Teen Book Suggestions: Mental Health

"Seventeen-year-old Elena is vanishing. Every day means renewed determination, so every day means fewer calories. This is the story of a girl whose armor against anxiety becomes artillery against herself as she battles on both sides of a lose-lose war in a struggle with anorexia"

Young adults discover the differences between being stressed and anxious in this informative narrative. They learn about possible triggers of stress and depression--specifically for teens--and how to respond to them. Physical, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive responses to anxiety are outlined as well as the types of mental health problems that emerge during adolescence. Specific disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, social phobia, and post-traumatic stress disorder are described, as are how to find help and methods of treatment.

Discusses drug abuse; describes the effects on the body, mind, and emotions; and examines the path to addiction.

Provides basic consumer health information for teens about the physical and mental health effects of alcohol use, with facts about alcohol abuse and underage drinking, treatment and recovery, and coping with alcoholism in the family. Includes index and resource information

"Provides basic consumer health information for teens about causes, prevention, and treatment of eating disorders, along with healthy eating tips. Includes index, resource information and recommendations for further reading"

Cutting and self-injury are delicate issues many teens face and this title offers nonjudgmental guidance and information to those who cut and self injure as well as to their friends and family. Often, the problem is connected to a deeper issue that, if not addressed, can lead to problems much more serious than those that are just skin deep. Topics addressed are why people self-injure, getting help, and learning to cope, all of which are covered with Rosen's hallmark sensitivity to such serious health-related issues

Transgender author Kate Bornstein provides guidance for suicidal teenagers, relating personal emotional struggles; discussing bullies, identity, and freedom; and describing 101 activities teens can use to cope and keep themselves alive.

"Provides basic consumer health information about the causes, warning signs, and symptoms of mental health disorders, along with facts about treatment approaches and tips for teens on coping with stress, building self-esteem, and maintaining mental wellness. Includes a further reading list, a directory of crisis helplines and related organizations, and an index"

A manual for teens and young adults to help them understand mental illness and recovery. Carlson covers such topics as mental illnesses, suicidal thoughts, personality disorders, learning problems, intellectual disabilities, treatment, and recovery, and discusses treatments, therapies, medications, and support groups.

Conduct disorder is a mental condition involving teenagers who violate basic rights. The disorder can be exhibited at school, home, or in other settings, and there are possible causal factors, including genetic, other disorders, brain damage, and environmental effects. Among the topics studied are examples of teens that are at higher risk for having the disorder, the typical symptoms and evaluations of the disorder, teens' mental and physical states, individual and family therapy programs, and situations where multiple diagnoses are a factor. This approachable text helps teens understand conduct disorder and the critical issues that affect them

Deal with your sad feelings, be more assertive, make new friends, get help when you need it.

"An emotionally damaged seventeen-year-old boy in Pennsylvania, who was once an infamous reality television show star, meets a girl from another dysfunctional family, and she helps him out of his angry shell"-- Provided by publisher.

Jamie's mother was murdered when he was six, about seven years later his sister Cate was incarcerated for burning down a neighbor's barn, and now Jamie, fifteen, learns that Cate has been released and is coming back for him, blaming him for all the bad things that led to her arrest.

A lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy must either surrender his sanity to the wild wolves inside his mind or learn that surviving means more than not dying.

"Sex has always come without consequences for Evan. Until the night when all the consequences land at once, leaving him scarred inside and out"-- Provided by publisher.

After fifteen years of horrific abuse and neglect by her mother and her mother's boyfriends, Joy struggles to understand and accept a normal life with relatives, at school, and with a boyfriend.

Fifteen-year-old Kendra, a budding artist, has not felt safe since she began to recall devastating memories of childhood sexual abuse, especially since she cannot remember her abuser's identity, and she copes with the pressure by cutting herself.

A teenaged girl bullied for her port-wine stain must summon her personal strength to survive abduction and horrific abuse at the hands of a deranged killer.

In kindergarten, Jarrett Krosoczka's teacher asks him to draw his family, with a mommy and a daddy. But Jarrett's family is much more complicated than that. His mom is an addict, in and out of rehab, and in and out of Jarrett's life. His father is a mystery -- Jarrett doesn't know where to find him, or even what his name is. Jarrett lives with his grandparents -- two very loud, very loving, very opinionated people who had thought they were through with raising children until Jarrett came along.

The author details his immersion in a world of hardcore drugs, revealing the mental and physical depths of addiction, and the violent relapse one summer in California that forever changed his life, leading him down the road to recovery.

Forced to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, where she bonds with a much older man, seventeen-year-old Natalie, a recovering alcoholic, confronts issues in her family and life as she tries to turn her life around.

Kristina Snow is the perfect daughter, but she meets a boy who introduces her to drugs and becomes a very different person, struggling to control her life and her mind.

While struggling to cope with her alcoholic boyfriend's betrayal that put her sister in a coma, seventeen-year-old Harley reconnects with neighbor Raf, who is facing his own demons after rehab.

When a car crash sidelines Mickey just before softball season, she has to find a way to hold on to her spot as the catcher for a team expected to make a historic tournament run. Behind the plate is the only place she's ever felt comfortable, and the painkillers she's been prescribed can help her get there. The pills do more than take away pain; they make her feel good. With a new circle of friends--fellow injured athletes, others with just time to kill--Mickey finds peaceful acceptance, and people with whom words come easily, even if it is just the pills loosening her tongue. But as the pressure to be Mickey Catalan heightens, her need increases, and it becomes less about pain and more about want, something that could send her spiraling out of control.

When Kira's father enters rehab, she's forced to leave everything behind-her home, her best friends, her boyfriend...everything she loves. Now her father's sober (again) and Kira is returning home, determined to get her life back to normal...exactly as it was before she was sent away. Bit is that what Kira really wants?

Sixteen-year-old Gabi Hernandez chronicles her senior year in high school as she copes with her friend Cindy's pregnancy, friend Sebastian's coming out, her father's meth habit, her own cravings for food and cute boys, and especially, the poetry that helps forge her identity.

After she is in a horrific car crash when drunk, Los Angeles high school student Gabriella Gardiner assumes she stole her rich boyfriend's car and smashed it into a tree, but she cannot remember anything about the events of the evening.

In the last months of high school, charismatic eighteen-year-old Sutter Keely lives in the present, staying drunk or high most of the time, but that could change when starts working to boost the self-confidence of a classmate, Aimee.

A young girl uses crystal meth to escape the pain of losing her mother and grandmother in Hurricane Katrina, and then struggles to get over her addiction.

After Sophie Winters survives a brutal attack in which her best friend, Mina, is murdered, she sets out to find the killer. At the same time she must prove she is free of her past Oxy addiction and in no way to blame for Mina's death.

Poised to lead his high school soccer team to its third straight state championship, seventeen-year-old star player Jake Martin struggles to keep hidden his nearly debilitating obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Rene, a high school freshman with obsessive-compulsive disorder, finds life to be like a scary movie, and even after he makes friends with the ultra-cool Giovanni he still feels responsible for saving his favorite teacher, dealing with his missing father, courting the beautiful Ariel, and trying to pretend to be normal for the school psychologist.

Quinn Roberts' only worry used to be writing convincing dialogue for the movies he made with his sister Annabeth. Of course, that was before the car accident that changed everything. Enter Geoff, Quinn's best friend who insists it’s time that Quinn came out-- at least from hibernation. Geoff drags Quinn to a party where he meets a guy-- okay, a hot guy-- and falls, hard. And Quinn begins imagining his future as a screenplay that might actually have a happily-ever-after ending-- if he can finally step back into the starring role of his own life story.

In an instant, Bea felt almost normal with Beck, and as if she could fall in love again, but things change when the psychotherapist who has been helping her deal with past romantic relationships puts her in a group with Beck--a group for teens with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Fourteen-year-old Audrey is making slow but steady progress dealing with her anxiety disorder when Linus comes into the picture and her recovery gains momentum.

A Seattle fifteen-year-old explains some of the reasons for her recent panic attacks, including breaking up with her boyfriend, losing all her girlfriends, tensions between her performance-artist mother and her father, and more.

Just before the most important violin competition of her career, seventeen-year-old prodigy Carmen faces critical decisions about her anti-anxiety drug addiction, her controlling mother, and a potential romance with her most talented rival.

Born with cerebral palsy, Amy can't walk without a walker, talk without a voice box, or even fully control her facial expressions. Plagued by obsessive-compulsive disorder, Matthew is consumed with repeated thoughts, neurotic rituals, and crippling fear. Both in desperate need of someone to help them reach out to the world, Amy and Matthew are more alike than either ever realized. When Amy decides to hire student aides to help her in her senior year at Coral Hills High School, these two teens are thrust into each other's lives. As they begin to spend time with each other, what started as a blossoming friendship eventually grows into something neither expected.

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan ... But for Cath, being a fan is her life--and she's really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it's what got them through their mother leaving

Adam not only is trying to understand his OCD, while trying to balance his relationship with his divorced parents, but he's also trying to navigate through the issues that teenagers normally face, namely the perils of young love

"16-year-old Caddie struggles with OCD, anxiety, and a powerful fear of touching another person's skin, which threatens her dreams of being an actress--until the boy playing Hamlet opposite her Ophelia gives her a reason to overcome her fears"-- Provided by publisher.

Danielle Levine stands out even at her alternative high school--in appearance and attitude--but when her scathing and sometimes raunchy English essays land her in a social skills class, she meets Daniel, another social misfit who may break her resolve to keep everyone at arm's length.

Seattle high school senior Jade's life is defined by her anxiety disorder and dysfunctional family, until she spies a mysterious boy with a baby who seems to share her fascination with the elephants at a nearby zoo.

Agoraphobic sixteen-year-old Solomon has not left his house in three years, but Lisa is determined to change that-- and to write a scholarship-winning essay based on the results.

Tyler MacCandless is looking at a bleak future. With his father dead and his mother mentally checked out, Tyler is responsible for his older brother Brandon who's in rehab for heroin abuse--again. With no skills to speak of outside of playing video games, a fast food future is all but a certainty. That is, until the day Tyler's mentor Rick asks him to test a new video game. A good enough score can earn him a place in flight school. But then Brandon goes missing, and Tyler discovers the game is far more than it seems.

When Adam Blake lands the best elective ever in his senior year, serving as an aide to the school psychologist, he thinks he's got it made. Sure, it means a lot of sitting around, which isn't easy for a guy with ADHD, but he can't complain, since he gets to spend the period texting all his friends. Then the doctor asks him to track down the troubled freshman who keeps dodging her, and Adam discovers that the boy is Julian--the foster brother he hasn't seen in five years. Adam is ecstatic to be reunited. At first, Julian seems like the boy he once knew. He's still kind hearted. He still writes stories and loves picture books meant for little kids. But as they spend more time together, Adam realizes that Julian is keeping secrets, like where he hides during the middle of the day, and what's really going on inside his house. Adam is determined to help him, but his involvement could cost both boys their lives -

A twelve-year-old boy named Moose moves to Alcatraz Island in 1935 when guards' families were housed there, and has to contend with his extraordinary new environment in addition to life with his autistic sister.

Ten-year-old Caitlin, who has Asperger's Syndrome, struggles to understand emotions, show empathy, and make friends at school, while at home she seeks closure by working on a project with her father.

Despite his overwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher, a mathematically-gifted, autistic fifteen-year-old boy, decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor's dog and uncovers secret information about his mother.

When Drea and her mother move in with her grandmother in Bellingham, Washington, the sixteen-year-old finds that she can have real friends, in spite of her Asperger's, and that even when you love someone it doesn't make life perfect.

Marcelo Sandoval, a seventeen-year-old boy on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, faces new challenges, including romance and injustice, when he goes to work for his father in the mailroom of a corporate law firm.

Evan is haunted by the loss of his best friend, but when mysterious photographs start appearing, he begins to fall apart as he starts to wonder if she has returned, seeking vengeance.

Can seventeen-year-old Jonah save his family restaurant from ruin, his mother from her sadness, and his danger-seeking girlfriend Vivi from herself?

Lucy Peevey, twelve, and her best friend Cam are perfecting the robot that could win a competition, a scholarship, and a way out of Sunnyside Trailer Park when Lucy's mother goes off her medication and her manic-depressive disorder goes out of control.

Told in alternating voices, when Theodore Finch and Violet Markey meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school--both teetering on the edge--it's the beginning of an unlikely relationship, a journey to discover the "natural wonders" of the state of Indiana, and two teens' desperate desire to heal and save one another

A mentally ill sixteen-year-old girl reunites with her estranged mother in an East Texas town that is haunted with doors to dimensions of the dead and protected by demon hunters called Mortmaine.

"The discovery of a startling family secret leads seventeen-year-old Kiri Byrd from a protected and naive life into a summer of mental illness, first love, and profound self-discovery"-- Provided by publisher.

A younger sister has a difficult time adjusting to life after her older sister has a mental breakdown

Best friends Hannah and Zoe, seventeen, leave their down-and-out New Jersey town and drive west chasing storms, making new friends, and seeking the intangibles--audacity, insouciance, happiness--that their lives have lacked.

After the death of her mother in an automobile accident, seventh-grader Serena, who has gotten the lead in her middle school play, is left to handle the day-to-day challenges of caring for herself and her younger brother when their father cannot pull himself out of his depression.

As Caitlin struggles to cope with her best friend Ingrid's suicide, she turns inward and quiet, but finding Ingrid's hidden journal, a new classmate, and new projects help Caitlin find a way to reach out again.

When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah's voice recounting the events leading up to her death.

High school student Alex Winchester struggles to hold her life together in the face of her mother's threatening delusions about being Amelia Earhart.

"After Leslie Gatlin kills herself, her bullies reflect on how things got so far"-- Provided by publisher.

When Laurel starts writing letters to dead people for a school assignment, she begins to spill about her sister's mysterious death, her mother's departure from the family, her new friends, and her first love.

An angry, grieving seventeen-year-old musician facing expulsion from her prestigious Brooklyn private school travels to Paris to complete a school assignment and uncovers a diary written during the French revolution by a young actress attempting to help a tortured, imprisoned little boy--Louis Charles, the lost king of France.

The death of high school basketball star Rob Washington in an automobile accident affects the lives of his close friend Andy, who was driving the car, and many others in the school.

After his best friend, Hayden, commits, suicide, fifteen-year-old Sam is determined to find out why--using the clues in the playlist Hayden left for him.

Brimming with sarcasm, fifteen-year-old Jeff describes his stay in a psychiatric ward after attempting to commit suicide.

When two teens, one gay and one straight, meet accidentally and discover that they share the same name, their lives become intertwined as one begins dating the other's best friend, who produces a play revealing his relationship with them both.

When her parents confine her to a mental hospital, an overweight teenage girl, who suffers from panic attacks, describes her experiences in a series of letters to a friend.

After her younger brother, Tyler, commits suicide, Lex struggles to work through her grief in the face of a family that has fallen apart, the sudden distance between her and her friends, and memories of Tyler that still feel all too real.

Just before his sixteenth birthday, Felton Reinstein has a sudden growth spurt that turns him from a small, jumpy, picked-on boy with the nickname of "Squirrel Nut" to a powerful athlete, leading to new friends, his first love, and the courage to confront his family's past and current problems

"A troubled American teen, living in Paris, is torn between two boys, one of whom encourages her to embrace life, while the other--dark, dangerous, and attractive--urges her to embrace her fatal flaws"-- Provided by publisher.

Committed to a mental hospital against her will for something she claims she did not do, Cassie O'Malley signs herself out against medical advice when she turns eighteen and tries to start over at college, until her estranged mother appears, throwing everything Cassie believes about herself into question.

Ingrid didn't leave a note. Three months after her best friend's suicide, Caitlin finds what she left instead: a journal, hidden under Caitlin's bed.

After his mom kills herself, Tyler shuts out the world--until falling in love with Jordyn helps him find his way toward a hopeful future

A troubled girl is stranded in an arctic winter terrain after a plane crash and must fight for survival with the only other boy left alive.

High school student Daelyn Rice, who's been bullied throughout her school career and has more than once attempted suicide, again makes plans to kill herself, in spite of the persistent attempts of an unusual boy to draw her out.

A day in the life of a suicidal teen boy saying good-bye to the four people who matter most to him.

Although seventeen-year-old Amber Appleton is homeless, living in a school bus with her unfit mother, she is a relentless optimist who visits the elderly at a nursing home, teaches English to Korean Catholic women with the use of rhythm and blues music, and befriends a solitary Vietnam veteran and his dog, but eventually she experiences one burden more than she can bear and slips into a deep depression.

Elizabeth Davis and Emily Delgado seem to have little in common except Ms. Diaz's English class and the solace they find in the words of Emily Dickinson, but both are struggling with to cope with monumental secrets and tumultuous emotions that will lead one to attempt suicide.

A sixteen-year-old boy wrestling with depression and anxiety tries to cope by writing poems, reciting Walt Whitman, hugging trees, and figuring out why his sister has been kicked out of the house.

Nearly a year after a failed suicide attempt, sixteen-year-old Elise discovers that she has the passion, and the talent, to be a disc jockey.

When her sixteen-year-old sister is hospitalized for depression and her parents want to keep it a secret, fourteen-year-old Elena tries to cope with her own anxiety and feelings of guilt that she is determined to conceal from outsiders.

When Victoria Cruz wakes up in the psychiatric ward of a Texas hospital after her failed suicide attempt, she still has no desire to live, but as the weeks pass, and she meets Dr. Desai and three of the other patients, she begins to reflect on the reasons why she feels like a loser compared with the rest of her family, and to see a path ahead where she can make a life of her own.

Barricaded in Cortege High with five other teens while zombies try to get in, Sloane Price observes her fellow captives become more unpredictable and violent as time passes although they each have much more reason to live than she has.

A humorous account of a New York City teenager's battle with depression and his time spent in a psychiatric hospital.

"Seventeen-year-old Aysel's hobby--planning her own death--take a new path when she meets a boy who has similar plan of his own"-- Provided by publisher.

Jam Gallahue, fifteen, unable to cope with the loss of her boyfriend Reeve, is sent to a therapeutic boarding school in Vermont, where a journal-writing assignment for an exclusive, mysterious English class transports her to the magical realm of Belzhar, where she and Reeve can be together.

"One cold fall day, high school junior Liz Emerson steers her car into a tree. This haunting and heartbreaking story is told by a surprising and unexpected narrator and unfolds in nonlinear flashbacks even as Liz's friends, foes, and family gather at the hospital and Liz clings to life"-- Provided by publisher.

In an attempt to understand why her best friend committed suicide, eighteen-year-old Cody Reynolds retraces her dead friend's footsteps and makes some startling discoveries.

As she searches for clues that would explain the suicide of her successful photographer father, Eddie Reeves meets the strangely compelling Culler Evans who seems to know a great deal about her father and could hold the key to the mystery surrounding his death.

Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: the world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button. Only he isn't sure he wants to. Life hasn't been great for Henry: his mom is held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke; his brother is a jobless dropout. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend's suicide last year. Weighing the pain and the joy that surrounds him, Henry can choose to save the planet... or let it be destroyed.

Three teens who meet at Reno, Nevada's Aspen Springs mental hospital after each has attempted suicide connect with each other in a way they never have with their parents or anyone else in their lives.

A chorus of men who died of AIDS observes and yearns to help a cross-section of today's gay teens who navigate new love, long-term relationships, coming out, self-acceptance, and more in a society that has changed in many ways.

The worlds of Coral, Brooke, and Merrick, teens wounded by mental illness and family problems, collide and they must choose what to leave behind in order to survive and start fresh.
Coral has always stood out from her mermaid sisters in a society where blending in is key. Worse yet, she fears she has been afflicted 'emotions'. Above the sea, depression and anxiety have left Brooke feeling isolated. She's stuck at Fathoms, a new group therapy home that promises a second chance at life. But what's the point of living if her soul is destined to bleed? Merrick may be San Francisco's golden boy, but he wants nothing more than to escape his controlling father. His younger sister's suicide attempt sends Merrick to his breaking point. When their worlds collide, all three will do whatever it takes to survive. But what-- and who-- must they leave behind for life to finally begin?

Suzette returns home to Los Angeles from boarding school and grapples with her bisexual identity when she and her brother Lionel fall in love with the same girl, pushing Lionel's bipolar disorder to spin out of control and forcing Suzette to confront her own demons.

Tamar is admitted to Lime Grove, a psychiatric ward for teenagers, where the psychologists ask her endless questions. How did the self-harming start? Will you tell us what happened? How do you feel, on a scale of one to ten? But there's one question Tamar can't - won't - answer: What happened to her friend Iris? A uniquely powerful, devastating novel of friendship, fragility and forgiveness. Contains scenes of suicide and self-harm that some readers may find upsetting.

Sixteen-year-old Biz sees her father every day, though he died when she was seven, but when Biz's almost-normal life turns upside-down and her father disappears again, she tumbles into a disaster-land of grief and depression from which she must find her way back. - Biz can float. Biz doesn't tell anyone anything. Not about her dark, runaway thoughts, not about kissing Grace or noticing Jasper, the new boy. And she doesn't tell anyone about her dad, who died when she was seven but still sees every day. And Biz knows how to float, right there on the surface-- normal okay regular fine. But after what happens on the beach, the tethers that hold Biz steady come undone. Dad disappears and, with him, all comfort. It might be easier, better, sweeter to float all the way away... or maybe there's a way Biz just can't see yet.

To understand mental health, we need to talk openly about it. This collection explores a wide range of topics, from the authors' personal experiences with mental illness and understanding how our brains are wired, to exploring the do's and don'ts of talking about mental health.

At nineteen, Hutchinson was struggling to find the vocabulary to understand and accept who he was and how he fit into a community in which he couldn't see himself. Convinced that he couldn't keep going, that he had no future, Hutchinson followed through on trying to make that a reality -- an attempted suicide. Over time, he came to embrace life, and to find self-acceptance. In his deeply honest memoir, he takes readers through the journey of what brought him to the edge, and what has helped him truly believe that it does get better.

Eighteen-year-old Lia comes to terms with her best friend's death from anorexia as she struggles with the same disorder.

Four years after Theo's best friend, Donovan, disappeared at age thirteen, he is found and brought home and Theo puts her health at risk as she decides whether to tell the truth about the abductor, knowing her revelation could end her life-long dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer.

After moving to the Isles of Shoals for a marine biology internship, eighteen-year-old Noah learns of his grandmother's romance with a selkie woman, falls for the selkie's daughter, and must work with her to rescue her siblings from his mentor's cruel experiments.

Following the death of her father, a thirteen-year-old uses bulimia as a way to avoid her mother's and ten-year-old sister's grief, as well as her own.

Northern Nevada teenagers Cara, Kendra, Sean, and Andre, tell in their own voices of their very different paths toward perfection and how their goals change when tragedy strikes.

sixteen-year-old Loann admires and envies her older sister Claire's strength, popularity, and beauty, but as Loann begins to open up to new possibilities in herself, she discovers that Claire's all-consuming quest for perfection comes at a dangerous price.

After the death of their father, two sisters struggle with various issues, including their family history, personal relationships, and an extreme eating disorder.

Unable to control his binge eating, a morbidly obese teenager nicknamed Butter decides to make live webcast of his last meal as he attempts to eat himself to death.

Required by her cross-country coach to keep a food diary, an insecure teen finds that writing helps organize her thoughts, especially about issues that she, her best friend, and her mother face related to weight and eating.

When her parents check sixteen-year-old Janie into Golden Slopes to help her recover from her bulimia, she discovers that she must talk about things she has admitted to no one--not even herself.

fifteen-year-old Mike desperately attempts to take control as his parents separate and his life falls apart.

A group of teens in a Seattle-area rehabilitation center form an unlikely friendship as they begin to focus less on their own problems with drugs (including alcohol) by reaching out to help a new member, who seems to have even deeper issues to resolve.

To get away from her pregnant stepmother in New York City, fifteen-year-old Daisy goes to England to stay with her aunt and cousins, with whom she instantly bonds, but soon war breaks out and rips apart the family while devastating the land.

Jack, who is sixteen and has anorexia, spends the summer in an eating disorder ward for teenagers and befriends both his overweight roommate and a dangerously thin dancer.

A graphic memoir of eating disorders, abuse and recovery. Lighter Than My Shadow is a hand-drawn story of struggle and recovery, a trip into the black heart of a taboo illness; an exposure of those who are so weak as to prey on the weak, and an inspiration to anybody who believes in the human power to endure towards happiness.

Two emotionally scarred teenagers enter into a passionate, dangerous romance

Steven "Crash" Crashinsky relates his sordid ten-year relationship with David "Burn" Burnett, the boy he stopped from taking their high school hostage at gunpoint.

To relieve the pressures of caring for a brother with life-threatening food allergies, another who is a fussy baby, and parents who are at odds with one other, seventeen-year-old Jonah sets out to break every bone in his body in hopes of becoming stronger.

Eighteen-year-old Zach does not remember how he came to be in a treatment center for alcoholics, but through therapy and caring friends, his amnesia fades and he learns to face his past while working toward a better future.

Alexi Littrell hasn't told anyone what happened to her over the summer. When Bodee Lennox, the quiet and awkward boy next door, comes to live with the Littrells, Alexi discovers an unlikely friend in "the Kool-Aid Kid," who has secrets of his own. As they lean on each other for support, Alexi gives him the strength to deal with his past, and Bodee helps her find the courage to finally face the truth.

In an instant, Bea felt almost normal with Beck, and as if she could fall in love again, but things change when the psychotherapist who has been helping her deal with past romantic relationships puts her in a group with Beck--a group for teens with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Written in free verse, explores how three teenagers try to cope with the consequences of their mother's addiction to crystal meth and its effects on their lives.

In 1994, Fig looks back on her life and relates her experiences, from age six to nineteen, as she desperately tries to save her mother from schizophrenia while her own mental health and relationships deteriorate.

Hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Samantha has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off. When Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret. Caroline introduces Sam to Poet's Corner, and she is drawn to them immediately-- especially a guitar-playing guy with a talent for verse-- and starts to discover a whole new side of herself.

Adam not only is trying to understand his OCD, while trying to balance his relationship with his divorced parents, but he's also trying to navigate through the issues that teenagers normally face, namely the perils of young love

Danielle Levine stands out even at her alternative high school--in appearance and attitude--but when her scathing and sometimes raunchy English essays land her in a social skills class, she meets Daniel, another social misfit who may break her resolve to keep everyone at arm's length.

"16-year-old Caddie struggles with OCD, anxiety, and a powerful fear of touching another person's skin, which threatens her dreams of being an actress--until the boy playing Hamlet opposite her Ophelia gives her a reason to overcome her fears"-- Provided by publisher.

Rae Earl offers her personalized advice on the A to Zs of mental health, social media, family and friendship. - What this book is about -- How the hell are you? No. Who the hell am I? -- The brain -- Anxiety -- Phobias -- Eating disorders -- OCD -- Psychosis -- Self-harm -- Depressions -- How to wear and cope with your diagnosis -- Self-esteem and how to get it -- Social media -- Sex and relationships -- Friendships -- Drugs and Alcohol -- Parents -- Helping someone with mental illness -- Dr. Pop -- Organizations, books, and apps that can help you get better.

Hayley Kincaid and her father move back to their hometown to try a "normal" life, but the horrors he saw in the war threaten to destroy their lives.

When Travis returns home from Afghanistan, his parents are splitting up, his brother has stolen his girlfriend and car, and he has nightmares of his best friend getting killed but when he runs into Harper, a girl who has despised him since middle school, life actually starts looking up.

"Sex has always come without consequences for Evan. Until the night when all the consequences land at once, leaving him scarred inside and out"-- Provided by publisher.

There are some things you can't leave behind... A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey's younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and two strangers arrive. Suddenly, the girls are taken from the woods and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world of high school, clothes and boys. Now, Carey must face the truth of why her mother abducted her ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won't let her go... a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn't spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down.

Finley, an unnaturally quiet boy who is the only white player on his high school's varsity basketball team, lives in a dismal Pennsylvania town that is ruled by the Irish mob, and when his coach asks him to mentor a troubled African American student who has transferred there from an elite private school in California, he finds that they have a lot in common in spite of their apparent differences.

Evie is living on borrowed time. She was diagnosed with terminal cancer several months ago and told that by now she'd be dead. Evie is grateful for every extra day she gets, but she knows that soon this disease will kill her. Until, miraculously, she may have a second chance to live. All Evie had wanted was her life back, but now that she has it, she feels like there's no place for her in it--at least, not for the girl she is now. Her friends and her parents still see her as Cancer Girl, and her boyfriend's constant, doting attention is suddenly nothing short of suffocating. Then Evie meets Marcus. She knows that he's trouble, but she can't help falling for him. Being near him makes her feel truly, fully alive. It's better than a drug. His kiss makes her feel invincible--but she may be at the beginning of the biggest free fall of her life.

Although they have never gotten along well, seventeen-year-old Levi follows his older brother Boaz, an ex-Marine, on a walking trip from Boston to Washington, D.C. in hopes of learning why Boaz is completely withdrawn.

When she freezes during a hold-up at the local diner, sixteen-year-old Imogen, a black belt in Tae Kwan Do, has to rebuild her life, including her relationship with her family and with the boy who was with her during the shoot-out.

After being kidnapped and barely escaping, sixteen-year-old Jack goes to London with his best friend Connor, where someone gives him a pair of glasses that send him to an alternate universe where war is raging, he is responsible for the survival of two younger boys, and Connor is trying to kill them all.

Suffering from a crippling case of post-traumatic stress disorder, sixteen-year-old Loa Lindgren tries to use her problem solving skills, sharpened in physics and computer programming, to cure herself.

In a love story told in photographs and drawings, Glory, a brilliant piano prodigy, is drawn to Frank, an artistic new boy, and the farther she falls, the deeper she spirals into madness until the only song she is able to play is "Chopsticks."

Struggling to understand what happened to his brother years earlier after they both snuck out of the house during the middle of the night, Matthew believes he has found a way to bring his brother back by going off his meds.

Fifteen-year-old loner Jason struggles to hide father's declining mental condition after his mother's death, but when his father disappears he must confide in the other members of a therapy group he has been forced to join at school.

As Missouri fifteen-year-old Aura struggles alone to cope with the increasingly severe symptoms of her mother's schizophrenia, she wishes only for a normal life, but fears that her artistic ability and genes will one day result in her own insanity.

A teenager recovering from a schizophrenic breakdown is driven to the point of obsession to find his missing younger brother and becomes wrapped up in a romance that may or may not be the real thing.

Caden Bosch is on a galleon that's headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench. Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behavior. Caden Bosch is designated the ship's artist in residence to document the journey with images. Caden Bosch pretends to join the school track team but spends his days walking for miles, absorbed by the thoughts in his head. Caden Bosch is split between his allegiance to the captain and the allure of mutiny. Caden Bosch is torn. Caden Bosch is dealing with schizophrenia... and as fantasy and paranoia begin to take over, his parents have only one choice left.

Jam Gallahue, fifteen, unable to cope with the loss of her boyfriend Reeve, is sent to a therapeutic boarding school in Vermont, where a journal-writing assignment for an exclusive, mysterious English class transports her to the magical realm of Belzhar, where she and Reeve can be together.

Seventeen-year-old Lauren has visions of girls her own age who are gone without a trace, but while she tries to understand why they are speaking to her and whether she is next, Lauren has a brush with death and a shocking truth emerges, changing everything.

Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir that will resonate with young readers and adults alike, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.