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Recommended for Teens

Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic

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Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic by Michael McCreary
Format: eBook
Who it’s for: Adults, Teens

Michael McCreary was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at age 5, shortly before being bitten by the performance bug. He landed his first stand-up gig at age 14 and now, at age 22, performs across the US and Canada, using humor to dispel myths about autism. Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic will appeal to readers with ASD, as well as those looking for a better understanding of ASD.

Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic is OverDrive’s latest Big Library Read, running March 23 – April 13. Big Library Read connects readers around the world with the same book at the same time without any waitlists or holds. Borrow Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic and join the online book discussion!

Plus – use #BigLibraryRead on social media from March 23 – April 13 for a chance to win a Samsung Galaxy tablet from OverDrive! | Official Rules

 

The Cool Bean

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Book: The Cool Bean by John Jory
Format: Book
Who’s It For: Children of All Ages

Who hasn’t wanted to be a cool bean? To be like the “in” crowd? To have that certain “je ne sais quoi”?

In this picture book, our main character, a nameless bean, tries to be a cool bean. He tries to wear the right shades, to adopt their swagger and hairstyles. Yet, none are a fit for him. Although he used to hang out with the cool beans, now he feels like a has-bean. He snorts, he stumbles, he feels awkward and unpopular.

Yet one day, some cool beans show him some unexpected kindness. And our bean begins to wonder, “Does true ‘coolness’ actually come from the outward trimmings like sunglasses?”  Perhaps those things don’t amount to a hill of beans.

Our everyday bean tries being kind to others.  He does nice things in his own way.  He likes it.  He explores hanging out with the cool beans and being alone and content with himself.  And he discovers his very own definition of being a cool bean.

This was a gentle and humorous look at accepting oneself and exploring one’s place in the world.  And if you loved other books illustrated by Pete Oswald like The Good Egg and The Bad Seed, then this one is a must-see!

Find it in our catalog.

Six of Crows

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Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Format: Book, eBook, Audiobook
Who it’s for: Teens, Adults

In Ketterdam, a center of international trade, Kaz Brekker and his crew fight to survive in the underworld of the city. At its core, Six of Crows is a heist story. A wealthy merchant offers an obscene amount of money if Kaz and the others can travel to a nearby nation, break into the Ice Court, and free a scientist being held prisoner. Complicating matters is disagreement among the crew about what should be done with the prisoner when (if) they get him out.

The crew is Jesper, Matthias, Wylan, Nina, Inej, and Kaz: “a gambler, a convict, a wayward son, a lost Grisha, a Suli girl who had become a killer, a boy from the Barrel who had become something worse.” The story is told in alternating viewpoints and you really get to know these characters and their backgrounds. Six of Crows takes place in the Grishaverse, the same fantasy world featured in Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone trilogy, and some of the characters will be familiar to those who’ve read her other works.

Six of Crows is the first book in a duology. It ends in a cliffhanger – be ready to immediately dig in to Crooked Kingdom! Netflix is creating a series based on Bardugo’s Grishaverse, so these characters will soon be making their way to our television screens as well.

Find Six of Crows in the catalog.

The Rent Collector

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The Rent Collector by Camron Wright
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Adults & Teens

How do you find hope when your life is in the dump? I’m talking literally about the people who lived in shacks at a municipal dump in Cambodia and spent their days picking recyclables out of the trash to get enough money for food. This real life story was told in a 2009 documentary called River of Victory.
The director’s father, Camron Wright, was so moved by the struggle of these people that he wrote this book, which is a fictional story woven around many of the characters and facts from the documentary. The author added in the gift of literacy to one character and examined how literature has transformative power for us no matter what our background is or what our life circumstances are.
The Rent Collector is a truly wonderful story that, like other great literature, will make you think about who your heroes are.
Find it in the Catalog

This is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences

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This is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences by Sarah E. Hill
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Adults and Teens

Will your moods go up—or down—once you’re on the pill?

Does using hormonal birth control change your ability to remember events in your life?

Can being on the pill influence who you choose to marry?

Scientists have found the answers, but the vast majority of women have no idea that they should even be asking these questions. This is Your Brain on Birth Control aims to change that situation. Sarah Hill, a psychologist (and birth-control user) explains how a seemingly simple decision about which method of pregnancy prevention to use can affect far more of your life than you’d ever suspect.

This book is no anti-birth-control polemic, though. Hill argues that the best path forward is not the restriction of access, but the spread of information. Women, once adequately informed, can make the best decisions for themselves about this matter of critical importance to women’s (and, it turns out, men’s) lives.

This is Your Brain on Birth Control feels like a conversation with your witty best friend who happens to have a PhD. If you’ve ever used hormonal birth control, plan to use it in the future, or are close to someone who does, you just might want to find it in the catalog.

From Twinkle, With Love

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Recommended Book
From Twinkle, With Love by  Sandhya Menon
Publication Date: May 22, 2018
Format: Book or ebook
Who it’s for: Teens

“In this delightful romantic comedy from the New York Times bestselling author of When Dimple Met Rishi, told through the letters Twinkle writes to her favorite female filmmakers, From Twinkle, with Love navigates big truths about friendship, family, and the unexpected places love can find you.

Aspiring filmmaker and wallflower Twinkle Mehra has stories she wants to tell and universes she wants to explore, if only the world would listen. So when fellow film geek Sahil Roy approaches her to direct a movie for the upcoming Summer Festival, Twinkle is all over it. The chance to publicly showcase her voice as a director? Dream come true. The fact that it gets her closer to her longtime crush, Neil Roy-a.k.a. Sahil’s twin brother? Dream come true x 2.

When mystery man N begins emailing her, Twinkle is sure it’s Neil, finally ready to begin their happily-ever-after. The only slightly inconvenient problem is that, in the course of movie-making, she’s fallen madly in love with the irresistibly adorkable Sahil.

Twinkle soon realizes that resistance is futile: The romance she’s got is not the one she’s scripted. But will it be enough?” – Publisher’s blurb

This took a bit for me to get into. It was soooooooo High School. The crush, the BFF drama, the awkwardness, the ‘Woe is me’ angst, etc. So very HS, so stereotypical; it made me cringe, laugh, and smh. I would have stopped reading it by like chapter two, if not for Books for the Beast (a YA reader’s advisory conference in Maryland) and the fact her first book got so much praise. I powered through.

It was very amusing with a couple of lil life lessons to boot. If this was a Disney Channel movie, I could have made it through without cringing so much or smh at the mistakes they made. I still would have lol at the awkward moments. Despite all those things it was a great read.

The Indian culture that was in the book was completely natural and did not feel forced. It was just a part of Twinkle’s life, her story. The gay friends felt forced, like an afterthought. I liked the text messages and emails. They made it feel epistolary. The supposed diary entries where Twinkle is writing to directors never really felt like letters. They did not really feel like a diary entries, either. Only at the beginning of the diary entry and when she closed the “letter” did it ever feel like she was writing a letter to somebody.  It felt more like just a first POV novel.

I was considering reading her debut novel but when I was talking about From Twinkle, With Love with a coworker, she said this plot sounds almost identical to When Dimple Met Rishi. Now if they made movies from her novels on Disney Channel, I would watch them all and enjoy. If I was in middle/high school and liked romance novels, I would read all her novels as well. Def geared for upper middle school and High School girls.

Read a High School Rom-Com starring a cute Indian Girl!