2012 ABE Reader Books

After by Amy Efaw

As the story opens, Devon is found by the police lying on her family sofa, bloody after giving birth to a baby which was found in the dumpster by a passerby. The story moves through Devon's arrest, her confusion about what is happening to her, and the preliminary court proceedings to determine whether she will be tried as an adult for attempted murder or in juvenile court.

Beastly by Alex Flinn

High school student Kyle Kingsbury knows he can get away with anything because of his good looks and father's money.  Kyle goes too far when he humiliates an unpopular girl, who curses Kyle turning him into a beast who is now as ugly on the outside as he is on the inside. The only way for Kyle to break the curse is to find someone who will look past his appearance and love him in return. 

Before I Die by Jenny Downham

Tessa has just months to live. Fighting back against hospital visits, endless tests, and drugs with excruciating side effects, Tessa compiles a list. It’s her To Do Before I Die list. And number one is Sex. Released from the constraints of “normal” life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up.

Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford

Will Carter is about to start high school and worries about finding his place and making his mark, especially when it come to girls. Carter isn't exactly smooth, he's got ADD and tends to stutter but he has a great group of friends and a wise sister who'll help him find his first love, face down the school bully, and learn who he really is.

Columbine by Dave Cullen

In this remarkable account of the Columbine High School shooting, Cullen not only dispels several of the prevailing myths about the event but tackles the hardest question of all: why did it happen? Drawing on extensive interviews and police reports Cullen meticulously pieces together what happened when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people before turning their guns on themselves.

The Compound by S.A. Bodeen

In a panic about a nuclear attack, nine-year-old Eli, his sisters, and his parents move into an underground bunker built by Eli's billionaire father. The first six years of the planned fifteen have been fairly routine, but now some food has spoiled, and certain things just don't seem right, or even possible. Eli is starting to have doubts about his father's motives, explanations, and sanity.

Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan

Fifteen-year-old Blake has a girlfriend and a friend who’s a girl. One of them loves him; the other one needs him. When he snapped a picture of a street person for his photography homework, Blake never dreamed that the woman in the photo was his friend Marissa’s long-lost meth addicted mom. Blake’s participation in the ensuing drama opens up a world of trouble, both for him and for Marissa.

Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19-Year Old GI by Ryan Smithson

Smithson responded to 9/11 by enlisting in the Army Reserve and being deployed to Iraq. Once there, he worked in an equipment platoon, bulldozing berms, filling craters created by IEDs, and convoying lumber. Some of the author's most poignant passages are his descriptions of interactions with Iraqi children. It is these children and the villagers he met that help explain for him the purpose of the war.

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Cameron is a 16-year-old slacker diagnosed with Mad Cow Disease. The heart of the story is a hallucinatory quest to battle evil forces with a legendary jazz horn player, escape the clutches of a happiness cult, experiment with scientists to solve the mysteries of the universe, and to save a gnome embodying a Viking god from the fame-obsessed MTV-culture clones shunning individual thought.

How to Build a House by Dana Reinhardt

Seventeen-year-old Harper Evans is spending her summer with Homes from the Heart, a teen volunteer organization that is rebuilding a home in Bailey, TN, after the town is hit by a major tornado. Her father and stepmother are getting divorced, her sometime-boyfriend Gabriel is indifferent, and her beloved stepsister, Tess, is increasingly distant and hostile toward her.

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

The last normal moment Mia can remember is being in the car with her family. Then she is standing outside her body beside their mangled Buick and her parents' corpses, watching herself and her little brother being tended by paramedics. As she ponders her state, Mia is whisked away to a hospital, where, her body in a coma, she reflects on the past and tries to decide whether to fight to live.

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

Alyss Heart, heir to the Wonderland throne, is forced to flee when her vicious aunt Redd murders her parents, the King and Queen of Hearts. She escapes through the Pool of Tears to Victorian London, but she finds she has no way home. Adopted by the Liddells, who christen her Alice Liddell and disapprove of her wild stories about Wonderland, Alyss begs Charles Dodgson to tell her real story.

Love is the Higher Law by David Levithan

The lives of three teens are shattered on September 11, 2001. Claire, a high school junior, has to get to her younger brother in his classroom. Jasper, a college sophomore, wakes to his parents’ frantic calls from Korea, wondering if he’s okay. Peter has to make his way back to school as everything happens around him. 

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by walls. All they know is that every morning the doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed. And every 30 days a new boy is delivered in the lift.

Mexican White Boy by Matt de la Pena

Biracial Danny Lopez doesn’t think he fits anywhere. He feels like an outsider with his Mexican father’s family, and at his mostly white school. He also struggles with his obsession for baseball; a gifted player with a blazing fastball, he lacks control of his game. With the support of a new friend and his caring cousins, Danny begins to deal with the multitude of problems in his life. 

Reality Check by Peter Abrahams

Cody sustains a serious knee injury that leaves him on the bench during the most important recruiting year in high school. With no college scholarship in sight, he drops out of school. When his rich girlfriend, Clea, is reported missing from her Vermont boarding school, he drives east to find her and risks his life in the process.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Grace loves the peace and tranquility of the woods behind her home. It is here during the cold winter months that she gets to see her wolf—the one that he saved her from an attack by other wolves when she was nine. Over the ensuing years he has returned each season, watching her with those haunting eyes as if longing for something to happen.

Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr

When Deanna's father catches her having sex in a car when she is 13, her life is drastically changed. Two years later, he still can't look her in the eye, and though Tommy is the only boy she's been with, she is branded the school slut. Deanna learns to protect herself by becoming outwardly tough. Her only outlet is her journal in which she writes the story of an anonymous girl who has the same experiences and feelings that she does.

Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines by Nic Sheff

Nic Sheff was drunk for the first time at age eleven. In the following years, he regularly smoked pot, did cocaine and Ecstasy, and developed addictions to crystal meth and heroin. Even so, he felt like he would always be able to quit and put his life together whenever he needed to. It took a violent relapse one summer to convince him otherwise. In a voice that is raw and honest, Nic spares no detail in telling us the compelling, true story of his relapse and the road to recovery.

Why I Fight by J. Adams Oaks

Ever since he turned 12 ½, Wyatt has been on the road with his cool uncle Spade, who lives by his wits and has a different “ladyfriend” in every town they visit. His uncle’s Chevy “was my house,” Wyatt tells the reader, and “all his ladyfriends was my mom.” It’s Spade’s idea that Wyatt,should start bare-knuckle fighting for money, and the boy, heartbreakingly eager to please, complies, winning fight after fight—until the last one.

Wish You Were Dead by Todd Strasser

When a high school student announces on her blog that she hates Lucy Cunningham and wishes her dead, no one takes her seriously—until Lucy disappears. Madison Archer is particularly shaken by the disappearance, as she was the last to see her that night. When the blogger posts another name, a second student goes missing—and then a third. Madison needs to find her missing friends before it's too late—for them and for herself.

World War Z by Max Brooks

Brooks tells the story of the world's desperate battle against the zombie threat with a series of first-person accounts by various characters around the world. A Chinese doctor encounters one of the earliest zombie cases when the Chinese government is ruthlessly suppressing any information about the outbreak. The tale then follows the outbreak via testimony of smugglers, spies, soldiers and others who struggle to defeat the zombie menace.