Showing results for "J" in Coming of Age

He's a troubled young actor, Hollywood's newest heartthrob, struggling with fame as the star of the latest superhero franchise. Through scandal after scandal, addiction on top of addiction, a flurry of paparazzi hunt him as he fights to conquer his demons. She's a single mother, assistant manager at a grocery store, existing in monotony with her five-year-old daughter. Every day when she goes to work, lurid tabloids surround her, the face of a notorious bad boy haunting her from their covers.

After surviving foster care and a high school that breeds gang members and drug dealers, I've finally found my path to freedom: emancipation and a full ride scholarship at the ultra-exclusive Hannaford Prep. All I have to do is survive. After attracting the wrong sort of attention from the richest boy in the country, pissing off the hottest guy in school, and being humiliated in front of my favorite rock idol, I am now the target of the most popular, and cruelest, group in the freshman class.

All of my hard work has paid off and now I have a family to call my own - my best friend Avery and my three boyfriends; Harley, Ash, and Blaise. But with more people depending on me, the stakes have never been higher. I’ve stepped out from the shadow of the Jackal. I’ve laid claim on the men I want, and I’m not letting anything get in our way.

I’ve won over the queen of the school, but now, her brother hates me, and he’s out for my blood. He thinks I’m a spy, he thinks I’ve aligned myself with the sociopath drug addict who walks the halls with murder on his mind. Every choice I make is being watched; there are more eyes on me than the privileged guys who want me gone.

Knowledge is power. That would be the motto of Lander University, had it not been snatched up and used to death by others long before the school was founded. For while Lander offers a full range of courses to nearly all students, it also offers a small number of specialty classes to a very select few.

Fame. Fortune. Your most extravagant wish granted. These are the prizes promised to the team that wins the Faerie Race, the first and only reality television show to venture into the dangerous realm of the fae. But that's not why Jacqueline Cunningham wants in. She's after any sign of her sister - who vanished without a trace into the faerie world two years ago. Jacq thought getting into the race would be the hard part. But she didn't count on the other competitors - who will stop at nothing to finish first.

The second instalment of J. M. Coetzee's fictionalized 'memoir' explores a young man's struggle to experience life to its full intensity and transform it into art. The narrator of Youthhas long been plotting an escape - from the stifling love of his overbearing mother, a father whose failures haunt him, and what he is sure is an impending revolution in his native country of South Africa. Arriving at last in London in the 1960s, however, he finds neither poetry nor romance and instead begins a dark pilgrimage into adulthood.

I fancy myself a purveyor of truth, a sifter of lies, a cutter of bullshit. It's not a gift, but rather all skill, honed to a razor's edge after one too many trips down the rabbit hole. Some may dismiss my talent as misguided cynicism, but they'd be wrong. Clichés about hope and faith in mankind are an effort to keep the dreamers dreaming. Experiences don't lie - people do. While I'm not proud of the circumstances that led me to this way of thinking, I respect the journey.

What happens when the truth is not enough? When a PC mission goes wrong, Aria and her friends find themselves scrambling for answers. Their family is unable to help. Their council is unable to help. In an effort to set things right, they turn to their new teacher, only to wonder if they're ready for what he has in mind… Lines are blurring. It's getting harder to tell what's right and what's wrong. The foundations have been cracking, day by day, and the friends find themselves swept along a dangerous path. Can they find their way back? Can they set their sights on something steady?

When Ali McCain, an eighteen-year-old from Los Angeles, is accepted at Oxford, it’s a chance to fulfill his dreams. To study English literature in England; to meet true intellectuals; and to glimpse the life he might have lived had his father—British rock star Gel McCain, legendary front man of the Pale Fires—not abandoned him and his mother when he was a toddler. But not long after he arrives at the storied university, Ali is drawn into a dark, disorienting world where events grow more and more curious by the day.

Some people are born in darkness. Some have darkness thrust upon them. Me? I was the darkness. Forged in the flames of my stepfather’s hatred, I learned from an early age that life was cruel, harsh, and unforgiving. This life would destroy you unless you stood up for yourself, took control, and fought back. I was always a fighter, but my soul remained charred from the fires that consumed me. My heart is an empty cavern filled with echoes of a life I’d never live. I'm branded with a vengeance that drove me to do for others what no one had ever done for me.

Bane: Naked surfer. Habitual pothead. A con, a liar, a thief, and a fraud. Last I heard, he was extorting the rich and screwing their wives for a living. Which is why I’m more than a little surprised to find him at my threshold, looking for my friendship, my services, and most puzzling of all - looking humbled. Thing is, I’m on a boycott. Literally - cut boys from my life. Permanently. Problem is, Bane is not a boy, he is all man, and I’m falling, crashing, drowning in his sweet, perfect lies.

"There’s nothing there." The words may as well have been a death sentence to young Declan. Without mana, there could be no studying at the sky-piercing Pinnacle Towers, there could be no great monster hunts, and there could be no following in his father’s legendary footsteps. He’d be a cripple. But when a terrible accident forces him to flee, Declan learns the true nature of his mana. Just because it doesn’t resonate at any known frequency doesn’t mean it isn’t magic. Just because he can’t cast the same spells as everyone else doesn’t mean he isn’t a mage.

Ever since the accident that changed Sophie’s life, she sees numbers everywhere. From the leaves on a tree to the volume of a puddle, everything has its number. And every person she meets? Their number is counting down the number of days they have left. Despite being lonely, Sophie has decided she’s not dating anyone with a number smaller than 20,000 days: 55 years together should be plenty. Which is fine, until Adam—her first love and most definitely the one that got away—suddenly reappears. And his number? Just 24 days…

Three years ago, Gabe saw his daughter taken. In the back of a rusty old car, covered in bumper stickers. He was driving behind the car. He watched her disappear. But no one believes him. Most people believe that his daughter and wife are dead. For a while, people believed that Gabe was responsible. Three years later and Gabe cannot give up hope. Even though he has given up everything else. His home, his job, his old life.

Simon Sparks is the man you know from behind the counter at the local Prince Burger (‘hold the gherkin!’), fry shovelling, shelf stacking, hiding away from the world. And Jodie Brook is the single mum you see crossing the street with her son, Zak - always chasing a dream she can’t reach. What if life could be so much more? When Simon and Jodie’s worlds collide, it upends everything they know. But in chaos comes opportunity. And for every person who’s ever doubted them, they find someone who’ll finally believe.

The statues disappeared in an instant. While they were on Earth, they caused confusion and destruction without ever lifting a finger. They also contributed to the untimely death of April May: a young woman who stumbled into their path, naming them the Carls and gaining viral fame in an avalanche of conspiracy theories. When April's friends try to carry on with their lives, a series of clues arrive - mysterious books that seem to predict the future - and which also seem to suggest April may be very much alive...But there's a bigger mystery to solve.

When a sudden crisis lands Aria and her friends in trouble, they turn to an unexpected ally…only to get a little more than they bargained for in return. Between their PC training schedule and their after-hours practice with Dorian, the friends barely have time to think. But when a secret revelation shocks the gang to the core, unsettling questions rise to the surface. The doors to the Privy Council are finally open, but how far do they truly lead? What is the point of having such unparalleled gifts, if they come with a leash?

When Liv Taylor met a handsome stranger at a friend's wedding, she decided to give in to temptation. It was lust at first sight, and when she followed the man she nicknamed Mr. Tongue into a room before the wedding ceremony she experienced pleasure like she'd never experienced before. That was why she agreed to one night in his hotel room: one night of unbridled passion. That was all it was supposed to be.

Recently married, Barbara should now be enjoying her life as a newlywed, but she is plagued by a secret that she must keep hidden if she wants to keep the family she loves. But no one can keep a secret forever. Barbara knows that if her new husband Alex, a Spitfire pilot, discovers her secret he would surely reject her and their marriage would be over. But when a tragedy almost rips the family apart and then Alex is posted abroad, Barbara has to learn to live without him sooner than she thought.