families

In 1965 the Bedloe family lives on a quiet street in Baltimore. Seventeen-year-old Ian has dreams for the future, until the night when he meddles in his older brother's life--and from that careless moment on, nothing can ever be the same.

In 1950s New York, sixteen-year-old Jamie's life is unsettled since her father returned from serving time in prison for refusing to name people as Communists, when her best friend turns to Jamie for help with an unplanned pregnancy.

After her father suffers a stroke, fifteen-year-old Lou must relocate from Alberta to Victoria to live with her mother Zoe, a successful novelist who abandoned Lou at birth and showed no interest in her until she was twelve.

Contains two stories that feature characters who were involved in sex crimes, including "Too Late," in which fifteen-year-old Greg sits in a teen sex offenders' facility because of an assault on his sister and realizes that everyone has given up on him; and "Train Wreck," in which the narrator reflects on the time she watched a teenage girl names Suzy get gang-raped, and did nothing.

Contains two stories including "The Trouble with Marlene" in which a teenage girl struggles to deal with her suicidal, alcoholic mother, and "Film Studies" in which Cass, the daughter of a jet-setting movie director, tries to keep up her cool facade, but it begins to melt with the arrival of a hot new guy.

In 1949, thirteen-year-old Francine goes to Catholic school in Los Angeles where she becomes best friends with a girl who questions authority and is frequently punished by the nuns, causing Francine to question her own values.

Sixteen-year-old Sophie has been frail and delicate since her premature birth, but discovers her true strength during a journey through Mexico, where the six-year-old orphan her family hopes to adopt was born, and to Guatemala, where her would-be boyfriend hopes to find his mother and plans to remain.

A collection of interrelated stories charting the disintegration of a peaceful farming community in a lush California valley.

Fifteen-year-old Hope describes events leading her to agree to her boyfriend's plan to stage her abduction, and the consequences for their relationship, her family life, and her budding career as an actress.

The story of three generations of a Nottingham family whose love affairs move backward and forward across the years.