Johanna Knowles

Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible in her family, where grumpy eighteen-year-old Sarah is working at the family restaurant, fourteen-year-old Holden is struggling with school bullies and his emerging homosexuality, and adorable, three-year-old Charlie is always the center of attention, and when tragedy strikes, the fragile bond holding the family together is stretched almost to the breaking point.

Thanks to a bully in gym class, unpopular Nate suffers a broken finger--the middle one, splinted to flip off the world. It won't be the last time a middle finger is raised on this day. Dreamer Claire envisions herself sitting in an artsy café, filling a journal, but fate has other plans. One cheerleader dates a closeted basketball star; another questions just how, as a "big girl," she fits in. A group of boys scam drivers for beer money without remorse--or...

"This isn't how Josh expected to spend senior year. He thought he'd be hanging out with his best friends, Dave and Caleb, driving around, partying, just like always. But here he is, miles from home--going to a new school, living with his Jackie Chan-obsessed uncle, Larry. Trying to forget. But Josh can't forget. So many things bring back memories of last year and the night that changed everything. He thinks about it every day. The pain, the shame,...