(2) YA The school board has cut funding for football at Ironville Middle School, but Ms. B hopes her new eSports club might "give students something else to focus on. ­Something to get excited about." After all, the eight shiny new gaming computers she has gotten through a ­technology grant for low-income schools aren't costing the school anything, and the students are sure to love playing a World War II simulation game pitting the Allies against the Axis. But that game soon spirals out of control. Axis members walk the hallways wearing gray shirts and Iron Crosses and talking in fake German accents. Chat rooms resound with "Long live the Axis. Sieg Heil!" And when Ally member Emma puts on her headphones, she hears sounds of boots marching, crashes of cymbals and drums, and someone (presumably Hitler) giving a passionate speech in German. Her monitor displays Iron Crosses, swastikas, burning crosses, and nooses. The Good War has become more than a game; "evil has seeped into the real world." Strasser revisits themes from his now-classic The Wave (1981), a fictionalized account of an actual 1967 history class simulation that went too far. The prose is simple, the themes heady, and the conflicts intense, all balanced by an in-your-face encounter with the worst of middle-school life: bullying, cheating, boys spitting loogies onto the ceiling of the "pissorium," and cellphone-obsessed students pursuing their meanness 24/7 on social media. It's a quick read and a thought-provoking reflection of the underbelly of our times.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2021

(2) YA Recent high school graduate Lucas doesn't think beyond his next acid trip or the upcoming Woodstock festival. The narrative is related in a first-person voice that cleverly shifts to the third person to portray Lucas's LSD trips as out-of-body experiences. Letters from his motivated girlfriend and a friend serving in Vietnam, newspaper headlines, and draft board notices provide ballast to Lucas's self-centered perspective; eventually, he steps outside of his own experience to see Vietnam as a "working-class war."

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2019

(2) YA Wounded in action--and in line for a prestigious Silver Star--Jake Liddell is home recovering before finishing his tour. Gradually revealed in flashback chapters, the horrors of war have left Jake disillusioned about military life, especially now that an intrepid high-school journalist wants his participation in a critical documentary. A timely, relevant critique of the American war machine and its dependence on idealistic and vulnerable young people.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2018

(4) YA This sci-fi retelling of Moby Dick takes place in a future where Earth is deprived of natural resources. Desperate teen Ishmael voyages to the planet Cretacea, where he can hunt sea creatures prized for their life-giving serum, on the Pequod. Familiarity with its antecedent isn't necessary to follow Strasser's story, which is light on character development but offers a diverting adventure.

Reviewer: Lauren Rizzuto

(3) YA Dan may have a popular, hot girlfriend and the promise of a baseball scholarship, but his parents have lost their jobs. His family eventually relocates to a controversial homeless tent camp known as Dignityville. Dan's circumstances and his worldviews slowly change in this well-paced problem novel full of current social commentary and with a gripping climax.

Reviewer: Rebecca Hachmyer

(2) 4-6 Strasser imagines what might have happened if nuclear war had broken out during the Cuban Missile Crisis. When the air raid sirens go off, neighbors force their way into Scott's father's bomb shelter. Alternating chapters tell of the months leading up to that event, allowing the author to vividly depict the 1960s setting, create complex characters, and build the backstory.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2013

(4) YA Shelby thinks nothing of the weird emails she receives until three teen models photographed by her father go missing and her family faces a media spotlight nightmare. Spurred by her true-crime-loving BFF and a seemingly concerned reporter, Shelby decides to seek answers. Sharp dialogue, red herrings, and mature content will keep pages turning in this overwrought but entertaining mystery.

Reviewer: Rebecca Hachmyer

(4) YA Sixteen-year-old Jamie has the somewhat dubious distinction of being the youngest paparazzo on the scene. When career-destroying pictures of a hot young star end up on Jamie's camera, she's unsure what to do. Though the story line tends to meander, readers may find this look at fame from both sides of the camera to be a satisfyingly salacious guilty-pleasure read.

Reviewer: Amanda Mc. MacGregor

(4) YA Callie is found kneeling beside the body of her classmate and holding a knife. Afraid she'll be charged with murder, Callie takes off, hoping she can figure out who the killer is before she's caught. A mean-girl backstory is implausibly sordid, but the smoothly unfolding mystery has all the elements of a good whodunit, including an ending that's satisfyingly unexpected.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(4) YA Growing up in an inner-city housing project ruled by the Disciples gang, DeShawn seems fated to join up or be killed. Sure enough, the earnest twelve-year-old at the novel's beginning develops into a hardened gangbanger by book's end. The story's heavy-handed message is reinforced by compelling statistics about gang violence.

Reviewer: Norah Piehl

(4) YA When the popular kids from Soundville High start disappearing, anxiety escalates in the rich and privileged town. This gleefully trashy teen thriller uses several narrative forms--including first person, third person, IMs, and blog posts--to deliver a spine-tingling (albeit absurd) plot about the search for a serial killer.

Reviewer: Marika Jeffrey

(3) YA Garrett's affair with his eight-years-older teacher is the last straw for his controlling parents, who send him to a "disciplinary boot camp" that sanctions physical torture and mental reprogramming. Graphic details bring this prison intensely to life as Garrett struggles to survive, then escape. Garrett's apparent conversion due solely to physical violence makes the ending slightly implausible, but provocatively ambiguous nevertheless. Bib.

Reviewer: Claire E. Gross

(4) YA A girl called Maybe lives on the streets of New York with other runaways. In this unrelievedly grim story, the kids panhandle, sell drugs, and work as prostitutes. Several end up dying, but the conclusion offers hope as Maybe saves a friend--and perhaps herself. The book has a slightly sanitized quality that doesn't quite match its raw subject matter.

Reviewer: Peter D. Sieruta

(3) 4-6 A morally upright but unpopular middle schooler, Lauren is befriended and then betrayed by a more glamorous newcomer. The story is standard fodder, but what sets this novel apart is its voice--a second-person narrator, always addressing Lauren as "you"--which brings an eerie detachment to the telling, reinforcing Lauren's status as just-a-little-bit outside the mainstream.

Reviewer: Kitty Flynn

(4) 4-6 After Jenny begins picking fights at their after-school baseball games, her friends discover that her stepfather is in drug rehab and Jenny is left responsible for her younger brother. Each of the central characters learns about friendship and responsibility as they help Jenny through a difficult time. Although the plot is formulaic, the brisk novel contains characters readers will care about.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(3) YA In a light, engaging girl-meets-boy novel, Internet rumors that a giant asteroid will imminently destroy Earth send brainy but rigid-thinking high school student Allegra "Legs" Hanover in pursuit of the object of her daydreams, surfer Andros Bliss. The asteroid narrowly misses Earth, but likable Legs spends what was supposed to be her last night on earth cuddled on the beach with Andros, learning to let her emotion supersede her intellect.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute