Love and Profanity: A Collection of True, Tortured, Wild, Hilarious, Concise, and Intense Tales of Teenage Life

More than 40 brief true stories from Pete Hautman, Alison McGhee, Adam Rex, Jon Scieszka and others address a vast range of experiences and emotions that will be painfully familiar to teens or anyone who ever was one. Several stories, like Rachael Hanel’s “Best Friends,” describe moments of defining heartbreak (“Jenni’s break from me was so clean and fast that it left me spinning”), while Natalie Singer-Velush’s “A Ghost in the Mall” captures that perennial feeling of not belonging: “I know the prerequisites for fitting into the world around me.... But I don’t have the key to get in.” Ali Catt (“Polypropylene”) and Clint Edwards (“I Don’t Believe You”) recount moments of excruciating public humiliation, Melodie Heide (“First Gear”) recalls the intoxicating freedom of driving, and Carrie Mesrobian (“Why Is It Wet Here?”) and Steve Brezenoff (“Weightless”) share stories of parties, “to which everyone on God’s green earth is welcome because the parents are out of town.” Hilarity, heartache, terror, regret, shame, and self-awakening can all be found in this collection of finely wrought moments in time. Ages 14–up. (Mar.)