List: 2023 Teen Reading Challenge: Crowd Pleasers
One of Us Is Lying
When the creator of a high school gossip app mysteriously dies in front of four high-profile students, all four become suspects. It's up to them to solve the case.
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I Kissed Shara Wheeler
After Chloe and Shara (Chloe's rival for valedictorian) kiss, Shara vanishes, leaving Chloe and two boys, who are also enamored with Shara, to follow the trail of clues she left behind. During the search, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to Shara and her small Alabama town than she thought.
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They Both Die at the End
On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They're going to die today. Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they're both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There's an app for that. It's called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure--to live a lifetime in a single day.
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Red Queen
In a world divided by blood--those with common, Red blood serve the Silver-blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities--seventeen-year-old Mare, a Red, discovers she has an ability of her own. To cover up this impossibility, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. But Mare risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard --a growing Red rebellion--even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction.
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A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
As her senior capstone project, Pippa Fitz-Amobi is determined to find the real killer in a closed, local murder case, but not everyone wants her meddling in the past.
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Huda F Are You
This cheeky, hilarious, and honest graphic novel asks the question everyone has to figure out for themselves: Who are you? Huda and her family just moved to Dearborn, Michigan, a small town with a big Muslim population. In her old town, Huda knew exactly who she was: She was the hijabi girl. But in Dearborn, everyone is the hijabi girl. Huda is lost in a sea of hijabis, and she can’t rely on her hijab to define her anymore. She has to define herself. So she tries on a bunch of cliques, but she isn’t a hijabi fashionista or a hijabi athlete or a hijabi gamer. She’s not the one who knows everything about her religion or the one all the guys like. She’s miscellaneous, which makes her feel like no one at all. Until she realizes that it’ll take finding out who she isn’t to figure out who she is.
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I Must Betray You
In a country governed by isolation, fear, and a tyrannical dictator, seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer, but he decides to use his position to try to outwit his handler, undermine the regime, give voice to fellow Romanians, and expose to the world what is happening in his country.
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Crumbs
Ray, a young seer struggling with her powers, discovers first love and friendship in her town's magic bakery.
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To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Lara Jean writes love letters to all the boys she has loved and then hides them in a hatbox until one day those letters are accidentally sent.
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Sunny G's Series of Rash Decisions
Left with just a notebook of his brother after he died, Sunny Gill has decided to fill it with rash decisions -- starting with upturning all of his prom plans in favor of a more traditional American teen experience. He shows up without beard, turban, or long hair; skips the fandom afterparty where he should be playing bass with his band; and gets his notebook stolen by Mindii Vang, a girl who is in the middle of some rash decisions of her own.
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Booked
Twelve-year-old Nick loves soccer and hates books, but soon learns the power of words as he wrestles with problems at home, stands up to a bully, and tries to impress the girl of his dreams.
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The Inheritance Games
When a Connecticut teenager inherits vast wealth and an eccentric estate from the richest man in Texas, she must also live with his surviving family and solve a series of puzzles to discover how she earned her inheritance.
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Concrete Rose
Maverick feels strongly about family ties, making choices he feels necessary to help support his mom while his King father serves time, and leave him literally holding his son in a doctor's waiting room after he gets paternity test results back and his babymomma ghosts. Now the child he's raising is impacting the lives of his family and his girlfriend, and the gang life he led to support them all financially could leave them all bearing his responsibilities since it endangers his life. It looks like he may have been offered a chance to go straight, but leaving the King Lords won't be easy, and a "real" job has high demand for low return.
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Gallant
Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for girls, and all she has of her past is her mother's journal--which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home--to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home; it doesn't matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways. Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant--but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unraveled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from. Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?
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Enemies
Felicity is sure she's going to do something big. Exactly what is still a mystery, but she'll figure it out. Her sister, Letty, teases Felicity that she never finishes stuff, but that's just because Letty is so perfect. Still, life is good with plenty of friends--drawing with the art club and playing games with her buddies keep her busy. But when she decides to join a contest to show Letty that she can get things done, Felicity begins to wonder if friends becoming enemies is easier than she thought.
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Gilded
When one of Serilda's outlandish tales draws the attention of the sinister Erlking and his undead hunters, she finds herself swept away into a grim world where ghouls and phantoms prowl the earth and hollow-eyed ravens track her every move. The king orders Serilda to complete the impossible task of spinning straw into gold, or be killed for telling falsehoods. In her desperation, Serilda unwittingly summons a mysterious boy to her aid. He agrees to help her for a price. Love isn't meant to be part of the bargain. Soon Serilda realizes that there is more than one secret hidden in the castle walls, including an ancient curse that must be broken if she hopes to end the tyranny of the king and his wild hunt forever.
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Firekeeper's Daughter
Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, either in her hometown or on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of college, but when her family is struck by tragedy she puts her future on hold to care for her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, a new recruit on her brother Levi's hockey team. When Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, she reluctantly agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source of a new drug. How far will she go to protect her community, if it threatens to tear apart the only world she's ever known?
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Hotel Magnifique
Seventeen-year-old Jani and her little sister Zosa secure jobs at a glamorous magical hotel, but when Jani realizes that their staff contracts are unbreakable, she embarks on a mission to unravel the mystery of the magic at the heart of the hotel and free Zosa--and the other staff--from the cruelty of the ruthless maître d'hôtel.
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I Wish You All the Best
After coming out as nonbinary, Ben must leave home and goes to live with a sister and her husband to finish their last year of high school.
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Improve: How I Discovered Improv and Conquered Social Anxiety
Alex has crippling social anxiety. All day long, she is trapped in a web of negative thoughts and paralyzing fear. To pull herself free of this endless cycle, Alex does something truly terrifying: she signs up for an improv comedy class. By forcing herself to play silly games and act out ridiculous scenes, Alex confronts the unbearable weight of embarrassment, makes new friends, rediscovers parts of herself that she'd hidden away, and ultimately faces her greatest fear by performing onstage for all to see.
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Again Again
After a near-fatal family catastrophe and an unexpected romantic upheaval, high school senior Adelaide Buchwald finds herself catapulted into a summer of wild possibility. She will fall in and out of love a thousand times--while finally confronting the secrets she keeps, her ideas about love, and the weird grandiosity of the human mind. If you could live your life again, what would you do differently?
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Legendborn
After her mother dies in an accident, Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC-Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape-- until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus. A young mage who calls himself a 'Merlin' attempts-- and fails-- to wipe Bree's memory of everything she saw. His failure unlocks Bree's own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now she'll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.
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The Heartstopper Yearbook
Packed full of exclusive content from the Heartstopper universe: never-before-seen illustrations, an exclusive minicomic, character profiles, trivia, and insight into Alice Oseman's creative process, narrated by a cartoon version of Alice herself. In full-color for the first time, this companion book is perfect for fans of Heartstopper.
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Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure
Lewis has a few things to say to his younger teen self. He knows she hates her body. He knows she's confused about who to snog. He knows she's really a he and will ultimately realize this. But she's going to go through a whole lot of mess (some of it funny, some of it not funny at all) to get to that point. Lewis is trying to tell her this... but she can't quite hear him yet. Lewis Hancox takes readers on the hilarious, heartbreaking, and healing path he took to make it past trauma, confusion, hurt, and dubious fashion choices in order to become the man he was meant to be.
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Five Total Strangers
Stuck at the Philadelphia airport by an incoming blizzard, Mira hitches a ride to Pittsburgh with a group of college kids who were on her initial flight. As the trip begins she discovers that her fellow travelers aren't friends like she thought. They're strangers-- and every one of them seems to be hiding something dangerous. The roads go from slippery to terrifying. People's belongings disappear. Someone in the car is lying-- and may be sabotaging the trip. If Mira wants to make it home alive, she needs to uncover the truth about these total strangers.
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A First Time for Everything: A True Story
Based on bestselling author and Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat's awkward middle school years and the trip to Europe that changed his life. Dan's always been a good kid. The kind of kid who listens to his teachers, helps his mom with grocery shopping, and stays out of trouble. But being a good kid doesn't stop him from being bullied and feeling like he's invisible, which is why Dan has low expectations when his parents send him on a class trip to Europe. At first, he's right. He's stuck with the same girls from his middle school who love to make fun of him, and he doesn't know why his teacher insisted he come on this trip. But as he travels through France, Germany, Switzerland, and England, a series of first experiences begin to change him--first Fanta, first fondue, first time stealing a bike from German punk rockers... and first love. Funny, heartwarming, and poignant, this feel-good coming-of-age memoir is funny, heartwarming, and poignant.
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Play Like a Girl
Misty Wilson chronicles her seventh-grade experience as the only girl on her town's football team in this empowering graphic memoir about teamwork, friendship, crushes, and touchdowns.
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You've Reached Sam
Seventeen-year-old Julie fell in love with Sam the day she met him, and planned to attend college with him. After Sam died, getting rid of his things and trying to erase him from her life are not working. so desperate to hear his voice one more time, Julie calls his cellphone expecting to hear his voicemail. But then Sam answers, and suddenly their cellphones become the living connection between them, a connection Julie finds impossible to let go.
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