“Another line crossed. And you didn’t even notice.” It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Maybe it’s Zack’s fault, or Kyle’s own fault, but that doesn’t matter now. He wonders, “When did it all go wrong?” The story opens with blood, and it ends with blood.

Choices made or not made have determined who 15-year-old Kyle Chase is and where he’s heading. He’s a slacker, a hoodie, at Midlands High. He could have studied harder in eighth grade and made it into a good school, but he chose to be “morphed” to his Xbox instead. He chooses to set a low bar for himself—missing assignments, failing tests, getting low grades. Friends go for math help; Kyle goes to detention. The theme of his school existence is “don’t get caught,” though he knows he’d be better off if he were caught sometimes; not getting caught leads to riskier choices.

His choices carry him into the orbit of bad boy Zack McDade. He didn’t have to go to that party, but walking up to Zack’s house and ringing the bell “changes things, crosses another line,” and it’s the relationship with Zack—who has been kicked out of Crestwood, a private school—that brings Kyle down.

Not many writers employ the second-person point of view, but in You, his first novel for teens, Charles Benoit uses it to great effect in allowing Kyle to explain his life; he doesn’t just narrate his story, he comments on it as he goes along his downward-spiraling path to his shattering fate. Often he sees his bad choices too late, and often readers will see more than Kyle sees, limited as he is in his own point of view. The voice is fresh and original, the prose simple, accessible and poetic. Think Cormier and Crutcher, think an edgier A Separate Peace or Catcher in the Rye, and you’ll get the significance of Benoit’s debut.

Seventeen-year-old Russell grew up in the Hothouse. He wasn’t literally raised in the local firehouse—more like metaphorically. His father was a firefighter and so was his best friend DJ’s dad, and the two are practically like family. For as long as he can remember, Russell has considered himself a firefighter too, training with the Young Firefighters and eating, sleeping and breathing the brotherhood-culture of it all.

But when Chris Lynch’s Hothouse opens, Russell’s and DJ’s dads have been killed while fighting a house fire. The men are revered as heroes, and the entire community rallies around their families. In fact, the whole first half of the novel is a cavalcade of hero stuff: speeches, memorials, rituals, bonfires on the beach and a concert where the boys are lifted up over the heads of the audience. It’s hard for Russell to keep his composure, but he’s fairly swelling with pride for his dad.

It’s a real surprise, then, when the story takes a dark turn. An inquiry into the accident is made, and Russell must come to terms with the fact that his dad had some un-heroic tendencies. Unfortunately, the community that had at first embraced them is much less forgiving.

In many ways this is a difficult story: These kids live with the specter of death around them all the time, and they have a wisdom and world-weariness beyond their years. Yet Lynch’s writing has a lyrical, almost musical quality. With intelligence and sophistication, he explores what it means to be built up and then torn down, how painfully capricious other people’s opinions of us can be. But underneath this, buoying the story all along, is a fighting spirit, a humor, hopefulness and passion for life.

Everything changes for 14-year-old Amanda just as she’s about to begin her freshman year of high school. She and her best friend Lena have always been inseparable, and they’ve always been a dynamic duo on the soccer field. Both girls are hopeful that they’ll make the varsity team in high school, but Amanda is stalled by Sever’s disease, a temporary disorder that causes immense pain in her heels and slows her down on the soccer field. It’s a huge blow to Amanda’s ego—and to her friendship with Lena—when Lena makes the varsity team, while Amanda is left behind to play goalie for the junior varsity.

The girls begin high school together, and Lena quickly becomes the center of attention, while Amanda fades into the background. Lena’s desire for popularity overrides her desire to maintain her friendship with Amanda, and the girls soon have a major falling out. Their separation gives Amanda time to think about what kind of person she really wants to be; she discovers that she has interests beyond soccer, and she realizes that she isn’t at all interested in going to parties and engaging in some of the risky behavior Lena seems so inclined toward.

Shutout is a fast-paced, exciting read. While it will appeal to sports and soccer fans, it is as much about growing up, making choices and being true to oneself as it is about the world of high school athletics. The end is exhilarating and satisfying, but it’s also realistic. As Amanda finds her place in the world, author Brendan Halpin manages to give young readers plenty to contemplate without seeming to offer heavy-handed advice. Shutout is a refreshing addition to the genre of realistic fiction for teens.

Inspired by two of Shakespeare’s plays, The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet, Sophie Masson’s The Madman of Venice is a tale full of mystery, sinister plot twists and romance. The story begins when Emilia Lanier, an exotically beautiful musician, arrives at the London home of Matthew Ashby, representative to a group of merchants. Emilia beseeches Ashby to go to Venice to search for Sarah Tedeschi, the daughter of a Jewish doctor that saved her life.

Ashby, his daughter Celia and his clerk Ned agree to travel to Venice, largely because Ashby needs to travel there anyway to investigate the pirates plundering his goods. What they find in Italy’s most unique city, in the year 1602, leads to a story driven by the ravings of a lunatic (the Madman of Venice himself), duels, alchemy and so many more intriguing elements that it is difficult even to begin to summarize Masson’s intricate novel.

Information provided about the time period and the fascinating city of Venice drives the story, rather than detracting from it. The fact that the missing Sarah is the resident of a Jewish ghetto in Venice adds to the historical significance of the novel. It takes some time to sort out the many characters and their motivations, but once the plot takes off, it is definitely a great ride.

The Madman of Venice is a romantic mystery in the best sense; Ned is clearly infatuated with Celia, and the empathy readers will feel for his aching heart is tangible. Young and old alike will appreciate the great care Masson has taken to craft a story that gradually, but determinedly, leads to a very satisfying end. The French-Australian Masson is prolific and popular, and The Madman of Venice serves to add to her growing and impressive list of creative successes.

Bee should feel like the luckiest girl in the world: She’s a first-year student at Columbia University, pre-med; she lives in New York City; and she’s got a handsome, older, politically active boyfriend who seems really into her. Until . . . he’s not. Suddenly, Bee’s book smarts don’t mean a thing, and in traditional broken-hearted fashion, she’s stuffing her face when she’s not crying her eyes out.

Turns out, though, that gaining the Freshman Fifteen (plus some) is exactly what Bee needs to break into a whole new career. She’s always been a pretty girl, but the newly curvalicious young woman is getting a lot more attention—even from a modeling scout. Virtually overnight, Bee not only has a modeling contract; she’s also being featured as one of the faces (and voluptuous bodies) of an ad campaign for a new clothing line, with her own billboard in Times Square.

But will fame turn Bee’s head? In her new jet-setting lifestyle, will she forget about her best friend, not to mention the very cute and talented guy she tutors, with whom she has a seriously confusing relationship? And what about the cutthroat world of modeling? Does Bee have what it takes to make a name for herself?

Thanks to popular television shows like America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway, the glamorous but grueling world of modeling has never been so in the spotlight. Author Veronica Chambers cleverly capitalizes on the Cinderella-story potential of an overnight discovery while also using Bee’s plus-sized physique to comment on industry and societal standards of beauty.

At times Plus goes over the top in its depictions of Bee’s glamorous new life, especially her ongoing feud with a crazily jealous model and her klutzy on-set mishaps. It’s also hard to believe that Bee could remain on the dean’s list at an Ivy League school while jetting to international photo shoots several days a week. But Bee’s story is, after all, a fantasy, and readers looking for a frothy beach read about wish-fulfillment, self-discovery and really fierce shoes will be more than happy to suspend disbelief.

Lesley Hauge’s debut dystopian novel Nomansland is made for a sequel—no, more like a series. There’s got to be more of Keller, the brave heroine of Nomansland.

Barely 15, Keller lives only among women in Foundland, a rocky and barren island nation. Her people have been here for hundreds of years, ever since the Tribulation, a cataclysmic event brought about by the “sins” of the Old People (that’d be us, readers). The earth was wrecked and its people decimated, an entire civilization’s technology, televisions and even indoor plumbing lost. When Keller comes across one artifact from that time she’s mystified by what it is: a bicycle.

In the agrarian society in which Keller lives, everyone has a job—seamstress, blacksmith, wheelwright. She is a Tracker, trained to be an archer and an equestrian, able to survive on her own in the wild. “There are no men in our territory,” says Keller, and it is she who will protect Foundland from the “mutants” and “deviants” living outside their borders. They are the men who survived the Tribulation, and though they can try, they will never be allowed in.

Foundland is a totalitarian society where hair must be cut to regulation length and to be “useful” is deemed the highest of virtues. Reflection, Decoration, Vivacity—these are three of the “Seven Pitfalls.” Even friendships are outlawed. But for Keller, cracks in the social order begin to show. First, there’s Laing, a fellow Tracker with a dangerous streak of independence and free will, who offers small glimpses into the Time Before: beauty queens, fashion magazines, fathers? Then Keller discovers one sister’s long-held secret; what she learns—and how the all-knowing, all-seeing Committee Members react—drives the plot and keeps the reader avidly turning the pages.

Hauge has written a winning debut. Let’s hope she’s turning in that sequel real soon.

Hank and Liana meet cute when he bursts in on her in a hospital ladies room, the crotch of his pants soaked with . . . energy drink. From the first page, The Half-Life of Planets doesn’t augur well for their romantic future. Things are further complicated by Liana’s vow not to kiss anyone all summer; instead, trying to reclaim her reputation, she has thrown herself into her planetary science studies. And Hank is more than a little awkward; Asperger’s syndrome has given him a music obsession Nick Hornby would envy, and no “off” switch once he starts talking about it. The perfect couple? Hardly.

But this odd pair connect and develop a friendship that lets each of them see past the labels they’ve been branded with to the real people inside. Authors Emily Franklin and Brendan Halpin alternate between each character’s perspective from chapter to chapter, and when something new happens, or information is hinted at, we are eager to follow the clues and find out how each side perceives things. Both Hank and Liana have complicated home lives (they did meet in a hospital, after all, and neither was a patient), and Liana’s reluctance to emotionally expose herself runs headlong into Hank’s difficulty processing the emotional content of any message. Again, oil and water. Can this romance be saved?

The answer shouldn’t come as a surprise, but I’m no spoiler. The Half-Life of Planets is frequently funny, and occasionally poignant. Hank is the more vividly drawn character, and it’s interesting to see the world from inside his head; he knows and understands his differences, but can’t control them as well as he’d like. In a wry moment, he comments on the oft-cited “wonderful difference” common to those with autism spectrum disorders: “My reaction upon reading this in the past has always been that anyone who thinks this, or for that matter any, difference is wonderful has obviously never attended an American middle school.” Half-Life is the whole package, a love story with a wonderful difference all its own.

Because of his hulking size and antisocial behavior, Brewster Rawlins, voted “Most Likely to Receive the Death Penalty,” has been nicknamed Bruiser by his high school peers in this unique story by Neal Shusterman. When lacrosse star Tennyson Sternberger hears that his twin sister Brontë is going on a date with Brewster, he follows the boy home. He softens, however, after observing Brewster covered in bruises and the possibly abusive uncle who has cared for him and his brother since their mother’s death.

As Tennyson and Brontë befriend Brewster, they begin to notice that their aches and pains disappear quickly, while Brewster develops new injuries at an alarming rate. Alternating points of view reflect each sibling’s discovery of Brewster’s strange healing powers and Brewster’s own constant struggle between wanting friends—and Brontë—and knowing the hurt it will eventually bring him. Sailing through rough lacrosse matches, relationship woes and their parents’ potential divorce with ease, Tennyson and Brontë wonder if their new, less painful lives are fair to Brewster.

In usual Shusterman style, Bruiser is a gripping novel full of exquisite language that explores the boundaries of love, happiness, pain, secrets and responsibility. The author balances these moral dilemmas with dark humor and chapter titles that incorporate “power words” from Tennyson and Brontë’s parents, who work as professors of literature. Only Brewster’s chapters are written in poetic forms, further emphasizing the duality between his inner beauty and the façade he presents to the outside world. The thought-provoking ending will haunt readers as they consider the characters’ futures and wonder what they would do as givers or receivers of enduring pain.

Related content:
Check out our interview with Neal Shusterman for Bruiser.

A few years ago, Baz was a normal boy living with his family in England—until a cataclysmic event drowned the world. Now just about everything, including food, is submerged below inky, polluted water. Like many of the survivors, Baz and his father are starving.

Only the Eck brothers and their sinister father, Preacher John, manage to profit off the desperate. Living on X Isle, they dredge up canned food from submerged supermarkets. The Eck family lures young, male workers to the island by promising three meals a day in exchange for labor. When Baz and another boy are selected to go to X Isle, they cannot believe their good fortune, until they meet a battered group of boys led by two abusive captains. The work is hard, but the treatment is worse. News of the harsh conditions has never reached the mainland, and Baz knows why: Those selected to come to X Isle never leave alive.

X Isle is a dark and harrowing dystopia reminiscent of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games or William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Steve Augarde, who is also an acclaimed illustrator, uses his artistic insight to skillfully detail Baz’s new and dangerous world, and then heightens the boys’ urgency for escape when Preacher John suddenly forces them to construct an altar for religious sacrifices. When the Eck brothers bring two teenage girls to the island, Baz wonders if they will be next to die.

The violence, which is never excessive, is crucial to understanding the desperation that pushes the boys to make a harrowing decision, even as Baz struggles to cope with the impending consequences. With the death toll rising and the balance of humanity shifting, Augarde’s compelling novel begs the question: Is it ever okay to kill?

A wealthy American teenager, a Chinese adolescent intent on freeing himself from a lifetime of slave labor, an economic genius, a daring union organizer and a gifted 15-year-old girl from rural India all meet, go to war with, challenge or champion each other in Cory Doctorow’s brilliant new young adult novel, For the Win. Set in a near future dominated by multiplayer online games—and real-life criminals and corporations who use the games to turn a frighteningly real profit—the novel is as fast-moving, intense and thrilling as any struggle between virtual warriors, monsters, elves or trolls. Relationships shift, friendships end, victims become predators and predators prey. Soon all the widely flung characters are drawn into a global conflict that could change the world.

Fifteen-year-old Mala, known as General Robotwallah to her “army” of friends, uses her talent for navigating magical online battlefields to provide her family with decent clothes, food and an apartment. She works in an electronic sweatshop, where she steals virtual gold—gold her boss sells to wealthy Western players for actual money. Mala and her contemporaries in India, China and the U.S. swiftly find themselves at the center of real-life evils darker and more lethal than anything they faced online.

For the Win addresses urgent global issues shaping Earth today. In an international economy, decisions made in one country cause devastation in individual lives and communities elsewhere. Doctorow skillfully uses gaming as a metaphor for suffering, loss and transformation, an emblem of how desire, pleasure, envy and greed can motivate or destroy human beings. The strongly drawn characters remain individual throughout. Even readers who care little for gaming will care deeply for Mala, Big Sister Nor and the rest. Compelling and believable, For the Win deserves to be savored by teens and adults alike.

With anticipation for the third film in the Twilight Saga franchise at a fever pitch, author Stephenie Meyer gives readers a look at an intriguing side character in The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner.

Created by a vamp called Riley, Bree is one of the "newborns" who will fight alongside Victoria against the Cullens—but Bree, who was not quite 16 when Riley changed her, and has been a vampire for just three months, doesn't know that. She also doesn't know that her skin sparkles in the sun, that stakes don't actually kill or that her creator is using her and her cohorts as cannon fodder. Though she and another vampire, Diego, uncover some of these truths over the course of the novella, understanding doesn't come in time to avoid her sad fate—which is known to every reader of Eclipse (and if you are reading The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, you have read Eclipse).

To make up for the predetermined ending, Meyer ups the ante by throwing in a doomed love affair, more vampire trivia (ever wonder what two vampires locking rock-hard lips sounds like?) and a memorable look at Bella and Edward from an outside perspective.

Tough, strong and resilient, Bree is a heroine who deserves a better end. Poignant and full of Meyer's trademark thwarted love, the short but sweet Second Life of Bree Tanner is a gift for fans—exactly as Meyer intended.

Sixteen-year-old Evie is lonely, friendless and adept at lying—so when the dead body of Elizabeth “Zabet” McCabe is found in the woods, Evie manages to insert herself into the tragedy. Even though Evie hasn’t been friends with Zabet in years, she lies to the girl’s father and says they were best friends. She realizes the severity of her lie when Mr. McCabe invites her and Zabet’s real best friend, Hadley, to dinner. But rather than reveal Evie’s fraud, Hadley surprisingly covers for her, and Evie gets drawn into a friendship with Hadley—whose behavior grows increasingly erratic as she becomes obsessive about finding Zabet’s killer.