School is the backdrop for dramas, comedies, and everything in between in these varied six novels recommended for middle- and/or high-school readers. See also the Schools -- Middle schools and  Schools -- High schools tags in the Guide/Reviews Database.

Not like Other Girls
by Meredith Adamo
High School    Bloomsbury    448 pp.
4/24    9781547614004    $19.99
e-book ed.  9781547614011    $13.99

Seventeen-year-old Jo is quick to list qualities she’s learned are “the trouble with girls like me.” She’s “wild,” “difficult,” “a slut.” A social outcast after a classmate leaked nude photos, she’s mostly ignored by her parents and failing school. When her ex-best friend, Maddie, one of the popular girls, asks for help, Jo can’t imagine why — but before Maddie can explain, she disappears. Everyone thinks she ran away, but Jo believes it’s not that simple. She teams up with Hudson, a friend (or maybe more) who has his own reasons to investigate Maddie’s disappearance; together, they uncover a schoolwide scandal with dangerous implications. The mystery has all the elements of a good thriller: characters you can’t necessarily trust; nail-biting suspense; and a twisty, surprising conclusion. But there’s another layer: what happened to Jo at age fifteen, when she and Maddie stopped being friends. Jo’s experience, once revealed, is clearly sexual assault, contextualizing her bitterness, rage, and self-blame. It takes time, and some help, for Jo to recognize it, too, and reclaim her body and her voice. Adamo writes with compassion for “girls like me” (an author’s note acknowledges firsthand experience) who deserve to be listened to, believed, and loved—and nothing less. RACHEL L. KERNS

Shut Up, This Is Serious
by Carolina Ixta
High School    Quill Tree/HarperCollins    368 pp.
1/24    9780063287860    $19.99
e-book ed.  9780063287884    $10.99

It’s senior year, and while Belén’s classmates are focused on college applications, she’s flunking school and struggling to cope with a shattered home life. Since her pa walked out on their family, her ma has been withdrawn, crying and seemingly overlooking the past-due bills piling up. Belén’s best friend, Leti, is a straitlaced student determined to get into UC Berkeley, but now Leti is pregnant and worried that her boyfriend, who is Black, will be rejected by her racist parents. As Belén sinks into her loneliness, she seeks affection from a college guy to distract herself from the pain of her father’s abandonment and the constant comparisons to him from unsympathetic relatives. Misogyny, racism, religion, and unjust expectations for girls like Belén and Leti are explored within their Mexican culture with sharp rebukes and meaningful introspection about identity and breaking out of toxic familial and cultural cycles. A cast of secondary characters bolsters Belén’s development, though few (other than Leti) are given sufficient airtime to feel fully realized. The Oakland, California, setting is brought to life through rides on the BART and visits to the frutero that illustrate the city’s diversity. The protagonist’s strong narrative voice, the realistic emotional tone, and thematic touchstones will hook fans of Sánchez’s I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter (rev. 3/18). JESSICA AGUDELO

The Color of a Lie
by Kim Johnson
Middle School, High School    Random    336 pp.
6/24    9780593118801    $19.99
Library ed.  9780593118818    $22.99
e-book ed.  9780593118825    $10.99

Moving to a new town can prove stressful for anyone — but for Calvin Greene and his family in 1955, it’s also dangerous. African Americans passing for white, the Greene family has moved to Levittown, Pennsylvania, a known “sundown town” — a suburb populated by white people that warns people of color to leave the area by sunset. Determined to grab a piece of the “American dream,” Calvin’s army-veteran father has advised him and his mother to forget their former lives in Chicago and assimilate as well as possible. Calvin’s only solace is visiting his older brother, who is unable to pass as white and who runs a boarding school in an area where a developer is attempting to build an integrated community. At the school, Calvin meets Lily, a beautiful girl with “dark brown skin” who decides to take advantage of the new Brown v. Board of Education ruling by attending Calvin’s all-white school. With his two worlds dangerously close to each other, tragedies involving people from his hometown prompt Calvin to act in the best interests of all those close to him — even if it could cost him his life. Tension is evident from the beginning to the frenetic end of this page-turning novel, which weaves historical events into the narrative. Back matter includes an author’s note and resources on topics including passing, the history of Levittown, and redlining. EBONI NJOKU

Prom Babies
by Kekla Magoon
High School    Holt    304 pp.
4/24    9781250806253    $20.99
e-book ed.  9781250806246    $11.99

The year is 2005, and high school students Mina, Penney, and Sheryl are looking forward to prom night as an opportunity to dress up, dance, and have fun with their friends. Of course, there are also their dates: Penney’s long-term boyfriend, Mina’s boyfriend of convenience, and Sheryl’s cute classmate. While their experiences that night are vastly different, they wind up at the same Planned Parenthood office having received the same news: they are all pregnant. Their decisions to continue the pregnancies form an unexpected alliance among the three, with Mina, Penney, and Sheryl vowing to look after one another and their families. Eighteen years later, their children are preparing for their prom night, with complex issues of their own. Blossom is trying to figure out how far she should go with her boyfriend. While Amber has consented to attend with her girlfriend, she still takes issue with the gender-biased nature of the prom rules — and decides to address it on a school-wide level. Cole discovers a family secret while attempting to navigate his own problematic ideas about consent. The book, which alternates among all these characters and between the two time periods, considers issues of women’s rights, misogyny, classism, and more from multiple viewpoints. There are no easy resolutions to any of these topics, but Magoon’s empathetic, sometimes humorous style will leave readers with a sense of empowerment to form their own views. Appended “reflections and resources” address the state of contemporary reproductive rights in the U.S. EBONI NJOKU

Flawless Girls
by Anna-Marie McLemore
High School    Feiwel    288 pp.
5/24    9781250869630    $20.99
e-book ed.  9781250869623    $11.99

In this novel set vaguely during the mid-twentieth century, new-money sisters Renata, almost twenty, and Isla, seventeen, have a reputation for making waves. To solidify a future for them, Abuela pulls strings to get them into the Alarie House, a mysterious finishing school that churns out untouchably sophisticated young ladies. Isla is certain her grandmother and sister also hope that the school will validate Isla’s femininity: she is intersex (though the term is not used in the world of the book). Isla barely lasts a night in the strange house and returns home, but when Renata later comes back uncannily changed after graduation and flees into the night, Isla quickly returns to Alarie House, determined to find out what happened to her sister. What she discovers is more terrifying — and nuanced — than she could have imagined. In between somnambulant nightmares and surprising kisses with an aspiring lapidarist (a gem-cutter), Isla reflects on feminine ideals and her own identity. McLemore’s heavy use of metaphor — is everything jewel-like, or is everything a jewel? It’s hard to tell — creates an unusual tale that drips with twisted glamour. An author’s note explains how McLemore relates to Isla’s character through their own experience of gender identity and Latinidad and argues for larger discussions surrounding differences of sex development. Unsettling and packed with sparkly detail, this book is perfect for gothic-literature and period-piece fans who are eager for a much-needed update in representation. MONICA DE LOS REYES

You’re Breaking My Heart
by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
Middle School, High School    Levine/Levine Querido    304 pp.
1/24    9781646141814    $19.99

Fourteen-year-old Harriet is convinced she’s responsible for her older brother Tunde’s tragic death and wishes more than anything that she could take back the cruel words she spoke to him that fateful morning. Others’ efforts to surround Harriet with community (her mother transfers her to her cousin Nikka’s school) and to look out for her (Tunde’s friend Luke promised to) prove less than helpful. Harriet’s solace is swimming, but that small joy is shattered when she begins to see her brother’s face in the pool and is pulled underwater by an unknown force. New classmate Alisia seems to be an ally, but there’s something strange about her. In an attempt to discover the truth, Nikka and Luke join Harriet in an underground journey into a fantasy world. As the line between what’s real and what isn’t begins to blur in Harriet’s mind, she dreams of a new world for herself — one where she is forgiven. In this moving work, Rhuday-Perkovich has created characters whose internal struggles are palpable and an intriguing narrative with both tension and introspection that delves into themes of guilt, redemption, and the possibility of second chances. EBONI NJOKU

From the July 2024 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.