Playlist For The Dead

“A page-turner that combines genuine intrigue with heartbreak and desire.” —Holly Goldberg Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Counting by 7s Part mystery, part love story, and part coming-of-age tale in the vein of Thirteen Reasons Why, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Spectacular Now, Michelle Falkoff’s debut is an honest and gut-wrenching novel about loss, rage, what if feels like to outgrow a friendship that’s always defined you—and the struggle to redefine yourself. There was a party. There was a fight. The next morning, Sam’s best friend, Hayden, was dead. And all he left Sam was a playlist of songs and a suicide note: For Sam—listen and you’ll understand. To figure out what happened, Sam has to rely on the playlist and his own memory. But the more he listens, the more he realizes that his memory isn’t as reliable as he thought. And it might only be by taking out his earbuds and opening his eyes to the people around him that he’ll finally be able to piece together his best friend’s story. And maybe have a chance to change his own. “An absorbing and sensitive read.” —Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books “Falkoff lightens the substantial topics of grief, bullying, and suicide with Sam’s engaging investigation.” —ALA Booklist “Realistic and well-written. The strong characters, dialogue and the use of the playlist to structure the book make this a good pick for struggling readers.” —School Library Journal “Falkoff treats a difficult topic with delicacy and care.” —Publishers Weekly “Truly powerful moments.” —Kirkus Reviews

A girl’s quest for perfection results in dangerous consequences in this smart, suspenseful YA novel by the author of Playlist for the Dead. Fans of We Were Liars and The Secret History will devour this layered, ensemble-cast novel in which “twists and turns abound” (SLJ). How far would you go to be perfect? Kara has the perfect life. At least, that’s what she wants everyone to believe. The truth is, she works hard to maintain that illusion. But when a moment of doubt leads Kara to do something risky—and illegal—someone sees. Before she knows it, she’s drawn into an unlikely group of classmates, all bound together by secrets of their own. Secrets that are being used against them. Soon Kara is forced to confront how far she’s willing to go to be perfect—and if that’s something she really wants to be. “Reminiscent of the novels of Joan Lowery Nixon and Lois Duncan, this mystery set in a modern-day well-to-do suburb in California will keep readers turning the pages.” —School Library Journal “Full of well-developed, diverse supporting characters. For teens who enjoy mysteries in the form of timely, realistic fiction.” —Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) “Readers will be kept guessing.” —Kirkus Reviews

Finalist for the 2022 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the 2021 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Poetry A piercing, unflinching new volume offers necessary music for our tumultuous present, from “perhaps the best public poet we have” (Boston Globe). In her first volume of new poems in twelve years, Rita Dove investigates the vacillating moral compass guiding America’s, and the world’s, experiments in democracy. Whether depicting the first Jewish ghetto in sixteenth-century Venice or the contemporary efforts of Black Lives Matter, a girls’ night clubbing in the shadow of World War II or the doomed nobility of Muhammad Ali’s conscious objector stance, this extraordinary poet never fails to connect history’s grand exploits to the triumphs and tragedies of individual lives. Meticulously orchestrated and musical in its forms, Playlist for the Apocalypse collects a dazzling array of voices: an elevator operator simmers with resentment, an octogenarian dances an exuberant mambo, a spring cricket philosophizes with mordant humor on hip hop, critics, and Valentine’s Day. Calamity turns all too personal in the book’s final section, “Little Book of Woe,” which charts a journey from terror to hope as Dove learns to cope with debilitating chronic illness. At turns audaciously playful and grave, alternating poignant meditations on mortality and acerbic observations of injustice, Playlist for the Apocalypse takes us from the smallest moments of redemption to catastrophic failures of the human soul. Listen up, the poet says, speaking truth to power; what you’ll hear in return is “a lifetime of song.”

A captivating and profound debut novel about complicated love and the friendships that have the power to transform you forever, perfect for fans of Nina LaCour and of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Mira is starting over at Saint Francis Prep. She promised her parents she would at least try to pretend that she could act like a functioning human this time, not a girl who can’t get out of bed for days on end, who only feels awake when she’s with Sebby. Jeremy is the painfully shy art nerd at Saint Francis who’s been in self-imposed isolation after an incident that ruined his last year of school. When he sees Sebby for the first time across the school lawn it’s as if he’s been expecting this blond, lanky boy with a mischief glinting in his eye. Sebby, Mira’s gay best friend, is a boy who seems to carry sunlight around with him . Even as life in his foster home starts to take its toll, Sebby and Mira together craft a world of magic rituals and impromptu road trips, designed to fix the broken parts of their lives. As Jeremy finds himself drawn into Sebby and Mira’s world, he begins to understand the secrets that they hide in order to protect themselves, to keep each other safe from those who don’t understand their quest to live for the impossible.

Perfect for fans of David Arnold and Jeff Zentner, this young adult novel from the author of Playlist for the Dead is an intriguing mystery about family, secrets, and how to move forward when the past keeps pulling you back. Patrick “Pack” Walsh may not know where he’s going in life, but he’s happy where he is. He’s got a job lined up for himself after graduation. A great girlfriend. And can’t really see himself ever leaving his small town. Then, on his eighteenth birthday, a letter from his mother changes everything. Because she’s dead. At least, that’s what he always believed. As Pack begins a journey to uncover the truth about the parents he thought he knew, the family he didn’t know he had, and the future he never realized he wanted, he starts to have a whole different understanding of his life—and where he wants to go from here. Questions I Want to Ask You is a contemporary realistic coming-of-age story with an emotionally-driven mystery at its core. Kirkus praised it as "a well-rounded, much-needed portrait."

Poet, critic, and hybrid-genre artist Johnson tracks the use of trouble in word, concept, and practice in this debut of brief, elliptical, lyric essays. He moves through a wide swath of 20th- and 21st-century music, always alert to a sense of melancholy shared among songwriters, their songs, and their listeners in the ever-growing web of popular music. "When we say 'trouble,' we refer to the history of trouble whether or not we have it in mind. When we sing trouble, we sing (with) history," Johnson writes. "A Trouble Song is a complaint, a grievance, an aside, a come-on, a confession, an admission, a resignation, a plea. It's an invitation-to sorrow." The effect of all this trouble is dizzying. Highly annotated-often to personal, humorous, and hidden effects-the book weaves among genres, chronologies, and various forms of trouble to ask "Where are we in song? Who are we in song?" Johnson suggests that an answer lies somewhere in the locus of singer, song, and listener-the "essential relations in the Trouble Song." Detouring into philosophy, cultural theory, and verse, Johnson works multilaterally to explore what trouble in popular music does to connect listeners, embolden them, and open a space from which trouble can be addressed across time.

“A gloriously over-the-top scare fest that has hidden depths. Readers will root for Kris all the way to the explosive, poignant finale.”—Publishers Weekly From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. Only a girl with a guitar can save us all. Every morning, Kris Pulaski wakes up in hell. In the 1990s she was lead guitarist of Dürt Würk, a heavy-metal band on the brink of breakout success until lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom, leaving his bandmates to rot in obscurity. Now Kris works as night manager of a Best Western; she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. Then one day everything changes—a shocking act of violence turns her life upside down, and she begins to suspect that Terry sabotaged more than just the band. Kris hits the road, hoping to reunite Dürt Würk and confront the man who ruined her life. Her journey will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a celebrity rehab center to a satanic music festival. A spine-tingling horror novel, We Sold Our Souls is an epic journey into the heart of a conspiracy-crazed, pill-popping, paranoid country that seems to have lost its very soul.