Sekret by Lindsay Smith

An empty mind is a safe mind.
 
Yulia knows she must hide her thoughts and control her emotions to survive in Communist Russia. But if she sometimes manipulates the black market traders by reading their thoughts when she touches their skin, so what? Anything to help her survive.

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

From the New York Times bestselling author of If I Stay

I enjoyed reading how this character takes a risk to follow her gut instead of her head. Wish i had been that adventuresome when I was that young...

Allyson Healey's life is exactly like her suitcase—packed, planned, ordered. Then on the last day of her three-week post-graduation European tour, she meets Willem. A free-spirited, roving actor, Willem is everything she’s not, and when he invites her to abandon her plans and come to Paris with him, Allyson says yes. This uncharacteristic decision leads to a day of risk and romance, liberation and intimacy: 24 hours that will transform Allyson’s life.

The Fault in Our Stars-

17 Books to Read if You Liked The Fault in Our Stars

I'm a big John Green Fan.  His books really captivate teens and adults alike.  Hearing him speak he's both engaging and humble.  Just saw the film version of The Fault in Our Stars. It really moved me.  I was glad I brought Kleenex!  Check out these other books if you're a fan.

Half bad
Sally Green.

In modern-day England, where witches live alongside humans, Nathan, son of a White witch and the most powerful Black witch, must escape captivity before his seventeenth birthday and receive the gifts that will determine his future.

Freshmen Book Club

Our 4th quarter book is Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters

We'll be discussing it on Wednesday, May 21 in the Library Learning Commons at 6:00pm

From the Publisher:

Every character in Spoon River Anthology is dead. And the dead speak. In Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthologythe speakers lie together in a hillside graveyard in a small, rural community in central Illinois. As they moulder in their earthen tombs, they spill forth their secrets to the living. From its first appearance (in serial form) in the pages of William Marion Reedy's Mirrorin 1914, the American literary world had not seen anything quite like Spoon River Anthology, and the world has yet to see its true successor, despite its influence and imitators. The Spoon River dead speak for all of us, and their secrets are the hidden things that prick at the hearts of each of us.

Ketchup Clouds by Anabel Pitcher

Interesting premise... another one to add to my books to read list (sigh)

Dear Mr. S. Harris,

Ignore the blob of red in the top left corner. It's jam, not blood, though I don't think I need to tell you the difference. It wasn't your wife's jam the police found on your shoe. . . .

I know what it's like.

Mine wasn't a woman. Mine was a boy. And I killed him exactly three months ago.
Zoe has an unconventional pen pal--Mr. Stuart Harris, a Texas Death Row inmate and convicted murderer. But then again, Zoe has an unconventional story to tell. A story about how she fell for two boys, betrayed one of them, and killed the other.

Hidden away in her backyard shed in the middle of the night with a jam sandwich in one hand and a pen in the other, Zoe gives a voice to her heart and her fears after months of silence. Mr. Harris may never respond to Zoe's letters, but at least somebody will know her story--somebody who knows what it's like to kill a person you love. Only through her unusual confession can Zoe hope to atone for her mistakes that have torn lives apart, and work to put her own life back together again.

Rising literary star Annabel Pitcher pens a captivating second novel, rich with her distinctive balance between humor and heart. Annabel explores the themes of first love, guilt, and grief, introducing a character with a witty voice and true emotional resonance.

The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout

Here's my spring break read.  I loaded the library e-book on my phone.  No more boredom waiting for Kirk's soccer practice to end!

Catalyzed by a nephew's thoughtless prank, a pair of brothers confront painful psychological issues surrounding the freak accident that killed their father when they were boys, a loss linked to a heartbreaking deception that shaped their personal and professional lives.