Showing titles in Loners & Outcasts

It's been more than 50 years since a tornado tore through a drive-in movie theater in tiny Mercer, Illinois, leaving dozens of teens - a whole generation of Mercerites - dead in its wake. So when another tornado touches down in the exact same spot on the anniversary of this small-town tragedy, the town is shaken. For Brenna Ortiz, Joshua Calloway, and Callie Keller, the apprehension is more than just a feeling. Though they seem to share nothing more than a struggle to belong, the teens' paths continue to intersect, bringing them together when they least expect it.

Sixteen-year-old Nicole had enough on her plate already between navigating the ups and downs of friendship with her witchy best friend Isabel, competing with her romantic rival Cassie, and flirting with her crush Alex, a.k.a. Cassie’s boyfriend—and now she’s dead. They say it was suicide, but Nicole knows she didn't kill herself and will do whatever it takes to prove it. When Nicole wakes up and finds herself on Substation Fifteen, a special plane of existence for teen suicides, she must accept the fact that she is no longer alive.

An Otherwise Perfect Plan is a fiercely intelligent, introspective, and laugh-out-loud funny young adult novel of self-discovery, narrated by a quirky teenage girl as she embarks on an unpredictable and often hilarious quest to find the father she's never known, unravel the mystery of her mom's silence on the subject, and achieve the impossible: actually understanding her own unruly emotions.

When someone burns down the home of the school janitor and he dies in the blaze, everyone in Addamsville, Indiana, points a finger at Zora. Never mind that Zora has been on the straight and narrow since her father was thrown in jail. With everyone looking for evidence against her, her only choice is to uncover the identity of the real killer. There’s one big problem - Zora has no leads. No one does. Addamsville has a history of tragedy, and 30 years ago a similar string of fires left several townspeople dead. The arsonist was never caught.

Taught to kill without question, Emma is tasked by her demanding headmaster with going undercover at Grover Cleveland High School. There, she must do the seemingly impossible—truly become a better person in order to win the trust of Grover Cleveland's most virtuous student, Susie Robinson, and help Susie gain the affections of her crush, Brayden. Susie is a straight-A teacher's pet, naturally suspicious of the manipulative and deceitful Emma, and the one person standing between the success or failure of Emma's mission to assassinate an international political figure.

Over a century ago, God's United Reich, a tyrannical religious ideology, conquered the American Republic, transforming it into a holy utopia. The heart of this oppressive regime is the Divine Leader and his unwavering military force called the NiBorr, which demands unquestioning obedience from its flock. Leon Grady has the perceived holy life: he's the star of his high school baseball team and is surrounded by adoring friends and a family who love him, all while dating the girl next door. Yet, deep inside, he knows he can never really be happy because of who he is and what his heart wants.

Magpie Lewis started writing in her yellow notebook the day her family self-destructed. That was the night Eryn, Magpie's sister, skipped town and left her to fend for herself. That was the night of Brandon Phipp's party. Now, Magpie is called a slut whenever she walks down the hallways of her high school, her former best friend won't speak to her, and she spends her lunch period with a group of misfits who've all been socially exiled like she has. And so, feeling trapped and forgotten, Magpie retreats to her notebook, dreaming up a place called Near.

Jocelyn Wu has just three wishes for her junior year: to make it through without dying of boredom, to direct a short film with her BFF Priya Venkatram, and to get at least two months into the year without being compared to or confused with Peggy Chang, the only other Chinese girl in her grade. Will Domenici has two goals: to find a paying summer internship, and to prove he has what it takes to become an editor on his school paper.

Nathan Malone has been homeschooled his whole life. He’s never spent much time with kids his own age and he’s never dated. His mother is now busy with his new twin sisters, so Nathan must enroll at the local high school for his senior year. On the first day, a girl on a motorcycle catches his eye and Nathan is excited to discover the girl is also in his English class.

Since a deadly virus and the violence that followed wiped out his parents and most of his community, Finn has lived alone on the rugged coast with only his loyal dog, Rowdy, for company. He has stayed alive for two winters—hunting and fishing and trading food, and keeping out of sight of the Wilders, an armed and dangerous gang that controls the north, led by a ruthless man named Ramage. But Finn’s isolation is shattered when a girl runs onto the beach. Rose is a Siley—an asylum seeker—and she has escaped from Ramage, who had enslaved her and her younger sister, Kas.

The Teen Killers Club is on the brink of destruction, with one faction pitted against another in a deadly game of survival. Erik and Signal are part of the group who’ve had their “kill switches” disabled, and the others are under orders to hunt them down—or meet their own demise. Erik and Signal have to find a way to neutralize the others’ switches and clear Signal's name—in the middle of a manhunt that is going viral and turning them into an internet-age Bonnie and Clyde. As if being hunted wasn’t enough, Erik is determined to get Signal to admit that she loves him.

Eighteen year-old Star Wars-obsessed aspiring comic book artist Josh McCreary has a problem: despite being accepted to the prestigious Indianapolis Art Institute, he needs almost twenty thousand dollars to pay for his tuition, and he needs it quick. But then his friend Dustin finds something that could change his fortune: at an estate sale a thousand miles away is the rarest of all Star Wars collectibles: a one-of-a-kind action figure that they could resell for six figures. All they have to do is drive to Texas to buy it before the greedy local comic shop owner Jeff Reynolds gets to it first.

In an old, abandoned mill, a girl and her ma take shelter from their memories of life on the streets, and watch the busy world go by. The girl calls it the Castle because it's the biggest place they've ever stayed, a home of her own like no other. The windows are boarded up and the floorboards are falling in, but for her neither of those things matter. Then developers show up, and it's clear that their lives are about to change forever.

When Janet’s parents divorce, the 15-year-old moved with her mother to the isolated artist colony in Tres Pinos, New Mexico. As the only Anglo girl in her class, Janet feels like an outsider. At night she dreams of an exquisite moonlit stream. On its banks a delicate doe gently sips from the cool waters. Then an Indian warrior appears, an almost poetic vision from a past tie with his bow drawn, ready to strike. Janet’s first encounter with a local Indian proves to be anything but dramatic.

When Jenna Dallas and Adam Cole find Colleen O’Dell’s body floating off the shore of their coastal town, the community of Gardiners Bay is shaken. But even more shocking is the fact that her drowning was no accident. Once Jenna’s best friend becomes a key suspect, Jenna starts to look for answers on her own. As she uncovers scandals inside Preston Prep School leading back to Rookwood reform school, she knows she needs Adam on her side. As lies unravel, the truth starts to blur. Only one thing is certain: somebody must take the fall.

Teenage socialite Margo Manning leads a dangerous double life. By day, she dodges the paparazzi while soaking up California sunshine. By night, however, she dodges security cameras and armed guards, pulling off high-stakes cat burglaries with a team of flamboyant young men. In and out of disguise, she’s in all the headlines. But then Margo’s personal life takes a sudden, dark turn, and a job to end all jobs lands her crew in deadly peril. Overnight, everything she’s ever counted on is put at risk.

Twins Mary Lee and Madrigal are living double lives - with some shocking secrets. Mary Lee and Madrigal are twin sisters, beautiful and deeply attached to each other. Then in high school, Mary Lee and Madrigal's parents decide to send Mary Lee away to boarding school - cruelly separating the girls. The twins have only been apart a handful of times in their lives. Mary Lee is devastated at first, and then horrified as Madrigal betrays her by approving of their parents' shocking plan.

How far will she go to uncover the truth? Singer Roxy Raines vanished from the tiny resort of Sandown thirty years ago, and now seventeen-year-old Mona Perry is on the hunt for answers. The island’s locals refuse to talk about it, dismissing Roxy as a teenage runaway. But Mona can’t let it go—her favorite singer deserves justice, and Mona will stop at nothing to share her findings on her crime podcast, How to Disappear. The only problem is, she just has this one hot summer to get to the bottom of Roxy’s disappearance, and the islanders don’t want to give up their secrets.

On the run from the king who banished her and the allies who betrayed her, Enebish travels with Serik and a band of rebels to find the deposed king of Verdenet, who is their only hope of uniting the Protected Territories and bringing peace to Ashkar. Meanwhile, the Sky King’s patience with Ghoa has run its course. Enemy forces are bearing down on the Sky Palace, and when Ghoa throws all her power into a last-ditch effort to prove herself, the Sky King and her fellow warriors abandon her. Captured by enemy Zemyans, Ghoa is imprisoned and tortured by the merciless Kartok.

It's 1987, and unfortunately it's not all Madonna and cherry lip balm. Mayhem Brayburn has always known there was something off about her and her mother, Roxy. Maybe it has to do with Roxy's constant physical pain, or maybe with Mayhem's own irresistible pull to water. Either way, she knows they aren't like everyone else. But when May's stepfather finally goes too far, Roxy and Mayhem flee to Santa Maria, California, the coastal beach town that holds the answers to all of Mayhem's questions about who her mother is, her estranged family, and the mysteries of her own self.