Brooke Averick’s debut novel, Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It (2026), is a contemporary romantic comedy that emerged from the author’s career as a popular digital creator. Averick, cohost of the podcast Brooke & Connor Make a Podcast, is known for her candid and humorous online discussions of her own experiences with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This novel translates those themes into a fictional narrative. The story follows Phoebe Berman, a 29-year-old pre-K teacher whose... Read Phoebe Berman's Gonna Lose It Summary

The debut novel of British author Charles Dickens, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (commonly known as The Pickwick Papers) was first published as a series by Chapman and Hall between 1836 and 1837. The Pickwick Papers chronicles the adventures of the members of the Pickwick Club, a group of travelers who journey around England and share their experiences. Because of the original serial format of the novel, the chapters contain individual but interconnected... Read Pickwick Papers Summary

Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff is a novel for middle readers about a foster child, the eponymous Hollis Woods, and how she finds a family. It was originally published in 2002 and became a Newbery Honor Book in 2003. In 2007, Hallmark Hall of Fame adapted the novel into a movie. Giff is the author of many popular books for children, including series like Kids of the Polk Street School, Friends and... Read Pictures Of Hollis Woods Summary

Picture Us in the Light is a young adult novel written by Kelly Loy Gilbert and published in 2018 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Gilbert is the author of three young adult novels, all of which focus on the young Asian American experience. Picture Us in the Light is written in the first-person perspective of protagonist Danny Cheng, but Gilbert includes flashbacks to China to connect Danny to a past his parents have... Read Picture Us in the Light Summary

Children’s author Sarah Weeks first published her mid-grade novel Pie in 2011. The story combines coming-of-age, mystery, and action-adventure genres as it follows 10-year-old protagonist Alice Anderson, whose beloved aunt, Polly Portman, suddenly dies in the summer of 1955. Polly’s death does not devastate Alice alone but rocks the entire village of Ipswitch, Pennsylvania. Polly’s remarkable pie shop is known throughout the nation, with Polly having won 13 straight annual Blueberry Awards for making the... Read Pie Summary

Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson is a young adult novel published in 2017. In 2018, it won the Coretta Scott King Award from the American Library Award Association and was named a Newbery Honor Book by the Association for Library Service to Children. The novel comprises 76 chapters, each of which is given a bilingual title in English and Spanish. For example, Chapter 1 is titled “español - Spanish language,” and Chapter 2 is... Read Piecing Me Together Summary

Pineapple Street is a satirical exploration of the lifestyles of the mega-wealthy of New York City. Using elements of the family drama to criticize how inherited wealth foments structures of exclusivity, Jackson explores the perspectives of three female protagonists at varying stages of their lives. She bookends these perspectives with the point of view of Curtis McCoy, a wealthy young man who handles his own inherited wealth morally and responsibly. Pineapple Street blends a coming-of-age... Read Pineapple Street Summary

Kent Haruf's Plainsong was published in 1999 and addresses such powerful themes as community, acceptance and loneliness, as well as the effects of isolation on the individual. The novel focuses on several storylines and takes place in the high plains of eastern Colorado. The characters face daunting trials and tribulations, and many of their paths cross with one another.Other works by this author include Our Souls At Night, Benediction, and Eventide.In Holt, Colorado, Tom Guthrie... Read Plainsong Summary

Planet Earth Is Blue (2019) is the first novel by Nicole Panteleakos. A work of realistic fiction written for middle grade readers, it follows Nova Vezina, a preteen girl in foster care who loves astronomy and dreams of space travel. Nova, who has autism and is mostly nonverbal, is especially inspired by Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from Nova’s home state of New Hampshire who has been selected to take part in the Challenger space shuttle... Read Planet Earth Is Blue Summary

Planet Omar: Accidental Trouble Magnet (2019) is an illustrated chapter book by Zanib Mian. Exuberant Omar and his family move to a new neighborhood and experience anti-Muslim prejudice from their next-door neighbor and a bully at school. Omar’s imagination, faith, good humor, and innate empathy help him teach naysayers that it is okay to be different. Mian explores the importance of extending kindness, learning about and accepting other cultures, and coping with bullying. Mian, an... Read Planet Omar: Accidental Trouble Magnet Summary

Martha Wells’s Platform Decay (2026) is the eighth installment and third full-length novel in the critically acclaimed science fiction series, The Murderbot Diaries. A blend of space opera and cyberpunk, the story continues the adventures of Murderbot, a security android that has hacked its own governor module to achieve autonomy. The series has received numerous Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards, and has been adapted for television by Apple TV+.The novel builds on the series’ established... Read Platform Decay Summary

Play Along is the fourth book in contemporary romance writer Liz Tomforde’s Windy City series. The story follows Kennedy Kay, the Windy City Warriors’ ambitious female trainer, and Isaiah Rhodes, the team’s fun-loving, handsome shortstop, who has had a crush on Kennedy since the day he met her. When they wake up unexpectedly married in Las Vegas, they must figure out how to deal with their drunken decision while preserving their jobs. As Kennedy navigates... Read Play Along Summary

Play Nice (2025), is a horror suspense novel by Rachel Harrison. The novel follows the Barnes sisters as they deal with the death of their estranged mother, who believed that their childhood home was possessed by a demon. As Clio renovates the house and reads her mother’s self-published account of the haunting, the house’s “sinister presence” begins to manifest in ways that force the sisters to confront Haunted Domestic Space as an Archive for Trauma... Read Play Nice Summary

Becka Mack’s contemporary romance novel, Play with Me (2022), is the second installment in her interconnected Playing for Keeps hockey romance series. The story follows Garrett Andersen, a professional hockey player, and Jennie Beckett, a talented dancer and the fiercely independent younger sister of his team captain, Carter. After becoming neighbors, their awkward and antagonistic encounters gradually evolve into a secret, no-strings-attached physical relationship. As they navigate their arrangement, they must confront their growing feelings... Read Play with Me Summary

Translated from the Korean by Chi-young Kim, Please Look After Mom (2008) by Kyung-sook Shin is an international work of best-selling fiction. When 69-year-old So-nyo Park goes missing one Saturday outside Seoul Station, her disappearance sets in motion a desperate search not only for where So-nyo might be but for who So-nyo was to her shocked and confused family members. One by one, So-nyo’s family comes to terms with the fact that they didn’t know... Read Please Look After Mom Summary

Point of Retreat (2012), the second book in the Slammed series, is a contemporary new adult romance by #1 New York Times best-selling author Colleen Hoover. The story, told from Will Cooper’s first-person perspective, picks up shortly after the events of Hoover’s debut novel, Slammed, and follows 21-year-old Will and 19-year-old Layken “Lake” Cohen as they navigate the transition from adolescence to adulthood while grappling with grief and immense responsibility. Both act as guardians for... Read Point of Retreat Summary

Pompeii is a 2003 historical fiction novel by British author Robert Harris. The novel blends together the history of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD with a fictional plot about an engineer sent from Rome to repair the city’s aqueducts. This study guide uses an eBook version of the 2003 Ballantine Books edition. Plot SummaryMarcus Attilius Primus is a young aqueduct engineer, also known as an “aquarius.” His father and his grandfather were... Read Pompeii Summary

Written by R. J. Palacio in 2021, Pony is a middle grade, historical fiction novel that incorporates elements of magical realism. When 12-year-old Silas’s father is kidnapped by outlaws in 19th-century Ohio, Silas embarks on a journey to find him, accompanied by his teenage ghost companion, a magical pony, and a mysterious US Marshal. As the story unfolds, Silas must confront real-life challenges and supernatural elements on a journey of love, loss, and self-discovery.This guide... Read Pony Summary

Pop by Gordan Korman (2009) is a young adult sports novel that chronicles a high school football player’s relationship with a former NFL star who has chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Through the relationships of the book, the story explores Caregiving as a Crucible of Empathy, How Legacy Shapes Identity, and The Importance of Direct Experience as a Source of Knowledge. Pop received positive reviews and was shortlisted in the fiction category of the OLA Red... Read Pop Summary

Introduction Poppy is a middle-grade animal fantasy novel by veteran children’s writer Edward Irving Wortis, better known by his pen name Avi. Poppy was the first book published in the Dimwood Forest series in 1995, but it is third in the series’ chronological sequence. It is preceded narratively by Ragweed (1999) and Ragweed and Poppy (2020). The series uses its recurring animal characters to build on overarching themes like friendship and family, coming of age... Read Poppy Summary