Older Teens and 20 Something's Part 1

I’ve been seeing a lot of discourse around the library blogs lately about service for older teens and new adults and whether or not they should be included in Young Adult services, have their own services and collection or be grouped with adults.

The YALSA blog had an article about it in April which can be found here. http://yalsa.ala.org/blog/2010/04/09/serving-older-teens-and-twenty-somthings/

I know that you can’t create a box and say that’s what late teens and 20 something’s read since people are just not uniform. Like teens or those who are in their later 20’s, I’m sure they read a little bit of everything. However, this past week Youth Services Corner highlighted some great books that look at the college experience, so I’m going to repost many of them here and add a few of my own. Feel free to check out her blog.
(A) = Adult Fiction

An Off Year by Claire Zulkey
Upon arriving at her dorm room, eighteen-year-old Cecily decides to postpone her freshman year of college and return to her Chicago home, where she spends a year pondering what went wrong while forging new relationships with family and friends.

Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty
Leaving her New Jersey hometown for New York City's Columbia University, Jessica Darling finds her life on the upswing, until she lands an internship at an ultra-hip Brooklyn-based magazine, and she is torn between three very different men.

College Girl by Patricia Wiez (A)
Struggling with private demons from her home life in spite of her attractiveness and ambition, sexually naive college senior Natalie Bloom falls for an untrustworthy man who preys on her insecurities,and manipulates her into self-destructive behaviors.

Dirty South by Philip Thomas
When Kenya and Lark leave New Jersey to attend college in the South, Lark becomes jealous as Kenya gains popularity and becomes the star of a dance troupe.

Forever in Blue by Ann Brashares - As their lives take them in different directions and to different colleges, Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and Bridget discover many more things about themselves and the importance of their relationship with each other.

Hacking Harvard by Robin Wasserman
When three brilliant nerds--Max Kim, Eric Roth, and Isaac "The Professor" Schwarzbaum--bet $20,000 that they can get anyone into Harvard, they take on the Ivy League in their quest for popularity, money, and the love of a beauty queen valedictorian.

Obedience by Will Lavender (A)
The students of Winchester University's class on Logic and Reasoning are given a strange assignment by the creepy Professor Williams, to follow a series of clues to find a missing girl who will be murdered if she has not been found by the end of the term.

RX by Tracy Lynn
Thyme Gilcrest uses a friend's Ritalin to help her get through crunch time at school and develops a full-blown addiction, becoming the ringleader for a prescription drug trade in her circle of overachieving friends.

Size 12 is Not Fat by Meg Cabot (A)
Former pop star Heather Wells has left behind hordes of screaming fans to settle into a new life, but when strange things start happening at her college, she finds herself once again in the spotlight, this time as a detective

Secret Society Girl by Diana Peterfreud
Eli University junior Amy Haskel finds her life turned upside down when she is invited to join the Rose & Grave, the country's most powerful and notorious secret society, as one of the organization's first female members.

The Ivy by Lauren Kunze
When Callie arrives for her freshman year at Harvard, she encounters her three vastly different roommates, new friendships, steamy romance, and scandalous secrets.

Two-Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt
Courtney must drive across country to attend college orientation with her ex-boyfriend while still fuming that he dumped her for a girl he met online, but the two of them learn valuable lessons about themselves and each other along the way.

Very LeFreak by Rachel Cohn
Consumed with emailing, online video games, and the many distractions of her electronic gadgets, hyper-frenetic Columbia University freshman Veronica, known as Very LeFreak, enters a rehab facility for the technology-addicted after her professors and classmates stage an intervention.