Mary B. Addison killed a baby. Allegedly. She didn't say much in that first interview with detectives, and the media filled in the only blanks that mattered: a white baby had died while under the care of a churchgoing black woman and her nine-year-old daughter. The public convicted Mary and the jury made it official. But did she do it? There wasn't a point to setting the record straight before, but now she's got Ted—and their unborn child—to think about. When the state threatens to take her baby, Mary's fate now lies in the hands of the one person she distrusts the most: her Momma. No one knows the real Momma. But does anyone know the real Mary?

A chunk of old memory, adrift in a pool of blood. Sebastian Cody did something horrible, something no one--not even Sebastian himself--can forgive. At the age of four, he accidentally shot and killed his infant sister with his father's gun. Now, ten years later, Sebastian has lived with the guilt and horror for his entire life. With his best friend away for the summer, Sebastian has only a new friend--Aneesa--to distract him from his darkest thoughts. But even this relationship cannot blunt the pain of his past. Because Sebastian knows exactly how to rectify his childhood crime and sanctify his past. It took a gun to get him into this. Now he needs a gun to get out. Unflinching and honest, Bang is as true and as relevant as tomorrow's headlines, the story of one boy and one moment in time that cannot be reclaimed.

High schooler Autumn Collins emerges from the town library’s restroom to find herself locked in. To make matters worse, the school weirdo Dax Miller is locked in with her. With the library telephone inaccessible and a snowstorm blanketing the town, the unlikely pair will have to rely on each other to make it through the long weekend.

Danny Tozer is a transgender teenager who acquires the mantle and powers of the dying superhero, Dreadnought. The power transforms Danny’s body into the girl she always felt she was. Now she has to handle her own parents, who seem determined to get her male body back; Dreadnought’s murderer; and finding her own place as a new heroine.

Three teens, who have the same biological mother, have always known that they were adopted, or were in foster care, but they did not know they had siblings. When Grace puts her own baby up for adoption, she searches out her biological family to ensure she made the right choice. Maya, the youngest sibling, has a great adopted family, with secrets. Joaquin, the oldest, who was never adopted, keeps to himself. Together the teens discover what family really means, and it’s not always conventional.

Jule is a genuine fraud, reinventing herself as it suits her needs. A smart chameleon, she relies on her wits to befriend a young heiress, a passport to another lifestyle a world away from her own. Will she manage to maintain her disguise or will all those balls in the air eventually come down all around her? 

A creepy, horned, dark creature, who is referred to as Teacher, is caring for a human child named Shiva, in a forest called the outside. Shiva cannot touch the Teacher and longs for other human interaction. Reads like a John Bellairs book with Edward Gorey drawings and in manga form. 

After witnessing her friend's death at the hands of a police officer, Starr Carter's life is complicated when the police and a local drug lord try to intimidate her in an effort to learn what happened the night Kahlil died.

This is a collection of short stories set in Bardugo’s bestselling Grishaverse series. Gorgeously told retellings of The Nutcracker, Beauty and the Beast, and Hansel and Gretel are also masterfully illustrated.

There were a few graphic novels this year dealing with eating disorders. This one with its sparse line-drawing artwork is the most graphic and heart-wrenching. The autobiography starts out with a picky eater who develops an eating disorder and her treacherous road to recovering. Be prepared for many heart-wrenching twists and turns, and other forms of abuse. Recommended for older teens needing support for recovery. 

The second volume of Cassandra Clare’s Dark Artifices series finds the Los Angeles Institute in tumult once again. The return of figures once believed gone, a risky deal with the Seelie Queen, and a visit to the Institute by a group of Centurions all conspire to produce far-reaching consequences for the Blackthorn family.

A teenage boy leaves for Mars as a colonist with the Mars One space program and grapples with what he's leaving behind to do so.

Yaichi lives a normal life in Tokyo with his daughter Natsuki, until the day a Canadian man shows up at his door, claiming to be his brother’s husband. In closeted Japan, this book opens up borders and boundaries. Yaichi learns to share his brother’s childhood with this stranger, and also learns to deal with a gay brother-in-law. A humorous book that shows how change can happen slowly.

An athlete, a princess, a brain, a basket case, and a criminal all get trapped in detention, which sounds like the start of a new reboot of The Breakfast Club, until one of the group drops dead. Now, the remaining students have two things in common: a motive for killing their classmate and a need to clear their names. But if all of them swear they didn’t do it...which of them is lying? 

Unfortunately for Sam, the gay male dating pool in his small-town high school consists of exactly two people: his ex-boyfriend and a gamer who’s already seeing someone. But his Wiccan best friend Meg has a solution: if he supplies her with a checklist of his 10 most desired qualities in a boy, she’ll cast a love spell. What could possibly go wrong?

Three years ago an event destroyed the small city of Poughkeepsie, forever changing reality within its borders. Uncanny manifestations and lethal dangers now await anyone who enters the Spill Zone. The Spill claimed Addison's parents and scarred her little sister, Lexa, who hasn't spoken since. Addison provides for her sister by photographing the Zone's twisted attractions on illicit midnight rides. Art collectors pay top dollar for these bizarre images, but getting close enough for the perfect shot can mean death--or worse. When an eccentric collector makes a million-dollar offer, Addison breaks her own hard-learned rules of survival and ventures farther than she has ever dared. Within the Spill Zone, Hell awaits--and it seems to be calling Addison's name. The Spill Zone series, book 1.

Strange the Dreamer is the story of the aftermath of a war between gods and men, a mysterious city stripped of its name, a mythic hero with blood on his hands, a young librarian with a singular dream, a girl every bit as dangerous as she is in danger, alchemy and blood candy, nightmares and godspawn, moths and monsters, friendship and treachery, love and carnage. Welcome to Weep. 

This is a story about best friends, family responsibilities, being too young and too poor to tip your server, first loves, high school, mental illness, loss, economic inequality, underground art shows. Most importantly, in the Star Wars universe, is there anyone Chewbacca can have a fulfilling romantic relationship with? Can’t a Wookie get any love?

This intensely gritty novel follows Domino Ray, a girl who is trying to survive in a hard world. A mysterious offering takes her to a home for girls that do various jobs, many terrible. No one knows that Domino has a secret of her own, and his name is Wilson.

For three years, all that Sam Walsh’s family has wanted is for him to come home. Now with his kidnapper safely behind bars, Sam is back with his loved ones, but it’s not the joyous occasion everyone has been expecting. Everyone has been changed by his disappearance. Is it even possible for them to get back to where they were?