Jack Pedersen is finding life complicated ever since he came out to his mom. Even though she's been doing her best to understand, it's obvious to Jack that his mom still wants to cry every time she says the word gay. Complications go into overdrive when a new student named Benjamin arrives at his high school, and Jack starts experiencing feelings he's never allowed himself before. When a near tragedy turns life upside down, Jack realizes that it's time to stop hiding and to stand up—for Pride, for Benjamin, and for himself.

Ryan finds his freedom in the water, where he is not bound by gravity and his wheelchair. When he rescues his schoolmate, Jack, from the water their lives become connected, whether they like it or not. Ryan keeps Jack's secret about that day in the water, but he knows that Jack needs help. The school is full of rumors about Jack's sexuality, and he has few friends. Almost against his better judgement, Ryan decides to invite Jack on a trip to Comic Con he's planned with his best friend Cody, the captain of the school's swim team. The three boys make an unlikely combination, but they will each have the chance to show whether they are brave enough to go against the stereotypes the world wants to define them by.

Alex is seventeen years old and she feels her life has come to an end. After being involved in an accident that killed her best friend, she doesn't see why anyone would want her around and she refuses to talk. Ordered by a judge to do community service, she must spend time at a hospital with a girl named Joanie, who has minimal control of her body and no speech. Never having known another way of being, Joanie has an extraordinary internal life. She has been listening and watching as the world goes on around her, but Joanie is so full of words, thoughts and images that if she could ever figure out a way to let them loose, they would come swirling out in a torrent of syllables. She would fill every room with the colors of her dreams until the whole world became a rainbow of her making. Brought together by accident, Alex and Joanie have experienced the helplessness of silence. Their growing connection may lead them both to find the power of their voices.

Enter the underground world of "thinspiration" websites. Seventeen-year-old Maddie has always felt a hole in her life, but she has finally found a way to fill it with her quest to mold her body into her ideal, thinnest shape.

Before she began writing books for teens, Liane Shaw was an elementary teacher. She brings her gifts for storytelling and humor to this account of her journey into the lives of emotionally challenged students. With little in the way of experience or resources, she found herself thrust into the most challenging kind of teaching imaginable.From the moment Shaw meets her first two boys, as they sit teetering precariously on top of a bookshelf while swearing at the principal, she is both fascinated and terrified. Funny yet sad, strong yet vulnerable, these boys are both the bullies and the bullied. All from different backgrounds, the one thing they have in common is that the odds are against them and that the myriad efforts of the adults involved in their lives often do more harm than good. Shaw moves from frustration to determination. Readers will root for her to succeed, as invested in the success of these kids as she is. Students and teachers continue to face the same...