The hero-narrator of "The Catcher in the Rye" is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden...

"After Alice's older brother runs away at fifteen, the next she hears of him is that he's dead. Eight years after the funeral, Alice cleans out her childhood home in Georgia only to find her brother's autopsy report showing the many lies behind his death. She also discovers sealed, addressed letters he wrote shortly before he died. In a search for the truth, Alice delivers the letters to his closest friends, lovers, and enemies, each letter daring...

"When Harper Shaw's life falls apart, she knows it's time for a change. She removes everything that doesn't spark joy--from her soul-sucking job to eating kale to making lists--and sets off for the last place she was happy, Lake Tahoe (who wouldn't feel good there, right?) to fulfill her dream of opening her own bakery. With her Sugar Pine Bakery in between a tavern, owned by sexy, grumpy Bodie Campbell, and a bookstore, run by her new BFF, she feels...

Fifteen-year-old Jem knows when she looks at someone the exact date they'll die, so she avoids relationships and tries to keep out of the way, but when she meets a boy named Spider and they plan a day out together, they become more involved than either of them had planned.