New Releases: K-Pop, Sociopaths, and a Girl Without Hands

Finding Audrey, by Sophie Kinsella
Kinsella’s first YA is about a teen girl finding her way back to life after a psychologically damaging incident. It’s also about the ridiculous awesomeness of overprotective parents, sibling bonds, and first love. Audrey hides behind dark glasses and finds it easiest to brave the world through a camera lens, but Kinsella makes even her constricted home life—Audrey’s biggest issue, as she struggles with social anxiety, is a fear of the outside world—into a place worth visiting, through Audrey’s keen observations of her wonderfully nutty family. Audrey’s healing process is helped along by a sweet romance, with a patient boy who wants to know the girl behind the sunglasses.

Delicate Monsters, by Stephanie Kuehn
Like its knockout predecessors Charm & Strange and Complicit, Kuehn’s deliciously depraved third novel is a psychological mindf*ck rendered in pristine prose. It centers on three teens in a wealthy California community: sociopathic Sadie; her one-time protegé in dark deeds, Emerson; and Emerson’s damaged, bully-magnet little brother Miles. Each character is capable of monstrousness, but their pitch-black story, speeding toward some hinted-at event horizon, is leavened with moments of grace.

Our Brothers at the Bottom of the Sea, by Jonathan David Kranz
Rachel and Ethan have both recently lost their brothers—Rachel’s to an apparent roller-coaster accident, Ethan’s to drowning in the ocean. Both are stricken with survivor’s guilt, and both work at Happy World, the amusement park where Rachel’s brother died. Strange discoveries, entries from Ethan’s brother’s journal, and the behavior of Happy World’s creepy owner coalesce into a mystery, the solving of which might lead to resolution for both lost teens.

The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly, by Stephanie Oakes
Following her escape from the polygamous cult her parents joined when she was small—an escape that came at the cost of her amputated hands, and followed the torching of the cult’s land—Minnow Bly commits a random, violent assault that lands her in juvie. But it’s better than what she left behind, and once incarcerated, she begins to learn about the world she’s been kept from. As Minnow starts to heal, the truth about her hands, the fire, and the horrific nature of the “Kevinian” cult slowly come to light.

Hello, I Love You, by Katie M. Stout
While on the run from one world of musical superstardom, Grace finds herself right on the precipice of another. The daughter of a famous Nashville producer and sister to one of country music’s biggest stars, she runs as far as she can from a secretly miserable home life, ending up in boarding school in Seoul. There, she shares an instant bond with her roommate, sister to a K-pop star—then starts falling unexpectedly for the arrogant star himself.

Last Year’s Mistake, by Gina Ciocca
The arrival at her school of transfer student David, with whom she shares a romantic past, sends Kelsey into a tailspin. As she tries to decide what’s more important, holding onto what she has or trying to regain what she lost, secrets are revealed, old feelings are restoked, and swoons are swooned.

Even When You Lie to Me, by Jessica Alcott
Outshone by her suddenly popular best friend and minimized by her dismissive mother, quiet senior Charlie can’t wait to escape to college—until she joins the school newspaper and finds herself getting close to Mr. Drummond, the teacher everyone has a little bit of a crush on. But what Charlie has is more than a crush, and she has the feeling Mr. Drummond might reciprocate. Alcott ratchets up the tension and diminishing boundaries between Charlie and her teacher, right up to their inevitable conclusion, while maintaining her wry, funny touch.