Good Reads

Tearjerkers

Abelove, Joan.  Saying it out loud.

With the help of her best friend, sixteen-year-old Mindy sorts through her relationships with her solicitous mother and her detached father as she tries to come to terms with the fact that her mother is dying from a brain tumor.

Banks, Kate.  Walk softly, Rachel.

When fourteen-year-old Rachel reads the journal of her brother, who died when she was seven, she learns secrets that help her understand her parents and herself.

Bechard, Margaret.  Hanging on to Max.

When his girlfriend decides to give their baby away, seventeen-year-old Sam is determined to keep him and raise him alone.

Blume, Judy.  Tiger eyes.

Davey can't believe her father has been killed in a holdup, and she has trouble carrying on without him.

Creech, Sharon.  Walk Two Moons.

A deeply moving story of identity, loss, and life told with the warmth and wit of its 13-year-old heroine.

Johnson, Angela.  First part last.

Bobby's carefree teenage life changes forever when he becomes a father and must care for his adored baby daughter.

Lewis, Catherine.  Postcards to Father Abraham: a novel.

When sixteen-year-old Meghan loses her leg to cancer and her brother to Vietnam, she expresses intense anger in postcards which she writes to her idol, Abraham Lincoln.

Brooks, Kevin.  Lucas.

On an isolated English island, fifteen-year-old Caitlin McCann makes the painful journey from adolescence to adulthood through her experiences with a mysterious boy, whose presence has an unsettling effect on the island's inhabitants.

Cook, Karin.  What girls learn: a novel.

Tilden and her younger sister Elizabeth are uprooted again when their ever optimistic, romantic mother Frances moves them north to live with Nick, the owner of a limousine service, but everything seems to be going just fine until Frances discovers a lump in her breast.

Crutcher, Chris.  Whale talk.

Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized sports and the gung-ho athletes at his high school until he agrees to form a swimming team and recruits some of the school's less popular students.

Frank, E.R.  America:  a novel.

Teenage America, a part-black, part-white, part-anything boy who has spent many years in institutions for disturbed, antisocial behavior, tries to piece his life together.

Giles, Gail.  Shattering glass.

When Rob, the charismatic leader of the senior class, turns the school nerd into Prince Charming, his actions lead to unexpected violence.

Hosseini, Khaled.  The Kite runner.

 Amir, haunted by his betrayal of Hassan, the son of his father's servant and a childhood friend, returns to Kabul as an adult after he learns Hassan has been killed, in an attempt to redeem himself by rescuing Hassan's son from a life of slavery to a Taliban official.

Herwin, Davida.  A Time for dancing: a novel.

 Seventeen-year-old best friends Samantha and Juliana tell their stories in alternating chapters after Juliana is diagnosed with cancer.

Sebold, Alice.  The Lovely bones:  a novel.

Fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon, the victim of a sexual assault and murder, looks on from the afterlife as her family deals with their grief, and waits for her killer to be brought to some type of justice.

Shreve Anita.  The Pilot's wife: a novel.

 A pilot's wife is taught to be prepared for the late-night knock at the door.  But when Kathryn Lyons receives word that a plane flown by her husband has exploded, she confronts the unfathomable.

Sparks, Nicholas.  A Walk to remember.

A romance featuring a troublesome teenager in South Carolina who is changed for the better by the love of a girl. She is the angelic daughter of a local minister and the boy joins her in doing good deeds. But she has a secret which will break his heart.

Strasser, Todd.  Can't get there from here.

Tired of being hungry, cold, and dirty from living on the streets of New York City with a tribe of other homeless teenagers who are dying, one by one, a girl named Maybe ponders her future and longs for someone to care about her.

Zeises, Lara M.  Bringing up the bones.

Bridget Edelstein mourns the loss of her high school boyfriend who died in a car crash, and rebounds with a new love.