Virginia Readers’ Choice

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol BRO Anya, embarrassed by her family and lacking confidence in her body and her social skills, finally finds a friend after falling down a well, but quickly learns there are drawbacks to having a ghost for a friend.

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys F SEP In 1941, fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother, and brother are pulled from their Lithuanian home by Soviet guards and sent to Siberia, where her father is sentenced to death in a prison camp while she fights for her life, vowing to honor her family and the thousands like hers by burying her story in a jar on Lithuanian soil. Based on the author's family, includes a historical note.

Choker by Elizabeth Woods F WOO Sixteen-year-old Cara has trouble fitting in when she moves away from her best and only friend, Zoe. After a humiliating experience in the school cafeteria, Cara earns a new nickname from her peers. Then, Zoe makes a surprise return into her life and Cara's popularity begins to rise, until a girl goes missing and Zoe begins to act strangely.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor F TAY Seventeen-year-old Karou, a lovely, enigmatic art student in a Prague boarding school, carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters--the chimaerae who form the only family she has ever known.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green F GRE Having been diagnosed as a terminal cancer patient, Hazel is running out of time. When she meets Augustus Waters at the Cancer Kid Support Group, her life takes an unexpected turn.

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride F MCB Sam LaCroix, a Seattle fast-food worker and college dropout, discovers that he is a necromancer, part of a world of harbingers, werewolves, satyrs, and one particular necromancer who sees Sam as a threat to his lucrative business of raising the dead.

Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love by Larry Levin LEV The author describes how he and his adopted twin sons, Dan and Noah, came to own and love a dog who was rescued after its owners used it as bait for fighting dogs and then left it in a cage to die.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater F STI Nineteen-year-old returning champion Sean Kendrick competes against Puck Connolly, the first girl ever to ride in the annual Scorpio Races, both trying to keep hold of their dangerous water horses long enough to make it to the finish line.

Something Like Hope by Shawn Goodman F GOO Shavonne, a fierce, desperate seventeen-year-old in juvenile lockup, wants to turn her life around before her eighteenth birthday, but corrupt guards, out-of-control girls, and shadows from her past make her task seem impossible.

This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel F OPP You know the end. Now read the beginning. When his twin brother falls ill in the family's chateau in the independent republic of Geneva in the eighteenth century, sixteen-year-old Victor Frankenstein embarks on a dangerous and uncertain quest to create the forbidden Elixir of Life described in an ancient text in the family's secret Biblioteka Obscura.