Reviews and Blog Posts: Realistic Fiction

Jennie Hodgers lived in a time before women were allowed to work, or even wear pants, so when she insisted on doing both, she was an outcast. She pretended to be a man first as a shepherd in Ireland, then as an immigrant farmhand in American, and finally as a...

This should be the best time of Scott's life: He's a star senior on the baseball team. His future in the big leagues is bright. He plays third base or the "hot corner," where anything can happen. Then he learns that anything can happen in life, too. An article about...

Carly Biels has just ruined her life. Or at least bombed the SAT, which is the same thing, right? She's worried about disappointing her teachers, her parents, and her boyfriend by not being able to get in to Princeton. Then she's contacted by a mysterious person offering to take the...

In the not-too-distant future, a gay Jewish man is elected president of the U.S. The governor of Kansas opposes his election, and demands a recount in his state. As these events unfold through the eyes of 16-year-old Duncan and his friends, they also start questioning their own beliefs, commitments, and...

Mike has dealt with a lot in her short life--the death of her father, her mother's increasing isolation, few future prospects in her small Kansas town. She finds hope in being strong on the softball field and at the gym. But then, another source of hope comes to town-Xanadu, the...

Fourteen-year-old Nick has a lot to deal with in his life, but right now the worst thing that is happening is that his moms, Erin and Jo, are splitting up. Nick looks back on growing up in his different family -- getting teased, being protected, fun times and hard times,...

Georgia McCoy doesn't know how she'll fill up the empty journal she was given by her guidance counselor because she's at risk--her mom died a few years ago, her dad doesn't communicate much, and she feels like she has to hide her artistic tendencies from him because they remind him...

Cassie has recently found evidence that her stepfather has been giving the teens he treats an experimental psychiatric drug that causes them to have delusions, and caused at least 3 of them to commit suicide. Before she can go to the authorities with what she's discovered, Cassie finds herself handcuffed...

Battle Hall (her parents named her after a building) and Nicola (Nic to her friends) meet at a summer program for gifted students. While Nic thinks she'll be spending the summer learning how to be an archeologist, she learns a lot more from her new friends and from her relationship...

After being orphaned, Maia is sent to live with distant relatives who own a rubber plantation on the Amazon River in Brazil. She and her governess, Miss Minton, find living with Maia