In her moving debut poetry collection, Leeza Jayde bravely examines and reflects on the most important relationship in our lives- the one we have with ourselves. This beautifully tender, vulnerable, and deeply intimate collection will speak to the hardest parts of yourself, and yet will still leave you inspired, filled with humbling wisdom, and wrapped in self-love. Separated into three chapters, While We're Here's sections each deal with different kinds of lessons in heartache, pain and love, the raw reality behind poor mental health, inner transformation through struggles and hard truths, and the gentle magic of hope and human kindness. Alluring line art illustrations by admired instagram artist Philipp Frohnapfel also accompany Leeza Jayde's poetry and visually aids in guiding you through the book's journey. An honest journey of what it means to live while we're alive.

Filled with humor, raw emotion, a strong voice, and a brilliant dog named Sandy Koufax, When You Were Here explores the two most powerful forces known to man-death and love. Daisy Whitney brings her characters to life with a deft touch and resonating authenticity. Danny's mother lost her five-year battle with cancer three weeks before his graduation-the one day that she was hanging on to see. Now Danny is left alone, with only his memories, his dog, and his heart-breaking ex-girlfriend for company. He doesn't know how to figure out what to do with her estate, what to say for his Valedictorian speech, let alone how to live or be happy anymore. When he gets a letter from his mom's property manager in Tokyo, where she had been going for treatment, it shows a side of a side of his mother he never knew. So, with no other sense of direction, Danny travels to Tokyo to connect with his mother's memory and make sense of her final months, which seemed filled with more joy than Danny ever knew. There, among the cherry blossoms, temples, and crowds, and with the help of an almost-but-definitely-not Harajuku girl, he begins to see how it may not have been ancient magic or mystical treatment that kept his mother going. Perhaps, the secret of how to live lies in how she died.

Newbery Award-winning author Matt de la Peña's We Were Here is a "fast, funny, smart, and heartbreaking" novel [Booklist]. When it happened, Miguel was sent to Juvi. The judge gave him a year in a group home—said he had to write in a journal so some counselor could try to figure out how he thinks. The judge had no idea that he actually did Miguel a favor. Ever since it happened, his mom can’t even look at him in the face. Any home besides his would be a better place to live. But Miguel didn’t bet on meeting Rondell or Mong or on any of what happened after they broke out. He only thought about Mexico and getting to the border to where he could start over. Forget his mom. Forget his brother. Forget himself. Life usually doesn’ t work out how you think it will, though. And most of the time, running away is the quickest path right back to what you’re running from. From the streets of Stockton to the beaches of Venice, all the way to the Mexican border, We Were Here follows a journey of self-discovery by a boy who is trying to forgive himself in an unforgiving world. "Fast, funny, smart, and heartbreaking...The contemporary survival adventure will keep readers hooked."-Booklist "This gripping story about underprivileged teens is a rewarding read."-VOYA "A furiously paced and gripping novel."-Publishers Weekly "A story of friendship that will appeal to teens and will engage the most reluctant readers."-Kirkus Reviews An ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Readers An ALA-YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers A Junior Library Guild Selection

A young boy grieves the loss of his best friend and thinks about how things would be if he were still alive.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Small Great Things and The Book of Two Ways comes “a powerfully evocative story of resilience and the triumph of the human spirit” (Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six) Rights sold to Netflix for adaptation as a feature film • Named one of the best books of the year by She Reads Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s an associate specialist at Sotheby’s now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she can close a deal with a high-profile client. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos—days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time. But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes. Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry. Her luggage is lost, the Wi-Fi is nearly nonexistent, and the hotel they’d booked is shut down due to the pandemic. In fact, the whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen. Completely isolated, she must venture beyond her comfort zone. Slowly, she carves out a connection with a local family when a teenager with a secret opens up to Diana, despite her father’s suspicion of outsiders. In the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was formed, Diana finds herself examining her relationships, her choices, and herself—and wondering if when she goes home, she too will have evolved into someone completely different.

You Were Here is a gripping, emotional novel perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon, Jennifer Niven, and Adam Silvera, that moves seamlessly from prose to graphic novel panels and word art poetry. Jaycee is about to accomplish what her older brother Jake couldn't: live past graduation. Jaycee is dealing with her brother's death the only way she can—by re-creating Jake's daredevil stunts. The ones that got him killed. Jaycee doesn't expect to have help on her insane quest of urban exploration to remember Jake. But she's joined by a group of unlikely friends—all with their own reasons for completing the dares and their own brand of dysfunction: Natalie: the ex-best friend Bishop: the heartbroken poet Zach: the slacker with Peter Pan syndrome, and... Mik: who doesn't speak, but somehow still challenges Jayce to do the unthinkable-reveal the parts of herself that she buried with her brother. From the petrifying ruins of an insane asylum to the skeletal remains of the world's largest amusement park, You Were Here takes you on an unforgettable journey of friendship, heartbreak, and inevitable change. "You Were Here is wrenchingly beautiful in its honest and achingly accurate portrayal of grief and how it breaks us—and the way unconditional friendship puts us back together."—Jo Knowles, award-winning author of See You At Harry's and Read Between the Lines "The urban explorers of You Were Here dive deep into the forgotten man-made spaces all around them—and their own feelings of loss, love, and fear. McCarthy deftly intertwines the characters' stories, filling them with authentic pain and heartache as well as soaring moments of grace and humor. I dare you to read it!" —Maggie Lehrman, author of The Cost of All Things

A chronicle of Adams’s rise from alt-country to rock stardom, featuring stories about the making of the albums Strangers Almanac and Heartbreaker. Before he achieved his dream of being an internationally known rock personality, Ryan Adams had a band in Raleigh, North Carolina. Whiskeytown led the wave of insurgent-country bands that came of age with No Depression magazine in the mid-1990s, and for many people it defined the era. Adams was an irrepressible character, one of the signature personalities of his generation, and as a singer-songwriter he blew people away with a mature talent that belied his youth. David Menconi witnessed most of Whiskeytown’s rocket ride to fame as the music critic for the Raleigh News & Observer, and in Ryan Adams, he tells the inside story of the singer’s remarkable rise from hardscrabble origins to success with Whiskeytown, as well as Adams’s post-Whiskeytown self-reinvention as a solo act. Menconi draws on early interviews with Adams, conversations with people close to him, and Adams’s extensive online postings to capture the creative ferment that produced some of Adams’s best music, including the albums Strangers Almanac and Heartbreaker. He reveals that, from the start, Ryan Adams had a determined sense of purpose and unshakable confidence in his own worth. At the same time, his inability to hold anything back, whether emotions or torrents of songs, often made Adams his own worst enemy, and Menconi recalls the excesses that almost, but never quite, derailed his career. Ryan Adams is a fascinating, multifaceted portrait of the artist as a young man, almost famous and still inventing himself, writing songs in a blaze of passion. “Menconi, a veteran music critic based in Raleigh, North Carolina, had a front row seat for alt-country wunderkind Ryan Adams’ rise to prominence—from an array of local bands, to Whiskeytown, and on to a successful and prolific solo career. Here, Menconi enthusiastically revisits those heady days when the mercurial Adams’ performances were either transcendent or tantrum-filled—the author was there for most of them, and he packs his book with tales of magical performances and utterly desperate train wrecks. . . . This interview- and anecdote-laden exposé of the artist's early career will doubtless find a happy home with Adams fans.” —Publishers Weekly