All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Theodore Finch meets Violet Markey when both climb to the school's bell tower to contemplate what it would mean to jump.  Forever searching for a way to justify living, Finch combines two projects--a geography class assignment to visit special places in the state (Indiana) and helping Violet to deal with her despair at the recent loss of her older sister.  The pair's developing relationship is told in alternating viewpoints that contrast Finch's irrepressible nature and attraction to Violet with her reluctance to be associated with someone commonly known as Freak.  The dialog is witty and the teens are sympathetic and engaging. The book deals with  love, responsibility,  family dysfunctions, school bullying and peer pressure, and mental illness.  This is both a satisfying and heart-wrenching story.

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

Forgive me, Leonard Peacock is a gripping tale of a troubled teen's last day of life before he shoots his former best friend and then himself with his grandfather's P-38 pistol, a relic from WW II.  Leonard's recitation of the things he has to do before his final acts is fleshed out with footnotes that reveal the suffering that drives him to plan this murder/suicide.  ""34. You should read about all of those [other]  killers.  They all have a lot in common.  I bet they felt lonely in many ways, helpless, FORGOTTEN, ignored, alienated, irrelevant, cynical, and sad . . ."  This is Leonard in a nutshell.  No one remembers his eighteenth birthday; no one except maybe his Holocaust Studies teacher,  Herr Silverman, and his elderly neighbor Walt seems to care one way or another what happens to him.  Betrayed by his best friend, Asher, snubbed by the beautiful and uber-Christian Lauren, and basically abandoned by his mother, Linda,  Leonard moves through his day hoping against hope that someone will connect with him enough to deter him from his violent intentions.

At first the story just seems like  a creepy way to introduce us to the mind of deranged potential killer who takes a weapon to school to revenge himself against everyone who has bullied him.  But as  Leonard keeps writing,  his dark humor and anguish combine to make him much more sympathetic. He is a teen with serious issues struggling to find good in the world.  As much as Leonard wants to kill Asher, he has also prepared special gifts for the few people who have made his life bearable.  

There are some rather strange passages in the beginning that appear to be letters Leonard and his daughter have written to him from the future, but eventually these make sense as a strategy suggested by Herr Silverman to show Leonard that if he can imagine a world where things get better, this will help him to deal with his depression.

Leonard seems to me to be a character well worth knowing and trying to understand.  His internal dialogs ring true as do the efforts of other characters to reach him.  Recommended.

Butter By Erin Jade Lange

Butter has enormous musical talent; he plays the saxophone and loves jazz.  Sadly, he only plays alone, to forget he is an emotionally isolated and physically challenged teen.  For Butter weighs over 400 pounds and is convinced that no one can see beyond his dimensions to get to really know him.  Butter (you learn about his nickname in the book) escapes through his music and through the web, where he has a deepening relationship with Anna, one of the coolest girls in school. Fearful that revealing his true identity will scare away the girl of his dreams, Butter creates a new persona--that of a star athlete at a nearby private school.

While most of his classmates ignore him completely or look at him only with pity and a certain fascination, there are some who see opportunities to be cruel. After Butter discovers someone's online post that shows him eating, he impulsively decides to start his own website where he can control the comments while getting attention. Butterslastmeal.com is an immediate success, unfortunately, and all of a sudden he's in a corner.  If he doesn't eat himself to death, he is a failure.  If he does, well, he's dead.  Not much of a choice.

As the narrator, Butter reveals  both the depth of his torment and clues to the nice and funny person he can be.  The author uses Butter's experiences to raise issues of stereotyping, online relationships, and online bullying without being preachy.  Telling the story using a lot of dialog keeps things moving. Recommended.