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Microtrends in YA Fiction

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Last fall I did a post about microtrends in YA fiction, which talked about themes or topics that were popping up in a few YA books at the same time, even if the stories weren’t necessarily comparable or read alikes to one another. I thought it would be fun to revisit this post again, with a new crop of microtrends I’ve noticed in YA fiction over the last year.

All descriptions come from WorldCat or Goodreads.

Reality TV


Reality television as the backdrop or premise of a YA novel isn’t entirely new. But what’s been interesting is that a couple of the books here look at the effects of reality television on the main characters, rather than on the characters being involved with reality television as the story unfolds. 

Reality Boy by AS King (out in October): An emotionally damaged seventeen-year-old boy in Pennsylvania who was once an infamous reality television show star, meets a girl from another dysfunctional family, and she helps him out of his angry shell. 

Taste Test by Kelly Fiore: While attending a New Hampshire culinary academy, North Carolina high schooler Nora suspects someone of sabotaging the academy’s televised cooking competition.

You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle: Five teens starring in a documentary film series about their ordinary lives must grapple with questions of change and identity under the scrutiny of the camera.  (Okay, technically, this is a documentary film series but it plays out like “reality television” would).



Flash Point by Nancy Kress: Amy had dreams of going to college, until the Collapse destroyed the economy and her future. Now she is desperate for any job that will help support her terminally ill grandmother and rebellious younger sister. When she finds herself in the running for a slot on a new reality TV show, she signs on the dotted line, despite her misgivings. And she’s right to have them. TLN’s “Who Knows People, Baby–You?” has an irresistible premise: correctly predict what the teenage cast will do in a crisis and win millions. But the network has pulled strings to make it work, using everything from 24/7 hidden cameras to life-threatening technology to flat-out rigging. Worse, every time the ratings slip, TLN ups the ante. Soon Amy is fighting for her life–on and off camera.

Pizza, Love, and Other Stuff that Made Me Famous by Kathryn Williams: Although sixteen-year-old Sophie has grown up working in her family’s Mediterranean restaurant in Washington, D.C., she is not prepared to compete on the new reality show, Teen Test Kitchen, when her best friend Alex convinces her to audition. 

These aren’t the first reality show based YA novels, of course. Older titles, for those who love this storyline in their books, include: 

  • Reality Check by Jen Calonita
  • L.A. Candy series by Lauren Conrad
  • The Real Real by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
  • Stir It Up by Ramin Ganeshram

Eat, Pray, Love for Teens


Two books recently were either pitched as — or further compared to in some capacity — Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. In other words, these are female-led stories where the main character goes on some kind of adventure to find herself. I know that’s a pretty generic description, so I get why creating the comparison to Gilbert’s book actually says more about the story. But do teens get that reference? I’d be curious about that. 

Return to Me by Justina Chen: Always following her parents’ wishes and ignoring her psychic inner voice takes eighteen-year-old Rebecca Muir from her beloved cottage and boyfriend on Puget Sound to New York City, where revelations about herself and her family help her find a path to becoming the architect she wants to be.

The Year of Luminous Love by Lurlene McDaniel: Eighteen-year-olds Ciana Beauchamp, Arie Winslow, and Eden McLauren of Tennessee rely on their close friendship as they face serious problems the summer before they start college, from parents’ illnesses, to cancer, to two loving the same cowboy.

Physics


When’s the last time you read about physics for fun? That’s popped up a couple of times in young adult fiction this year. Either the main character likes physics or there’s a literary reason behind the use of physics in tying the story together in some way.

Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn: A lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy must either surrender his sanity to the wild wolves inside his mind or learn that surviving means more than not dying.

The Theory of Everything by Kari Luna: When fourteen-year-old Sophie Sophia journeys to New York with a scientific boy genius, a Kerouac-loving bookworm, and a giant shaman panda guide, she discovers more about her visions, string theory, and a father who could be the key to an extraordinary life.

Sticky Fingers


Who knew that kleptomaniacs were so abundant in YA fiction? I think this is an interesting thread running through recent titles, actually, and I think part of my interest is that it’s maybe a bit of an under-explored theme in YA fiction in recent years. 



Death of a Kleptomaniac by Kristen Tracy:  A sixteen-year-old girl with the uncontrollable urge to steal is trapped in limbo with three days before her funeral to find redemption and true love.

Life After Theft by Aprilynne Pike: Jeff is the new guy in school and the only one who can see Kimberlee, a ghost with a lot of (stolen) baggage. To help her move on, Jeff must return everything she stole when she was alive. But being Kimberlee’s accomplice turns into more than he bargained for when his crush and the cops get involved.

Trinkets by Kirsten Smith: When three Lake Oswego High School girls from different social groups, good-girl Elodie, popular Tabitha, and tough Moe, meet in a rehabilitation group, they discover they have much more in common than shoplifting.

Want a few older books featuring teen shoplifters? 

  • Living on Impulse by Cara Haycak
  • Klepto by Jenny Pollack
  • Blonde of the Joke by Bennett Madison
  • Crimes of the Sarahs by Kristen Tracy

Wandering Mothers


I’ve read many books this year where the mother just sort of disappears. But these books are a little more specific in how they’re disappearing. For two of the stories, it’s about never wanting to settle and taking the child on the road with them from an early age. For one of the stories, it’s about abandoning the family to find herself (which happens later in one of the other stories, too, just when you think mom has figured out how to settle).

Friday Never Leaving by Vikki Wakefield (September 10): Friday Brown and her mother Vivienne live their lives on the road, but when Vivienne succumbs to cancer, 17-year-old Friday decides to search for the father she never knew. Her journey takes her to a slum of orphans and runaways, ruled by a charismatic leader named Arden. 

Meet Me at the River by Nina de Gramont (October 15): Stepsiblings Tressa and Luke, close as children, fell in love as teens, and neither the disapproval of those around them nor even Luke’s death can keep them apart as long as Tressa needs him.

September Girls by Bennett Madison: Vacationing in a sleepy beach town for the summer, Sam is pursued by hordes of blonde girls before falling in love with the unusual DeeDee, who compels him to uncover secrets about the community’s ocean-dwelling inhabitants.

Emily Dickinson is the new Jane Austen


Where once we couldn’t go through a publisher’s catalog without stumbling across an homage to Jane Austen (okay, we still can’t), now it seems that Emily Dickinson has become a hot commodity in YA fiction. 

And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard (January 2014): Sent to an Amherst, Massachusetts, boarding school after her ex-boyfriend shoots himself, seventeen-year-old Emily expresses herself through poetry as she relives their relationship, copes with her guilt, and begins to heal.

Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia by Jenny Torres Sanchez: Struggling to come to terms with the suicide of her crush, Andy Cooper, Frenchie obsessively retraces each step of their tumultuous final encounter and looks to the poetry of Emily Dickinson for guidance.

Emily’s Dress and Other Missing Things by Kathryn Burak: A new girl in Amherst, Massachusetts, comes to terms with her mother’s suicide and her best friend’s disappearance with the help of Emily Dickinson’s poetry–and her dress.

Nobody’s Secret by Michaela MacColl: When fifteen-year-old Emily Dickinson meets a charming, enigmatic young man who playfully refuses to tell her his name, she is intrigued–so when he is found dead in her family’s pond in Amherst she is determined to discover his secret, no matter how dangerous it may prove to be.

The Cold War Kids

I’ve talked extensively about books set in the 80s for no particular reason, but there’s a few that have come out or are coming out shortly that are set in the 80s because of one specific reason: the Cold War. The bonus of this setting — which is, at times also the drawback — is that it allows the story to be set abroad. It’s a bonus since it’s always great to have more books set outside the US but it’s a drawback because if the historical background isn’t complete enough in the book, it can easily distance the reader (remember that today’s teens likely don’t get much in their history classes beyond World War II, so the context and heft of the time period can be harder to understand).

Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy by Elizabeth Kiem: After a harrowing defection to the United States in 1982, Russian teenager Marya and her father settle in Brooklyn, where Marya is drawn into a web of intrigue involving her gift of foresight, her mother’s disappearance, and a boy she cannot bring herself to trust.

The Boy on the Bridge by Natalie Standiford: It is 1982 and nineteen-year-old Laura Reid is spending a semester in Leningrad studying Russian, but when she meets Alyosha she discovers the dissident Russia–a world of wild parties, underground books and music, love, and constant danger.

Going Over by Beth Kephart (2014): In the early 1980s Ada and Stefan are young, would-be lovers living on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall–Ada lives with her mother and grandmother and paints graffiti on the Wall, and Stefan lives with his grandmother in the East and dreams of escaping to the West.

The Cold War is a less-explored time frame within YA fiction, but it’s not entirely new, either. A couple of older titles include:

  • Rose Sees Red by Cecil Castellucci
  • Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet (at least one of the timelines is during the Cold War)

Have you noticed any other microtrends over the last year? Others I’ve seen include schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder, as well as books set on islands (which I’ve written about before but may revisit since it’s continued to be a popular setting). Or maybe can you think of other books out in the last 12 months which might fit any of the trends I’ve listed above? 

The Fallout by S. A. Bodeen

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Delayed sequels are interesting, particularly if they’re for teens. Presumably, the primary audience for the first book has aged out of the target group for the second. If the first book is still being read widely, though, that’s a different story.

It would appear that The Compound belongs to this category. It still circulates fairly well in my public library, and this post on Bodeen’s website shows that the teens at my library are not alone. It’s still making recommended reading lists as recently as 2012, so librarians and other gatekeepers recognize there’s still a teen readership for it as well.

As sequels go, this one is perhaps not “necessary.” By that I mean that the plot points of The Compound were all wrapped up fairly well, with no glaring loose ends or cliffhangers. That said, I can certainly see how teens would wonder how Eli and his family recovered from their ordeal. And that story is told in The Fallout. (I love this punny title. It’s the best.)

The Fallout is not just about recovery, though that’s a good part of it. There’s also a conspiracy involving Eli’s dad’s company, which he is set to inherit, and a very shady businessman who is trying to keep control of the company at all costs. Naturally, this very shady businessman is working with some very shady science – dangerous as well as lucrative, and Eli and his family are involved in his plans.

The story works well as a fast-paced thriller, in much the same way that The Compound did. What this shady businessman has in store for Eli and his family is gradually revealed, and it’s horrifying. (Though it’s not as horrifying as what Eli’s dad had in store in the first book. But then again, what could be as horrifying as that? Nothing.) It’s also interesting to see how Eli and his family adjust to living outside of the compound. They’re famous for all the wrong reasons, recognizable wherever they go, so a “normal” life is out of the question. They have their own set of stalkers, with websites dedicated to spotting them. They don’t know who to trust, and everything is foreign to them – from Costco to a football game.

What doesn’t work so well is the development of the relationship between Eli and his twin brother Eddy, whom Eli assumed had died in the first book. What the boys’ father did to their family is front-page news. Most of the awful details are very public. Therefore, it’s very hard for me to buy Eddy’s continued defense of his father. I get that Eddy could resent the return of these family members whom he barely knows (or doesn’t know at all, in the case of the youngest siblings). What I don’t get is Eddy’s envy of Eli for spending so much time with their dad. It’s not just a matter of not having the whole story, though there are some bits he’s still ignorant of. He knows enough of the truth to know better. I get that Bodeen was trying to instill some tension between the two, and it’s necessary for the plot, but it’s a weak link.

The science, too, is shaky, but I can forgive this a bit more (I’m being deliberately vague about what science is involved, as it’s quite spoilery). I may be ridiculed by hardcore SF fans for saying this, but shaky science doesn’t bug me much. If it gets me to wonder “what if,” then it’s done what I want it to do.

Faults aside, fans of the first will gobble this up. It’s intense, twisty, and should be catnip for reluctant readers.

Review copy received by the publisher. The Fallout will be published September 24.

August Debut YA Books

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Another month, another roundup of the YA debut novels published or soon to be published. As usual, you can check out the debut novels published in prior months by starting on our July post and working back through to January. We’ve been a little lax in updating with our review links in those posts, but you can always search our archives if you’re curious about any of the titles we may have covered here with more depth.

If I’ve missed any traditionally published YA debuts out in August, leave a note in the comments. I’m interested only in actual first-time publications, so first YA books by authors who’ve published in other categories aren’t included. All descriptions are from WorldCat or Goodreads. 

August is a slower month in publishing, so there are fewer debuts out. But don’t worry — the fall will bring a huge number more. 

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke: Violet is in love with River, a mysterious seventeen-year-old stranger renting the guest house behind the rotting seaside mansion where Violet lives, but when eerie, grim events begin to happen, Violet recalls her grandmother’s frequent warnings about the devil and wonders if River is evil.

Taste Test by Kelly Fiore: While attending a New Hampshire culinary academy, North Carolina high schooler Nora suspects someone of sabotaging the academy’s televised cooking competition. This looks like it could be a great read alike for Jennifer E. Smith’s books. 

On Little Wings by Regina Sirios: Sixteen-year-old Jennifer travels to Smithport, Maine, to learn about the family her mother has kept a secret.

Canary by Rachele Alpine: In this debut novel, a high school girl tries to understand the world, figure out where she fits in, and learn how to stand up for herself when everything falls apart. With the passing of her mother, Kate Franklin’s life unravels at the seams as she loses the only emotional mooring in her family. Her dad shuts down completely, and her brother enlists in the army. Things start looking better when her dad is hired to coach at Beacon Prep, home of one of the best basketball teams in the state. In a blog of prose and poetry, Kate chronicles her new world, dating a basketball player, being caught up in a world of idolatry and entitlement, and discovering the perks the inner circle enjoys. Then Kate’s fragile life shatters once again when one of her boyfriend’s teammates assaults her at a party. Although she knows she should speak out, her dad is vehemently against it and so, like a canary sent into a mine to test toxicity levels and protect miners, Kate alone breathes the poisonous secrets to protect her dad and the team. The once welcoming community has betrayed Kate, her family is disintegrating, and she’s on her own to grapple with whether to stay quiet or speak out and expose a town’s hero and destroy her father’s career.

Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy by Elizabeth Kiem: After a harrowing defection to the United States in 1982, Russian teenager Marya and her father settle in Brooklyn, where Marya is drawn into a web of intrigue involving her gift of foresight, her mother’s disappearance, and a boy she cannot bring herself to trust.

If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan: In Iran, where homosexuality is punishable by death, seventeen-year-olds Sahar and Nasrin love each other in secret until Nasrin’s parents announce their daughter’s arranged marriage and Sahar proposes a drastic solution.

Jumped In by Patrick Flores-Scott: In the two years since his mother left him with his grandparents in Des Moines, Washington, Sam has avoided making friends and perfected the art of being a slacker, but being paired with a frightening new student for a slam poetry unit transforms his life.

Gated by Amy Christine Parker: Seventeen-year-old Lyla feels ambivalent when the charismatic leader of her isolated suburban community is told that the end of the world is near and when it arrives they must all be ready to defend themselves against the unchosen.

The Infinite Moment of Us by Lauren Myracle

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Wren Gray has always lived to please her parents. She’s a good girl. She got good grades, she didn’t do crazy things while in school, and she’s set up on a great path for college and a career thereafter. Everything seems pretty much picture book perfect and there’s no question that Wren’s privileged in having this.

Except, she’s not happy.

This isn’t what she really wants.

The Infinite Moment of Us is a story set over the summer between high school and college that follows as Wren chooses to diverge from the path that looked so straight before her. Because Wren isn’t happy — everything up until this moment has been about pleasing her parents and following through with what they expected of her. Rather than go to college, Wren has asked for a deferment and wants instead to spend a year in Guatemala doing volunteer service. She wants to do this not only because it’s a cause she’s interested in (I’d hesitate to say it’s a cause she’s passionate about because the truth is Wren doesn’t know her passions) and because it’ll give her an entire year to sort out what it is she wants from her life. Now that she’s 18, out of high school, and able to make her own life choices for herself, Wren is ready to stand up and do just those things.

If she can tell her parents of her plan, that is. Because as of now, they’re still thinking she’s going to Emory in the fall.

Enter Charlie. He’s always been a guy on Wren’s mind — just a little — but she’s never pursued relationships before seriously. She had other things she had to do, and she always had it in the back of her mind that a serious romance would mar the image her parents held of her. He’s kind of a mystery, but this summer, Wren finally has the chance to get to know Charlie. He’s not what he appears on the outside at all. Sure, he’s sweet and charming, but he’s got a much deeper personal life than Wren ever expected. He’s a foster child, and his brother Dev is disabled. Charlie also has a friend named Starrla who he cares deeply about — they had been in a relationship before — and she’s regularly needing his time and attention.

Over the course of the summer, Wren and Charlie become very close. Their relationship is one of compassion, care, and intimacy. In fact, it’s easiest to maybe suggest this book’s theme is that of intimacy: what does it mean to know someone, both in an emotionally raw manner and in a physically raw manner? We know Wren’s course of action from the start is she wants a change. She wants to take complete ownership of her life and follow through on things that she wants to do, without regard to what her parents want for her. Charlie fears he’s stuck in his situation because of his background. As much as the two of them fall for one another, Wren regularly holds back, and she regularly reassess who she is in relation to Charlie. Can someone with the privilege and future she has before her possibly have a reason to complain to Charlie, who is helping take care of his brother? Who hasn’t had a charmed child or teen hood like she has?

This is where Lauren Myracle gets fantastic.

Of course Wren has the right to do this, and Charlie encourages and supports Wren through her deeply internal struggles. Where her “problems” are about wanting to separate her own desires from those her parents have hoisted upon her, Charlie reminds her that her problems aren’t silly. That just because his situation is different from hers doesn’t mean that her situation isn’t problematic or challenging or doesn’t merit the sort of time and consideration she’s given to it. Where she wants to regularly “rise above” her problems, Charlie reminds her that it’s okay not to. That it’s okay to feel as she does and that she is, in fact, making changes, even if it doesn’t necessarily feel or seem like it to her.

The Infinite Moment of Us deals with female sexuality — with teen sexuality more broadly — in a very straight-forward, honest manner. This book doesn’t pull punches. Wren and Charlie are intimate, and it doesn’t black out on the page. Myracle instead offers readers truth about what happens between two people who engage in sex, and she’s forthright in expressing what happens to a female body when arousal happens. But what puts this book squarely in the camp of empowering female sexuality (which I’ve written in detail about before) is how unashamed Wren is about what happens to her body. It’s not gross. It’s not embarrassing. It’s just what it is — “Heat spread up her body. Her nipples hardened and her breathing changed, and when she imagined not just his eyes on her, but his hands, his mouth, she grew suddenly, undeniably wet. It embarrassed her, but she didn’t want to be embarrassed. Should she be embarrassed? No. She should be . . . She should be excited, which she was, and thrilled and aroused. Her body’s response to the boy she loved was a good thing. It was bodies being bodies.”

Not only was this reflective of what happens during physical intimacy, but it mirrored precisely what Wren experienced internally about her future, too. It was hers. She could do with it what she wanted. She could be embarrassed about it, or she could react with excitement and thrill and understand she had ownership of it for herself.

As much as there’s physical intimacy, there is emotional intimacy as well. That’s reflected in how Wren takes the things in her life and considers them, but more so, it’s reflected in how she considers her relationship with Charlie. In one moment, when she’s feeling the need to talk out her thoughts and problems with him (of course, a moment where she feels she’s being silly and that her problems are microscopic and “first world”), Charlie tells her that he is always here for her. She notes that that single line was one of the most intimate things a person can say to another person — and it’s also proof to her that she has the right to feel what it is she does and share it how she needs to.

This book isn’t perfect, though. As much as it’s powerful in what it portrays in terms of intimacy, sexuality, independence, and the right to pursue one’s dreams on one’s own, the secondary characters are fairly flat. Wren’s best friend is good for sex advice for Charlie (and I loved her for that and I loved Charlie for thinking to talk to Tessa in the first place) but beyond that, she’s more prop than full character. More problematic, though, was the Starrla storyline. We know she and Charlie had a challenging relationship and that he still holds her well-being high on his list of cares. But when she tracks him down and pulls out all the stops to regain his attention, I found myself more annoyed than anything. I get that that was the point — and it’s the point Wren walks away with, too, since Starrla is what creates a rift and change in dynamics in her relationship with Charlie — but I think it needed to be pushed a little further elsewhere in the book to have really made the impact it could have made.

I also took issue with the end of the story. Because it’s spoiler, I won’t share what happened, but I’ll say I felt it was the easy way out of the story for both Charlie and Wren. Many readers will find it satisfying and I totally get that.

By now you’ve figured out this book deals with sex and is not shy about that. This isn’t a book for your younger teens — unless they’re ready for it (and many will be). There is an author’s note at the beginning of the book detailing why the choices were made to be forthright in depicting teen sex in the novel, and I think it’s as important a read as the book itself. Teens have sex. These two teens in particular have discovered the power and value of intimacy and they are unashamed in expressing and sharing that with one another. This isn’t about titillation, though it would be naive to say that teens who read this might not find it to be so — and you know, I think that’s okay. It’s presented in a very safe manner, and while the goal from the story perspective certainly isn’t about that (and as an adult I can read the story through that lens and not find it sexy at all), it’s impossible to project how teens will read it. In other words, it’s clear the sex isn’t in there to be sexy; it’s in there because it’s true to Charlie and Wren.

Myracle’s book is empowering and feminist. I’d go so far as to say that it’s this generation’s update of Judy Blume’s classic Forever. As I read the book, I couldn’t help thinking that this is the kind of book I wish I’d had during my high school years. I would have felt less alone in some of the things I was thinking and feeling, and I know I certainly would have appreciated the honesty with which Myracle portrayed sexuality and what is a completely normal function of a body. Charlie is easy to like, but he’s not without flaws. Wren is the same way — though she may be a little tougher to like from the start than Charlie, she’s real and dynamic as a result. Myracle’s story is written in third person, distancing readers from the intimacy while managing to bring the intimacy even closer to the reader. This is a fast-paced read and one that will linger.

Pass The Infinite Moment of Us along to readers who want a strong romantic storyline, compelling characters, and who crave emotional rawness to their books. Give it to teen readers who enjoy feminist stories or who are skeptical of how YA authors treat their readers — Myracle respects them as complex, intellectual people who can make choices for themselves, and there is never a doubt about that in the story.

This is one of my favorite reads this year. And please don’t call it “new adult” just because it’s set in the summer after high school or deals with sexuality. The Infinite Moment of Us is a YA novel through and through.

Review copy received from the publisher. The Infinite Moment of Us is available August 27. 

& Titled: Ampersands in YA Fiction

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The ampersand is my favorite punctuation mark. I love it because it’s so versatile, and I love the history behind the mark (if you look at ampersands from the past, it began as a way to write the Latin word “et,” and it eventually moved from being “et” to standing up and looking like it does now as “&”). 

Over the last few years, more and more YA titles have featured the ampersand. And while I love how it looks aesthetically, it’s sometimes hard to search for book titles in a library catalog that feature an ampersand. The search operators can sometimes get caught up on it; often, though, a simple switch to a search by the author’s name or using “and” in place of the ampersand can solve the problem. 

Because I love ampersands and because I think it’s become a trendy title punctuation in the last few years, here’s a look at YA titles featuring them. All of these are books published between 2010 and now, with a couple of books that will be out in 2014. I’d love other traditionally published YA titles featuring ampersands, and I’m totally open to older titles. I’ve limited it to one book per series, as well as one book per author. Also excluded are short story anthologies — a number of the ones out in the last year or two especially use ampersands. 

All descriptions come from WorldCat.

Catch & Release by Blythe Woolston Eighteen-year-old Polly and impulsive, seventeen-year-old Odd survive a deadly outbreak of flesh-eating bacteria, but resulting wounds have destroyed their plans for the future and with little but their unlikely friendship and a shared affection for trout fishing, they set out on a road trip through the West.

Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan: Told in the alternating voices of Dash and Lily, two sixteen-year-olds carry on a wintry scavenger hunt at Christmas-time in New York, neither knowing quite what–or who–they will find.

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry (the entire series carries on the ampersand titling): In a post-apocalyptic world where fences and border patrols guard the few people left from the zombies that have overtaken civilization, fifteen-year-old Benny Imura is finally convinced that he must follow in his older brother’s footsteps and become a bounty hunter.

Cinders & Sapphires by Leila Rasheed: The intertwined lives of the prominent Averley family and the servants of Somerton Court are forever changed when an old secret comes to light.

Sharks & Boys by Kristen Tracy: Feeling betrayed, fifteen-year-old Enid follows her boyfriend, Wick, from Vermont to Maryland where he and six others they know from twin studies rent a yacht, but after she sneaks aboard a storm sets them adrift without food or water, fighting for survival.

Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn: A lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy must either surrender his sanity to the wild wolves inside his mind or learn that surviving means more than not dying. 

A & L Do Summer by Jan Blazanin: In Iowa farm country, sixteen-year-old Aspen and her friend Laurel plan to get noticed the summer before their senior year and are unwittingly aided by pig triplets, a skunk, a chicken, bullies, a rookie policeman, and potential boyfriends.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell: Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits–smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try”.

Flicker & Burn by T M Goeglein (second book in the “Cold Fury” series): Sara Jane Rispoli continues searching for her missing mafia family, now running from mysterious creatures.  

17 & Gone by Nova Ren Suma: Seventeen-year-old Lauren has visions of girls her own age who are gone without a trace, but while she tries to understand why they are speaking to her and whether she is next, Lauren has a brush with death and a shocking truth emerges, changing everything.

Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones: Two teenagers who are living on the streets and barely getting by become involved in a complicated criminal plot, and make an unexpected connection with each other.

The Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor (all three books in the series carry out the ampersand in the title): Seventeen-year-old Karou, a lovely, enigmatic art student in a Prague boarding school, carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters–the chimaerae who form the only family she has ever known.

Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger (all books in this series so far follow this pattern): In an alternate England of 1851, spirited fourteen-year-old Sophronia is enrolled in a finishing school where, she is suprised to learn, lessons include not only the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also diversion, deceit, and espionage.

Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June by Robin Benway: After their parents’ divorce, teenaged sisters April, May, and June recover special powers from childhood and use them to cope with moving to a new home and high school, but wonder if the gifts have a greater purpose.

Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters by Meredith Zeitlin: Smart, occasionally insecure, and ambitious Brooklyn fourteen-year-old Kelsey Finkelstein embarks on her freshman year of high school in Manhattan with the intention of “rebranding” herself, but unfortunately everything she tries to do is a total disaster.

Between You & Me by Marisa Calin: Phyre, sixteen, narrates her life as if it were a film, capturing her crush on Mia, a student teacher of theater and film studies, as well as her fast friendship with a classmate referred to only as “you.”

Sex & Violence by Carrie Mesrobian: Sex has always come without consequences for Evan. Until the night when all the consequences land at once, leaving him scarred inside and out.

Tumble & Fall by Alexandra Coutts: With an asteroid set to strike Earth in just one week, three teens on an island off the Atlantic Coast wrestle with love, friendship, family, and regret as they decide how to live their final days.

And coming in 2014 are at least two more books featuring the ampersand title:

House of Ivy & Sorrow by Natalie Whipple: Seventeen-year-old Josephine Hemlock has spent her life hiding the fact that she’s a witch–but when the mysterious Curse that killed her mother returns, she might not be able to keep her magical and normal lives separate. 

Fire & Flood by Victoria Scott: Tella’s brother Cody is sick and getting worse, so when she finds instructions on how to become a contender in the dangerous Brimstone Bleed race where she can win a cure for him, she jumps at the chance–but there is no guarantee that she will win, or even survive.