No such thing as the real world : stories about growing up and getting a life

Six award-winning young adult authors present short stories featuring teens who have to face the "real world" for the first time.

"The Projection" is a mind-blowing drama set in improvisational theater. The emotionally charged situation shifts to a complex illusion of what is real and what is an act. A staged relationship is played out and a mind game is replayed, unwound, and rewound in the present, past, and future. An Na's "Complication" is a disturbing story of a rape victim and single mother's scheme to target and extort money from her attacker's relative. Trying to redeem his brother's crime by showing tenderness and concern, the good brother strives toward resolution, but Fay has her own ideas and needs to be free. Beth Kephart's "The Longest Distance" addresses the deceased's best friend and teen suicide. The narrator is sad, confused, and desperate to answer the age-old question, "Why?" Other contributors include K. L. Going, Chris Lynch, and Jacqueline Woodson. This unique collection will challenge students' intellect and have them questioning their own decision-making skills. A fine balance is straddled between sophisticated prose and authentic teen voices, uninhibited and peppered with profanity - School Library Journal Review


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Living Dead Girl

Starred Review. Fans of Scott's YA romances Perfect You or Bloom may be unprepared for the unrelieved terror within this chilling novel, about a 15-year-old girl who has spent the last five years being abused by a kidnapper named Ray and is kept powerless by Ray's promise to harm her family if she makes one false move. The narrator knows she is the second of the girls Ray has abducted and renamed Alice; Ray killed the first when she outgrew her childlike body at 15, and now Alice half-hopes her own demise is approaching (I think of the knife in the kitchen, of the bridges I've seen from the bus... but the thing about hearts is that they always want to keep beating). Ray, however, has an even more sinister plan: he orders Alice to find a new girl, then train her to Ray's tastes. Scott's prose is spare and damning, relying on suggestive details and their impact on Alice to convey the unimaginable violence she repeatedly experiences. Disturbing but fascinating, the book exerts an inescapable grip on readers—like Alice, they have virtually no choice but to continue until the conclusion sets them free. Ages 16–up. Publisher Weekly Review

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