Coming-of-Age (Because sometimes it is hard to be a teenager)

• Wildlife by Richard Ford. Exquisite prose, a clear-eyed depiction of a kid watching his parent's marriage unravel. Brilliant.


• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. The movie is better (a rare case when that's true), but reading the book is a pleasure. Hinton is a genius at capturing the desperation felt at the coming-of-age moment.


• This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff. If there is a better coming-of-age book than this, I'd be surprised.


• The Final Club by Geoffrey Wolff. The brothers Wolff know how to write a coming-of-age tale. This one begins with a kid going to his first year of college at Princeton, and his life unraveling thereafter.


• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Girls, friends, fights, and basketball--who knew high school would be so eventful? Throw on top the fact that the only other Indian at school is the mascot, and you've got a recipe for complications.


• The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. The story of five sisters in a Catholic household who are forever shaken after one of them succeeds in ending her life. The aftermath of the others is no less harrowing as their parents attempt to sweep the whole incident under the rug and begin shutting the remaining girls off from the outside world. Set in the 1970s, the story is told from the point of view of the boys in the neighborhood who make it their mission to save the remaining girls.


• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. Captures the voice and understanding of what it means to be autistic with startling and eye-opening language.


• One for Sorrow by Chris Barzak. Fifteen-year-old Adam is haunted by one of his classmates--a murdered boy named Jamie--in Youngstown, Ohio. Ghost and boy become friends, and not just that but part of a love triangle. But can you really live when you're tethered to the afterlife?


• Looking for Alaska by John Green. Miles goes to boarding school in search of "The Great Perhaps" and finds himself - and some risk-taking friends - along the way.


• Paper Towns by John Green. Quentin learns the hard way that perception is not always reality when his neighbor, the popular Margo Spiegelman, on whom he's had a crush for years, disappears, leaving cryptic clues behind.


• All Over But the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg. Pulitzer Prize-winner Rick Bragg's first of three books (The others are Ava's Man and The Prince of Frogtown) about growing up and family. True stories, and very well done.