disorder.
At 16, Olivia Monahan is uprooted from her home when a scandal in the local church costs her father his ministry. The family retreats to the seclusion of a small Pennsylvanian town, where a host of rich characters all play part in Olivia's struggle to understand her disillusionment with Christianity and gather courage to fight the eating disorder threatening her health.
This poignant story of a vulnerable young woman, her lover, and the devastating disease that both unites and threatens to destroy them offers a raw and sentimental journey into the dark world of hunger and denial.
When his parents decide to separate, eighth-grader Donnie watches with horror as the physical condition of his sixteen-year old sister, Karen, deteriorates due to an eating disorder.
Suicide
When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah's voice recounting the events leading up to her death.
Grayson Donald, seventeen years old, has just hanged himself from a basketball hoop next to a playground in Centreville, North Virginia (NoVA). The question is, Why?
Brimming with sarcasm, fifteen-year-old Jeff describes his stay in a psychiatric ward after attempting to commit suicide.
In the wake of her cousin's suicide, overweight and introverted seventeen-year-old Miles experiences significant changes in her relationships with her mother and father, her best friend Jamal and his family, and her cousin's father, while gaining insights about herself, both positive and negative
Three teens who meet at Reno, Nevada's Aspen Springs mental hospital after each has attempted suicide connect with each other in a way they never have with their parents or anyone else in their lives.
After the suicide of her troubled teenage sister, eleven-year-old Jenny struggles to understand what actually happened.
Depression
Pitting her own aspirations against the oppressive expectations of others, Esther cannot keep the airless bell jar of depression and despair from descending over her. Sylvia Plath's extraordinary novel ("witty and disturbing," said the New York Times) ends with the hope, if not the clear promise, of recovery.
Seventeen-year-old football hero Austin, trying to understand the inexplicable depression that has drained his interest in life, thinks that he has found relief in a girl who seems very special.
When her father leaves for a job out of town, Mazzy is left at home to try to cope with her mother, who has been severely depressed since the death of Mazzy's baby sister.
Fifteen-year-old Sadie writes on her blog about having to move to a new high school at the beginning of sophomore year due to her parents' divorce, finding and losing a true love and a best friend, and being in therapy and taking antidepressants.
When her sixteen-year-old sister is hospitalized for depression and her parents want to keep it a secret, fourteen-year-old Elena tries to cope with her own anxiety and feelings of guilt that she is determined to conceal from outsiders.
Friendship, love, identity, and a general feeling of isolation in an all-girls private school contribute to Kim Cameron (Skim)'s growing depression.
Racism / Prejudice
Fifteen-year-old Patty Ho, half Taiwanese and half white, feels she never fits in, but when her overly-strict mother ships her off to math camp at Stanford, instead of being miserable, Patty starts to become comfortable with her true self.
While working on a project for an after-school club, Julia, a Korean American girl, and her friend Patrick learn not just about silkworms, but also about tolerance, prejudice, friendship, patience, and more. Between the chapters are short dialogues between the author and main character about the writing of the book.
Alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture. Presented in comic book format.
Cutting
While confined to a mental hospital, thirteen-year-old Callie slowly comes to understand some of the reasons behind her self-mutilation, and gradually starts to get better.
Sixteen-year-old identical twin daughters of a district court judge and a candidate for the United States House of Representatives, Kaeleigh and Raeanne Gardella desperately struggle with secrets that have already torn them and their family apart.
Child Abuse
This haunting, emotionally gripping tale is the story of a 15-year-old girl who must defend herself against her abusive father. Suspenseful, and emotionally shattering, the novel captures a young woman's painful fight for survival--and her journey back to herself.
The youngest of three siblings, fourteen-year-old Anke feels both relieved and neglected that her father abuses her brother and sister but ignores her, but when she catches him with one of her friends, she finally becomes angry enough to take action.
When she is abandoned by her alcoholic mother, high school senior Ruby winds up living with Cora, the sister she has not seen for ten years, and learns about Cora's new life, what makes a family, how to allow people to help her when she needs it, and that she too has something to offer others.
Seventeen-year-old Matthew recounts his attempts, starting at a young age, to free himself and his sisters from the grip of their emotionally and physically abusive mother.
Fourteen-year-old John creates alternative realities in his mind as he tries to deal with his mother's abusive boyfriend, his crush on a beautiful, but shallow classmate and other problems at school.
After her stepfather is arrested for child abuse, thirteen-year-old Karina's home life improves but while the severity of her older sister's injuries and the urging of her younger sister, their uncle, and a friend tempt her to testify against him, her mother and other well-meaning adults pursuade her to claim responsibility.
Addiction/ Drugs
After running away from their troubled homes, two English teenagers move in with a group of squatters in the port city of Bristol and try to find ways to support their growing addiction to heroin.
Matt Rydeck, co-captain of his high school football team, endures a traumatic season as he witnesses the rape of a rookie player by teammates and grapples with his own use of performance-enhancing drugs.
When Joe meets Candy, it seems like a regular boy-meets-girl scenario. They chat over coffee, she gives him her number, and he writes her a song. But then Joe is drawn into Candy's world --- a world of drugs, violence, and desperation. As the dark truth about Candy's life emerges, Joe finds himself facing real danger at every twist and turn.
Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter, gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit her absentee father, Kristina disappears and Bree takes her place. Bree is the exact opposite of Kristina. Through a boy, Bree meets the monster: crank. And what begins as a wild ecstatic ride turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul - her life.
Based on the diary of a fifteen-year-old drug user chronicling her struggle to escape the pull of the drug world.
Homosexuality/ Gay & Lesbian
When openly gay Manuel transfers to Paul's high school, Paul, a born-again Christian, begins to question his own sexuality.
As she begins a very tough last semester of high school, Holland finds herself puzzled about her future and intrigued by a transfer student who wants to start a Lesbigay club at school.
Sixteen-year-old Lissa's relationship with her best friend changes after they kiss at a party and Lissa does not know what to do, until she gets help from an unexpected new friend.
Thom is keeping two very big secrets from his father—that he is a superhero in training, and that he is gay.
Liza puts aside her feelings for Annie after the disaster at school, but eventually she allows love to triumph over the ignorance of people.
School Shootings
Written in the form of interviews, reports, and journal entries, the story of three troubled teenagers ends in a tragic school shooting.
In the town of Martirio, Texas, a fifteen-year-old Vernon Little is in trouble. His friend, Jesus, has just killed sixteen of his classmates before turning the gun on himself.
Ripped from today's headlines comes the story of two high school students who are out for revenge. Armed with stolen rifles, they terrorize a high school dance -- holding classmates and teachers hostage.
Interweaves the stories of Muir High School's various groups of students--from the "jocks" to the "drama queens"--as they clash over everything from cheating on tests to cheating in relationships, with the ultimate clash that comes when one student reaches the breaking point.
In 1988, a catastrophic episode of teen violence shatters a suburban community. HEY NOSTRADAMUS follows the aftermath in various voices across two decades.
Death/Dying
A terminally ill teenaged girl makes and carries out a list of things to do before she dies.
Given the medical diagnosis of one year to live, high school senior Ben Wolf decides to fulfill his greatest fantasies, ponders his life's purpose and legacy, and converses through dreams with a spiritual guide known as "Hey-Soos."
While in a coma following an automobile accident that killed her parents and younger brother, seventeen-year-old Mia, a gifted cellist, weights whether to live with her grief or join her family in death.
As she navigates adolescence, ninth-grader Mia must deal with her mother' s recent death and her father's illness while she searches for friendship and love in the world around her.
Seventeen-year-old best friends Samantha and Juliana tell their stories in alternating chapters after Juliana is diagnosed with cancer.
Obsessive Compulsiveness
When her father found the washing machine crammed with everything from her sneakers to her barrettes, 12-year-old Jennifer Traig had a simple explanation: they’d been tainted by the pork fumes emanating from the kitchen and had to be cleansed. The same fumes compelled Jennifer to meticulously wash her hands for 30 minutes before dinner. It wasn’t long before her family's exasperation made Jennifer realizes that her behavior had gone beyond fastidious--in her own eyes, she’d gone from quirky girl to raving lunatic.
Date Rape/ Abusive Relationships
When fifteen-year-old Finn's world falls apart after a violent sexual encounter, the only person she can talk to her is her best friend, Audrey, until beautiful boy Jersy moves back to town and both girls develop feelings for him that threaten to destroy their friendship.
Fifteen-year-old Virginia Shreves learns how to manage her weight, the wandering hands of Froggy Welsh the Fourth, and an accusation of date rape against her perfect older brother when her best friend Shannon moves to Washington and she is forced to deal with her problems on her own for the first time in her life.
A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda's freshman year in high school.
Sent to counseling for hitting his girlfriend, Caitlin, and ordered to keep a journal, sixteen-year-old Nick recounts his relationship with Caitlin, examines his controlling behavior and anger, and describes living with his abusive father.
Teen Pregnancy
In order to earn money for college, fourteen-year-old LaVaughn babysits for a teenage mother.
At the age of fifteen, Sam Jones's girlfriend gets pregnant and Sam's life of skateboarding and daydreaming about Tony Hawk changes drastically.
When his girlfriend decides to give their baby away, seventeen-year-old Sam is determined to keep him and raise him alone.
Bobby's carefree teenage life changes forever when he becomes a father and must care for his adored baby daughter.