Showing titles in Coming of Age

For fans of Stand by Me and Stranger Things. Devil’s Backbone dirt road weaves through tall East Texas trees. The eerie Claymore mansion sits silently along the path. Thirteen-year-old Kevin Bishop and friends plan to spend their summer swimming, playing baseball, and erecting a massive fort in the nearby woods. Their daily journey requires a bike ride down that road and by that mansion—the site of a gruesome unsolved murder near the turn-of-the-century.

You know you’re invisible when even your bullies forget to pick on you. That’s me, Bettina Blair, hidden in plain sight. No matter how hard I try I just never fit in with my classmates. Now I know why. I’m a witch...apparently. One little demon attack and my parents confess their ugly secret…and ship me off to an elite academy of magic—for witches only. I can't summon magic. I can't fight with my hands or my fists. I just don't belong here, and Jackson Lancaster keeps reminding me every single chance he gets. This boy is the most insufferable, intolerable, unbearable, judgmental person.

The second volume of Sir Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust sees Lyra, now 20 years old, and her daemon Pantalaimon, forced to navigate their relationship in a way they could never have imagined, and drawn into the complex and dangerous factions of a world that they had no idea existed. Pulled along on his own journey too is Malcolm: once a boy with a boat and a mission to save a baby from the flood, now a man with a strong sense of duty and a desire to do what is right.

Nobody said that growing up would be easy! After the brutal attack on Anthony, his friends gather around him protectively, but he’s more interested in exploring his newly discovered self. Cameron struggles with anger and a broken home, finding an unexpected ally in Diego… and an unwilling rival in Omar. Keisha feels the strain of dating the enemy, Mindy is determined to land her first boyfriend, and Ricky wants more romance from his man. All is fair in love and war, but can you truly have one without the other?

Everyone wants a piece of the Drew Schafer, the talented and troubled lead singer of up-and-coming band The Kerbs. Only his girlfriend Ruby knows the real Drew–the gentle, vulnerable boy beneath the stardust. But no one else even knows that Ruby exists...

For 16-year-old Tris, the world changes in a heartbeat when she is forced to make a terrible choice. Turning her back on her family, Tris ventures out, alone, determined to find out where she truly belongs. Shocked by the brutality of her new life, Tris can trust no one. And yet she is drawn to a boy who seems to both threaten and protect her. The hardest choices may yet lie ahead…. A debut novel that will leave you breathless.

My name is Adelaide Edington, and my life was mapped out for me before I even entered the world: who I'd date, where I’d attend college, what I'd be when I grew up. But there comes a time in everyone's life when they face a fork in the road. Should I go left, or should I go right? It didn't matter as long as I didn't remain stagnant any longer. Jett Stone opened me up to a whole new world, reminding me that it was okay to find my own way. I could have roots in Willow Springs and still spread my wings and fly. What I didn't expect was to fall in love with the broody football player.

Sori has worked her whole life to become a K-pop idol, until she realizes she doesn’t want a life forever in the spotlight. But that’s not actually up to Sori—she’s caught between her exacting mother’s entertainment company and her father’s presidential aspirations. And as the pressure to keep her flawless public image grows, the last person she should be thinking about is her ex-boyfriend.

Seventeen-year-old Eli has been in a near-fatal car crash. As the anniversary looms, his therapist and family struggle to help him deal with the fall out. The accident has left him emotionally numb, with no memory of the months following the crash. Desperate to feel something again, Eli winds up at an underground club called Traumaland. But this is no ordinary nightclub. Here he joins crowds of other emotionally numb people, all seeking to experience a new thrill by entering virtual reality simulations of nightmarish scenarios through the points of view of various characters.

Most days, Ellie Pillai is somewhere between invisible, and not very cool—and usually she's okay with that. But suddenly, Ellie feels different. Maybe it's the new boy at school who makes her brain explode into rainbows every time she sees him (and also happens to be going out with her best friend), or maybe it's her new drama teacher, the one who seems to have noticed she exists. Suddenly, her misfit style, her skin colour, her songwriting and all that getting lost in the music in her head seem to be okay, too. Because maybe standing out isn’t a bad thing after all.

Against all odds, she survived. The first girl born in 50 years. They called her Eve...Described by Tom and Giovanna as an unconventional love story set in a dystopian future, Eve of Man is the tale of what happens when you turn 16 and realise you're the most important person in the world. Do you embrace your fate - or do you run from it?

In case you're wondering, this is not a love story. My name is Tori Spring. I like to sleep and I like to blog. Last year - before all that stuff with Charlie and before I had to face the harsh realities of A-Levels and university applications and the fact that one day I really will have to start talking to people - I had friends. Things were very different, I guess, but that's all over now. Now there's Solitaire. And Michael Holden. I don't know what Solitaire are trying to do, and I don't care about Michael Holden. I really don't.

Everyone knows that Nick and Charlie are the perfect couple – that they’re inseparable. But now Nick is leaving for university, and Charlie will be left behind at Sixth Form. Everyone’s asking if they’re staying together, which is a stupid question – they’re ‘Nick and Charlie’ for God’s sake!

But as the time to say goodbye gets inevitably closer, both Nick and Charlie question whether their love is strong enough to survive being apart. Or are they delaying the inevitable? Because everyone knows that first loves rarely last forever....

Award-winning writer Patrick Ness’s bold and irreverent novel powerfully asks what if you weren't the Chosen One? The one who's supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you were like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again.

Meet Arthur and Ben. Arthur is only in New York for the summer, but if Broadway has taught him anything, it’s that the universe can deliver a show-stopping romance when you least expect it. Ben thinks the universe needs to mind its business. If the universe had his back, he wouldn’t be carrying a box of his ex-boyfriend’s things. But when the boys have a chance meeting at the post office, they leave wondering what exactly the universe does have in store for them.

Isabel has one rule: no dating. It's easier. It's safer. It's better...for the other person. She's got issues. She's got secrets. She's got rheumatoid arthritis. But then she meets another sick kid. He's got a chronic illness Isabel's never heard of, something she can't even pronounce. He understands what it means to be sick. He understands her more than her healthy friends. He understands her more than her own father, who's a doctor.

All 16-year-old Drew Finch wants is to be left alone. She's not interested in spending time with her mum and stepdad, and when her disruptive 15-year-old brother, Mason, is expelled from school for the third time and sent to a residential reform academy, she's almost relieved. Everything changes when she's followed home from school by the mysterious Dr Cobey, who claims to have a message from Mason. There is something sinister about the 'treatment' he is undergoing. The school is changing people.

After getting in with the wrong crowd and being involved in a high-profile armed robbery, a flawed and discriminatory legal system convicts fifteen-year-old Tyrell Forrester. Locked up in a juvenile prison for two years, Ty soon realises the only person he can trust is himself. Now he’s getting out, and he’s determined to turn things around. Inspired by a visiting poet while inside, Ty discovers a whole new world through spoken word and is finally finding his voice.

Caleb Michaels is a 16-year-old champion running back. Other than that his life is pretty normal. But when Caleb starts experiencing mood swings that are out of the ordinary for even a teenager, his life moves beyond "typical". Caleb is an Atypical, an individual with enhanced abilities. Which sounds pretty cool except Caleb's ability is extreme empathy - he feels the emotions of everyone around him. Being an empath in high school would be hard enough, but Caleb's life becomes even more complicated when he keeps getting pulled into the emotional orbit of one of his classmates, Adam.

Some cryptic words wake college student Jess Ballard from a terrifying dream into an even more terrifying reality. Jess’ life has never been what anyone would call easy; doing damage control in the wake of your nomadic, alcoholic mother doesn't exactly make for a storybook childhood. But now, her world has fallen apart just when it should be coming together: her mother gone—dead under mysterious circumstances; her life uprooted to stay with estranged relatives she’s never met; and there’s something odd about some of the people she’s been meeting at school: They’re dead.