Showing titles in Coming of Age

An entire family comes of age simultaneously in this funny and poignant novel, narrated by a gay 22-year-old son torn between embracing and rejecting his quirky suburban kin. After abandoning a planned suicide, Joshua Royalton returns to his childhood home to unravel the elaborate tales, theories, and neuroses he developed while growing up, including a fictional history of Chinese restaurants, a mortal fear of crows, an obsession with singer Carly Simon, and his parents' addiction to jigsaw puzzles.

Chris and RJ are two teenage boys raised in Mormon communities. Though both are poster boys for their church with perfect academic records and pretty girlfriends; buried feelings soon rise to the surface when they are assigned to serve a mission together as part of their rite of passage.

In the sleepy town of Townsend, Washington, there was an act so gruesome that no one would ever be the same. What heinous crime do I speak of? Skylar Torres thinking she could pull off a crop top with that pudgy body of hers. Oh, did you think I was going to say my murder. Well, I thought it was more sensational than anything else, but the real scandal was who killed me and why.

Diamonds and Devils is a story of the life of Roger Holt who grew up as a gay boy with an Evangelical pastor-father, and later became a minister in a predominately LGBTQ congregation. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes disturbing, but always engaging, Roger's story takes the listener through a life of discovery and challenges. It explores finding and losing religion. When the elderly preacher-father shows up with dementia at his grown gay son’s doorstep, there are shattering revelations.

Meet Haskell Hodge. At 16, he’s already garnered some fame as a former child actor and star of a popular cereal commercial. But that doesn’t do much for him when he’s dumped at his aunt’s house in the suburbs of Los Angeles to face an assortment of neighborhood bullies. He thinks he might be gay. In fact, he could be the only gay person in the valley, maybe on the entire planet. Even if he does manage to find a boyfriend, their relationship would have to be secret and invisible.

Pierpaolo è cresciuto in un quartiere popolare alla periferia di Napoli, ma ha avuto la fortuna di nascere in alto, all'ultimo piano di una delle palazzine innalzate dal padre, e da quella posizione privilegiata lui e i genitori dominano la giungla di tetti, antenne e terrazzi abusivi sotto di loro. Studia medicina per accontentare i suoi, esce con le ragazze per non deludere gli amici, convinto che assecondando le aspettative degli altri possa difendersi da se stesso: ha vent'anni e ha appena capito di essere gay.

Vi è mai capitato di sentirvi smarriti, eppure dannatamente felici? Di imbattervi in una strada che porta chissà dove, e di morire dalla voglia di percorrerla? Vi è mai successo di inseguire un sogno con tutte le vostre forze, e avere paura che si realizzi davvero? È esattamente così che si sente Diana, appena sbarcata a Milano da una cittadina del Sud per iniziare la sua nuova vita. Nuova scuola, nuova casa ma, al suo fianco, gli amici di sempre, Luca e Arianna. Eppure, nella Città dei Grandi Sogni le cose non sono mai ciò che sembrano.

Best mates Karl and Abu are both 17 and live near King's Cross. It's 2011 and racial tensions are set to explode across London. Abu is infatuated with gorgeous classmate Nalini but dares not speak to her. Meanwhile, Karl is the target of the local "wannabe" thugs just for being different. When Karl finds out his father lives in Nigeria, he decides that Port Harcourt is the best place to escape the sound and fury of London, and connect with a Dad he's never known. Rejected on arrival, Karl befriends Nakale, an activist who wants to expose ecocide....

Ray Shepard is a wealthy architect who has mystified his friends by marrying Evelyn, a woman who works at a nail salon. Evelyn, in turn, hides a secret past about her former life in the circus, her ex-husband's mysterious death, and the colorful tattoos she carefully conceals under her clothes. When Evelyn starts to cave under the pressure of living in Ray's rarified world, she suggests they take in Ingrid, a 16-year-old girl with blue hair, a pet iguana, and no place to stay for the summer.

Two years after his partner, Francesco, died, 28-year-old Kevin Doyle is dusting off his one good suit jacket for yet another funeral, yet another loss in their close-knit group. They had all been young, beautiful, and living the best days of their lives, though they didn't know it. That was before New York City began to feel like a war zone, its horrors somehow invisible, and ignored by the rest of the world. Some people might insist that Francesco is in a better place now, but Kevin definitely isn't.

Farah moves into Liberty House - an arcadia, a community in harmony with nature - at the tender age of six, with her family. The commune's spiritual leader, Arcady, preaches equality, non-violence, anti-speciesism, free love, and uninhibited desire for all. At 15, Farah learns she is intersex, and begins to go beyond the confines of gender, as she explores the arc of her own desires. What, Farah asks, is a man or a woman? What does it mean to be part of a community? What is utopia when there are refugees nearby seeking shelter who cannot enter?

Raised as a boy in a grand but unhappy family in Nigeria, Otolorin Akinro escapes to boarding school knowing two things: she is truly a girl, and to stay safe, she must hide that truth. Away from the cruelty of her childhood home, Oto blooms even as she strives to be the best boy she can, finding true friendship and working hard to earn a scholarship to an American university, hoping someone out there might help her understand the secrets her body holds.

Bettina and Bart have grown up as best friends, so surely they will end up together? After all, Bettina is young, rich, headstrong...and gay. Bart is young, rich, charismatic...and also, definitely, gay. Any doubts are dispelled by, in short order: that ghastly kiss; a torrid encounter for Bettina in the school boiler-rooms; and an eye-opening Parisian visit for Bart. Society will never stand for it. What else can they do but enter into a ‘lavender marriage’ and carry on indulging their true natures in secret?

Winner of the 2017 Red Hen Press Women’s Prose Prize, Like Wings, Your Hands is both a philosophical novel and a coming-of-age story, exploring a mother-son relationship in the context of disability and interdependence....

Every summer, Jessie and Emma leave their suburban home in the Central Valley of California and fly north to Baymont. Nestled among Mendocino's golden hills, with ponies to love and endless acres to explore, Baymont should be a child's paradise. But Baymont belongs to Laurel, the girls' birth mother, whose heedless parenting and tainted judgement cast a long shadow over the sisters' summers - and their lives. Caught in a web of allegiances, the girls learn again and again that every loyalty has its price, and that even forgiveness can take unexpected turns.

In Grosse Pointe, Michigan the idle rich run wild among one another. The Knights are part of the big four in terms of the US automotive industry. The Fitzpatrick’s are extremely wealthy for a number of things...Beautiful, rich, and dysfunctional. Come, see how the other half live!

Madison Archer was a perfect daughter, with perfectly dark secrets. She did not mind that her father used her as a pawn in a business deal. She knew this role well, but meeting Jackie Westin sent her perfect world into a tailspin. Jackie introduced Madison to a different kind of love in a different kind of world, a world that would bend everything Madison believed about life. This is a tale of forbidden love, in a world of dark secrets, betrayals, and intrigue.

Tijabab [TEE-juh-baab] is a cute, little, genderless bunny who survives various encounters with fear and grows up to find Truth, Forgiveness, and Freedom.

For two decades Tyler Gibbons has been keeping a secret from his family. At the tender age of 16, Tyler embarks on a student exchange program. Sent to the Andean city of Ambato, Ecuador, he finds daily adventure as he tries to fit in at school, connect with his host family, and navigate through a world of beaches, volcanoes, and jungles. But tucked deep inside this year are events so profound, so unexpected, they forever shape the man he will become. Now, 25 years later, his mother pulls these soaring tales from her son, exposing, for the first time, the source of a deep unhappiness.

After a string of sexual conquests, she is determined to figure out why the intense romantic connections she's spent her life chasing have left her emotionally high and dry. As Natalie sifts through her past and her present, she confronts her complicated feelings about her plus-sized figure, her bisexuality, and her thwarted career in fashion design.