One of Us Is Next

One of Us Is Next

By Karen M. McManus

Read in 9th grade

Teen book

Book 2 in series

Book 1! One of Us Is Lying

The drama is all over in Bayview...or is it? The aftermath of About That has changed Bayview High School. And Maeve, Phoebe, and Knox are getting roped into it. Many About That copies have popped up, most of them bad. But the latest is playing a game of Truth or Dare. And the first candidate? Phoebe. When she refuses to play, the Unknown exposes her. She slept with her sister’s boyfriend. This cracks Phoebe’s relationships with her sister and friends down to just Knox and Maeve. Now, people know: Always pick Dare. School mascots on street signs, kissing random people, the fear and interest levels are matching About That.

One of Us Is Lying

One of Us Is Lying

Karen M. McManus

Read in 9th grade

Teen book

5 high school seniors, each with a secret to keep, all in one room for detention because of a phone that wasn’t theirs. Then, one of them, Simon, dies while the teacher is outside the room to investigate a car accident. No one can figure out which one of the other four did it. To make matters worse, the boy who died was the creator of About That, an app that exposed the deepest secrets of everyone in the school. And his next post was about the four in the room. The story makes media headlines as each person is exposed, Bronwyn for cheating through chemistry, Addy for cheating on her boyfriend, Nate on selling drugs, and Cooper for being gay. It makes their lives horrible, but instead of turning on each other and making accusations, they band together and dig in to the story behind the boy who was murdered. He had depression, he made nasty posts on revenge forums, and had the whole school in his grip with his secrets. They finally find something. Someone continued About That after the murder, and at least one was written by Addy’s boyfriend, Jake. Then, Nate is arrested because the medication Simon needed to survive the day he died is found in his locker. But all is not over. Addy finds from Simon’s girlfriend that Jake was told about her cheating, and teamed up with Simon to get revenge. No one murdered Simon. It was suicide. And he wanted it to be different, something people would remember, and wanted revenge in the process. With this evidence, Nate is freed, and all is well.

...Or is it? Read One of Us Is Next here.

Note: There is a whole lot more romance and sexual content than I have written here.

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

By Edwin A. Abbott

Read in 9th grade

Square lives in Flatland, a two dimensional world with height and width. Their world has all four cardinal directions, but no up or down, and its subjects could not possibly comprehend such a thing. In this world, all women are lines, with varying lengths based on age. The lowest class of men are isosceles triangles, with vertex angle measures depending on their status. These shapes can eventually get into the class of equilateral triangles by increasing angle measures every generation. After that, every generation results in an increased number of sides by one, until a shape is Polygonal, and eventually has so many sides as to be called a circle. One day, Square has a dream where he visits Lineland, a one dimensional world that is, quite literally, a line.