interpersonal relations

Fifteen-year-old Evia Birtwhistle can?t seem to catch a break. At home, she must deal with her free-spirited mom, and at school she?s the target of ridicule for stating basic truths: like that girls have body hair! When her BFF Frankie?who has facial hair due to her PCOS?becomes the target of school bullies, Evia decides that enough is enough and creates the ?Hairy Girls? Club.? Leading a feminist movement at school is not easy. Boys often look at Evia like she?s a total weirdo, and the self-proclaimed ?smoothalicious? girls start their own campaign in retaliation. As Evia struggles with feeling strong enough to lead, and questions how to be a good friend to Frankie, she falls back on the best thing she has?hope. Her message is simple: We CAN make this world a more accepting, less judgmental place for girls to live in?one hairy leg at a time!.

"Molly hates Christmas. Ever since her parents released a cheesy Christmas song ten years ago--complete with a video of Molly dressed as the cutest little elf--December has gone from Ho! Ho! Ho! to Hu-Hu-Humiliating! This year takes a turn for the worse when the song of Molly's nightmares is included on the soundtrack for the hottest new holiday film. This mortifying tune is everywhere--again! As Molly tries to hide her true elf, a Christmas connection with a cute guy at the movie's premiere may make this holiday season one to remember. All she has to do is keep him from finding out the truth about the ghost of elf-mas past. But Molly isn't the only one hiding her real identity. Will her Christmas romance have a Hollywood ending--or will it be one big mistletoe mess?"--Back cover.

Marcos?s friends used to describe him as a happy family man, a successful graphic artist, and a joyous ukulele player. But then, he lost his marriage and his job, and nearly lost his newly outed transgender son to a suicide attempt after a violent attack by classmates. Marcos receded into a darkening depression as job applications went unanswered and bills piled up. An inability to afford his son?s medication raised Marcos?s anxiety to a breaking point. Desperate, he silently opened himself up to whomever or whatever might be listening and asked for help. The answer he got back from the universe was clear: ?Just do the next good thing.? The next morning, he received the email that would change his life. The subject line read simply, ?Help our friend Joe.? When Marcos clicked on it, he was surprised to find it was a job offer as a home caregiver to a remarkable 87-year-old named Joe Sabah.

Developing an algorithm to predict people's perfect matches, Grace Tang is confident it's accurate, but while trying to make things work with her own "perfect" match, she grows closer to co-worker Julia and questions who she's really attracted to.

"Provides powerful skills to ensure every conversation--especially difficult ones--leads to the results you want. . . The book teaches readers how to be persuasive rather than abrasive, how to get back to productive dialogue when others blow up or clam up, and it offers powerful skills for mastering high-stakes conversations, regardless of the topic or person"--Provided by publisher.

After breaking his leg and having his summer plans and college dreams dashed, high school football star Theo Claverback finds a new purpose and relationship while working as a prep cook in a high-end French restaurant. He soon discovers the harsh realities of the culinary world and the risks of crossing the wrong people.

Golden boy Caplan and bookish Mina have been unlikely soulmates since third grade. Bound by growing up in single-mother households on the same cul-de-sac in Two Docks, Michigan, their friendship exists miraculously outside their high school's social order. Mina is class valedictorian, expected by her late father's parents to attend his Ivy alma mater; Caplan is laughing off prom-king predictions and the fear that he's peaking too soon. When Cap's skateboard-toting, detention-dodging best friend confesses his feelings for Mina, she is whisked into a social life she never imagined, bumping shoulders with the likes of Caplan's queen-bee girlfriend. Caplan is determined that things stay just as they've always been, while Mina faces the perils and privileges of opening her heart just in time to say goodbye. As the sun sets on senior year, everything glows. What will Cap and Mina discover in the last-chance light?.

Grant Rossi is never getting a happily-ever-after. Ever since he was a kid and made a wish on his family's iconic Wishing Rose, his romantic relationships have been cursed to end. Following his most recent (and extremely public) dumping, Grant is languishing in a hot Chicago summer, abandoning his beloved design projects to sink back into depression. But when his family suggests spending the summer helping his aunt and uncle refurbish their beautiful but rundown B&B and vineyard--the home of the Wishing Rose that changed everything for him--Grant decides to accept. Maybe he can finally find a way to recover his creative spark...and break his curse. But things at the vineyard are not what Grant expects. The place is in almost total disrepair, and--even worse--the person his relatives hired to help is his former childhood crush, Ben--the first boy who broke his heart. As their chemistry sparks and the summer heats up, the wedge between them can't be ignored. But while they race to restore the B&B in time for the beloved local rose festival, grumpy but lovable Ben starts to break through Grant's carefully crafted defenses. Can Grant find a way to overcome his curse and open his heart, even when it's broken?.

You're fifteen. You spend your time at school and at Val's hair salon with Baker, Val's son, who has eyes that are like falling off a cliff into space. The salon is a space of safety, but also of possibility and dreams. When you dream, you visit an enchanted forest full of friends and wonder. You dream of witches and magic, of hair so rich and alive that it grow upwards and outwards into a wild landscape, becomes trees and leaves, and houses birds and butterflies and all the secret creatures that belong in such a forest. But when you wake, your memories vanish, and you are just you, trying to navigate relationships and learning who you will grow up to be. Is there a future where your dreams are more than just dreams?.

Castillo Torres, Student Body Association event chair and serial planner, could use a fairy godmother. After a disastrous mishap at her sister?s quincea?era and her mother's unexpected passing, all of Cas?s plans are crumbling. So when a local lifestyle-guru-slash-party-planner opens up applications for the internship of her dreams, Cas sees it as the perfect opportunity to learn every trick in the book so that things never go wrong again. The only catch is that she needs more party planning experience before she can apply. When she books a quincea?era for a teen Disneyland vlogger, Cas thinks her plan is taking off? until she discovers that the party is just a publicity stunt?and she begins catching feelings for the chambel?n. As her agenda starts to go way off-script Cas finds that real life may be more complicated than a fairy tale. But maybe Happily Ever Afters aren?t just for the movies. Can Cas go from planner to participant in her own life? Or will this would-be princess turn into a pumpkin at the end of the ball?.