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Playing with Matches

10 best books like Playing with Matches (Brian Katcher): The One Where the Kid Nearly Jumps to His Death and Lands in California, Red Glass, Girls on the Line, Debbie Harry Sings in French, Dark Dude, The Last Exit to Normal, Denim Diaries 1: 16 Going on 21, Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl, Hothouse, Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath

The One Where the Kid Nearly Jumps to His Death and Lands in California
AuthorMary Hershey
ISBN1595141502
“Mom didn’t think it was funny when I took off my leg at school, put it in my locker, and then tied a rag around my stump with fake blood on it. After that, though, the kids at school pretty much knew if anyone was going to be cracking jokes about my leg, it was gonna be me.” So says thirteen-year-old Alastair...
Red Glass
AuthorLaura Resau
ISBN0385734662
ONE NIGHT SOPHIE and her parents are called to a hospital where Pedro, 6-year-old Mexican boy, is recovering from dehydration. Crossing the border into Arizona with a group of Mexicans and a coyote, or guide, Pedro and his parents faced such harsh conditions that the boy is the only survivor. Pedro comes...
Girls on the Line
AuthorJennie Liu
ISBN1541530705
You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight

Girls on the Line provides a really gritty look inside the lives of two young Chinese women, one of whom is fresh out of the orphanage and navigating the world on her own for the first time,...
Debbie Harry Sings in French
AuthorMeagan Brothers
ISBN0805080805
Johnny’s had kind of a tough life so far, and he’s always been a bit of a freak. His goth look usually includes black nail polish and a little mascara.When he discovers Debbie Harry, the lead singer of Blondie, he not only likes her music but realizes that he kind of, sort of, wants to BE her. He’d like...
Dark Dude
AuthorOscar Hijuelos

He didn't say good-bye. He didn't leave a phone number. And he didn't plan on coming back - ever.

In Wisconsin, Rico could blend in. His light hair and lighter skin wouldn't make him the "dark dude" or the punching bag for the whole neighborhood. The Midwest is the land of milk and honey, but...
The Last Exit to Normal
AuthorMichael Harmon
ISBN0375940987
It’s true: After 17-year-old Ben’s father announces he’s gay and the family splits apart, Ben does everything he can to tick him off: skip school, smoke pot, skateboard nonstop, get arrested. But he never thinks he’ll end up yanked out of his city life and plunked down into a small Montana town...
Denim Diaries 1: 16 Going on 21
AuthorDarrien Lee
ISBN1933967714
This week I have started reading '16 Going on 21' by Darrien Lee. So far this book is really intense it jumps straight into the action. Denim and Dré have been friends since they were three years old and it is clear how much they love each other. The only thing in their way is Denim's annoying and overbearing...
Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl
AuthorCarolita Blythe
Faye doesn't mean to hit the old lady she and her friends are mugging. But she does. The old lady isn't moving, but Faye has no reason to feel guilty for leaving her there. The old lady might be ancient and wrinkly now. But back in the day, she was as beautiful as they come—a famous movie star. And everyone...
Hothouse
AuthorChris Lynch
If you do it right, it can be a life. The hothouse, the guys, the glory. But just like that, it can all go up in smoke. In the beginning it was strange, ya know, because of all that we had lost. But there was something about it that felt so good and so right, too: "I'm so proud of you, Russ." "We'll always be here...
Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath
AuthorSteven Goldman
ISBN1599902710
Mitchell Wells may not survive eleventh grade. He really only has one friend, his best friend, David. His normally decent grade point average is in limbo due to a slightly violent, somewhat inappropriate claymation film. And girls . . . well, does hanging out with his sister count?

When David...
Fancy White Trash
AuthorMarjetta Geerling
ISBN0670010820
Finding love is simple with the One True Love Plan. If only life were as easy as your sisters. Abby's heard that one before. And it's true. Shelby and Kait aren't exactly prim and proper. Abby is determined not to follow in their footsteps, so she has created the One True Love Plan. The most important part...
Guardian
AuthorJulius Lester
ISBN0061558907
There are times when a tree can no longer withstand the pain inflicted on it, and the wind will take pity on that tree and topple it over in a mighty storm. All the other trees who witnessed the evil look down upon the fallen tree with envy. They pray for the day when a wind will end their suffering.

I...
Muchacho
AuthorLouAnne Johnson
"An inspiring YA debut from the author of "Dangerous Minds."
"Eddie Corazon is angry. He's also very smart. But he's working pretty hard at being a juvenile delinquent. He blows off school, even though he's a secret reader. He hangs with his cousins, who will always back him up--when they aren't...
Ghost Medicine
AuthorAndrew Smith
ISBN0312375573
The summer before Troy Stotts turns seventeen, his mother dies. Troy and his father barely speak, communicating instead by writing notes on a legal pad by the phone. Troy spends most of his time with his closest friends: Tom Buller, brash and fearless, the son of a drunk; Gabe Benavidez, smart enough...
Good Enough
AuthorPaula Yoo
ISBN0060790857
How to make your Korean parents happy:

1. Get a perfect score on the SATs.
2. Get into HarvardYalePrinceton.
3. Don't talk to boys.*

Patti's parents expect nothing less than the best from their Korean-American daughter. Everything she does affects her chances of getting...
Love, Cajun Style
AuthorDiane Les Becquets
ISBN1582346747
It’s the summer before Lucy’s senior year in high school, and life in her sleepy Louisiana town is about to be turned upside down. Her mama’s flirting with the dark stranger who runs the art gallery, her best friends Mary Jordan and Evie have boys on the brain, the drama teacher is sparking some powerful...
Trevor
AuthorJames Lecesne
ISBN1609804201
Trevor is an exuberant, sociable, and witty thirteen year old. So how come, when he takes that nerve-wracking turn toward his locker at school, he feels scared and alone? Shunned by his friends, misunderstood by his parents, and harrassed at school for being different, Trevor goes from wondering...
Don't Think Twice
AuthorRuth Pennebaker
ISBN0805067299
Don't think twice is a book about a teenage girl named Anne. She was in a relationship with her boyfriend, Jake, at the time, when her unplanned pregnancy occurred. However, she and Jake soon broke up and Anne was left to keep Jake from knowing about her being pregnant and sharing the news with her parents....
The Miner's Daughter
AuthorGretchen Moran Laskas
ISBN1416912622
Perhaps there is always a mark, when another person touches you, an invisible thread connecting you to them.

Backbreaking work, threadbare clothes, and black coal dust choking the air -- this is what a miner's daughter knows. Willa Lowell fears that this dust marks her to be nothing else,...
My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters
AuthorSydney Salter
ISBN0152066438
It’s the end of junior year, and summer is about to begin. The Summer of Passion, to be exact, when Jory Michaels plans to explore all the possibilities of the future—and, with any luck, score a boyfriend in the process. But Jory has a problem. A big problem. A curvy, honking, bumpy, problem in the form...
Andromeda Klein
AuthorFrank Portman
ISBN0385735251
Andromeda Klein has a few problems.

Her hair is kind of horrible.

Her partner-in-occultism, Daisy, is dead.

Her secret, estranged, much older and forbidden boyfriend-in-theory, has gone AWOL.

And her mother has learned how to text.

In short, things...
The View from the Top
AuthorHillary Frank
Eighteen-year-old Anabelle’s last few months in her coastal hometown are bittersweet. Instead of the quiet precollege summer she expects, Anabelle makes some surprising discoveries about herself as she navigates romantic entanglements and changing friendships. Through shifting points...
Pretty Face
AuthorMary Hogan
ISBN0060841117
That's what I am. A funny girl. A friend. Nobody's girlfriend. The girl with the pretty face. Hayley wishes she could love living in Santa Monica, blocks from the beach, where every day and everybody is beautiful and sunny. But she just doesn't fit in with all the blond, superskinny Southern California...
The Decoding of Lana Morris
AuthorLaura McNeal
ISBN0375831061
A Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Year
A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

Sixteen-year-old Lana Morris wishes her life were different: her Ice Queen of a foster mother won't leave her alone, and she has no friends but the other foster kids she takes care of.

Then...
Brett McCarthy: Work In Progress
AuthorMaria Padian
ISBN0375846751
Brett McCarthy lives for vocabulary words, soccer, and her larger-than-life grandmother, Nonna. Unfortunately, Brett’s got a big mouth she can’t seem to tame and opinions she can’t keep to herself. And she’s obsessed with the moment she became redefined and went from good student, bestfriend-to-Diane...
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