"Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she's already lost more than most people do in a lifetime. But she's learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don't have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you. Every new scar hardens Charlie's heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts...

Fifteen-year-old Lizzie Cohen recalls what it was like growing up with her imaginative but disturbed older sister Tess, and how she is striving to reclaim her own life since Tess died.

A pariah in his town and home for the results of his risk-taking behavior, eighteen-year-old Jake seeks adrenaline rushes to clear his dark thoughts, but when Salome, the girl he loves, gets caught up in taking chances, too, the consequences are devastating.

"Jack, 12, tells the gripping story of Joseph, 14, who joins his family as a foster child. Damaged in prison, Joseph wants nothing more than to find his baby daughter, Jupiter, whom he has never seen. When Joseph has begun to believe he'll have a future,he is confronted by demons from his past that force a tragic sacrifice"--

Committed to a mental hospital against her will for something she claims she did not do, Cassie O'Malley signs herself out against medical advice when she turns eighteen and tries to start over at college, until her estranged mother appears, throwing everything Cassie believes about herself into question.

Fifteen-year-old Macy, officially labeled "disturbed" by her school, records her impressions of her rough neighborhood and home life as she tries to rescue her brother from Child Protective Services, win back her overachieving best friend after a fight, and figure out whether to tell her incarcerated father about her mother's cheating.

"Sex has always come without consequences for Evan. Until the night when all the consequences land at once, leaving him scarred inside and out"--

Twelve-year-old Jaden, an emotionally damaged adopted boy fascinated by electricity, feels a connection to a small, weak toddler with special needs in Kazakhstan, where Jaden's family is trying to adopt a "normal" baby.

Next-door neighbors, polar opposites, and best friends Micah and Janie hide their friendship from their classmates, but when Janie goes missing, everything Micah thought he knew about his best friend is colored with doubt.

"After fourteen-year-old Eden is raped by her brother's best friend, she knows she'll never be the way she used to be"--