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THIS BOY

One of our recommended books for 2020 is This Boy by Lauren Myracle

Paul Walden is not an alpha lobster, the hypermasculine crustacean king who intimidates the other male lobsters, beds all the lady lobsters, and “wins” at life. At least not according to the ego-bursting feedback he’s given in his freshman seminar. But Paul finds a funny, faithful friend in Roby Smalls, and maybe — oh god, please — he’s beginning to catch the interest of smart, beautiful Natalia Gutierrez. Cruising through high school as a sauced-out, rap-loving beta lobster suits Paul fine, and if life ever gets him down? Smoke a little weed, crunch a few pills . . . it’s all good.

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THE SECOND HOME

One of our recommended books for 2020 is The Second Home by Christina Clancy

Tender and compassionate, incisive and heartbreaking, Christina Clancy’s The Second Home is the story of a family you’ll quickly fall in love with, and won’t soon forget.

After a disastrous summer spent at her family summer home on Cape Cod, seventeen-year-old Ann Gordon was left with a secret that changed her life forever, and created a rift between her sister, Poppy, and their adopted brother, Michael.

Now, fifteen years later, her parents have died, leaving Ann and Poppy to decide the fate of the Wellfleet home that’s been in the Gordon family for generations.

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THE LAST SUMMER OF ADA BLOOM

One of our recommended books for 2020 is The Last Summer of Ada Bloom by Martine Murray

In a small country town during one long, hot summer, the Bloom family is beginning to unravel. Martha is straining against the confines of her life, lost in regret for what might have been, when an old flame shows up. In turn, her husband Mike becomes frustrated with his increasingly distant wife. Marital secrets, new and long-hidden, start to surface—with devastating effect. And while teenagers Tilly and Ben are about to step out into the world, nine–year-old Ada is holding onto a childhood that might soon be lost to her.

When Ada discovers an abandoned well beneath a rusting windmill,

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THE FOUNTAINS OF SILENCE

One of our recommended books is The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Salt to the Sea and Between Shades of Gray comes a gripping, extraordinary portrait of love, silence, and secrets under a Spanish dictatorship.

Madrid, 1957. Under the fascist dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, Spain is hiding a dark secret. Meanwhile, tourists and foreign businessmen flood into Spain under the welcoming promise of sunshine and wine. Among them is eighteen-year-old Daniel Matheson, the son of an oil tycoon, who arrives in Madrid with his parents hoping to connect with the country of his mother’s birth through the lens of his camera.

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REAL LIFE

One of our recommended books for 2020 is Real Life by Adeline Dieudonné

The innocence of fairy tales meets the terror of a Stephen King thriller in this international bestseller by Belgian author Adeline Dieudonné. A #1 bestseller in France, Real Life has won 14 prestigious European literary awards, is being translated into 20 languages and was just selected by the American Booksellers Association as the only translated debut honored as part of their Indies Introduce program. In Real Life, the young heroine struggles to free herself from her abusive father and indifferent mother through science, education, and courageous resilience and reminds us of Turtle in Gabriel Tallent’s My Absolute Darling.

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THE SCENT KEEPER

One of our recommended books for 2020 is The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister

Erica Bauermeister, the national bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients, presents a moving and evocative coming-of-age novel about childhood stories, families lost and found, and how a fragrance conjures memories capable of shaping the course of our lives.

Emmeline lives an enchanted childhood on a remote island with her father, who teaches her about the natural world through her senses. What he won’t explain are the mysterious scents stored in the drawers that line the walls of their cabin, or the origin of the machine that creates them. As Emmeline grows,

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