Showing results by publisher "HarperAudio" in Coming of Age

Aspiring actor August Greene just landed a coveted spot at the prestigious School of Performing Arts in New York. There’s only one problem: His conservative parents won’t accept that he’s transgender. And to stay with his aunt in the city, August must promise them he won’t transition.

Jordan Elliott is a fat, nerdy lesbian and the first junior to be named editor in chief of the school newspaper. Okay, that last part hasn’t happened yet, but it will. It’s positive thinking that has gotten Jordan this far. Ever since Mackenzie West, her friend-turned-enemy, humiliated her at the start of freshman year, Jordan has thrown herself into journalism and kept her eyes trained on the future.

Film club nerd Cleo Ferrara’s senior year was like a storyboard waiting to be filmed. She knew the scenes, the players, and the eventual happy ending. Attend film school with her boyfriend, Daniel Sheridan. Become a film-making power couple. Take Hollywood by storm. Cut. Print. Fade to black.? But in a plot twist Cleo never saw coming, Daniel dumps her for Kiki Pearson, the head cheerleader.

Layla Karimi has been cursed by the evil eye. Well, that's what Layla's superstitious grandmother tells her. And Layla reckons it makes sense as she's sort of Australian and sort of Lebanese: a "halfie" who doesn't really fit into either world....

Jane Worthing’s claim to fame is that she was one first viral internet sensations, dubbed #bagbaby—discovered as a one-year-old in an oversized Gucci bag by her adopted father in a Poughkeepsie train station. Now in her senior year of high school, Janey is questioning whether she wants to look for her bio family due to a loving, but deeply misguided push from her best friend Algie, while also navigating an all-consuming crush on his cousin, the beautiful, way-out-of-her-league Gwen Fairfax.

Jude loves photography, and he’s good at it, too. Between his parents’ divorce and his anxiety, being behind a camera is the only time his mind is quiet. Florence is confronting the premature end of her dance career as a degenerative eye disease begins to steal her balance. She’s having a hard time letting go. The two meet at Sunrise Night, their sleepaway art camp’s dusk-to-dawn closing celebration, and decide to take a chance on each other.

This heartfelt and humorous contemporary take on Sense and Sensibility follows two sisters - complete opposites - who discover the secrets they’ve been keeping make them more alike than they’d realized.

Marcos Rivas yearns for love, a working cell phone, and maybe a pair of sneakers that aren't falling apart. But more than anything, Marcos wants to get out of Maesta, his hood, away from his indifferent mom and her abusive boyfriend - which seems impossible. When Marcos is placed in a new after-school program, he meets Zach and Amy, whose friendship inspires Marcos to open up to his Maesta crew, too, and starts to think more about his future and what he has to fight for.

In her remarkable second novel following her Governor General’s Award-winning debut, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, Jen Ferguson writes about the hurt of a life stuck in past tense, the hum of connections that cannot be severed, and one week in a small, snowy town that changes everything. ...

Seventeen-year-old Gael is used to keeping to himself. Though his best friend convinces him to attend a meeting of Plus, a support group for LGBTQIA+ teens, Gael doesn’t plan on sharing much. Where would he even start? Between supporting his mother through her bouts of depression, dealing with his estranged father, and navigating senior year as a transgender boy at a conservative Tennessean high school, his life is a lot to unload on strangers. But after meeting easygoing Declan, Gael is welcomed into a new circle of friends who make him want to open up.

Lit’s about to hit the fan. Jo Porter has had enough Little Women to last a lifetime. As if being named after the sappiest family in literature wasn’t sufficiently humiliating, Jo’s mom, ahem Marmee, leveled up her Alcott obsession by turning their rambling old house into a sad-sack tourist attraction. Now Jo, along with her siblings, Meg and Bethamy (yes, that’s two March sisters in one), spends all summer acting out sentimental moments at Little Women Live!, where she can feel her soul slowly dying.

T. Lily Decker is a high school senior with a 12-year plan: avoid stress, drugs, alcohol, and boyfriends, and take regular psych quizzes administered by her best friend, Sawyer, to make sure she’s not developing schizophrenia. Genetics are not on Lily’s side. When she was seven, her mother, who had paranoid schizophrenia, tried to kill her. And a secret has revealed that Lily’s odds are even worse than she thought. Still, there’s a chance to avoid triggering the mental health condition.

When Lexi Green's older brother, Charlie, starts plotting a road trip to find a famous musician who's been reported missing, she's beyond confused. Her brother hasn't left the couch since his girlfriend broke up with him months ago - but he'll hop in a car to find some hipster rocker? Concerned at how he seems to be rebounding, Lexi decides to go along for the ride. Besides, Lexi could use the distraction. The anger and bewilderment coursing through her after getting dumped by her pretentious boyfriend, Seth, has left her on edge.

Corazon Tagubio is an outcast at the Catholic school she attends on scholarship. Her crush on her teacher, Ms. Holden, doesn’t help. At home, Cory worries that less-than-perfect grades aren’t good enough for her parents, who already work overtime to support her distant half-brother in the Philippines. After an accident leaves her dad comatose, Cory feels like Ms. Holden is the only person who really understands her.

Golden “Go” Jennings wasn’t supposed to be on Bus 21 the day it blew up in New York City. Neither was her boyfriend, Chandler. But they were. And so was Rudy, a cute stranger Go shared a connection with the night before. And Caroline, a girl whose silence ended up costing 19 people their lives. Though it’s been a year since the bombing, Go isn’t any closer to getting over what happened. With Chan completely closed off to even talking about it, Go makes an impulsive decision: round up the rest of the survivors and head to New York City.

In this insightful and affecting YA novel by well-loved author of books for adults and middle graders Nadia Hashimi, an Afghan American teenager's small town is thrown into controversy and violence when her brother, taking a stand against hatred, plays a prank that some think went too far…

Mia knows what she’s talking about. Class schedules, significant others, existential life crises—you name it, she’s talked someone through it. The problem? No one actually takes her advice. So when her latest round of (very sensible!) guidance is ignored, resulting in a class flyer stapled to her best friend’s arm and her brother dating a girl he doesn’t have feelings for, Mia is done talking.

High school junior Felix Ma wants to prove to his parents that he’s not a quitter. After crashing out of piano lessons and competitive ping-pong, Felix starts a film club at his school in a last-ditch attempt to find a star extracurricular for his college applications. Then he meets Cassie Chow, a bubbly high school senior who shares Felix’s anxieties about the future and complicated relationship with parental expectations. Felix feels drawn to Cassie for reasons he can’t quite articulate, so as an excuse to see her more, he invites Cassie to star in his short film.

Caleb’s world broke the day his brother died of a drug overdose. Now in the throes of grief, Caleb hardly ever sees his friends anymore, and school isn’t much better. He’s on the verge of failing his songwriting class, never mind that music used to be his greatest passion. Even Tanya, his best friend, is growing tired of trying to push him back into his life.

In this heartfelt and hilarious debut from Ambika Vohra—that's Netflix's Never Have I Ever meets Jenny Han—one girl tackles a question that changes the trajectory of her senior year: "How have you gotten out of your comfort zone?" That’s the Stanford admissions prompt that valedictorian shoo-in Aisha Agarwal can’t answer. Comfort zone? Her life’s been homework and junk food for as long as she can remember. Not exactly the thing college essays are written about. So, when her crush, Brian, asks her to winter formal, Aisha thinks her fate is changing. . . until Brian stands her up.