Whats Up in YA

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A botched hack leads a 15-year-old to make a life-altering decision: she’ll either go to prison or abandon her old life, take on a new identity, and work for a secret government agency.

She takes the section option.

Now three years later, “Augusta” is a skilled wraith. She’s a powerful weapon for this government agency, even if she herself doesn’t have a home or identity or family or friends of her own. Now being sent to do work in Portland, “Augusta” decides to rent an apartment next door to her beloved grandma to spy on the family–and feel like she’s still part of it.

But “Augusta” quickly finds herself under cyberterrorist attack and must team up with an unexpected ally to survive.

This one intersperses the narrative with case file excerpts, making it the perfect book for mystery/thriller lovers and those who love the mixed-media format.

Jasmine Cooper, 16, spent a year at Guiding Hearts Home for Troubled Girls. When she returns home, the entire world has changed. Her mom remarried and is living in a big, fancy house. Jas has also been enrolled in a fancy new school. Her mom tells her that Jas cannot tell anyone where she spent the last 12 months, as she needs a real fresh start.

Everything seems to be going well. Jas has made new friends, has been feeling Feelings one of her new classmates, and she’s bonded with her stepsister.

So when a friend from the detention center reaches out to Jas to reconnect, she finds herself in a tough place. Can she truly cut off her past to live a whole new life? Will her secrets be able to stay secrets, or does she need to be honest about what’s happened to be as true to herself as possible?

Hallie’s had nothing but bad luck in romance. Given the chance to attend an academic camp, Hallie sees an opportunity to both better herself and reinvent herself. She’s ready to be the success that old Hallie never got the chance to be. This new Hallie will not let herself get caught up in relationships, either. They’ve proven too dangerous.

Enter Julia. She’s Hallie’s new roommate, and Hallie sees avoiding falling for her as a major test in her personal reinvention.

Hallie and Julie keep growing closer, though, and Hallie’s will is being tested. The thing is, it might be the old Hallie–the real and imperfect and fallible Hallie–that Julie wants to get to know.

It has been several years since Keplinger’s last YA novel, and what better welcome back than a cult story!

Six girls are living with a guy named Sol in a cabin in the Kentucky mountains. None of the girls talk about what brought them here or who they were before they arrived. They’ve accepted one another as sisters, and each has pledged allegiance to Sol.

Iris believes she owes everything to Sol, but when a new girl arrives at the cabin–Rose–she and Iris grow close…and Iris begins to question things about her life in the woods with Sol and her sisters. Sol notices, and now, he’s going to test Iris’s loyalty. Though she’s willing to give it, Iris is also confronting the reality of some secrets that threaten the entire family’s structure and safety.

Here’s another book for the ever-growing list of YA titles you can pick up simultaneously in hardcover or paperback, whichever your preferred flavor.

Men have cursed the Noorani women for generations. That’s what’s kept Meera playing it safe–she grew up with a single mom and saw what’s happened to other women in her family. But in a single week, Meera befalls her fate. She’s been broken up with, arrested, and sent to a small town in Canada, where she has to do community service. Her mom and new step-dad will be watching her as she does. It’s a slap in the face for Meera, who has spent her entire life being good.

Then she gets an idea: if she can ruin what looks like her mother’s perfect life, maybe Meera can convince her to move back to the city. Meera’s going to date the worst of one of her fellow delinquents doing community service.

Too bad Meera begins to learn that maybe he isn’t so bad…and isn’t so bad for her, either. (Maybe it’s not too bad!).

Luce, Edie, Jane, and Nan took the boat out for one last swim in the river last summer, but only Nan came back from the trip. Nan has told everyone since that day that her three best friends vanished into thin air. She has no recollection of what transpired.

It’s been one year, and the town of Saltcedar is back at the river to commemorate the anniversary of the loss of three teens.

So it’s a surprise to everyone in town when Luce climbs out of the water, and it’s especially a shock to Nan, who killed Luce, right before she went on to kill Edie and Jane, too.

Gardner is a boarding school for kids who can’t get into any other school. The school offers a unique survival skills curriculum, complete with a Tournament open annually only to seven elite seniors. It’s a competition that captures the entire school’s attention.

This year, three seniors are drafted who have complicated relationships and pasts with one another. Max is hoping to stay focused, even with Nora there, who confessed to feeling like they were more than friends last year (which subsequently changed their entire relationship). Nora hopes to finally put herself in the center of the Tournament, rather than sitting on the sidelines for people like Max. Teddy, the third competitor, is a transfer student on her last chance, struggling with a host of personal demons.

Who will win? Can anyone win? This is dark academia meets survival story.