The Death of Jayson Porter by Jaime Adoff
259 pages; 2008

Sixteen-year-old Jayson Porter wants to believe things will get better. But the harsh realities of his life never seem to change. Living in the inland-Florida projects with his abusive mother, he tries unsuccessfully to fit in at his predominately white school, while struggling to maintain even a thread of a relationship with his drug-addicted father. As the pressure mounts, there¹s only one thing Jayson feels he has control over -- the choice of whether to live or die. ~ Publisher's Description

Good Enough by Paula Yoo
322 pages; 2008

Patti's parents expect nothing less than the best from their Korean-American daughter. Everything she does affects her chances of getting into an Ivy League school. So winning assistant concertmaster in her All-State violin competition and earning less than 2300 on her SATs is simply not good enough.

But Patti's discovering that there's more to life than the Ivy League. And anyway, what if Patti doesn't want to go to HarvardYalePrinceton after all?  ~ Publisher's Description

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