Showing titles in Sexual Abuse

She hadn’t told anyone. Not a single soul. Not one word about that night and what had been done to her had ever passed Maddy Malone’s lips. She’d thought about it at first - had been desperate, even frantic, to tell. But then had come the shame, and the intimidation from the boys who raped her - and the one who held her down.

Sixteen-year-old Virginia Shreves' life is finally back on course: She's accepted who she is inside and out and is rebuilding her relationship with brother Byron, whose date-rape charge shattered everything. But just as she adjusts to her new normal, her world turns upside down again. Sparks with boyfriend Froggy fade, her best friend bombshells bad news, and then the police arrest Byron.

Theo is better now. She’s eating again, dating guys who are almost appropriate, and well on her way to becoming an elite ballet dancer. But when her oldest friend, Donovan, returns home after spending four long years with his kidnapper, Theo starts reliving memories about his abduction - and his abductor. Donovan isn’t talking about what happened, and even though Theo knows she didn’t do anything wrong, telling the truth would put everything she’s been living for at risk. But keeping quiet might be worse.

Three junior high school girls accuse their music teacher of inappropriate actions. The story is told through the eyes of one of the accusers, Claire, who lives in the shadow of a disabled younger brother, and the teacher’s daughter Melody. Interwoven in the story are the problems the three accusers face in their own lives and the work Melody does at a horse farm where she helps disabled children - one of whom turns out to be Claire’s brother.

Eden was always good at being good. Starting high school didn’t change who she was. But the night her brother’s best friend rapes her, Eden’s world capsizes. What was once simple, is now complex. What Eden once loved—who she once loved—she now hates. What she thought she knew to be true, is now lies. Nothing makes sense anymore, and she knows she’s supposed to tell someone what happened but she can’t. So she buries it instead. And she buries the way she used to be.

For 17-year-old Denver, music is everything. Writing, performing, and her ultimate goal: escaping her very small, very White hometown. So, Denver is more than ready on the day she and her best friends Dali and Shak sing their way into the orbit of the biggest R&B star in the world, Sean "Mercury" Ellis. Merc gives them everything: parties, perks, wild nights - plus hours and hours in the recording studio.

Sixteen-year-old Will spends most of his days the same way: Working at the Dollar Only store, trying to replicate his late father’s famous cornbread recipe, and walking the streets of Los Angeles. Will started walking after his father committed suicide, and three years later he hasn’t stopped. But there are some places Will can’t walk by: The blessings store with the chest of 100 Chinese blessings in the back, the bridge on Fourth Street where his father died, and his childhood friend Playa’s house.

After seventeen-year-old Claire Alalay’s father's death, only music has helped her channel her grief. Claire likes herself best when she plays his old piano, a welcome escape from the sadness - and her traditional Filipino mother’s prayer groups. In the hopes of earning a college scholarship, Claire auditions for Paul Avon, a prominent piano teacher, who agrees to take Claire as a pupil. Soon Claire loses herself in Paul’s world and his way of digging into a composition’s emotional core.

Wales, 1109. Three years ago, a warband raided Elen’s home. Her baby sister could not escape the flames. Her older sister fought back and almost killed the warband’s leader, Owain ap Cadwgan, before being killed herself. Despite Elen’s own sexual assault at the hands of the raiders, she saw a chance to live and took it. She healed Owain’s wound and spun a lie: Owain ap Cadwgan, son of the king of Powys, cannot be killed, not by blade nor blow nor poison. Owain ap Cadwgan has the protection of Saint Elen, as long as he keeps her namesake safe from harm and near him always.

Weekends are for partying with friends while trying to survive the mindnumbingness that is high school. The countdown to graduation is on, and Skye has her sights set on escaping to art school and not looking back. But her party-first-ask-questions-later lifestyle starts to crumble when her mom rekindles her romance with the man who betrayed Skye's boundaries when he was supposed to be protecting her. She was too young to understand what was happening at the time, but now she doesn't know whether to run as far away from him as possible or give up her dreams to save her little sister.

Jesse seems like a normal sixteen-year-old, but he isn't. He is a victim of King - a ruthless hacker who has been blackmailing Jesse with incriminating screen photos and videos. So far, Jesse's given in to King's demands in order to protect his family. But now King wants something that's too horrible to contemplate - and if he doesn't get it, King will kill Jesse's little sister.

At Jonesville High, casual misogyny runs rampant, slut-shaming is a given, and school athletes are glorified above all else. Best friends Suze, Nikki, Ani, and Lydia swear they'll always have each other's backs against predatory guys - so when Suze suddenly starts dating wrestling star and toxic douchebag Tarkin Shaw, it's a big betrayal. Turns out, it's not a relationship - it's blackmail. At first, Suze feels like she has no choice but to go along with it, but when Tarkin starts demanding more, she enlists the help of intelligent misfits DeShawn and Marcus....

After Diego lands himself on probation for fighting, he doesn’t trust his probation officer, Mr. Vidas. But as he begins to open up, Diego realizes that he needs Mr. Vidas’s help to get his anger under control. To do that, Diego will need to face the nightmares from his past head-on and confront the memories he’s been avoiding. Will anyone even believe him if he tells the truth about his stepfather? Award-winning author Alex Sanchez writes about a teen’s very real struggle to overcome his anger and take control of his life.

Running away from home hasn’t solved Iphigenia Murphy’s problems. In fact, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll catch up with her. Iffy is desperate to find her long-lost mother, and, so far, in spite of the need to forage for food and shelter and fend off an unending number of creeps, living in Queens’ Forest Park has felt safer than living at home. But as the summer days get shorter, it all threatens to fall apart.

Everyone has heard a different version of what happened that night at MacCallum College. Haley was already in bed when her roommate, Jenny, arrived home shell-shocked from the wild Conundrum House party. Richard heard his housemate Jordan brag about the cute freshman he hooked up with. When Jenny formally accuses Jordan of rape, Haley and Richard find themselves pushed onto opposite sides of the school's investigation.

Sade Hussein is the new girl at the prestigious Alfred Nobel Academy. She has no idea what to expect of her mysterious new boarding school–an institution steeped in tradition and secrets. But she certainly didn't imagine her roommate, Elizabeth, to go missing on her first night. Or for people to think Sade had something to do with it. Suddenly everyone is talking about Sade, including the Unholy Trinity: the three most popular girls at school. Swept up in their circle, Sade can't shake the sense that there's more to Elizabeth's disappearance–especially as the teachers don't seem to care.

Lyndie thought she had left her problems behind when she ran off to college in Charleston. She expected to have a great senior year and move on with the rest of her life. Little did she know, she would meet Brantley, a guy who had the kind of faith in God she had never known. He would challenge her own faith and lead her to face a painful memory she had been pushing away for years. Through her newfound relationship with God, she finds the courage to tell her family what had happened to her so many years ago, and she learns that sometimes, God uses scars to tell a story to help others.

Gilmore Girls meets vibrant New Delhi in this thoughtful and hilarious new novel about a teen facing family expectations, relationship complications, and hidden secrets in a new country - sprinkled with Sheba Karim’s signature wit and steamy romance, and perfect for listeners who loved Mary H. K. Choi’s Emergency Contact and Adib Khorram’s Darius the Great Is Not Okay.

Both harrowing and life-affirming, the final novel from Carnegie Medal-winning author Mal Peet is the sweeping coming-of-age adventure of a mixed race boy transported to North America. Born from a street liaison between a poor young woman and an African soldier in the 1900s, Beck is soon orphaned and sent to the Catholic Brothers in Canada. Shipped to work on a farm, his escape takes him across the continent in a search for belonging.

In a single night, Ani's life was torn to shreds - and Ben struggles with the weight of trying to fix the unfixable in this heartbreaking and edgy debut novel. Ben could date anyone he wants, but he has eyes only for the new girl - sarcastic, free-spirited Ani. Luckily for Ben, Ani wants him, too. She's everything Ben could ever imagine. Everything he could ever want. But that all changes after the party. The one Ben misses. The one Ani goes to alone. Now Ani isn't the girl she used to be, and Ben can't sort out the truth from the lies.