Frankfiction

By: Victoria Jamieson For most of her twelve years, Astrid has done everything with her best friend Nicole. But after Astrid falls in love with roller derby and signs up for derby camp, Nicole decides to go to dance camp instead. And so begins the most difficult summer of Astrid’s life as she struggles to keep up with the older girls at camp, hang on to the friend she feels slipping away, and…

By: Andrew Joseph White Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon with which they infected him. But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction,…

By: Ray Nayler Rumors begin to spread of a species of hyperintelligent, dangerous octopus that may have developed its own language and culture. Marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them.The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where the octopuses were…

By: Diana Wynne Jones Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fortune. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the…

By: Gabrielle Zevin On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.These friends, intimates since…

By: Paul Tremblay Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road. One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen, but he is…

By: Viola Davis I remember so vividly the moment I heard about Viola Davis’s autobiography Finding Me. I heard about her novel through an interview where she discusses her life and the childhood trauma she faced. This was before my foire into nonfiction so I didn’t think I would have it in me to pick up a copy but I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy opened my eyes to a new interest I didn’t…

By: Amina Luqman-Dawson Homer and his sister Ada are slave children who have found themselves alone in the swamp after fleeing the plantation of their master. In the process of trying to escape, their mother was captured so the children must find a way to safety on their own.With help from a mysterious man, the children are brought to a swamp community called Freewater where the population is…

By: Jennette McCurdy A heartbreaking memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life. Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to…

By: Terry Pratchett Unlike most teenaged boys, Teppic isn’t chasing girls and working at the mall. Instead he’s just inherited the throne of the desert kingdom Djelibeybi—a job that’s come a bit earlier than he expected (a turn of fate his recently departed father wasn’t too happy about either). It’s bad enough being new on the job, but Teppic hasn’t a clue as to what a pharaoh is supposed to…

By: Simon Jimenez The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family—the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors—hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.But that god cannot be contained forever.With the aid of Jun, a…

By: Emily St. John Mandel Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby’s glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass? High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis runs an international Ponzi scheme, moving imaginary sums of…

By: Emily St. John Mandel Warning: Spoiler alert for Station Eleven Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that…

By: Simon Jimenez Nia Imani is a woman out of place and outside of time. Decades of travel through the stars are condensed into mere months for her, though the years continue to march steadily onward for everyone she has ever known. Her friends and lovers have aged past her; all she has left is work. Alone and adrift, she lives only for the next paycheck, until the day she meets a mysterious…

By: Shea Ernshaw Travis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Often hired by families as a last resort, he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books.With only one word to guide him, Travis sets out in search of a place long forgotten, a reclusive community called Pastoral. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore,…

By: Markus Zusak Death has witnessed every great human tragedy. Every war. Every despicable act that cost millions of lives, and in 1939 Germany, he has never been busier. But one child captivates him in a way no one else ever has, a young German girl named Liesel Meminger. Liesel is completely illiterate when she is brought to the home of her foster parents but carries with her a stolen book…

By: Clifford D. Simak Enoch Wallace is not like other humans. Living a secluded life in the backwoods of Wisconsin, he carries a nineteenth-century rifle and never seems to age—a fact that has recently caught the attention of prying government eyes. The truth is, Enoch is the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War and, for close to a century, he has operated a secret way station for…