High School American Literature

Dominique Dom Pickens is an NFL player looking for a home in Atlanta. Wren comes highly recommended when it comes to realtors in the area. One look at Wren, and Dom is already picking out wedding venues. But what seems like the perfect match doesn't come easy. Wren has been hurt in the past, and she knows how professional athletes are, so she's not willing to put her heart on the line again.

When the organizing committee for her upcoming high school reunion needs a caterer, Halia agrees to help out. Soon she's serving up her signature macaroni and cheese and famous chicken wings to a host of appreciative ex-classmates. Some folks have blossomed since graduation. Others, like manipulative Raynell Rollins, currently married to a former football star, haven't changed nearly enough. When Raynell is found dead the morning after the reunion, the role call of possible suspects could fill the school gymnasium. Extramarital affairs, mega-church scandals and sports secrets...

Elena Soo has always felt overshadowed. Whether by her more successful older sisters, her more popular twin brother, or her more outgoing best friend, everyone except Elena seems to know exactly who they are and what they want. But she is certain about one thing—she has no interest in going to prom. While the rest of the school is giddy over corsages and dresses, Elena would rather spend her time working to save the local community center. So when international K-pop superstar Robbie Choi shows up at her house to ask her to prom, Elena is more confused than ever.

“[A] striking debut. . . funny, heartbreaking, and real.”––SAM LANSKY, author of Broken People Prep meets The Secret History in this searing debut novel about a tragic scandal at an American prep school, told in the form of a literary investigation through a distinctly...

Kevin Borden has a secret, and that secret is about to shake the world around him - a tame and suburban world ruled by his widowed mother, Sarah and peppered by his study-mate, Louis. Teenagers sometimes do the darndest things, but in Kevin and Louis' case, it's a stroke of wisdom wrapped in fool's gold. In a time not so long ago, in the days of JIM CROW and NO IRISH NEED APPLY signage, the world made hate clear to those regarded as the fringe. "Stay away." To those who know no better - or perhaps know best, such lines are only meant to be crossed, or why else would they be drawn. No Irish ...

A darkly funny story of two adults looking back on their intense teenage friendship, in a queer, trans, and early-Internet twist on the Manhattan prep school novel Idlewild is a tiny, artsy Quaker high school in lower Manhattan. Students call their teachers by their first names, there are no...

A chance encounter and one night of passion leads to a mutually beneficial arrangement for two souls from different worlds. When love creeps into the equation, neither is sure how to feel or what to do. The only thing either is certain of, is their need for the other.

Good fences make good neighbors—except when a scorching shared past makes things complicated—in this delightful city-meets-country romance from Zuri Day. She’s packing her bags—and her baggage. Ten years ago, Genesis Washington made a very poor decision. At the time, it seemed great...

Local weather reporter Suzanne Maretto craves nothing more than to transcend life at her suburban cable television news station and follow in the footsteps of her idol: Barbara Walters. When she concludes that her unglamorous husband is getting in the way of her dream of stardom, the solution seems obvious: Get rid of him. She seduces a 15-year-old admirer, Jimmy, and persuades him to do her dirty work. Mission accomplished, Suzanne takes to the airwaves in her new role as grieving widow, in search of a TV deal. If that means selling Jimmy down the river, she’s ready.

YOU WERE RIGHT TO FEEL EMPTY AFTER THAT “MASTERPIECE.” Why does “serious” art so often leave us drained instead of nourished? What if that hollow feeling isn’t a personal failing, but the symptom of a cultural system designed to equate pain with profundity? Welcome to the Cathedral of Suffering. We have been trained, from our first children’s movie to our final graduate seminar, that the only stories worth taking seriously are stories of trauma, collapse, and ruin. This is not an accident. It is a system. In The Suffering Canon, the evidence is laid bare: The Data: 71% of major ...

When the system writes you off, faith writes you back in. In the heart of a forgotten neighborhood where dreams go to die, Robert McPherson has spent twenty-five years fighting a war that most people don't even know is being waged. As Director of Student Services at Dorchester Avenue High, he's the last line of defense between children society has abandoned and a future that seems impossible to reach. When the school board threatens to eliminate his programs and transfer him to a desk job pushing papers instead of changing lives, Robert faces the fight of his career. Armed with nothing but ...

Not feeling very beautiful? Learn what beauty is from God's perspective.Revolve speaker Jenna Lucado has teamed up with her dad, Max Lucado, to bring girls a fresh perspective on what they need to live a life of peace, joy, and confidence. What does God see when He looks at them? And how does a...

A brilliant and moving coming-of-age story in the tradition of Wonder by R. J. Palacio and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon—this debut novel is written with tremendous humor and charm. This is Alex’s story. But he doesn’t know exactly what it’s about...

From the acclaimed author of Girlchild, this gritty, irreverent novel sees a young misfit grow into hope. Unsinkable and wrecked by grief, motherless and aimless and looking for connection, Helen Dedleder is a girl with a gift she doesn't want to use and a pack of friends who are all just...

It's 1969 when 15-year-old Huey Fairchild begins high school at Claremont Prep, one of New York City's most prestigious boys' schools. His mother had uprooted her family from their small hometown of Akersburg, Georgia, a few years earlier, leaving behind Huey's white father and the racial unrest that ran deeper than the Chattahoochee River. But for our sharp-tongued protagonist, forgetting the past is easier said than done. At Claremont, where the only other nonwhite person is the janitor, Huey quickly realizes that racism can lurk beneath even the nicest school uniform. After a momentary slip of his temper, Huey finds himself facing legal charges.

Here at last is the eagerly awaited new novel from New York Times bestselling author Gail Godwin. Queen of the Underworld is sweeping and sultry literary fiction, featuring a memorable young heroine and engaging characters whose intimate dramas interconnect with hers. In the summer of 1959, as...

Here at last is the eagerly awaited new novel from New York Times bestselling author Gail Godwin. Queen of the Underworld is sweeping and sultry literary fiction, featuring a memorable young heroine and engaging characters whose intimate dramas interconnect with hers. In the summer of 1959, as...

“The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether” is an Edgar Allan Poe short story that expertly blends his dark perspective with the comic. -This is the original story—only word order and difficult vocabulary have been updated. -End notes, interpretation, and discussion of major themes follow the text. -Biographical information on Edgar Allan Poe is included. -For other classic short stories in easy to understand updated English search for “Simplified for Modern Readers Series.”