The novel, This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune is a very warm story about friendship, promises, and love. Following the story of Lucy, we see how she navigates through life and now her newfound love. Lucy’s life has always been full of many ups and downs, but everything changes when she goes with her best friend to visit her best friend's family and before she knows it Lucy is in love with her best friend’s brother.
Teen Hazel Grace Lancaster has cancer. Having to constantly live, imagining that she might not wake up the next morning, is hard. Nevertheless, she tries her hardest to have as typical of a life as she possibly can. While at a cancer support group, Hazel Grace meets Augustus Waters who has his own troubles… and it’s love at first sight. This book follows their romance and their humanity.
Love and Gelato, written by Jenna Evan Welch follows Carolina (nicknamed Lina), a young girl who loses her mother to pancreatic cancer. Upon her death, her mother sends her to Florence, Italy to live with her supposed “father”, Howard. When she arrives, she is unpleasantly surprised to learn that she will now live in a graveyard. With everything seemingly going wrong, she plans to run away until she finds a journal her mother left behind that changes everything.
This Song Is (not) for You is a realistic fiction young adult novel that follows three young musicians, Ramona, Sam, and Tom through their senior year of high school. They meet at auditions for a prestigious music university and become fast friends. Starting a band is just the natural course of nature, so is Sam and Tom both falling deeply in love with Ramona. As they navigate the various family hardships they are all facing, the band evolves into something new and unique.
If He Had Been With Me, written by Laura Nowling follows the point of view of the main character Autumn throughout her experiences growing up. She and her mother live right next to Aunt Angelina (who is Autumn's mothers’ best friend) and her son, Phineas. Autumn grows up alongside Finny and they are inseparable best friends. Something happens when they reach middle school that complicates things however, so they begin to grow apart.
Daphne Vincent, an enthusiastic librarian in Waning Bay, Michigan, felt perfectly settled into her new life with her soon-to-be husband Peter Collins. That is, until her fiancé realizes his love for his childhood best friend, Petra. Devastated, Daphne moves into the apartment of Petra’s ex-boyfriend Miles Nowak, whom she believes will understand her situation. Daphne and Miles begin to bond over their shared breakups, hatching a plan to get back at their exes while navigating their new lives.
If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang is a fun, contemporary romance that dives into the struggles of class privilege and academic pressure. Alice Sun, a Chinese-American scholarship student at her Beijing international boarding school, feels invisible among her rich and influential classmates. To make matters worse, her parents have just confessed that they cannot afford tuition, even with the scholarship.
Jane Austen adaptations might be one of my favorite forms of media. I’ve watched everyone you could get hold of, but by far my favorite will always be Pride and Prejudice 2005. This movie was an adaptation of Jane Austen's famous novel by the same name and follows Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy and their troublesome, frustrating, and utterly swoon worthy romance. Elizabeth Bennett comes from a large family with little means, while Mr. Darcy comes from a noble and wealthy family with a large estate.
The Secret Year is a realistic fiction young adult novel that follows Colt through his junior year of high school. Labor day weekend, he lost the secret love of his life in a car accident. Although they were in love, no one was allowed to know. He was from the flats, and she was from one of the huge houses up on Black Mountain. Throughout his junior year, Colt faces his grief in secret, reading her journal entries written about their time together, allowing him to relive the best year of his life, the one with Julia.
Gregorio's novel None of the Above follows Kristin Lattimer, a teenage girl who has it all: many caring friends, a loving boyfriend, and a promising athletic career. That is until Kristin discovers that she is intersex, causing her to spiral into a full-blown identity crisis while she also suffering from the discrimination of her classmates. This novel contains scenes of sexual assault, and discrimination against queer identities which may be triggering for some readers.
