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Here are our favorite realistic fiction books. These titles are classified as Teen High School (TH) and can be found in the Teen section of the library.
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When We Ride: A Novel
by Rex Ogle
Diego Benevides works hard. His single mother encourages him to stay focused on school, on getting into college, on getting out of their crumbling neighborhood. That's why she gave him her car. Diego's best friend, Lawson, needs a ride--because Lawson is dealing. As long as Diego's not carrying, not selling, it's cool. It's just weed. But when Lawson starts carrying powder and pills and worse, their friendship is tested and their lives are threatened. As the lines between dealer and driver blur, everything Diego has worked for is jeopardized, and he faces a deadly reckoning with the choices he and his best friend have made.
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On Again, Awkward Again
by Erin Entrada Kelly
High school freshmen Pacy and Cecil share a look of love at first sight that sparks a series of mistakes and awkward interactions that become part of their love story.
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True Life in Uncanny Valley
by Deb Caletti
Eleanor is used to watching her famous father, a tech genius, from afar, until she applies for a live-in summer nanny job and must live a lie in order to discover the truth about her family and herself.
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Hangry Hearts
by Jennifer Chen
Julie Wu and Randall Hur used to be best friends before their once-close families became rivals. When they start dating, love, family, and food collide in a Romeo and Juliet-inspired romance.
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A Wish for Us: A Novel
by Tillie Cole
Nineteen-year-old Cromwell Dean is the rising star of electronic dance music. Thousands of people adore him, but no one knows him. No one sees the color of his heart. Until the girl in the purple dress breaks through his walls to the darkness within...Bonnie Farraday lives for music. She lets every note into her heart, and she doesn't understand how someone as talented as Cromwell can avoid doing the same. He's hiding from his past, and she knows it. She tries to stay away from him, but something keeps calling her back.
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The Sticky Note Manifesto of Aisha Agarwal
by Ambika Vohra
"Share a time you left your comfort zone." That's the Stanford University essay prompt keeping senior Aisha Agarwal up at night. As a daughter of immigrant parents, a scholarship student at a competitive private school, and a shoo-in for valedictorian, Aisha's straight-and-narrow path has always guaranteed safety and success. But after her longtime crush, fellow brain Brian, stands her up at winter formal, Aisha decides that playing it safe just isn't worth it anymore. As if on cue, a banged-up Volkswagen arrives at the dance; the driver-a boy-profusely apologizing for being late to pick her up. Does Aisha know him or what he's talking about? No. Does the Stanford essay convince her to take him up on the ride? Maybe.
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Chronically Dolores
by Maya Van Wagenen
Dolores Mendoza is not thriving. She was recently diagnosed with a chronic bladder condition called interstitial cystitis. The painful disease isn't life threatening, but it is threatening to ruin her life. Just when things seem hopeless, Dolores meets someone poised to change her fate. Terpsichore Berkenbosch-Jones is glamorous, autistic, and homeschooled against her will by her overprotective mother. After a rocky start, the girls form a tentative partnership. Beautiful, talented Terpsichore will help Dolores win back her ex-best friend, Shae. And Dolores will convince Terpsichore's mom that her daughter has the social skills to survive public school. It seems like a foolproof plan, but Dolores isn't always a reliable narrator, and her choices may put her in danger of committing an unforgivable betrayal.
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Conditions of a Heart
by Bethany Mangle
Suspended from school after trying to break up a fight, Brynn, who's been hiding a disability that's rapidly wearing her down, wonders if it's possible to reinvent her world by being the person she thought no one wanted: herself.
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Jagged Little Pill: The Novel
by Eric Smith
Told from multiple points of view, the lives of Frankie, Jo, Phoenix, Nick, and Bella are changed forever after one of them is sexually assulted at a party--and it looks like the perpetrator might get away with it.
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Arya Khanna's Bollywood Moment
by Arushi Avachat
Determined to keep the peace at home and at school, Arya discovers life doesn't always work out like her beloved Bollywood movies until the person she least expects gives her a glimpse of her dream sequence just when she needs it most.
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Chaos Theory
by Nic Stone
A senior at Windward Academy, Shelbi, who has a diagnosed mental illness, keeps to herself until she forms a connection with Andy Criddle, who is battling addiction, but the closer they get, the more the past threatens to pull them apart.
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Invisible Son
by Kim Johnson
After spending two months in a juvenile detention center for a crime he did not commit, seventeen-year-old Andre Jackson returns home and tries to adapt to a Covid-19 world and find his missing best friend.
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Queen of the Tiles
by Hanna Alkaf
When her late best friend's formerly inactive Instagram starts posting again during the Scrabble competition, with cryptic messages suggesting that her death was no accident, Najwa Bakri, surrounded by suspects, must find out who's behind these mysterious posts.
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Vinyl Moon
by Mahogany L. Browne
After an incident, Angel finds herself in Brooklyn, far from her California home, where she finds solace and healing in a revolutionary literature course in which her classmates share their own stories of pain, joy, and fortitude.
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When You Get the Chance
by Emma Lord
Millie Price deals with her lovable but introverted dad, her drama club rival, Oliver, and her "Millie Moods," the feelings of intense emotion that threaten to overwhelm, but when an accidentally left-open browser brings Millie to her dad's embarrassingly moody LiveJournal, Millie knows she must find her mom.
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Four for the Road
by K. J. Reilly
When seventeen-year-old Asher embarks on a road trip from New Jersey to Graceland to get revenge on the drunk driver who killed his mom, he brings along three new friends from his bereavement group.
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Perfectly Parvin
by Olivia Abtahi
Heartbroken and humiliated when she is dumped just days into her first relationship, Iranian American Parvin Mohammadi struggles to remain true to herself while attempting to prove to a school heartthrob that she is rom-com girlfriend material.
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The Words We Keep
by Erin Stewart
After her sister Alice was found hurting herself, Lily, who has secret compulsions of her own, learns the healing powers of art while working with a new student who was in the same treatment program as her sister.
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When We Had Summer
by Jennifer Castle
When thirteen-year-old Summer Sisters Daniella, Alaina, and Penelope are about to be separated for the summer after the death of their friend Carly, they vow to complete the bucket list she wrote before she died.
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The Heartbreak Bakery
by A. R. Capetta
Syd, a baker at the Proud Muffin, is perplexed after couples who eat Syd's brownies immediately split up, but when the owners of the bakery eat the brownies, Syd is afraid the bakery may close and it is only Harley, a delivery person, who convinces Syd that baking can actually fix things.
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