Girl Gone Viral by Arvin Ahmadi

Girl Gone Viral by Arvin Ahmadi

Girl Gone Viral by Arvin Ahmadi book cover

For seventeen-year-old Opal Hopper, code is magic. She builds entire worlds from scratch: Mars craters, shimmering lakes, any virtual experience her heart desires.

But she can’t code her dad back into her life. When he disappeared after her tenth birthday, leaving only a cryptic note, Opal tried desperately to find him. And when he never turned up, she enrolled at a boarding school for technical prodigies and tried to forget.

Until now. Because WAVE, the world’s biggest virtual reality platform, has announced a contest where the winner gets to meet its billionaire founder. The same billionaire who worked closely with Opal’s dad. The one she always believed might know where he went. The one who maybe even murdered him.

What begins as a small data hack to win the contest spirals out of control when Opal goes viral, digging her deeper into a hole of lies, hacks, and manipulation. How far will Opal go for the answers–or is it the attention–she’s wanted for years?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Depression and alcoholism
  • Suicide
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Death of a parent
  • Bullying and cyberbullying
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Down and Across by Arvin Ahmadi

Down and Across by Arvin Ahmadi

Down and Across by Arvin Ahmadi book cover

Scott Ferdowsi has a track record of quitting. Writing the Great American Novel? Three chapters. His summer internship? One week. His best friends know exactly what they want to do with the rest of their lives, but Scott can hardly commit to a breakfast cereal, let alone a passion.

With college applications looming, Scott’s parents pressure him to get serious and settle on a career path like engineering or medicine. Desperate for help, he sneaks off to Washington, DC, to seek guidance from a famous professor who specializes in grit, the psychology of success.

He never expects an adventure to unfold out of what was supposed to be a one-day visit. But that’s what Scott gets when he meets Fiora Buchanan, a ballsy college student whose life ambition is to write crossword puzzles. When the bicycle she lends him gets Scott into a high-speed chase, he knows he’s in for the ride of his life. Soon, Scott finds himself sneaking into bars, attempting to pick up girls at the National Zoo, and even giving the crossword thing a try–all while opening his eyes to fundamental truths about who he is and who he wants to be.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism and homomisia
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Assassin’s Heart by Sarah Ahiers

Assassin’s Heart by Sarah Ahiers

Assassin's Heart by Sarah Ahiers book cover

In the kingdom of Lovero, nine rival Families of assassins lawfully kill people for a price. As a highly skilled member of one of these powerful clans, seventeen-year-old Lea Saldana has always trusted in the strength of her Family. Until she awakens to find them murdered and her home in flames. The Da Vias, the Saldanas’ biggest enemy, must be responsible—and Lea should have seen it coming. But her secret relationship with the Da Vias’ son, Val, has clouded her otherwise killer instinct—and given the Da Vias more reason than ever to take her Family down.

Racked with guilt and shattered over Val’s probable betrayal, Lea sets out to even the score, with her heart set on retaliation and only one thought clear in her mind: make the Da Vias pay.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Murder, including mass murder
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Mortal Danger by Ann Aguirre

Mortal Danger by Ann Aguirre

Mortal Danger by Ann Aguirre book cover

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Edie Kramer has a score to settle with the beautiful people at Blackbriar Academy. Their cruelty drove her to the brink of despair, and four months ago, she couldn’t imagine being strong enough to face her senior year. But thanks to a Faustian compact with the enigmatic Kian, she has the power to make the bullies pay. She’s not supposed to think about Kian once the deal is done, but devastating pain burns behind his unearthly beauty, and he’s impossible to forget.

In one short summer, her entire life changes, and she sweeps through Blackbriar, prepped to take the beautiful people down from the inside. A whisper here, a look there, and suddenly… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Suicide & attempted suicide, discussed
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Enclave by Ann Aguirre

Enclave by Ann Aguirre

Enclave by Ann Aguirre book cover

New York City has been decimated by war and plague, and most of civilization has migrated to underground enclaves, where life expectancy is no more than the early 20’s. When Deuce turns 15, she takes on her role as a Huntress, and is paired with Fade, a teenage Hunter who lived Topside as a young boy. When she and Fade discover that the neighboring enclave has been decimated by the tunnel monsters–or Freaks–who seem to be growing more organized, the elders refuse to listen to warnings. And when Deuce and Fade are exiled from the enclave, the girl born in darkness must survive in daylight–guided by Fade’s long-ago memories–in the ruins of a city whose population has dwindled to a few dangerous gangs.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape, implied
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Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Vol 1: The Crucible by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Robert Hack

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Vol 1: The Crucible by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Robert Hack

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Vol 1: The Crucible by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasca and Robert Hack book cover

On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, the young sorceress Sabrina Spellman finds herself at a crossroads, having to choose between an unearthly destiny and her mortal boyfriend, Harvey. But a foe from her family’s past has arrived in Greendale, Madame Satan, and she has her own deadly agenda. Archie Comics’ latest horror sensation starts here! For TEEN+ readers. Compiles the first five issues of the ongoing comic book series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Antisemitism
  • Lesbomisia & lesbomisic slurs
  • Rape implied
  • Suicide, on-page
  • Forced hospitalisation
  • Cannibalism
  • Animal murder 
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The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa

The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa

The Book  of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa book cover

The narrator of this novel is a rather charming lizard. He lives on Felix Ventura’s living-room wall, Felix, the lizard’s friend and hero of the story, is a man who sells pasts – if you don’t like yours, he can come up with an new one for you, a new past – full of better memories, with a complete lineage, photos and all.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Murder and torture
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His Hideous Heart edited by Dahlia Adler

His Hideous Heart edited by Dahlia Adler

His Hideous Heart edited by Dahlia Adler book cover

Thirteen of YA’s most celebrated names reimagine Edgar Allan Poe’s most surprising, unsettling, and popular tales for a new generation.

Edgar Allan Poe may be a hundred and fifty years beyond this world, but the themes of his beloved works have much in common with modern young adult fiction. Whether the stories are familiar to readers or discovered for the first time, readers will revel in Edgar Allan Poe’s classic tales, and how they’ve been brought to life in 13 unique and unforgettable ways.

Contributors include Kendare Blake (reimagining “Metzengerstein”), Rin Chupeco (“The Murders in the Rue Morge”), Lamar Giles (“The Oval Portrait”), Tessa Gratton (“Annabel Lee”), Tiffany D. Jackson (“The Cask of Amontillado”), Stephanie Kuehn (“The Tell-Tale Heart”), Emily Lloyd-Jones (“The Purloined Letter”), Hillary Monahan (“The Masque of the Red Death”), Marieke Nijkamp (“Hop-Frog”), Caleb Roehrig (“The Pit and the Pendulum”), and Fran Wilde (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism, homomisia, misogyny and transmisia
  • Abusive relationship/s
  • Suicide
  • Substance abuse
  • Death of a partner (implied)
  • Murder and torture
  • Animal death
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Selection Day by Aravind Adiga

Selection Day by Aravind Adiga

Selection Day by Aravind Adiga book cover

Manju is fourteen. He knows he is good at cricket — if not as good as his elder brother Radha. He knows that he fears and resents his domineering and cricket-obsessed father, admires his brilliantly talented brother and is fascinated by CSI and curious and interesting scientific facts. But there are many things, about himself and about the world, that he doesn’t know . . . Everyone around him, it seems, has a clear idea of who Manju should be, except Manju himself. But when Manju begins to get to know Radha’s great rival, a boy as privileged and confident as Manju is not, everything in Manju’s world begins to change and… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Abusive relationship

Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀

Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀

Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo book cover

Yejide and Akin have been married since they met and fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage–after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures–Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time–until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin’s second wife. Furious, shocked, and livid with jealousy, Yejide knows the only way to save her marriage is to get pregnant, which, finally, she does–but at a cost far greater than she could have dared to imagine.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableist language
  • Cissexism
  • Rape mentioned
  • Pregnancy
  • Death by childbirth
  • Infertility themes
  • Terminal illness
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Police brutality
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