Teen Pick of the Week: Nearly Gone

Nearly Gone
by Elle Cosimano

Bones meets Fringe in a big, dark, scary, brilliantly-plotted urban thriller that will leave you guessing until the very end.

Nearly Boswell knows how to keep secrets. Living in a DC trailer park, she knows better than to share anything that would make her a target with her classmates. Like her mother's job as an exotic dancer, her obsession with the personal ads, and especially the emotions she can taste when she brushes against someone's skin. But when a serial killer goes on a killing spree and starts attacking students, leaving cryptic ads in the newspaper that only Nearly can decipher, she confides in the one person she shouldn't trust: the new guy at school—a reformed bad boy working undercover for the police, doing surveillance. . . on her.

Nearly might be the one person who can put all the clues together, and if she doesn't figure it all out soon—she'll be next.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

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Teen Pick of the Week: The Well's End

A high-stakes, fast-paced adventure with imagination and heart. 

The Well's End
by Seth Fishman

Sixteen-year-old Mia Kish has always been afraid of the dark. After all, she’s baby Mia, the one who fell down a well. That was years ago, though the darkness still haunts her. But when her classmates and teachers at ritzy Westbrook Academy start dying of old age from a bizarre and frightening virus that ages its victims years in a matter of hours, Mia becomes haunted by a lot more than the dark. Their deaths are gruesome and Mia worries she and her friends may be next. In order to survive, Mia and her small crew must break quarantine and outrun armed soldiers in hazmat suits who shoot first and ask questions later.

And there’s only one place to go—the Cave, aka Fenton Electronics. Mia knows it’s somehow connected and hopes her dad, Director of Fenton Electronics, who has always been strangely secretive about his work, has the answers she needs, and more importantly a cure to save everyone before the whole town succumbs to the mysterious virus. 

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great book lately? Want to recommend it as Pick of the Week? Email me!

Curious to see what other new and hot titles we've added to our collection? Check out the NEW YA Fiction boards on the Ventress Memorial Library Pinterest page! 

Teen Pick of the Week: Why We Took The Car

A beautifully written, darkly funny coming-of-age story from an award-winning, bestselling German author making his American debut.

Why We Took The Car
by Wolfgang Herrndorf

Mike Klingenberg doesn't get why people think he's boring. Sure, he doesn't have many friends. (Okay, zero friends.) And everyone laughs at him when he reads his essays out loud in class. And he's never invited to parties - including the gorgeous Tatiana's party of the year.

Andre Tschichatschow, aka Tschick (not even the teachers can pronounce his name), is new in school, and a whole different kind of unpopular. He always looks like he's just been in a fight, his clothes are tragic, and he never talks to anyone.

But one day Tschick shows up at Mike's house out of the blue. Turns out he wasn't invited to Tatiana's party either, and he's ready to do something about it. Forget the popular kids: Together, Mike and Tschick are heading out on a road trip. No parents, no map, no destination. Will they get hopelessly lost in the middle of nowhere? Probably. Will they meet crazy people and get into serious trouble? Definitely.

But will they ever be called boring again? Not a chance.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great book lately? Want to recommend it as Pick of the Week? Email me!

Curious to see what other new and hot titles we've added to our collection?
Check out the NEW YA Fiction boards on the Ventress Memorial Library Pinterest page! 

Teen Pick of the Week: More Than This

More Than This
by Patrick Ness

From two-time Carnegie Medal winner Patrick Ness comes an enthralling and provocative new novel chronicling the life -- or perhaps afterlife -- of a teen trapped in a crumbling, abandoned world.

A boy named Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he here? And where is this place? It looks like the suburban English town where he lived as a child, before an unthinkable tragedy happened and his family moved to America. But the neighborhood around his old house is overgrown, covered in dust, and completely abandoned. What's going on? And why is it that whenever he closes his eyes, he falls prey to vivid, agonizing memories that seem more real than the world around him? Seth begins a search for answers, hoping that he might not be alone, that this might not be the hell he fears it to be, that there might be more than just this...

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library.

Read a great book lately? Want to recommend it as Pick of the Week? Email me!

Curious to see what other new and hot titles we've added to our collection? Check out the NEW YA Fiction boards on the Ventress Memorial Library Pinterest page! 

New and Noteworthy: Bonus Teen Pick

Fake ID by Lamar Giles

Nick Pearson is hiding in plain sight…

My name isn’t really Nick Pearson.

I shouldn’t tell you where I’m from or why my family moved to Stepton, Virginia.

I shouldn’t tell you who I really am, or my hair, eye, and skin color.

And I definitely shouldn’t tell you about my friend Eli Cruz and the major conspiracy he was about to uncover when he died—right after I moved to town. About how I had to choose between solving his murder with his hot sister, Reya, and “staying low-key” like the Program has taught me.

About how moving to Stepton changed my life forever.

But I’m going to.

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Teen Pick of the Week: Arclight

No one survives the Fade.

No one crosses the wall of light...  except for one girl who doesn't remember who she is, where she came from, or how she survived. A harrowing, powerful debut thriller about finding yourself and protecting your future—no matter how short and uncertain it may be. 

Arclight by Josin L. Mcquein

The Arclight is the last defense. The Fade can’t get in. Outside the Arclight’s border of high-powered beams is the Dark. And between the Light and the Dark is the Grey, a narrow, barren no-man’s-land. That’s where the rescue team finds Marina, a lone teenage girl with no memory of the horrors she faced or the family she lost. Marina is the only person who has ever survived an encounter with the Fade. She’s the first hope humanity has had in generations, but she could also be the catalyst for their final destruction. Because the Fade will stop at nothing to get her back. Marina knows it. Tobin, who’s determined to take his revenge on the Fade, knows it. Anne-Marie, who just wishes it were all over, knows it.

When one of the Fade infiltrates the Arclight and Marina recognizes it, she will begin to unlock secrets she didn't even know she had. Who will Marina become? Who can she never be again? 

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Small Fry Pick of the Week: Pure Grit

Pure Grit by Mary Cronk Farrell

Pure Grit tells the important but little-known story of the heroic women who served in the Phillipines during World War II.  In the late 1930s, a number of young women enlisted for peacetime duty as United States Army and Navy nurses.  More than a hundred were stationed at several base hospitals in the Phillipines.

Pure grit is a story of sisterhood, suffering, of tragedy and betrayal, of death and life.  This is the story of how a group of women cared for one another, maintained discipline, and honored their vocation to nurse anyone in need, all of them coming home alive.

This fascinating look into history is best-suited for older elementary or Intermediate grades. But any reader will find it a rich and informational read!

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Small Fry Pick of the Week: Robot Army Rampage

Robot Army Rampage by "Science Bob" Pflugfelder and
Steve Hockensmith


Warning: contains walking, buzzing, and flying robots you can build yourself!  When a rash of robberies hits the town of Half Moon Bay, 11-year-old sleuths Nick and Tesla are determined to catch criminals-but to do so, they'll have to build four different droids out of ordinary household objects-and illustrated instructions are included throughout the story, so you can build them too!  Can Nick and Tesla catch the criminal mastermind-and foil his army of rampaging robots-before it's too late?

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Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!