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Take the Cinderella story, stuff it into the bottle with the genie, add a healthy helping of absurd humor, and shake well. The result is the twistedly funny Gorgeous by screenwriter/playwright Paul Rudnick. Eighteen-year-old Becky, the literal embodiment of the term "trailer trash", is a pop culture junkie. She devours tabloids and news of all things Hollywood with near reverence. When her mother dies, she receives a mysterious offer that lands her in front of the world’s top designer, who will create three dresses that will change her life. All she has to do is say yes. Soon she is gracing magazine covers and mingling with the rich and famous. But deep inside, who is real -- "trailer trash" Becky, or "Hollywood It-girl" Rebecca?

Rudnick’s visual style plays heavily into Gorgeous, and the descriptions of the lavish and decadent celebrity lifestyle bring it to life in the mind’s eye. He discusses the transformative powers of fashion in an interview with NPR: "I love the idea of endowing clothing, or high fashion, with the power that we almost wish it had. I love taking that final step, of saying, 'OK, you're gonna put on this dress, and it's gonna do everything you could ever hope for and beyond.'" The true magic of Gorgeous is not in the fabric of these gowns, but rather in Rudnick’s ability to cut through this superficial world and find the true inner beauty in us all. Recommended for fans of Meg Cabot, though it does include some content for mature teen readers.   

Revenge might be a dish best served cold, but for Celia Door it will certainly feel warm and comforting when it finally arrives. In The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door, Karen Finneyfrock dives headfirst into the high school arena of mean girls and hidden truths. Celia was a normal teenager—average student, slightly unsure of herself but relatively happy—until two events occurred that upset her world. The first was the "trial separation" of her parents and the subsequent relocation of her father to Atlanta. The second was a mean-spirited prank by two popular girls that has socially-damned Celia, causing her to withdraw into herself and go dark, wearing only black and speaking to as few people as possible. As she silently plans her revenge, a new student named Drake, with a few issues and secrets of his own, slowly breaks through the cracks in her darkness.

Celia channels her feelings into her poetry notebook, and her poems add to the mood of the story in addition to playing an important piece of the novel’s plot. Author Finneyfrock is a Seattle-based poet, branching out here with her first novel, and is a promising new voice in realistic fiction for young adults. Poetic yet painful, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door is highly praised by best-selling authors Sherman Alexie and Ruta Sepetys.

Prolific author Chris Crutcher turns the old adage "appearances can be deceiving" upside down in his latest novel Period 8. For many teenagers, lies come easily. Bruce “Logs” Logsdon, a teacher at Heller High School, does his best to counteract this fact by running Period 8—a lunchtime class open to students each year. The rules of Period 8 are simple: Talk about anything, do not hurt others, and tell the truth. It becomes a sanctuary for many kids as the one place they can share their thoughts and feelings without fear. When one of the Period 8 kids goes missing, the group dynamic is threatened. It turns out that everyone has something to hide, even the seemingly perfect ones, and the truth soon turns ugly.

On his website, Crutcher labels himself "Author and Loudmouth", so it is no surprise that his writing is often controversial. Period 8 is full of rough, blunt language and the idea of sexuality as a biological imperative rather than a choice drives much of the action. His writing is introspective and revelatory in a slow, deliberate way. Ultimately, the crux is that truth lives outside of the black and white, balancing precariously atop places that often cannot be talked about.

Trust is the often the hardest thing to give to someone, and choosing the wrong person to trust can lead to a loss of power and even danger. Sharon Draper looks at teens and trust in Panic, the latest novel from the award-winning and best-selling author. Diamond is a dancer who wants to become a star. When a friendly man looking for his teen daughter approaches her in the mall, she is quickly drawn in by his openness and admiration of her grace and beauty. He tells her he is a movie producer and invites her to audition for him. She hesitates at first, but the bitterness of losing a recent lead role to another dancer prompts her to go with him. This one bad decision may cost her everything. Diamond's family, friends, and fellow dancers are all shocked at her disappearance, and each deals with it in different ways. Many take a look at their own choices, realizing that they are not always as smart or as safe as they think they are.

Draper has created a compelling story, equal parts mystery and introspection. Relationships between characters—parent and child, boyfriend and girlfriend, and between sisters—are varied and ever-changing. The message is clear: Giving your trust is equal to giving your power away to someone else. When it is given to the wrong person, what can be done to get it back? Fans of realistic teen fiction will enjoy this thought-provoking novel.

For Standish Treadwell, being one of the few remaining imperfect people in a society mandating perfection is beyond stressful. Survival means staying under the radar and following all of the Motherland’s rules—which is difficult when you can’t read. Echoes of Nazi Germany clash with the Space Race of the 1960’s in Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner.

Part dystopian fiction and part science fiction, the action takes place in an unnamed society. Standish is nearly fifteen, and he is getting tired of the violence that surrounds him every day. People keep disappearing, including his own parents, and no one will talk about it. The enemy, known only as the Greenflies, has pressured the President to send men from the Motherland to the moon as a show of superiority to the rest of the world. Anyone not necessary to achieve this goal is expendable. When his best and only friend goes missing, Standish decides it is time to stop hiding and plans to find him. He knows where he has to look—beyond the wall that towers over the last remaining houses in the city. As he makes his plan, he discovers a truth that could lead to freedom from the oppression. Can one person’s small rebellion be the spark that ignites a revolution?

The action in Maggot Moon plays out in extremely short chapters. These are snapshots of Standish’s thoughts, full of the muddled spellings that mirror his dyslexic brain. Author Gardner is dyslexic and is a strong advocate for educational assistance for children with dyslexia. Slightly disturbing pencil sketches on the page edges tell a simpler version of the same story as the text, and they beg to be flipped like an early moving picture book. While the extreme bravery from this 15-year-old boy veers slightly near the edge of believability, Standish is a likeable and honorable character who you want to root for.

For most people, identity is tied closely to place, often a birthplace or childhood home. How much does where we come from affect who we are? Ruta Sepetys asks this question in her newest novel Out of the Easy, introducing us to that dichotomy of charming beauty and sinister vulgarity that is 1950’s New Orleans.  

Harkening to another famous literary Jo, namely Louisa May Alcott’s Jo March, Josie Moraine is an intelligent young woman trapped by time and place. The daughter of a prostitute, she is smart enough to get herself away from her neglectful and often abusive mother. Josie lives and works in a bookstore, saving money in the hopes of attending college far away from New Orleans. Self-sufficient since the age of seven, Josie creates a family out of necessity, including the Madam who becomes a surrogate mother (albeit a harsh and criminal one) and the bookseller and his son. But when her mother’s bad judgment pulls Josie back in to the criminal underbelly of the city, will she be able to rise above it yet again for a chance at her dreams?

Sepetys is no stranger to difficult subjects, and Out of the Easy explores the mature themes of violence, prostitution, and crime. As in her first novel for teens, Between Shades of Gray, the sense of place is paramount to the story. Indeed, many characters are named for places (Cincinnati, Charlotte, Forrest) and the city of New Orleans is a character in itself. This expertly-drawn portrait of a girl struggling to rise above her circumstances is highly recommended for mature teen and adult readers alike.  

The bonds of family are strong, built out of intense love, and sometimes equally intense resentment and hatred. The Dinner by Herman Koch is less a meal than a psychological dissection of a family. The entire novel takes place during the course of an evening meal between two well-to-do brothers and their wives. Each member of the dinner party is trying to control the others and the unnamed “situation” with their children. Various scenarios play out in the minds of the diners, each more shocking and brutal than the last, as they attempt to sway the group toward the best solution. Best for whom remains to be seen.

Dutch author Koch takes a look inside a seemingly harmless gathering and answers the question “What are you really thinking?” Relationships—Parent and child, husband and wife, brother and brother—all are put under the microscope with satirical wit and brutal honesty. Already an international best-seller, The Dinner has received advance praise from like-minded psychological thriller writers such as Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) and S. J. Watson (Before I Go to Sleep). Come to The Dinner and ask yourself, which way does your moral compass point?

The William C. Morris Award honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens. The 2013 winner is the New York Times bestselling Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. In the kingdom of Goredd, humans and dragons coexist peacefully under a decades-old treaty. With this treaty about to expire, can a talented young musician accept her true nature and thwart the secrecy and ambition that threatens the peace?  Margaret A. Edwards award winner Tamora Pierce had high praise: “Seraphina is strong, complex, talented — she makes mistakes and struggles to trust, with good reason, and she fights to survive in a world that would tear her apart. I love this book!”

There were four other finalists for the 2013 Morris Award. Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby is the story of a young girl who runs away from an orphanage and joins the circus in 1939. Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo examines young love and why the word “crush” is more accurate as a verb than a noun. The world in the aftermath of a new ice age is the subject of After the Snow by S. D. Crockett. Finally, The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth follows the dual journeys of guilt and self-discovery of a girl whose parents are killed in a car accident.  

Earlier this week, the American Library Association announced the winners of the 2013 Youth Media Awards. The Coretta Scott King Book Awards celebrate African American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults. This year, the award for authors went to Andrea Davis Pinkney for her historical retrospective Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America. Written in an honest and forthright style, Pinkney takes a new look at these influential and historically significant men. The award for illustrators was won by Bryan Collier for his interpretation of the Langston Hughes poem I, Too, Am America. Collier uses varying images of the American flag to tie together mixed media collages, creating an inspirational and patriotic look at the Pullman porters and the struggle for civil rights in the United States.

King Honor Books were also awarded on Monday. Author Book Honors went to Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson and No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson. Illustrator Book Honors went to H.O.R.S.E written and illustrated by Christopher Myers, Ellen’s Broom illustrated by Daniel Minter and written by Kelly Starling, and I Have a Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr. illustrated by Kadir Nelson from the speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Established in 1988, The Margaret A. Edwards Award honors an author, as well as a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature. It recognizes an author's work in helping adolescents become aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role and importance in relationships, society, and in the world. The honor was awarded this year by the American Library Association to Tamora Pierce. On her website, Pierce explains her writing style, even as a young girl:

"I got hooked on fantasy, and then on science fiction, and both made their way into my stories. I tried to write the kind of thing I was reading, with one difference: the books I loved were missing teenaged girl warriors."

Pierce has been called a pioneer in feminist fantasy literature. Her books have been translated into German, Danish, Swedish, Hungarian and Japanese, beginning with Alanna: The First Adventure (in the Song of the Lioness series) in 1983. Fans and new readers alike can learn more about Pierce by visiting her blog Dare to be Stupid or by checking out her books. One final quote from the award-winning Pierce:

"Books are still the main yardstick by which I measure true wealth."