Showing titles in Coming of Age

Yunjae was born with a brain condition called alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends - the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that - but his devoted mother and grandmother aren’t fazed by his condition. Their little home above his mother’s used bookstore is decorated with colorful Post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say "thank you", and when to laugh. Yunjae grows up content, even happy, with his small family in this quiet, peaceful space.

At the age of 12, Joel Knox is summoned to meet the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at the decaying mansion in Skully's Landing, his father is nowhere in sight. What he finds instead is a sullen stepmother who delights in killing birds; an uncle with the face - and heart - of a debauched child; and a fearsome little girl named Idabel who may offer him the closest thing he has ever known to love.

Tawrie Gunn feels stuck. She’s spent her whole life in the same seaside town with her beloved Nana and grief-stricken mum, all of them still reeling in different ways from the tragic loss of Tawrie’s dad at sea. Desperate for a change, she challenges herself to take up wild swimming—every morning, no excuses, from March till September.

From one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, The Neapolitan Novels is an exploration of the friendship between Lila and Lena, two bright young girls who grew up in the tough, rough streets of postwar Naples. This is no normal friendship; it's a friendship that loves, hurts, supports and destroys - and yet it is one that lasts a lifetime. These four full-cast BBC adaptations bring the streets of Naples vividly to life.

When Luna loses her beloved mother, she’s bereft: her mother was her only family, and without her Luna feels rootless. Then the chance discovery of a collection of letters in her mother’s belongings sends her on an unexpected journey.

Germany, 1943. The choices she makes will change her life forever. Growing up in Hitler's Germany, Charlotte von Klein has big dreams for the future. Her mind is full of plans for a sumptuous wedding to her childhood sweetheart, Heinrich, while working for the Luftwaffe, proudly giving her all for the Fatherland. But in 1943, the tide of the war is turning against Germany, and Lotte's life of privilege and comfort begins to collapse around her.

Connie Mulligan, daughter of a fourth-generation Tasmanian dairy farmer, feels like she doesn't belong–anywhere. She's got big dreams and big ideas, but she made a mess of her university degree and has been sent home in disgrace. The man who was responsible for her failure won't get out of her nightmares, her father won't listen to any of her ideas on how to make environmentally positive changes to the way the dairy farm is being run, her mum thinks she should go on anti-depressants, and she keeps having what her psychologist calls 'episodes'.

Originally published in 1982 as the first of Edmund White's trilogy of autobiographical novels, A Boy's Own Story became an instant classic for its pioneering portrayal of homosexuality. The audiobook's unnamed narrator, growing up during the 1950s, is beset by aloof parents, a cruel sister, and relentless mocking from his peers, compelling him to seek out works of art and literature as solace-and to uncover new relationships in the struggle to embrace his own sexuality.

On the evening of July 4th, Sylviane Rochas scatters her mother's ashes in New York and lets the changing wind blow her to the French seaside town of Marseille. For the first time in her life, Vianne holds the future in her own hands. Charming her way into a job as a waitress in a local bistrot, she knows that she is not here to stay - by the time her child is born in a few months' time, she must be gone.

The lights dim at the Paris Opera House. The exquisite Christine Daae enraptures the audience with her mellifluous voice. Immediately, Raoul de Chagny falls deeply in love. But the legend of the disfigured opera ghost haunts the performance, and as Raoul begins his pursuit of Christine, he is pulled into the depths of the opera house, and into the depths of human emotions.

When Olivia Tennyson - or Ollie to her friends - was 16, she wrote a Dream List of all the things she wanted for her life, including a happy marriage and a family. But at 29, Ollie is single, living at home with her over-protective and manipulative mother and is feeling like her dreams are getting further out of reach. It’s time for a change. It’s time to take matters into her own hands.

Jerra and his best mate Sean set off in a beaten-up old VW to go camping on the coast. Jerra's friends and family want to know when he will finish university, when he will find a girl. But they don't understand about Sean's mother, Jewel, or the bush or the fish with the pearl. They think he needs a job, but what Jerra is searching for is more elusive. Only the sea, and perhaps the old man who lives in a shack beside it, can help.

The small town of Castle Rock is tuning in to the news of a young boy who has gone missing from a nearby town. Gordie Lachance and his three friends set off along the railway tracks on a quest, determined to become famous by officially finding the boy's body. But their journey becomes a rite of passage, and as they cross the railway trestle and the tracks begin to hum, the boys encounter an intimation of their own mortality.

One unbearable mistake at the edge of the forest. In a moment of crisis, Ellis Abbey leaves her daughter, Viola, unattended - for just a few minutes. But when she returns, Viola is gone. A breaking point in an already fractured marriage, Viola’s abduction causes Ellis to disappear as well - into grief, guilt, and addiction. Convinced she can only do more harm to her family, Ellis leaves her husband and young sons, burying her desperate ache for her children deeper with every step into the mountain wildernesses she treks alone.

1970s Yorkshire. Women are being terrorised by the serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper, whose attacks are becoming more frequent and arbitrary. Twelve year-old Miv's family, afraid of the Ripper's increasing hatred of women, begins to talk about moving south. Miv, determined for this not to happen, decides to take the matter into her own hands and investigate the attacks alongside her best friend Sharon.

Isaac stands alone on a bridge and screams into the river below. And then, an answer. A cry of despair perhaps even greater than his own. The sound draws Isaac into the woods. What he finds there changes everything. It's a tale that might seem familiar. A broken man and an unexpected guest, who can't stay forever. But real life isn't a story. It's full of truths, messy and surprising, that Isaac has been hiding from his new, improbable friend....

It is Beijing in the 1970s, and Lai lives with her parents, grandmother and younger brother in a small flat in a working-class area. Her grandmother is a formidable figure - no-nonsense and uncompromising, but loving towards her granddaughter - while her ageing beauty of a mother snipes at her father, a sunken figure who has taken refuge in his work. As she grows up, Lai comes to discern the realities of the country she lives is. But she also goes through what anyone goes through when young - the ebbs and flows of friendships; troubles and rewards; and the first steps and missteps in love.

A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss's Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the 'primitive minds' of our ancestors. Teenage Silvie is living in a remote Northumberland camp as an exercise in experimental archaeology. Her father is an abusive man, obsessed with recreating the discomfort, brutality and harshness of Iron Age life. Behind and ahead of Silvie's narrative is the story of a bog girl, a sacrifice, a woman killed by those closest to her, and as the hot summer builds to a terrifying climax, Silvie and the Bog girl are in ever more terrifying proximity.

It is 1999 in New York City where 20-something Nikki Rose has spent the last 3 years working her way up the chain at StyleList , a fashion magazine rivaled only by Vogue. As the only Black editor on staff, Nikki's never had it easy, but the constant microaggressions turn macro when Nikki pitches Tyisha, supermodel and host of "America's Next Cover Girl", for the cover of StyleList 's January issue.

When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost 20 years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.