A teenaged boy thrown out of his house by his abusive father goes to live with his older brother, who ran away from home years ago to escape the abuse.

Fourteen-year-old John creates alternative realities in his mind as he tries to deal with his mother's abusive boyfriend, his crush on a beautiful, but shallow classmate and other problems at school.

Sent to a remote, run-down reform school in Colorado, fifteen-year-old Angela is placed with the better girls, but upon learning that her "dangerous" friends are being isolated and left to live as animals, she takes radical steps to join them and help them escape.

In 1968, after the death of her beloved Gramps, Delores "Itch" Colchester and her grandmother move from Florida to an Ohio trailer park, where she meets new people and, when she learns that a friend is being abused by her mother, tries her best to emulate her plain-spoken grandfather.

As if her parents' heavy drinking and her father's abuse--which nearly killed her half-brother, Iggy--were not enough, fifteen-year-old Mara is caught kissing her girlfriend, Xylia, by the preacher's son and becomes terrified that her own life is at risk.

"Ezra Ahern wakes up one day to find his older sister, Bea, gone. No note, no sign, nothing but an email address hidden somewhere only he would find it. Ezra never expected to be left behind with their abusive stepfather and their neglectful mother, how is he supposed to navigate life without Bea? Bea Ahern already knew sh eneeded to get as far away from home as possible. But a message in her inbox changes everything, and she finds herself alone in...

After his anger erupts into violence, Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a sentencing alternative based on the native American Circle Justice, and he is sent to a remote Alaskan Island where an encounter with a huge Spirit Bear changes his life.

Matilda, a brilliant, sensitive little girl, uses her talents and ingenuity to seek revenge on her crooked father, lazy mother, and the terrifying Miss Trunchbull, her wicked headmistress, and save her beloved teacher, Miss Honey.