You probably haven’t read a lot of books lately that have stood out. You probably are sick of vampires, of love, of needing to find yourself, of needing to find the one. You probably think that young adult literature is all the same.

You would be wrong. You wouldn’t have thought to wait for Charles Benoit’s debut release, You. You’ve probably heard or read the rave reviews of this forthcoming title, if not from other bloggers or reviews, but also right from the cover. You’ve probably heard it compared to Chris Crutcher or Robert Cormier or even a modern take on John Knowles’s A Separate Peace. But you probably didn’t realize this is also quite a great readalike for Gail Giles or even Courtney Summers with total guy appeal.

You are Kyle Chase. You have a tough shell, and you’re not very smart, mostly because you don’t care about school. You are best friends with Max, mostly out of desperation. You are excited for the start of your sophomore year of high school, only because it gives you something to do with your time (okay, it’s because you have classes with Ashley, who you think that you might finally have a chance with this year). You’re going to date her, you’re going to be with her, and you know it’s finally your time to “shine.” Oh, and you have this scar on your hand. You got it when you fell across a bus seat and put it through a window. Or so that’s what you tell people.

Then you meet Zack. He walks up to you in the library, where you hide out for a number of your classes. He seems like a cool kid, just transferred from one of the best schools in the area into your school, the one where all the dumb kids go. Things go quick with this friendship, and before you know it, you’re hanging out, and he knows about your crush on Ashley. But when you are invited to a party at his house, you start getting a little bit of a different impression. He read someone’s diary and marred her reputation. She’s crying upstairs. He introduces you to another girl, who begins asking you endless questions about people you go to school with, but you don’t know any of them. The party ends, and it’s not long before Zack’s teaching you how to break into the school and do awful things. You pee in Jake the Jock’s locker. You do it because you can.

Then one of the people the girl at the party mentioned to you finds you at school. She’s cute, but you want Ashley. Then she says something about Zack that you just can’t fathom: he wants to get your weak spot. You don’t believe her. And you’ll regret that.

You moves quickly. Benoit wrote you as an action-packed contemporary tale about you, an outsider. There’s mystery. There’s drama. There’s payback. And there’s you. It’s a story about you.

You are much different than most books on the market, making You a standout title. You earned those accolades from well-known writers, and you are daring, edgy, thought-provoking, and memorable. You will stand out from the crowd as perhaps the best debut this year, tapping into an underserved but eager readership.

You need to read You, and you can do so soon. You will published August 24. Until then, you will just need to make sure you know who you are and who your friends are, or you may find out quite harshly that you’re going to get hurt — and not from hitting a bus window (you wish it were that simple).