Author: Cavallaro, Brittany, author. Sequel to: Cavallaro, Brittany. Muse. Published: 2023 Call Number: Y CAVALLAR Format: Books Summary: Set in reimagined American monarchy, twelve-year-old Claire Emerson fights for her own freedom while also setting out to change the government from within, or burn it all down. "St. Cloud has fallen. And Claire Duchamp is fighting to hold on to the seat of power in exile while her new husband, Governor Remy Duchamp, lingers at death's door. Claire has always been under a man's thumb, but now she's on her own, circled by dangerous enemies. Like General Montgomery, who has seized the capital of St. Cloud and now wants to unseat the Duchamps once and for all." --Front jacket flap
Author: Shukairy, Ream, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: Y SHUKAIRY Format: Books Summary: The unlikely friendship between Syrian American boxer Khadija and Syrian refugee Leene reveals the pressures and expectations of the perfect Syrian daughter and the repercussions of the Syrian Revolution both at home and abroad. Khadija Shami is a Syrian American high school senior raised on boxing and football. Saddled with a monstrous ego and a fierce mother to test it, she dreams of escaping her sheltered life to travel the world with her best friend. Leene Taher is a Syrian refugee, doing her best to adjust to the wildly unfamiliar society of a suburban Detroit high school while battling panic attacks and family pressures. When their worlds collide the result is catastrophic. To Khadija, Leene embodies the tame, dutiful Syrian ideal she's long rebelled against. And to Leene, Khadija is the strong-willed, closed-off American who makes her doubt her place in the world. --adapted from front jacket flap
Author: Mason, Lizzy, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: Y MASON Format: Books Summary: Told in alternating timelines, as Natalie grieves her best friend Jules's death by suicide, Jules's influencer mother plans to release a book about it, which causes Natalie and Jules's boyfriend to band together and expose the truth behind Jules' tragic death. Seventeen-year-old Jules grew up in her mother's spotlight. A "parenting influencer," Britt shares details of her daughter's life-pictures, intimate stories, insecurities, all-to a point that becomes unbearable to Jules. And suddenly she's gone. Natalie has only barely begun to grieve her best friend Jules's death when Britt announces her plans to publish a memoir that will dissect Jules's life and death. But Nat knows the truth behind Britt's "perfect" Instagram feed-Jules hated the pressure, the inauthenticity, the persona. There's so much more to Jules than Britt and her followers could ever know. As Nat connects with Jules's boyfriend, Carter, and their shared grief and guilt bonds them, she becomes determined to expose Britt, to understand what really happened, and who is to blame. In a world that feels distorted by celebrity and the manipulations of social media and public opinion, Natalie and Carter need something real to hold onto. Remind Me to Hate You Later is a moving account of grief, depression, complex relationships, love, and the search for truth.
Author: Desmond, Matthew, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 362.5 Format: Books Summary: "The Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it. The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages? In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow. Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions..."--
Author: Lacey, Catherine, 1985- author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F LACEY Format: Books Summary: "When X - an iconoclastic artist, writer, and polarizing shape-shifter - falls dead in her office, her widow, wild with grief and refusing everyone's good advice, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. Though X was recognized as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. Not even CM, her wife, knew where X had been born, and in her quest to find out, she opens a Pandora's box of secrets, betrayals, and destruction. All the while, she immerses herself in the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the country after World War II, as it is finally, in the present day, forced into an uneasy reunification." -- Publisher annotation.
Author: Simpson, Mona, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F SIMPSON Format: Books Summary: "The story of a family whose single mom, fighting mental illness, slowly becomes unable to raise her family, told from the perspective of each of the three children. As the novel opens, a mother drives her eldest son Walter from their home in Los Angeles to the University of California at Berkeley. It will be her last fully responsible act before breaking down completely and being committed to a mental hospital, leaving her children behind. Holding tight to his ambitions to become an architect, Walter must cope with the sudden loss of his family and all financial support. With the help of a family friend, his younger sister and brother, still at home, barely manage to escape social services and foster care, but they must fend for themselves as they try to finish school and begin searching for their own careers. We hear each of them tell their own story as they witness the slow disappearance of their beloved mother into mental illness while they struggle to achieve the life she envisioned for them and to keep the family intact"--
Author: Scottoline, Lisa, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: LP F SCOTTOLI Format: Large print Summary: Struggling to fulfill his dream of owning his own lemon grove, Franco Fiorvanti makes a decision that will change his life--and the history of Sicily. Franco Fiorvanti is a handsome lemon grower toiling on the estate of a baron. He dreams of owning his own grove, but the rigid class system of Sicily thwarts his ambition. Determined to secure a better future, Franco will do anything to prove his loyalty to the baron. But when the baron asks him to kidnap a little boy named Dante, Franco makes a decision that will change his life--and even the history of Sicily--forever.
Author: Ahdoot, Dan, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 647.95 Format: Books Summary: "A collection of hilarious essays about how food became one man's obsession and coping mechanism, and how it came to rule--and sometimes ruin--his relationships, from the Cobra Kai actor, stand-up comic, and host of Food Network's Raid the Fridge. "When most people say they have an unhealthy relationship with food, they mean they eat too much of it or too little. When I say I have an unhealthy relationship with food, I mean it's what gives my life meaning. That's a really dumb way to live your life, as the stories in this book will attest to." Despite an impressive résumé as an actor and writer, Dan Ahdoot realized that food has been the through line in the most important moments of his life. Growing up as a middle child, Ahdoot struggled to find his place in the family until he and his father discovered their shared love for la gourmandise. But when the tragic death of his brother pushed his parents to strengthen their Jewish faith and adopt a strictly kosher diet, Ahdoot and his father lost that savored connection. To fill the absence left by his brother and father, Ahdoot began to obsess over food and make it central in all his relationships. This, he admits, is probably crazy, but it makes for good stories. From breaking up with girlfriends over dietary restrictions, to hunting just off the Long Island Expressway, to savoring his grandmother's magical food that was his only tactile connection to his family's home country of Iran, to jetting off to Italy to dine at the one of the world's best restaurants, only to send the risotto back, Ahdoot's droll observations on his unconventional adventures bring an absurdly funny yet heartfelt look at what happens when you let your stomach be your guide"--
Author: Oates, Nathan, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F OATES Format: Books Summary: "As a creative writing professor in a bucolic Vermont town, Gil's quiet life is indelibly changed when he receives shocking news: His sister, Sharon, and her husband have been killed in a car accident, and their only son, seventeen-year-old Matthew, is coming to live with Gil and his family. It's with apprehension that Gil and his wife, Molly, greet Matthew. Yes, he has just lost both his parents. But they haven't seen him in seven years, and the last time the families were together Matthew lured Gil's young daughter into a terrifying, life-threatening situation. Since that incident Gil has been estranged from his sister and her flashy, vastly wealthy banker husband. And now: Matthew is their charge, living under their roof. The boy seems charming, smart, and urbane, if surprisingly unaffected by his parents' death. Gil hopes that they can put the past behind them, though he's surprised when Matthew signs up for his creative writing class. Then Matthew begins turning in chilling stories about the imagined deaths of Gil's family and his own parents. Bewildered and panicked with fear and rage, Gil ultimately decides he must take matters into his own hands, before life imitates art"--
Author: Whittall, Zoe, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F WHITTALL Format: Books Summary: "After the death of her wife, Shelby is suffering from prolonged grief. She's increasingly isolated, irritated by her family's stoicism and her friends' reliance on the toxic positivity of self-help culture. Then, in a grief support group, she meets Cammie, who gives her permission to express her most hopeless, hideous feelings. Cammie is charismatic and unlike anyone Shelby has ever met. She's also recovering from cancer and going through several other calamities. Shelby puts all her energy into helping Cammie thrive--until her intuition tells her that something isn't right. Gibson is fresh from divorce, almost forty, and deeply depressed. Then he falls in love with Cammie. Not only is he having the best sex of his life with a woman so attractive he's stunned she even glanced his way, but he feels truly known for the first time in his life. But Gibson's friends are wary of Cammie, and eventually he, too, has to admit that all the drama in Cammie's life can feel a bit over the top. When Gibson and Shelby meet, they realize Cammie's stories don't always add up. In fact, they're far from the truth. But what kind of a person would lie about having cancer? And what does it say about Shelby and Gibson that they fell for it? From the author of The Best Kind of People and The Spectacular comes a sharp, emotional novel about lies, liars, and the people who love them." --
Author: Smith, Kaylie, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: Y SMITH Format: Books Summary: In a world on the brink of war where one more roll from a magical die may set her down a dangerous path, nineteen-year-old Calla Rosewood joins a ragtag group of witches that ventures into an enchanted forest to find a way to reset their fates, only to discover that the forest may be more than any of them bargained for.
Author: Nguy??n, Phan Qué? Mai, 1973- Published: 2023 Call Number: F NGUYEN Format: Books Summary: "An American GI, two Vietnamese bargirls, and an Amerasian man are forced to make decisions during and after the Viet Nam War that will reverberate throughout one another's lives"--
Author: Quart, Alissa, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 305.5 Format: Books Summary: Examines the American obsession with self-reliance and how it has led to inequality, self-blame, and shifted the responsibility for survival onto the backs of ordinary people. "The promise that you can "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is central to the story of the American Dream. It's the belief that if you work hard and rely on your own resources, you will eventually succeed. However time and again we have seen how this foundational myth, with its emphasis on individual determination, brittle self-sufficiency, and personal accomplishment, does not help us. Instead, as income inequality rises around us, we are left with shame and self-blame for our condition. Acclaimed journalist Alissa Quart argues that at the heart of our suffering is a do-it-yourself ethos, the misplaced belief in our own independence and the conviction that we must rely on ourselves alone. Looking at a range of delusions and half solutions--from "grit" to the false Horatio Alger story to the rise of GoFundMe--Quart reveals how we have been steered away from robust social programs that would address the root causes of our problems. Meanwhile, the responsibility for survival has been shifted onto the backs of ordinary people, burdening generations with debt instead of providing the social safety net we so desperately need." -- inside front jacket flap.
Author: Preston, Natasha, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: Y PRESTON Format: Books Summary: A visit to a private amusement park is the trip of a lifetime for a group of teen influencers, until they learn that getting off the island alive is not part of the plan. Jagged Island: a private amusement park for the very rich-- or the very influential. Liam, James, Will, Ava, Harper, and Paisley are social media influencers with millions of followers. They have been invited for an exclusive weekend before the park opens: they'll make posts and videos for their channels and report every second of their VIP treatment. The resort is even better than they'd imagined: the hotel rooms are unreal, the park's themed rides are incredible, and the island is hauntingly beautiful. They're given a jam-packed itinerary for the weekend. There's only one thing missing from their schedule: getting off the island alive. - adapted from back cover
Author: Makkai, Rebecca, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: LP F MAKKAI Format: Large print Summary: "In the riveting new novel from the author of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist The Great Believers, a woman must reckon with her past when new details surface about a tragedy at her elite New England boarding school"-- A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past--the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the murder of her former roommate, Thalia Keith, in the spring of their senior year. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia's death and the conviction of the school's athletic trainer, Omar Evans, are hotly debated online, Bodie prefers--needs--to let sleeping dogs lie. But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there? As she falls down the very rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn't as much of an outsider at Granby as she'd thought--if, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case.--
Author: Bayron, Kalynn, author. Based on (work): Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894. Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Published: 2023 Call Number: Y BAYRON Format: Books Summary: "In this reimagination of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a teen boy tries to discover the reason behind his best friend's disappearance and the arrival of a mysterious and magnetic stranger"-- "London, 1885. Gabriel Utterson, a 17-year-old law clerk, has returned to London for the first time since his life-- and that of his dearest friend, Henry Jekyll--was derailed by a scandal that led to his and Henry's expulsion from the London School of Medicine. Whispers about the true nature of Gabriel and Henry's relationship have followed the boys for two years, and now Gabriel has a chance to start again. But Gabriel doesn't want to move on, not without Henry. His friend has become distant and cold since the disastrous events of the year before, and now his letters have stopped altogether. Desperate to discover what's become of him, Gabriel takes to watching the Jekyll house..." --Front jacket flap
Author: Oates, Joyce Carol, 1938- author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F OATES Format: Books Summary: When Marguerite disappears from a small town in Upstate New York, her younger sister Gigi follows clues to discover her sister's fate. When a woman mysteriously vanishes, her sister must tally up the clues to discover her fate. Marguerite, a beautiful woman, has disappeared from her small town in Upstate New York. But is foul play involved? Or did she merely take an opportunity to get away for fun, or finally make the decision to leave behind her claustrophobic life of limited opportunities? Her younger sister Gigi wonders if the flimsy silk Dior dress, so casually abandoned on the floor, is a clue to Marguerite's having seemingly vanished. The police examine the footprints made by her Ferragamo boots leaving the house, ending abruptly, and puzzle over how that can help lead to her. Gigi, not so pretty as her sister, slowly reveals her hatred for the perfect, much-loved, Marguerite. Bit by bit, like ripping the petals off a flower blossom, revelations about both sisters are uncovered. Subtly, but with the unbearable suspense at which Joyce Carol Oates excels, clues mount up to bring to light the fate of the missing beauty.--
Author: Spence-Ash, Laura, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F SPENCEAS Format: Books Summary: "A sweeping, tenderhearted love story, Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash tells the story of two families living through World War II on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and the shy, irresistible young woman who will call them both her own. As German bombs fall over London in 1940, working-class parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make an impossible choice: they decide to send their eleven-year-old daughter, Beatrix, to America. There, she'll live with another family for the duration of the war, where they hope she'll stay safe. Scared and angry, feeling lonely and displaced, Bea arrives in Boston to meet the Gregorys. Mr. and Mrs. G, and their sons William and Gerald, fold Bea seamlessly into their world. She becomes part of this lively family, learning their ways and their stories, adjusting to their affluent lifestyle. Bea grows close to both boys, one older and one younger, and fills in the gap between them. Before long, before she even realizes it, life with the Gregorys feels more natural to her than the quiet, spare life with her own parents back in England. As Bea comes into herself and relaxes into her new life-summers on the coast in Maine, new friends clamoring to hear about life across the sea-the girl she had been begins to fade away, until, abruptly, she is called home to London when the war ends. Desperate as she is not to leave this life behind, Bea dutifully retraces her trip across the Atlantic back to her new, old world. As she returns to post-war London, the memory of her American family stays with her, never fully letting her go, and always pulling on her heart as she tries to move on and pursue love and a life of her own. As we follow Bea over time, navigating between her two worlds, Beyond That, the Sea emerges as a beautifully written, absorbing novel, full of grace and heartache, forgiveness and understanding, loss and love"--
Author: DeStefano, Ren, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F DESTEFAN Format: Books Summary: "Equal parts thriller and love story...a novel about three identical sisters who have a nasty habit of killing their boyfriends, and what happens when the youngest commits their worst crime yet: falling in love with her mark. Make him want you. Make him love you. Make him dead. Sissy has an...interesting family. Always the careful one, always the cautious one, Sissy has taken a back seat while her sisters carved a path of carnage across the U.S. Now, as they arrive in the Arizona heat, Sissy must step up and embrace the family pastime. Her first target? A young widower named Edison--and their mutual attraction is instant. While their relationship progresses, and most couples would be thinking about picking out china patterns and moving in together, Sissy's family is reminding her to think about picking out burial sites and moving on. But then something happens that Sissy never anticipated: She begins to feel protective of Edison, and then, before she can help it, she's fallen in love. But the clock is ticking, and her sisters are growing restless. It becomes clear that the grave site she chose will hide a body no matter what happens; if she betrays her family, will it be hers?"--
Author: Di?achenko, Marina, author. Di?achenko, Serhi?, 1945-2022, author. Hersey, Julia Meitov, translator. Published: 2023 Call Number: F DYACHENK Format: Books Summary: The sequel to the highly acclaimed Vita Nostra takes readers to the next stage in Sasha Samokhina's journey in a richly imagined world of dark academia in which grammar is magic--and not all magic is good.
