Life is tough in Allen “Ali” Brooks’ Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn. His mother works two jobs just to make ends meet. His father, who’s served time in prison, hustles on the streets and lives in his car, but ultimately wants to take care of his children. And Ali can’t always rely on his best friend, Noodles, a secret comic book geek with an anger management problem.

Nicknamed for the former champion heavyweight boxer, 15-year-old Ali fights the tempting violence and risky opportunities around him by throwing practice punches in the shower and in the neighborhood ring. He tries to stay out of trouble, but how can he and Noodles resist an invitation to one of Brooklyn’s most exclusive parties? When a misunderstanding involving Noodles’ older brother, who has Tourette syndrome, leads to an altercation, Ali jumps in, swinging real punches. In Ali’s biggest battle yet, many lives are at risk, and he begins to question his friendship with Noodles.

Despite his gritty surroundings, Ali’s humor lends an endearing vulnerability and hopefulness that can’t help but touch the rest of the neighborhood. Although he doesn’t seek the spotlight like his namesake, Ali fights to uphold his beliefs. As his world expands, he notices just how hard his family and friends are fighting, too. Jason Reynolds’ debut effort is indeed great, and readers should expect more greatness from this stunning new author.

Ruth Fried’s mutilated body is found hanging from a willow tree in the middle of a cornfield. The small town of Friendship, Wisconsin, handles this horrific crime like it handles everything else: It politely tidies things up and moves on.

With Ruth’s death, Kippy Bushman has lost the one person who could see past the superficial politeness endemic to Friendship. When Kippy receives Ruth’s nearly illegible diary, she learns some shocking secrets about her best friend. But the sheriff, who commands a fleet of police cars emblazoned with smiley faces, is pointedly uninterested in Kippy’s revelations. He has pinned the murder on Ruth’s hell-raiser boyfriend, Colt. Case closed.

Friendship is rich with oddballs, both charming and otherwise. Kippy’s father has raised her alone since her mother died, guiding her with a loving stream of psychobabble. Ruth’s older brother, Davey, has returned from military service overseas and is inflamed with PTSD.

Page-turning tension and cynical humor fuse as Kippy teams up with Davey to find Ruth’s killer. The vivid Wisconsin setting, serving as a stanchion of ordinary life, is continually violated by Kippy’s offhand revelations of unresolved violence, including her own bizarre past. Author Kathleen Hale’s first novel combines Hitchcockian eeriness, the quirky humor of Carl Hiaasen and the bruising romance of a “True Blood” episode.

Set in an undated future where mankind is capable of traveling through hyperspace and terraforming far-off planets, These Broken Stars is the shared survival story of the richest girl in the galaxy inextricably meshed with a lowborn boy “made good” by military commendations.

When the LaRoux Industries intergalactic flagship, the extravagant Icarus, is ripped from hyperspace travel and torn to pieces, teenagers Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen are lucky to be alive after their escape pod crash-lands on the surface of an unknown planet. Lilac, the daughter of the most powerful man in the galaxy and heiress to the LaRoux Industries empire, is confident that her father will locate them soon. A ship holding 50,000 people can’t just disappear unnoticed. Tarver, already a major in the military after two years of fighting rebellions on colonized planet outposts, is less than hopeful. He prefers to rely on his wits and field training, and, as a result, all the delicate social pretenses that once existed between Lilac and Tarver shatter in the name of survival.

As the assumed sole survivors, Lilac and Tarver trek across the seemingly vacant wilderness for over a month, hoping to find some way to call for help and searching for basic supplies. They’re holding up well until they begin to hear whispers on the wind. Pressing onward to either find or forget the voices, they unveil more of their truest selves and gradually discover why this strange planet was left abandoned and hidden.

These Broken Stars, the first in a trilogy, brilliantly unfolds by sharing alternating perspectives on the same ever-advancing story, all the while stressing the importance of subtext in everything the characters say and do. Co-authors Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner take the reader on a well-paced intergalactic adventure that reminds us that we’re still human—with all our weaknesses and awkward moments—continually dancing the intricate dance of society, even in hyperspace.

First of all, 17-year-old Sadie didn’t even want to go to that party with her older sister, Carla. She knew from past experiences that Carla, notorious for her reckless behavior, was oblivious to responsibility. And, sure enough, as soon as the sisters arrive at the party, Carla is chugging drinks and clinging to a guy whom Sadie nicknames “Scuzzy.” Completely out of her element, Sadie passes time playing beer pong with Scuzzy’s friend, “Dreadlocks.” When a near-comatose Carla finally reappears, Scuzzy and Dreadlocks ask for a ride to get more beer. Don’t do it, says a small voice in Sadie’s head.

When she drives them to the 7-Eleven, the guys ask her to park in the back. Weird, thinks Sadie. Scuzzy and Dreadlocks then disappear. Unbeknownst to Sadie, a backpack full of weed sits in the back seat next to Carla. Minutes later, the girls are arrested by an undercover cop.

Carla is legally an adult with two priors and a 3-year-old daughter. As Sadie is a minor, a good student and a gifted basketball player who might receive comparably light punishment, Sadie’s family asks her to take the fall. She does, landing a six-month sentence in a juvenile detention center.

Sadie is shocked by the way inmates are dehumanized in juvie. Small infractions bring harsh punishment. Some of the girls in her unit are deeply disturbed, guilty of terrible crimes. Still, Sadie finds it challenging to suppress her caring instinct. But she begins to realize that good will must be tempered by caution and that she is responsible for the consequences of her actions, even if she sublimates the motive. This is an important concept for many teens, who may greatly underestimate their own complicity when passively supporting risky behavior.

“Will you forgive me if I tell you the ending? There’s a girl . . .”

So begins Karen Foxlee’s new young adult novel, a web of prose as lush and mysterious as the story’s Australian setting. Fifteen-year-old Rose Lovell and her alcoholic father drift into a trailer park in the beach town of Leonora. Moving to a new place is something they’ve done many times before, so Rose doesn’t expect anything to be different. Then she meets Pearl Kelly, who almost immediately begins to wear her down with unexpected kindness.

Dynamic and irresistible, Pearl sweeps Rose into her plans for the Harvest Parade, where all the girls wear beautiful dresses at the town’s celebration of the sugar cane harvest. At first Rose can’t imagine taking part. “Rose Lovell does not wear dresses. Rose Lovell does not need friends. Yet all she can smell, even with the huge sky and the evening storm clouds brewing, is coconut oil and frangipani.”

Unable to afford a dress, Rose visits the old dressmaker, Edie Baker, who is rumored to be a “dabbler in the dark arts.”  Here she falls in love with a dress, the color of midnight blue, which, under Edie’s tutelage, is painstakingly taken apart and made anew. On the night of the parade, Edie gives Rose some blue slippers, and Rose, transformed, decides, “I am someone else.”

In the end, though, this is no Cinderella tale. With rich, evocative language, Foxlee threads together a complex tale of friendship, murder and betrayal. The Midnight Dress is compelling, heartbreaking and, most of all, impossible to put down.

Reena Montero has always loved Sawyer LeGrande. She and her best friend, Allie, watch his every move and examine every word he says. He is a veritable hobby for the two girls. When Sawyer and Allie begin dating, Reena holds her feelings in and tries to accept their relationship, but she just can’t bear to see her best friend and the boy she thinks may be her one true love grow closer and closer, so her friendship with Allie comes to an abrupt halt.

Just when Reena’s dream of a relationship with Sawyer begins to seem like a real possibility, tragedy strikes. She is left to cope with more guilt and pain than she ever could have imagined. Against the odds, she and Sawyer manage to come together at last, but his problems may be too much for Reena to bear. When she’s close to giving up, she finds out she’s pregnant, and shortly after, she watches Sawyer drive away.

Three years later, Reena has managed to piece together a life for herself and her daughter Hannah when Sawyer reappears and turns her world upside-down again. Their connection is real and convincing, but it’s difficult to imagine how they could possibly build a life together.

Katie Cotugno’s debut novel takes readers on a roller coaster ride of emotions. Reena is a believable young protagonist who evokes empathy in the reader, and it would be tough not to root for her, even as she makes one bad decision after another.

How to Love is a story of first love, true love and the quick decisions that can change lives forever. The romance is provocative, and the storytelling is both compelling and gripping. Readers may find themselves taken back to their own first loves and wondering what might have been.

Emily Booth Masters reviews from Nashville, Tennessee.

Chasing Shadows opens with an act of violence that is startling in its realism. When Corey and his twin sister Holly are shot by a stranger, he dies and she is left in a coma, straddling the surreal Shadowlands and her real life in a hospital bed. Savitri—Corey’s girlfriend and Holly’s best friend—is racked with guilt, leading her to take more and more dangerous chances. She wants to save Holly and find justice for Corey, but her self-sacrificing nature leads her right to the edge, which is where these “freerunners” like to be. That overconfidence comes at a great cost.

Author Swati Avasthi (Split) teamed up with artist Craig Phillips on this book—Holly and Savitri are comics-obsessed, and portions of the story are told in panel illustrations. The drawings add nicely to the story and help to literally illustrate Holly’s descent from grief into mental illness.

Because it has elements of mystery, thriller, graphic novel and coming-of-age story, Chasing Shadows sometimes feels adrift among genres. The characters practice freerunning, a street sport similar to parkour, where vaulting over walls and obstacles gymnastically is commonplace, but the sport isn’t described in depth. Corey dies in the first scene, but we don’t get to know him through the surviving characters, which feels like a missed opportunity.

These are not deal-breaking issues, though. When Savitri and Holly team up to solve the murder, their changing relationship packs as much suspense as a whodunit. And the book is brutally frank about mental illness and our ability to refuse to recognize a loved one’s deterioration until it’s too late to intervene. Chasing Shadows has some flaws, but it features diamond-sharp storytelling and terrific artwork.

In Ketchup Clouds, Annabel Pitcher introduces what must be one of the more unusual pen-pal relationships ever set to paper. Zoe is a teenage girl living in Bath, England, and the recipient of her letters is Mr. Stuart Harris, an inmate on Texas’ death row. At first glance, the two seem to have nothing in common, but as Zoe begins to reveal her story through her letters to Stuart, readers start to understand why Zoe feels an affinity for this doomed man half a world away.

Zoe is consumed with guilt over events that happened a year ago. What should have been a fun and exciting experience—her very first time falling in love—instead resulted in heartbreak, betrayal and death. In addition to concealing her own role in this tragedy, she’s still secretly grieving and nursing a broken heart—things she imagines that Stuart, who’s been sentenced to death for murdering his wife, also must feel.

Zoe’s letters alternate between telling Stuart about her life as it is right now—complete with family dramas and ongoing attempts to avoid the dead boy’s mother—and gradually recounting the events from the year before. Throughout the novel, Pitcher delays revealing not only Zoe’s role in the death, but also the identity of the dead boy, skillfully building suspense while inciting sympathy. Ketchup Clouds is alternately romantic, sad and even surprisingly funny, as readers come to know this quirky character through her most unconventional confession.

Victoria McKernan’s The Devil’s Paintbox told the gripping tale of 16-year-old Aiden Lynch and his struggle to survive in the post-Civil War Pacific Northwest. The sequel, Son of Fortune, carries the young hero into new territory.

Fleeing Seattle after a vicious encounter that left his opponent dead, Aiden earns passage to San Francisco by caring for polar bears bound for a zoo. Aiden then lands a job as a tutor, but adventure is always right around the corner. With a ship won in a card game, he is soon heading to an island off the coast of Peru, from where guano is exported to the U.S. as highly prized fertilizer.

On his ship, Aiden finds himself part of a complex web of relationships, as the competing ship owners vie for the favor of the island’s manager and while away the days until their ships can be loaded. But as each day goes by, Aiden’s horror increases as he learns more about the Chinese laborers and the appalling mining conditions on the island.

Using her prodigious research skills, McKernan paints a vivid picture of 19th-century life without shying away from complex subjects like race relations. Readers will find Aiden to be an engaging hero, struggling to make sense of the world and to find a code to live by.

Imagine a past where the tragic Titanic never sank, but instead flew across the Atlantic Ocean. For 13-year-old Hollis Dakota, the wealthy heir to an incredible fleet of airships, this is his reality. When his grandfather, Samuel Dakota, was an infantryman in the Civil War, he discovered an unusual biochemical process for flight, a process that swiftly ended the war when the Union Army decimated the Confederates from the air.

Fast-forward to 1912, when Hollis and his family board the Wendell Dakota. It’s the largest airship ever built and is named after Hollis’ late father, whose death weighs heavily on Hollis’ heart. Hollis has been groomed to take over the company, but he fears he does not have his father’s ingenuity and confidence to successfully take the helm.

But then the Wendell Dakota is hijacked and his mother is kidnapped. To save the lives of everyone on board, Hollis needs to muster his courage, lead a motley crew of friends and reconcile his grandfather’s unfortunate past—all while trying to evade the hijackers.

Andy Marino’s latest novel is a genre mash-up of alternate history and steampunk fiction that touches on very real class inequalities. The Wendell Dakota, inspired by the Titanic, is a behemoth of luxury and indulgence, with America’s wealthiest families booking first-class accommodations while the poorest live in tent cities in steerage.

With smart and savvy female characters, anachronistic technology and a hero with gumption, Uncrashable Dakota is an adventure tale for even the most reluctant reader.

When Gerald was 5 years old, he was the star of a reality television show that chronicled his family’s domestic affairs. The cameras showed a defiant little boy but never the reasons behind his rage. Now 17, Gerald spends his school days in a special education class where he doesn’t belong but is afraid to leave. His home life has never fully recovered from the aftereffects of stardom: His oldest sister lives in the basement with her boyfriend, and his middle sister hasn’t been in touch since she left for college. Gerald employs several defense mechanisms, all designed to insulate himself from those who continue to judge him by his childhood misbehavior.

When he first meets Hannah, Gerald won’t let himself get attached because he can’t believe that she might actually care for him. But Hannah has family issues of her own, and the two gradually let down their guards for one another. Together, they find a way toward a present—and a future—that’s more than either of their pasts.

In Reality Boy, author A.S. King once again displays the range of her writing talent. Gerald’s voice is authentic, and his anger is palpable. In the end, his story is as much about the lack of reality in “reality” TV as it is about how a teen can choose to define his own identity rather than letting others define it for him.

After three weeks of nonstop terrorist attacks around the country—from the fall of the St. Louis Gateway Arch to the elimination of Chicago—the military has started rounding up every young person between 13 and 20. No place is left untouched, including Aubrey Parsons’ small town in Utah. When her alcoholic, good-for-nothing father rats her out for beer money, Aubrey, along with classmate (and occasional high school janitor) Jack, ends up in a military compound meant to weed out Lambdas, or teens infected with a virus that attacks developing brains.

Leaving victims with symptoms that range from laughable (hot breath that can boil coffee) to deadly (superhuman strength that can crush bones), the X-Men-like virus has given Aubrey the power to become invisible. Aubrey and Jack prepare to use their powers to help a Green Beret unit, but not even the military is certain who the real enemy is.

This multilayered science-fiction thriller takes on more complexity and intensity when the pair meets Lambdas Alec and Laura, professionally trained terrorists. When Aubrey and Jack unknowingly end up in Alec and Laura’s destructive plan to take down America’s beloved monuments around the West, the fast-paced plot doesn’t let up until the final pages.

Author Robison Wells skillfully converges multiple storylines and points of view throughout Blackout, revealing clues about the nation’s terrorist activity and the teens’ involvement along the way. But don’t expect all the secrets to be revealed. Wells leaves just enough loose ends and intrigue to entice readers back for a sequel. Just like the mutant virus, fan appeal will quickly spread.

“I am not given to dreaminess, have something of a terrier’s determination. If there is something to notice, I will notice it first.” Despite being just 12 and a half, Mila is often relied upon for her attention to detail. She sees things her musician mother and translator father, Gil, don’t. So when her father’s best friend disappears without a trace, he brings her along on a trip from London to upstate New York. There’s a longer view to this mystery that Mila can’t make out at first—but when she does, it shatters everything that came before. Picture Me Gone gathers these glimpses and fragments into something raw and real.

Printz Award winner Meg Rosoff presents us with a beautiful contradiction: Mila is emotionally walled off in many respects, but every feeling she experiences hits the reader directly in the heart. Her parents’ love is unyielding, but their failures are the catalyst for Mila’s growth. She recognizes that her limited life experiences give her a truncated range of possible scenarios to consider as she tries to solve the mystery. However, she’s unaware that love has expanded her blind spot to the people she trusts, not all of whom are honest.

While the themes in Picture Me Gone are heavy hitting, Mila also has a first brush with romance, reconnects with a friend and is perpetually nonplussed by Americans who compliment her London accent. What she learns on the trip is bruising, but her resilience develops as a result, and for readers it’s a privilege to be along for the ride.

Read Picture Me Gone. If Mila doesn’t touch your heart, check with a doctor because you might be dead. She’s complex, fragile, resilient and utterly unforgettable.