Jo Walton's Among Others (which is a lot about reading groups and books - sci fi slant)
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
What about How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff, or Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why? Maybe Stardust by Neil Gaiman? Oh, or Jellicoe Road by [author whose name I can't remember] or Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma (which you should read anyway).
Not for a school bookshelf, because there are some very fine sexytimes scenes (at least I thought so), but I just finished the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms trilogy - that's some amazingly fun reading, and fine writing. Especially if you like meddlesome gods.
My school is starting a Before School Book Club and we are hoping to buy books for our kids to keep. We need five titles. We're starting with Cold Kiss and then we'll read Shine. But I need three more titles.
Kristin Cashore's Graceling? Also, the more recent Tamora Pierce novels? The Hunger Games? What are your constraints, Kat?
Those are great recs! Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson.
I really like Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. It's a post disaster book and not exactly cheery, but it does a great job of showing a teenage girl's reactions, ranging from resentment to heroism.
I originally read that as "from resentment to heroin."
Susan Beth Pfeffer
I remember reading one of her books in high school, can't remember the title. But the girl got into some sort of trouble and was made to apologize and said "I'm sorry for the trouble that this caused," and then she pointed out to her parents that she'd only apologized for the trouble, not for what she did. Her parents were upset at her hair-splitting, but she refused to feel bad for something she did out of moral outrage.
Oh, and there was a crush on a teacher that she managed to keep to herself that never involved her confessing all to the teacher and having the Sincere Conversation about, and I was quite grateful that the girl got to maintain some dignity through it all. These things always seem to require some public humiliation as a means to Growing and Learning An Important Lesson.
'suela, there aren't really constraints. We're just trying to start a book club and keeping a book is the draw. One of the things I'd like to do is to get books in their hands that they HAVEN'T read yet -- the kids who will most likely show up have read Hunger Games. I'd like a nice mix, but paranormal is super popular at my school. Dystopian is fun. I'd love to read Blood Red Road with them, but the dialect is too hard.
I should also work to try to draw boys too.
Is the new Jay Asher/Carolyn Meckler book any good?