Hold Still by Nina LaCour
All it takes is one phone call and Caitlin's life is drastically changed. Her best friend in the world, Ingrid, has committed suicide. After a long lonely summer in which Caitlin becomes reclusive and closed off to everyone in her life, she finds Ingrid's journal tucked beneath her bed. This journal was meant as Ingrid's last goodbye to Caitlin, and as an explanation on why she killed herself. Armed with this journal, Caitlin begins a quest of self discovery and healing through her junior year of high school. I greatly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone.
Sam

Hate List by Jennifer Brown
Don't let the Nickelback lyric on the first page fool you; Hate List is a wonderful and heartbreaking journey told through the eyes of Valerie, a young girl whose boyfriend, Nick, opened fire on their classmates one early morning in May before taking his own life. Through this tragic event and trying to grasp the "why" of what happened, Valerie herself became a suspect. It turns out her boyfriend only shot those people who were on a "hate list", a list Valerie helped create. Though eventually cleared of all charges, Valerie begins the next year of school an outcast. Plagued with the thought that it was all her fault and she should have seen the warning signs in Nick and stopped the madness before it began, she has to begin to rebuild her life and come to terms with what happened. While reading this book, I went through many emotions: happiness, anger, laughter, and tears. It's a fantastic read and kept me hooked from the beginning.

Sam

The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie
Junior lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation, where he discovers that alcohol is more important to most residents than an education is. Junior decides to transfer from his reservation school to Reardan High, a white school that is more than twenty miles away. Once he arrives, Junior finds that he is the only Indian (besides the school’s mascot) there. His best friend on the reservation, Rowdy, stays behind and vows never to speak to Junior—the “traitor”—again. Junior also knows that everyone else on the reservation thinks he is an “apple”: red on the outside but white on the inside. Meanwhile, most of the students at Reardan treat Junior as an outcast as well.

Although he is stimulated by the intellectual challenges of Reardan’s advanced curriculum, Junior must fight to improve his social standing both on and off the reservation. He accomplishes this accidentally when he goes out for Reardan’s basketball team. He surprises himself when, as a freshman, he makes the varsity team and eventually even becomes a starting player. Junior’s biggest challenge comes when he must play against his former basketball team from the reservation, whose star player is none other than Junior’s ex–best friend, Rowdy.

Summary by Joyce Hart of eNotes.com

Winter Girls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Best friends Lia and Cassie share a live-threatening secret; they both have eating disorders. One day, after a stint in rehab that ended their friendship, Cassie calls Lia times. Lia never answers. The next day Lia discovers that Cassie has committed suicide. Racked with guilt over ignoring her former best friend's calls when she needed her, Lia becomes haunted by Cassie's "ghost". This ghost, or memory, of Cassie plagues Lia as she plunges deeper into her bulimia.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Laurie Halse Anderson writes the characters of Lia in a way that is stunningly realistic. With plot twists and fascinating character development, it kept me hooked from page one. It also serves as an eye opener to the psyche of a person struggling with an eating disorder amidst many other obstacles. I'd recommend this book to any fans of Anderson's previous work, or as a great starter novel if you're not yet a fan.

Reviewed by Sam age 17

Burger Wuss by M.T. Anderson

Anthony has never been able to stand up for himself —- that is, not until his girlfriend is in someone else’s arms. Then Anthony vows revenge and devises the Plan. It begins with getting a job at the fast-food restaurant where his nemesis happens to be a star employee. But when the Plan is finally in place, will Anthony’s hunger for revenge be satisfied? Will he prove he’s not a wuss?
Barnes and Noble product description.