Books

The big ideas from popular books, without giving the whole thing away. Get the GIST, then decide if you want the REST.

FiltersFaith & SpiritualityYoung AdultFictionClear

10 summaries

Patrick Ness

A Monster Calls

A thirteen-year-old whose mother is gravely ill is visited at 12:07 by a monster made from a yew tree, who trades three stories for the one truth the boy cannot say.

8 min read
Tiffany D. Jackson

Allegedly

Convicted as a small child of killing a baby, sixteen-year-old Mary finally has a reason to tell what really happened that night.

7 min read
Victoria Aveyard

Broken Throne

Victoria Aveyard's farewell to the Red Queen world: five novellas and a scholar's records that trace a kingdom from its apocalyptic birth to the hard, hopeful work of peace.

Fantasy Fiction
Dystopia
8 min read
Karen M. McManus

One of Us Is Lying

Five students walk into detention and only four come out alive, each with a secret the dead boy was about to publish, in Karen M. McManus's fast, addictive teen mystery.

7 min read
Victoria Aveyard

Red Queen

In a kingdom split by blood, a poor Red thief discovers she has a power only the ruling Silvers should have, and is hidden at the heart of their court.

Young Adult Fantasy
Dystopia
7 min read
Suzanne Collins

Sunrise on the Reaping

Sixteen-year-old Haymitch Abernathy is forced into the fiftieth Hunger Games and decides to fight the arena itself, in Suzanne Collins's prequel about propaganda and the cost of defiance.

7 min read
William Paul Young

The Shack

A grieving father is invited back to the cabin where his daughter was murdered and spends a weekend there talking with God in three unexpected forms.

Faith and Spirituality
7 min read
K.L. Walther

The Summer of Broken Rules

A grieving teenager returns to Martha's Vineyard for a family wedding, a week-long water-gun game of Assassin, and a groomsman she did not plan on.

8 min read
Jay Asher

Thirteen Reasons Why

A high school boy spends one night listening to cassette tapes left by a classmate who took her own life, each side naming a person who played a part.

Mental Health
7 min read
E. Lockhart

We Were Liars

A wealthy family, a private island, four inseparable teenagers, and one summer the narrator cannot remember, however hard she tries.

7 min read