Forever Young (09/13/2021): The Downstairs Girl

Forever Young (09/13/2021): The Downstairs Girl
Forever Young (09/13/2021): The Downstairs Girl

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee

By day, seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan works as a lady’s maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night, Jo moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column for the genteel Southern lady, “Dear Miss Sweetie.” When her column becomes wildly popular, she uses the power of the pen to address some of society’s ills, but she’s not prepared for the backlash that follows when her column challenges fixed ideas about race and gender. While her opponents clamor to uncover the secret identity of Miss Sweetie, a mysterious letter sets Jo off on a search for her own past and the parents who abandoned her as a baby. But when her efforts put her in the crosshairs of Atlanta’s most notorious criminal, Jo must decide whether she, a girl used to living in the shadows, is ready to step into the light. With prose that is witty, insightful, and at times heartbreaking, Stacey Lee masterfully crafts an extraordinary social drama set in the New South.


Next Meeting:
September 13th @ 6:30 PM at Eastgate Library

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Forever Young (08/09/2021): Keep This to Yourself

Forever Young (08/09/2021): Keep This to Yourself
Keep This to Yourself (cover)

Keep This to Yourself by Tom Ryan

It’s been a year since the Catalog Killer terrorized the sleepy seaside town of Camera Cove, killing four people before disappearing without a trace. Like everyone else in town, eighteen-year-old Mac Bell is trying to put that horrible summer behind him-easier said than done since Mac’s best friend Connor was the murderer’s final victim. But when he finds a cryptic message from Connor, he’s drawn back into the search for the killer-who might not have been a random drifter after all. Now nobody-friends, neighbors, or even the sexy stranger with his own connection to the case-is beyond suspicion. Sensing that someone is following his every move, Mac struggles to come to terms with his true feelings towards Connor while scrambling to uncover the truth.


Next Meeting:
August 9th @ 6:30 PM at Eastgate Library

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Forever Young (07/12/2021): Sabriel

Forever Young (07/12/2021): Sabriel
Forever Young (07/12/2021): Sabriel

Sabriel by Garth Nix

A tale of dark secrets, deep love, and dangerous magic!
Since childhood, Sabriel has lived outside the walls of the Old Kingdom, away from the random power of Free Magic, and away from the Dead who refuse to stay dead. But now her father, the Charter-Mage Abhorsen, is missing, and to find him Sabriel must cross back into that world. With Mogget, whose feline form hides a powerful, perhaps malevolent spirit, and Touchstone, a young Charter Mage, Sabriel travels deep into the Old Kingdom. There she confronts an evil that threatens much more than her life—and comes face-to-face with her own hidden destiny.


Next Meeting:
July 12th @ 6:30 PM at Virtual Library

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Forever Young (06/14/2021): The Wicker King

Forever Young (06/14/2021): The Wicker King
The Wicker King (cover)

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum

Jack once saved August’s life … now can August save him?

August is a misfit with a pyro streak and Jack is a golden boy on the varsity rugby team-but their intense friendship goes way back. Jack begins to see increasingly vivid hallucinations that take the form of an elaborate fantasy kingdom creeping into the edges of the real world. With their parents’ unreliable behavior, August decides to help Jack the way he always has-on his own. He accepts the visions as reality, even when Jack leads them on a quest to fulfill a dark prophecy.

August and Jack alienate everyone around them as they struggle with their sanity, free falling into the surreal fantasy world that feels made for them. In the end, each one must choose his own truth.

Written in vivid micro-fiction with a stream-of-consciousness feel and multimedia elements, K. Ancrum’s The Wicker King touches on themes of mental health and explores a codependent relationship fraught with tension, madness and love.


Next Meeting:
June 14th @ 6:30 PM at Virtual Library

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Forever Young (05/10/2021): Kent State

Forever Young (05/10/2021): Kent State
Forever Young (05/10/2021): Kent State

Kent State by Deborah Wiles

Kent State University.

As protestors roil the campus, National Guardsmen are called in. In the chaos of what happens next, shots are fired and four students are killed. To this day, there is still argument of what happened and why.

Told in multiple voices from a number of vantage points — protestor, Guardsman, townie, student — Deborah Wiles’s Kent State gives a moving, terrifying, galvanizing picture of what happened that weekend in Ohio . . . an event that, even 50 years later, still resonates deeply.


Next Meeting:
May 10th @ 6:30 PM at Virtual Library

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Forever Young (04/12/2021): They Called Us Enemy

Forever Young (04/12/2021): They Called Us Enemy
Forever Young (04/12/2021): They Called Us Enemy

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei

George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father’s—and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future. In a stunning graphic memoir, Takei revisits his haunting childhood in American concentration camps, as one of over 100,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned by the U.S. government during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon—and America itself—in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love.


Next Meeting:
April 12th @ 6:30 PM at Virtual Library

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Forever Young (03/08/2021): Crying Laughing

Forever Young (03/08/2021): Crying Laughing
Forever Young (03/08/2021): Crying Laughing

Crying Laughing by Lance Rubin

A tragicomic story of bad dates, bad news, bad performances, and one girl’s determination to find the funny in high school from the author of Denton Little’s Deathdate.
Winnie Friedman has been waiting for the world to catch on to what she already knows: she’s hilarious.
It might be a long wait, though. After bombing a stand-up set at her own bat mitzvah, Winnie has kept her jokes to herself. Well, to herself and her dad, a former comedian and her inspiration.
Then, on the second day of tenth grade, the funniest guy in school actually laughs at a comment she makes in the lunch line and asks her to join the improv troupe. Maybe he’s even . . . flirting?
Just when Winnie’s ready to say yes to comedy again, her father reveals that he’s been diagnosed with ALS. That is . . . not funny. Her dad’s still making jokes, though, which feels like a good thing. And Winnie’s prepared to be his straight man if that’s what he wants. But is it what he needs?
Caught up in a spiral of epically bad dates, bad news, and bad performances, Winnie’s struggling to see the humor in it all. But finding a way to laugh is exactly what will see her through.


Next Meeting:
March 8th @ 6:00 PM at Virtual Library

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Forever Young (02/08/2021): Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

Forever Young (02/08/2021): Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
Forever Young (02/08/2021): Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi

A timely, crucial, and empowering exploration of racism—and antiracism—in AmericaThis is NOT a history book.This is a book about the here and now. A book to help us better understand why we are where we are.A book about race. The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This remarkable reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning reveals the history of racist ideas in America, and inspires hope for an antiracist future. It takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, and why the poison of racism lingers. It also proves that while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited. Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative written by beloved award-winner Jason Reynolds, this book shines a light on the many insidious forms of racist ideas—and on ways readers can identify and stamp out racist thoughts in their daily lives.


Next Meeting:
February 8th @ 6:30 PM at Virtual Library

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Forever Young (01/11/2021): Yes No Maybe So

Forever Young (01/11/2021): Yes No Maybe So
Forever Young (01/11/2021): Yes No Maybe So

Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli & Aisha Saeed

A book about the power of love and resistance from New York Times bestselling authors Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed.

YES

Jamie Goldberg is cool with volunteering for his local state senate candidate—as long as he’s behind the scenes. When it comes to speaking to strangers (or, let’s face it, speaking at all to almost anyone) Jamie’s a choke artist. There’s no way he’d ever knock on doors to ask people for their votes…until he meets Maya.

NO

Maya Rehman’s having the worst Ramadan ever. Her best friend is too busy to hang out, her summer trip is canceled, and now her parents are separating. Why her mother thinks the solution to her problems is political canvassing—with some awkward dude she hardly knows—is beyond her.

MAYBE SO

Going door to door isn’t exactly glamorous, but maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world. After all, the polls are getting closer—and so are Maya and Jamie. Mastering local activism is one thing. Navigating the cross-cultural crush of the century is another thing entirely.


Next Meeting:
January 11th @ 6:30 PM at Virtual Library

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Forever Young (12/14/2020): Neverworld Wake

Forever Young (12/14/2020): Neverworld Wake
Forever Young (12/14/2020): Neverworld Wake

Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl

It’s been one year since graduation, and Beatrice Hartley has mixed feelings about joining her friends a weekend reunion.
She’s right to be worried. After a night out, they narrowly avoid a collision with a car on a deserted road. Or so they believe.
Back at the mansion where they are staying, a mysterious man knocks on the door during a raging storm. He tells them that they must make a choice: one of them will live, and the rest will die. And the decision must be unanimous.
Soon time backbends. Beatrice and her friends are forced to repeat that dreadful day so many times they lose count. With each replay, events twist and fears come alive in horrifying ways.
This nightmare, this nothingness . . . this is the Neverworld Wake.
To escape, they have to vote. But how do you choose who to kill? And then how do you live with yourself?
“Beautifully creepy.” —The New York Times
“You wont be able to stop reading until the mystery is unraveled.” —Refinery29
“A dark and twisty tale brimming with psychological suspense.” —Bustle


Next Meeting:
December 14th @ 6:30 PM at Virtual Library

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