Skink: No Surrender (Skink series), by Carl Hiaasen. (
Audio also available, narrated by Kirby Heyborne.)
Classic Malley--to avoid being shipped off to boarding school, she takes
off with some guy she met online. Poor Richard--he knows his cousin's
in trouble before she does. Wild Skink--he's a ragged, one-eyed
ex-governor of Florida, and enough of a renegade to think he can track
Malley down. With Richard riding shotgun, the unlikely pair scour the
state, undaunted by blinding storms, crazed pigs, flying bullets, and
giant gators.
Carl Hiaasen first introduced readers to Skink more than twenty-five years ago in
Double Whammy,
and he quickly became Hiaasen's most iconic and beloved character,
appearing in six novels to date. Both teens and adults will be thrilled
to catch sight of the elusive "captain" as he finds hilariously
satisfying ways to stop internet predators, turtle-egg poachers, and
lowlife litterbugs in their tracks. With Skink at the wheel, the search
for a missing girl is both nail-bitingly tense and laugh-out-loud funny.
100 Sideways Miles, by Andrew Smith.
Finn Easton sees the world through miles instead of minutes. It's how he
makes sense of the world, and how he tries to convince himself that
he's a real boy and not just a character in his father's bestselling
cult-classic book. Finn has two things going for him: his best friend,
the possibly-insane-but-definitely-excellent Cade Hernandez, and Julia
Bishop, the first girl he's ever loved.
Then Julia moves away,
and Finn is heartbroken. Feeling restless and trapped in the book, Finn
embarks on a road trip with Cade to visit their college of choice in
Oklahoma. When an unexpected accident happens and the boys become
unlikely heroes, they take an eye-opening detour away from everything
they thought they had planned—and learn how to write their own destiny.
Girls Like Us, by Gail Giles.
Quincy and Biddy are both
graduates of their high school's special ed program, but they couldn't
be more different: suspicious Quincy faces the world with her fists up,
while gentle Biddy is frightened to step outside her front door. When
they're thrown together as roommates in their first "real world"
apartment, it initially seems to be an uneasy fit.
But as Biddy's past
resurfaces and Quincy faces a harrowing experience that no one should
have to go through alone, the two of them realize that they might have
more in common than they thought—and more important, that they might be
able to help each other move forward. Hard-hitting and compassionate,
Girls Like Us is a story about growing up in a world that can be cruel,
and finding the strength—and the support—to carry on.
The Impossible Knife of Memory, by Laurie Halse Anderson.
For the past five years, Hayley Kincaid and her father, Andy, have been
on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape
the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they
are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school.
Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside
her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot
guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own.
Will being back home help Andy's PTSD, or will his terrible memories drag him to the edge of hell, and drugs push him over?
The Impossible Knife of Memory is Laurie Halse Anderson at her finest: compelling, surprising, and impossible to put down.
Noggin, by John Corey Whaley
Travis Coates has a good head...on someone else's shoulders. A touching,
hilarious, and wholly original coming-of-age story from John Corey
Whaley, author of the Printz and Morris Award–winning
Where Things Come Back.
Listen—Travis Coates was alive once and then he wasn't. Now he's alive again. Simple as that.
The
in-between part is still a little fuzzy, but Travis can tell you that,
at some point or another, his head got chopped off and shoved into a
freezer in Denver, Colorado. Five years later, it was reattached to some
other guy's body, and well, here he is. Despite all logic, he's still
sixteen, but everything and everyone around him has changed. That
includes his bedroom, his parents, his best friend, and his girlfriend.
Or maybe she's not his girlfriend anymore? That's a bit fuzzy too.
Looks
like if the new Travis and the old Travis are ever going to find a way
to exist together, there are going to be a few more scars.
Threatened, by Eliot Schrefer.
When he was a boy, Luc's mother would warn him about the "mock men"
living in the trees by their home — chimpanzees whose cries would fill
the night.
Luc is older now, his mother gone. He lives in a house
of mistreated orphans, barely getting by. Then a man calling himself
Prof comes to town with a mysterious mission. When Luc tries to rob him,
the man isn't mad. Instead, he offers Luc a job.
Together, Luc
and Prof head into the rough, dangerous jungle in order to study the
elusive chimpanzees. There, Luc finally finds a new family — and must
act when that family comes under attack.
As he did in his
acclaimed novel Endangered, a finalist for the National Book Award,
Eliot Schrefer takes us somewhere fiction rarely goes, introducing us to
characters we rarely get to meet. The unforgettable result is the story
of a boy fleeing his present, a man fleeing his past, and a trio of
chimpanzees who are struggling not to flee at all.
(All descriptions from OverDrive.)
But before you dive into book three of this series, maybe you want to start with books one and two:
"When Did You See Her Last?" (All the Wrong Questions #2)
