These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly

Jo Montfort lives a life of privilege in New York City during the Gilded Age.  For a young woman of her background, this means finishing her education at an elite, private academy and marrying a young man with an equivalent pedigree.  However, Jo is not like her friends; she loves to write and in her dreams she becomes the next Nellie Bly--a famous journalist.  When her father commits suicide, Jo is forced to face her future.  Does she marry her family's choice and assume her rightful place in society or does she start investigating her father's suspicious death  at the risk of ruining her reputation and, possibly, losing her life.  This mystery combines a complex and gripping plot with  glimpses of life amongst both the very rich and very poor in 1890's New York.  Author Donnelly seasons the story with romance, as Jo is drawn to a reporter, whom her family would never accept.  Great stuff.

After the Wind by Lou Kasischke

Most readers of adventure and outdoor nonfiction are familiar with Jon Krakauer's account, Into Thin Air,  about the disaster that unfolded on Mt. Everest in 1996.  Krakauer's book combines both his personal and journalist's perspective, covering the stories of all of the expeditions involved, including the one where he was embedded.  In contrast, Kassichke focuses solely on his own experience, from his training regimen and initial contacts with expedition head Rob Hall to his own suffering and near-death experience on the mountain.  This is an absolutely gripping book . . .  I was reading it during the Seahawks/Vikings game and it made the description of the cold on Everest all the more real.  (Btw, the football players had nothing to complain about, compared to what the climbers endured!!)  Kassichke is refreshingly honest on where he feels the blame lies for this tragedy.  His personal struggle to make the right decision on whether to summit and the strength of his analysis of the inevitable fate of the Hall expedition make this a very compelling story.  Strongly recommended.

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

At eighteen, Madeline Whittier remains a teenager who has never (within her memory) breathed fresh air, played outside, gone to school, or done anything a healthy teen might do.  Madeline has been diagnosed with severe combined immunodeficiency, or the "bubble baby disease."  She is allergic to many, if not most, things in the environment, any of which can trigger a fatal reaction.  So she reads, plays word games with her mom, and takes classes online.  Then Olly moves in next door.  What starts as sneaking peaks moves on to mime, then IM.  Madeline is falling in love.  The very things she wants--to meet Olly in person, to expand her universe, to live her life more fully, could also be her death warrant.  Beautifully told and illustrated, Everything, Everything is a moving love story.

The Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi

Alix Banks is a model teenager--successful in school, good at sports, responsible for her kid brother, and very, very rich.  The problem is, all of that wealth and privilege comes at a cost, the way her father earns his living.  Alix is stalked and eventually kidnapped by a group of kids--orphans--who want her to know about her father and to help them "get even" for the damage he has done to them and to others like them.  The book is a roller coaster of plots, back-up plots, con jobs, betrayals, and dangers as the kids take on the powers of the public relations industry, pharmaceutical companies, private security firms and more.  Bacigalupi wraps serious social problems in a plot filled with action and ethical dilemmas.  Great read!

Wildlife by Fiona Wood

Australian author Wood sets this drama about teen relationships and challenges in an isolated wilderness camp for privileged youth. There are two main protagonists who tell their stories in alternating chapters: Sibylla, newly popular but uncomfortable with the way her friend Holly pushes her to hook up with the school's most dreamy guy, and new girl, Lou, who is attending the program as a way to reconnect with the world following the death of her boyfriend. The girls' stories intersect as Lou observes how Holly manipulates Sib and wonders how or whether to intervene. Lou, in turn, is a mystery to others in her cabin, and Sib tries to protect her against Holly's bullying. Supporting characters Holly and Michael challenge Sib to learn what friendship really means. There's a lot of entertaining stuff about life in an outdoor education school--learning to get along with your bunkmates, griping about food and chores, and playing pranks on other cabins. The events and personal struggles ring true; I totally enjoyed Wildlife.

The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey

The girl in this grisly story is a member of the "hungries," zombies who are driven to feed on human flesh.  Melanie is different, however.  Like the others, she is drawn to humans by their scent and is gripped with an almost uncontrollable urge to attack.  However, Melanie, though just a child, understands who she is and has desires and values that go beyond her baser instincts.   The plot revolves around a small group of survivors fleeing from an attack by another band of killers, the junkers.  Two soldiers, a "mad scientist" who wants to cut up Melanie's brain, Melanie, and a beloved teacher are struggling to work their way across lawless and dangerous terrain to reach a place of refuge.  The tension is unrelenting and the consequences for being discovered are beyond nightmarish.  I couldn't put it down.

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman and Deadly Design by Debra Dockter

These two exciting books deal with death-defying challenges for two teens, one who is facing a complete psychotic breakdown and the other who knows his heart is programmed to fail and he won’t live beyond his seventeenth birthday.

In Challenger Deep, Caden Bosch is becoming increasingly unstable and unpredictable. In his more cognitively aware moments he knows his parents are really his parents, that no one at school wants to kill him, but forces beyond his control have created a bizarre world driving him further and further away from his family and friends. The author draws on the experiences in his own family with his own son to describe the descent into mental illness and the process of healing.

Deadly Design takes on the idea of genetic manipulation of eggs in a fertility clinic to create seemingly perfect children. Kyle McAdams and his identical twin brother (but born 2 years earlier) are two of these children. Connor becomes a star football and basketball player, track star and honor student while Kyle lags behind--spending most of his time playing video games. Then Connor and several other astonishingly beautiful and talented teens die of heart failure upon their eighteenth birthday. After tracing all of them back to the same fertility lab, Kyle needs to figure out why they died and how he can avoid the same fate. Full of intrigue and evil scientists,