FICTION BOOKTALK LIST
Anderson, Laurie Halse
Catalyst
Eighteen-year-old Kate, who sometimes chafes at being a preacher's daughter, finds herself
losing control in her senior year as she faces difficult neighbors, the possibility that she may
not be accepted by the college of her choice, and an unexpected death.
Fever 1793
In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, learns
about perseverance and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors of a yellow
fever epidemic.
Prom
Eighteen-year-old Ash wants nothing to do with senior prom, but when disaster strikes and
her desperate friend, Nat, needs her help to get it back on track, Ash's involvement
transforms her life.
Speak
A traumatic event in the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda's freshman year of high
school.
Anderson, M.T.
Feed
In a future where most people have computer implants in their heads to control their
environment, a boy meets an unusual girl who is in serious trouble.
Beard, Philip
Dear Zoe
Tess DeNunzio tries to deal with the death of her younger sister, Zoe, by writing her a letter,
as she moves from her mother and stepfather's family to live with her real father, and begins
a romance with a boy who lives next door.
Brashares, Ann
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Four best girlfriends spend the biggest summer of their lives enchanted by a magical pair of
pants.
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood
When teenager Carmen and her three friends discover that a pair of worn jeans from a thrift
shop provides an uncanny fit for all four of them, they decide to form a sisterhood, with the
pants as the symbolic bond of friendship among them, and embark on a sweet-sixteen
summer.
Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood
The members of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants graduate from high school and spend
their last summer before college learning about life and themselves.
Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood
As their lives take them in different directions, Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and Bridget discover
many more things about themselves and the importance of their relationship with each other.
Bunting, Eve
Face at the Edge of the World
Haunted by the suicide of a gifted young Black writer who was his best friend, Jed pursues the
reason for it.
Cabot, Meg
How to be Popular
Sixteen-year-old Steph Landry finds an old book on how to be popular and decides to change
her social status by following its advice, much to the bafflement of her two best friends.
Haunted : a tale of the mediator
Sixteen-year-old Susannah Simon is a mediator, one who communicates with the dead, and
she also happens to be in love with Jesse, a nineteenth-century ghost.
The Mediator Shadowland
Susannah Simon has moved to California and looks forward to trips to the mall instead of the
cemetery, and surfing instead of spectral visitations.
Cooney, Caroline
The Terrorist
Sixteen-year-old Laura, an American living in London, tries to find the person responsible for
the death of her younger brother Billy, who has been killed by a terrorist bomb.
Coonts, Stephen
Fortunes of War
When Japan invades Russia for its oil, the American government sends a squadron of aircraft
to help defend Russia, leading to high-tech dog fights between American F-22s and Japanese
Zero fighters.
Cormier, Robert
Fade
In the summer of 1938, Paul Moreaux, the thirteen-year-old son of French-Canadian
immigrants, inherits the ability to become invisible, but this power soon leads to death and
destruction.
Crutcher, Chris
IronMan
While training for a triathlon, seventeen-year-old Bo attends an anger management group at
school which leads him to examine his relationship with his father.
The Deep End
A therapist treating abused children and families in crisis, Wilson Corder faces his most
horrifying experience yet when seven-year-old Sabrina Parker is kidnapped and his own
children's lives are threatened.
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.
Deane, Seamus
Reading in the Dark
The narrator listens to the stories of his relatives and looks for clues to the family secrets that
would make it vulnerable to terror during the Irish Catholic Time of Troubles in the 1950s and
1960s.
Dickinson, Peter
Eva
After a terrible accident, a young girl wakes up to discover that she has been given the body
of a chimpanzee.
Eliot, Eve
Insatiable
A novel written in episodic format follows four teenage girls whose shame, fear, and confusion
compel them to binge, purge, and refuse to eat in misguided attempts to feel safe and in
control of their lives.
Ravenous
Presents interconnected stories about the members of an eating disorder group as they
struggle with their food addictions.
Fleischman, Paul
A Fate Totally Worse Than Death
In this horror novel parody, three self-centered members of Cliffside High School's ruling
clique, who are beginning to age rapidly, become convinced that the beautiful new exchange
student is the ghost of the girl whose death they caused the year before.
Flinn, Alex
Breathing underwater
Sent to counseling for hitting his girlfriend, Caitlin, and ordered to keep a journal, sixteenyear-old Nick recounts his relationship with Caitlin, examines his controlling behavior and
anger, and describes living with his abusive father.
Nothing to Lose
A year after running away with a traveling carnival to escape his unbearable home life,
sixteen-year-old Michael returns to Miami, Florida, to find that his mother is going on trial for
the murder of his abusive stepfather.
Garden, Nancy
Endgame
Fifteen-year-old Gray Wilton, bullied at school and ridiculed by an unfeeling father for
preferring drums to hunting, goes on a shooting rampage at his high school.
Grisham, John
Bleachers
Presents a novel about high school football in a small Texas town, a place in which football has
become a religion.
Guene, Faiza
Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow
Struggling with an overworked mother, an absent father, and the challenges of life within the
infamous Paradise projects of suburban Paris, fifteen-year-old French Muslim Doria endures a
parade of social workers, experiences a first kiss, and assumes a philosophical outlook
regarding her circumstances.
Haycak, Cara
Red Palms
When fourteen-year-old Benita's wealthy family goes bankrupt as a result of the Depression,
they go from their luxurious life in Guayaquil, Ecuador to a primitive island, with the wild
scheme of starting a coconut plantation.
Henry, Sue
Murder on the Iditarod Trail
Sergeant Alex Jensen tries to find the person who is systematically killing the top competitors
of the Alaskan Iditarod dogsled race.
Hoffman, Alice
Turtle Moon
After Lucy Rosen and her son Keith move to Verity, Florida, Keith runs away with the baby of a
murdered woman, and Lucy and Officer Julian Cash pursue him.
Second Nature
When Robin Moore, a divorced mother of a teenaged son, brings an off-islander named
Stephen to her island home, his presence transforms all who cross paths with him.
Huff, Tanya
Blood Trail
Private investigator Vicki Nelson and vampire Henry Fitzroy must race against time to discover
who is trying to destroy Canada's werewolves.
Katz, Welwyn Wilton
Whalesinger
A scientific field trip on the California coast, near the possible site of a sunken treasure ship
from Francis Drake's expedition, brings together two teenagers, an emotionally isolated boy
and a girl who is discovering she shares an empathic bond with two gray whales in the area.
Kerr, M.E.
Deliver Us From Evie
Sixteen-year-old Parr Burrman and his family face some difficult times when word spreads
through their rural Missouri town that his older sister is a lesbian, and she leaves the family
farm to live with the daughter of the town's banker.
Khadra, Yasmina
Attack
Dr. Amin Jaafari, an Arab-Israeli citizen working as a respected surgeon, finds his life torn
apart in the wake of a terrorist bombing at a local restaurant as he deals with the discovery
that his own wife was the suicide bomber responsible.
Klause, Annette Curtis
Blood and Chocolate
Having fallen for a human boy, a beautiful teenage werewolf must battle both her packmates
and the fear of the townspeople to decide where she belongs and with whom.
Silver Kiss
A mysterious teenage boy harboring a dark secret helps Zoe come to terms with her mother's
terminal illness.
Koontz, Dean
Seize the Night
The victim of a rare genetic disorder that leaves him dangerously vulnerable to light,
Christopher Snow risks everything to find the missing children of Moonlight Bay, California,
whose disappearances may be linked to clandestine scientific experiments at an abandoned
military base.
Letts, Billie
Where the Heart Is
Pregnant, overweight, and convinced about her inherent bad luck, Novalee Nation hopes for a
new life in a new state with her boyfriend but is dumped along the way in Oklahoma, where
she finds her spirit renewed.
McCarthy, Cormac
All the Pretty Horses
John Grady Cole, 16, leaves Texas for Mexico in 1950 and becomes an essential vaquero in a
hacienda's program.
McCormick, Patricia
Sold
When she is tricked by her stepfather and sold into prostitution, thirteen-year-old Lakshmi
becomes submerged in a nightmare where her only comfort is the friendship she forms with
the other girls, which helps her survive and eventually escape.
McDaniel, Lurlene
Letting go of Lisa
Nathan Malone has been home-schooled his whole life but must go to public school his senior
year. He meets Lisa, the girl on the motorcycle his first day.
McKinney-Whetstone
Tumbling
Raising two abandoned children while trying to cope with the romantic adventures of her
irresponsible husband, Noon leads her community in efforts to defeat a proposal for a new
road that threatens to destroy the community.
Mannon, L.J.
Circle of the Hawk
A prehistoric Native American burial site on a rural South Jersey farm in the Pinelands is
uncovered. Somewhere between historical fact and Pinelands legend, one young man will
discover the connection between his father’s death and the protection of the land.
Mazor, Norma
After the Rain
After discovering her grandfather is dying, fifteen-year-old Rachel gets to know him better
than ever before and finds the experience bittersweet.
Martel, Yann
Life of Pi
Possessing encyclopedia-like intelligence, unusual zookeeper's son Pi Patel sets sail for
America, but when the ship sinks, he escapes on a life boat and is lost at sea with a dwindling
number of animals until only he and a hungry Bengal tiger remain.
Murdock, Catherine
Dairy Queen, A novel
After spending her summer running the family farm and training the quarterback for her
school's rival football team, sixteen-year-old D.J. decides to go out for the sport herself, not
anticipating the reactions of those around her.
Oates, Joyce Carol
Sexy
Sixteen-year-old Darren Flynn, a popular, good-looking high school athlete who lacks selfconfidence, learns that his jock friends are hatching a revenge act against their English
teacher for failing a member of the swim team.
Parra, Nancy
The Lovin’ Kind
Beth Morgan doesn’t need to be told that she is the prettiest woman in Boltonville, Wisconsin-she already knows it. As she walks down the aisle to marry Eric Slausser, visions of herself
bloated, pregnant, and not-so-beautiful come to mind, and she bolts. She decides to go stay
with her brother in Wyoming.
Paretsky, Sara
Ghost Country
Tells the story of three Chicagoans--a disturbed young woman, an alcoholic opera singer, and
an idealistic psychiatrist--whose lives are changed by a mysterious woman.
Patterson, James
Maximum Ride
After the mutant Erasers abduct the youngest member of their group, the "birdkids," who are
the result of genetic experimentation, take off in pursuit and find themselves struggling to
understand their own origins and purpose.
Picoult, Jodi
My Sister’s Keeper
Conceived to provide a bone marrow match for her leukemia-stricken sister, teenage Anna
begins to question her moral obligations in light of countless medical procedures and decides
to fight for the right to make decisions about her own body.
Rennison, Louise
Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging
Presents the humorous journal of a year in the life of a fourteen-year-old British girl who tries
to reduce the size of her nose, stop her mad cat from terrorizing the neighborhood animals,
and win the love of handsome hunk Robbie.
Samuels, Dorothy
Filthy Rich
After being dumped by her orthodontist fiance on a national television quiz show, Marcy
Mallowitz must find a way to dodge reporters and her own meddling friends as she struggles
to cope with unwanted instant celebrity.
Sanchez, Alex
Rainbow Boys
Three high school seniors, a jock with a girlfriend and an alcoholic father, a closeted gay, and
a flamboyant gay rights advocate, struggle with family issues, gay bashers, first sex, and
conflicting feelings about each other.
Shreve, Anita
The Weight of Water
A photographer who has come to a small island off the coast of New Hampshire to shoot a
photo-essay about a double murder that took place there over a century ago, notices parallels
between her own life and the lives of the murder victims.
Sorrells, Walter
Fake ID
After a lifetime of moving and assuming new identities, sixteen-year-old Chass begins to piece
together the disturbing past that haunts her and her mother and which involves a mysterious
tape, a deceased popular singer, and the secrets of several people in a small Alabama town.
Stein, Tammar
Light Years
Maya Laor leaves her home in Israel to study astronomy at the University of Virginia after the
tragic death of her boyfriend in a suicide bombing.
Sweeney, Joyce
Headlock
High school senior Kyle is determined to become a professional wrestler but his dream is
threatened by a loved one's illness and the dramatic reappearance of a long-absent relative.
Tan, Amy
Saving Fish from Drowning
On an ill-fated art expedition, eleven Americans find themselves deep in the Burmese jungle,
where they encounter a tribe awaiting a leader and the mystical book of wisdom that will
protect them from the Myanmar military regime.
Truman, Margaret
Murder at the National Gallery
The senior curator of Washington's famed National Gallery of Art finds a missing painting by
Caravaggio and plots a forgery scheme involving blackmail and murder.
Volponi, Paul
Black and White
Two star high school basketball players, one black and one white, experience the justice
system differently after committing a crime together and getting caught.
Weisberg, Joseph
10th Grade
Recreates a school year in the life of teenager Jeremy Reskin, who falls madly in love with the
new girl in school and deals in his own way with classes, sports, family conflicts, peer
pressure, romance, and hanging out.
White, Stephen
Cold Case
Psychologist Alan Gregory is summoned to assist in solving the murders of two teenage girls,
a case that has been reopened a decade after it occurred.