2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees

1. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Alice in Zombieland The Girls of No Return by Gena Showalter by Erin Saldin Beautiful Music for Ugly Children Grave Mercy by Kirsten Cronn-Mills by Robin LaFevers Bomb: The Race to Build and Steal I Hunt Killers the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Barry Lyga by Steve Sheinkin I Swear Boy 21 by Lane Davis by Matthew Quick If You Find Me Breaking Beautiful by Emily Murdoch by Jennifer Shaw Wolf No Man’s Land Butter by S.T. Underdahl by Erin Jade Lange October Mourning: A Song Crewel for Matthew Shepard by Gennifer Albin by Leslea Newman Croak The Opposite of Hallelujah by Gina Damico by Anna Jarzab Don’t Turn Around Out of the Easy by Michelle Gagnon by Ruta Sepetys Fracture The Paladin Prophecy by Megan Miranda by Mark Frost

2. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Alice Bell has led a sheltered life in suburban Alabama, shaped by her father’s insistence that no one leave the house after dark because of the “monsters.” On her sixteenth birthday, Ali insists the only present she wants is to see her beloved eight-year-old sister’s evening dance recital. On the way home, their car is attacked by zombies in front of the cemetery, and Ali alone survives. Now living with her maternal grandparents, she is consumed by guilt (her dad was right after all), fear (the zombies are still out there), and confusion over her powerhouse attraction to bad boy Cole.  Booklist (October 15, 2012 (Vol. 109, No. 4)

3. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 600  "Gabe has always identified as a boy, but he was born with a girl's body. With his new public access radio show gaining in popularity, Gabe struggles with romance, friendships, and parents--all while trying to come out as transgendered. An audition for a station in Minneapolis looks like his ticket to a better life in the big city. But his entire future is threatened when several violent guys find out Gabe, the popular DJ, is also Elizabeth from school." Flux, 2012

4. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 920 In December of 1938, a chemist in a German laboratory made a shocking discovery: When placed next to radioactive material, a Uranium atom split in two. That simple discovery launched a scientific race that spanned 3 continents. In Great Britain and the United States, Soviet spies worked their way into the scientific community; in Norway, a commando force slipped behind enemy lines to attack German heavy-water manufacturing; and deep in the desert, one brilliant group of scientists was hidden away at a remote site at Los Alamos. This is the story of the plotting, the risk-taking, the deceit, and genius that created the world's most formidable weapon. This is the story of the atomic bomb. Roaring Brook Press, 2012

5. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 830 Basketball has always been an escape for Finley. He lives in broken-down Bellmont, a town ruled by the Irish mob, drugs, violence, and racially charged rivalries. At home, his dad works nights, and Finley is left to take care of his disabled grandfather alone. He's always dreamed of getting out someday, but until he can, putting on that number 21 jersey makes everything seem okay. Russ has just moved to the neighborhood, and the life of this teen basketball phenom has been turned upside down by tragedy. Cut off from everyone he knows, he won't pick up a basketball, but answers only to the name Boy21--taken from his former jersey number. As their final year of high school brings these two boys together, a unique friendship may turn out to be the answer they both need. Little, Brown, 2012

6. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Young Adult Allie lost everything the night her boyfriend, Trip, died in a horrible car accident—including her memory of the event. As their small town mourns his death, Allie is afraid to remember because doing so means delving into what she's kept hidden for so long: the horrible reality of their abusive relationship. When the police reopen the investigation, it casts suspicion on Allie and her best friend, Blake, especially as their budding romance raises eyebrows around town. Allie knows she must tell the truth. Walker, 2012

7. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 770 A lonely obese boy everyone calls "Butter" is about to make history. He is going to eat himself to death-live on the Internet-and everyone is invited to watch. When he first makes the announcement online to his classmates, Butter expects pity, insults, and possibly sheer indifference. What he gets are morbid cheerleaders rallying around his deadly plan. Yet as their dark encouragement grows, it begins to feel a lot like popularity. And that feels good. But what happens when Butter reaches his suicide deadline? Can he live with the fallout if he doesn't go through with his plans? Bloomsbury, 2012

8. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 790 Crewel World trilogy, book 1 On the night of her 16th birthday, AdeliceLewys is drugged and kidnapped because she has the ability to weave time and matter. She is taken to the Western Coventry of Spinsters, where she learns the work of the looms that weave all aspects of life for the people of Arras. Her quick wit and sharp tongue serve her well as she learns secrets kept and revealed, making allies, enemies, and discovering first love. Lives of innocents can be ripped out of the fabric of life in a fit of anger or jealousy. Those deviating from prescribed policy are reprogrammed. Library Media Connection (January/February 2013)

9. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Young Adult When 16-year-old Lex Bartleby's anger management issues and violent impulses land her in one fight too many, she is sent to live with her uncle Mort in the Adirondacks for the summer, in the hopes that it will straighten her out. Instead, upon arriving in the tiny town of Croak, Lex discovers that she, like the tattooed and motorcycle-riding Mort, is a Grim, responsible for drawing out the souls of the recently deceased to facilitate their passing on to the afterlife. Lex and her new partner, Driggs, with whom she has a fiery love-hate relationship, stumble across bodies with no known cause of death, sparking an investigation into one of the greatest, dirtiest secrets of the Grim organization.  Publishers Weekly (January 30, 2012)

10. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 710 The first in a trilogy, Don't Turn Around's intricate plot and heart-pounding action will leave readers desperate for book two.Sixteen-year-old Noa has been a victim of the system ever since her parents died. Now living off the grid and trusting no one, she uses her hacking skills to stay anonymous and alone. But when she wakes up on a table in a warehouse with an IV in her arm and no memory of how she got there, Noa starts to wish she had someone on her side. Harper, 2013

11. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 620 Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine-despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she's far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can't control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she's reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy's motives aren't quite what she thought. For fans of best-sellers like Before I Fall and If I Stay, this is a fascinating and heart-rending story about love and friendship and the fine line between life and death. Kirkus Reviews (November 15, 2011)

12. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 770 Anger over her mother's abandonment when she was small leads 16-year-old Lida to resent her father and stepmother and to abuse herself by cutting. Her harmful behavior lands her in the Alice Marshall School for troubled girls, deep in the Idaho wilderness. After a shaky start, Lida gradually befriends hard-edged Boone, who takes her on forbidden hikes to a forest lookout station where 25-year-old Ben gives the girls alcohol but otherwise behaves as a good friend. When drop-dead-gorgeous Gia arrives at the school, she and Boone hate one another at first sight, an animosity fueled by Lida, who is juggling a friendship with each of them. Once Lida introduces Ben to Gia, despite promising not to, Gia pretends she's a teacher and begins romantic visits with him. When Boone finds out, the negative intensity with Gia escalates, until a terrible altercation during a camping trip sends things over the edge. School Library Journal (April 1, 2012)

13. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 850 Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf? Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others. How can she deliver Death's vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart? Houghton Mifflin, 2012

14. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 750 What if the world's worst serial killer...was your dad? Jasper (Jazz) Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say. But he's also the son of the world's most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could--from the criminal's point of view. And now bodies are piling up in Lobo's Nod. In an effort to clear his name, Jazz joins the police in a hunt for a new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret--could he be more like his father than anyone knows? Little Brown, 2012

15. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 730 Leslie Gatlin's suicide due to relentless high school bullying provides the backdrop for the interconnected stories of the four friends who each played a role in the escalating torment. The characters' complex relationships with Leslie are slowly revealed as each bully tries to shift blame. Horn Book (Spring 2013)

16. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 750 There are some things you can't leave behind…A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey's younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and two strangers arrive. Suddenly, the girls are taken from the woods and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world of high school, clothes and boys.Now, Carey must face the truth of why her mother abducted her ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won't let her go… a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn't spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down. St. Martin's Griffin, 2013

17. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: Young Adult Brian is the perfect child to his parents. Dov is the exact opposite, an "emo" according to his parents, his arch nemesis Ray Sellers, and even himself. While he has a handful of friends, nothing seems to go his way. His mom becomes an emotional wreck when Brian goes to fight in Afghanistan, and Dov is on high alert. Things get much worse when Brian returns with physical injuries and battling Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Teens will relate to Dov as he deals with his parents. Library Media Connection (March/April 2013)

18. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: Young Adult On October 6, 1998, 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was lured into a truck, driven into the country, savagely beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die—which he did, five days later. In the 68 poems that make up this novel-in-verse, Newman re-creates the events and circumstances surrounding this unspeakably vile hate crime and offers a moving tribute to a young man she regards as a martyr. Her poems are told from multiple points of view, including that of the fence, the rope that bound the boy, and a doe that stood watch over him.  Booklist starred (September 15, 2012 (Vol. 109, No. 2)

19. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: Young Adult Big sister Hannah joined the Sisters of Grace convent when Caro was eight, so it seemed simpler to tell everyone at school that her sister was dead. That was “Caroliar’s” first lie. Eight years later, Hannah is home, depressed, and anorexic, having left the convent in self-imposed disgrace. This time it is easier for Caro to announce Hannah’s return from the Peace Corps, but as the lies pile up, so does Caro’s own confusion and disgrace.  Booklist starred (October 1, 2012 )Vol. 109, No. 3

20. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 590 It's 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets, seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is silently stirring a pot of her own. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer. She devises a plan get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an investigation that will challenge her allegiance to her mother, her conscience, and Willie Woodley, the brusque madam on Conti Street. Philomel Books, 2013

21. 2014-2015 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees Lexile: 700 Paladin prophecy ; book 1 Will West is careful to live life under the radar. At his parents' insistence, he's made sure to get mediocre grades and to stay in the middle of the pack on his cross-country team. Then Will slips up, accidentally scoring off the charts on a nationwide exam.Now Will is being courted by an exclusive prep school . . . and followed by men driving black sedans. When Will suddenly loses his parents, he must flee to the school. There he begins to explore all that he's capable of--physical and mental feats that should be impossible--and learns that his abilities are connected to a struggle between titanic forces that has lasted for millennia. Random House, 2012