“Pride and Prejudice gets remixed in this smart, funny, gorgeous retelling of the classic, starring all characters of color, from Ibi Zoboi, National Book Award finalist and author of American Street.
Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable.
When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can’t stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding.
But with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick’s changing landscape, or lose it all.” – Goodreads
Zoboi gives so much energy and contemporary insight into a story we’ve heard rehashed so many times. Zuri was an incredibly compelling and brilliant narrator whose authenticity and ability to call people on their nonsense makes her one of the best heroines I’ve read in ages. The modernization of this tale within the context of gentrification and complicated race/class factors made this a super robust and important book, while the romance was so dreamy and well done.
Call # Fiction Z71pr
Review by Vicki
When Starr Carter witnesses the fatal shooting of Khalil, her childhood best friend, her life is turned upside down. The shooting becomes a national headline, but Starr’s best friends at her private, mostly-white high school do not know of her involvement in the incident. Starr struggles to keep her school life in Williamson separate from her family life in Garden Heights, the poor and dangerous black neighborhood where Starr grew up and lives. People are holding demonstrations in support of Khalil and tensions arise in Starr’s life. Starr is hesitant to become further involved with the shooting so as not to put her life at risk, but her words and actions could change the views of the community.
“Sixteen-year-old Nicholas Cox is an outsider to the competitive fencing world. Filled with raw talent but lacking proper training, he signs up for a competition that puts him head-to-head with fencing prodigy Seiji Katayama…and on the road to the elite all-boys school Kings Row. A chance at a real team and a place to belong awaits him—if he can make the cut!” – 
“For Penny Lee, high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn’t actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it’s seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she can’t wait to leave behind.
“Bonnie and Clyde may be the most notorious–and celebrated–outlaw couple America has ever known. This is the true story of how they got that way.
“At thirteen, bright-eyed, straight-A student Sara Saedi uncovered a terrible family secret: she was breaking the law simply by living in the United States. Only two years old when her parents fled Iran, she didn’t learn of her undocumented status until her older sister wanted to apply for an after-school job, but couldn’t because she didn’t have a Social Security number.
Julia’s older and much more responsible sister, Olga, is hit and killed tragically by a semi-truck. In Olga’s absence, Julia is left to deal with this loss beside her two immigrant parents—her mother, who strongly preferred Olga’s good behavior over Julia’s, and her father, whose emotional unavailability and working-class life seem too different from her own. Not long after Olga’s death, Julia suddenly discovers evidence that Olga wasn’t as perfect as she seemed, so she is determined to find out who her sister really was. Along the way, Julia navigates a new relationship with her first ever boyfriend, Connor, as well as the tumultuous connection to her best friend from childhood, Lorena.
“Paris, at the dawn of the modern age:
“A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about a girl in Sudan in 2008 and a boy in Sudan in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours’ walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the “lost boys” of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya’s in an astonishing and moving way.” – 
Content warning for explicit descriptions of gun violence