Truth & Lies

Be More Chill (2004) by Ned Vizzini is a young adult novel about a teenage boy trying to increase his social status in high school. The work employs humor and a science fiction premise to satirize the absurdity of social norms in contemporary youth culture. The main character, Jeremy Heere, is a socially awkward high school student who ingests a pill that contains a quantum supercomputer that advises him on how to modify his behavior... Read Be More Chill Summary

... Read Beware of the Dog Summary

... Read Beyond That, the Sea Summary

Published in 2014, Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies is a work of contemporary fiction set in the Pirriwee Peninsula, located in the Northern Beaches area of Sydney, Australia. Through the perspective of multiple characters, Big Little Lies addresses subjects including bullying, lying, parenting, friendship, and domestic violence. Big Little Lies was adapted into an award-winning television drama of the same name.  Plot Summary The first chapter foreshadows a school trivia night gone awry. The details of... Read Big Little Lies Summary

... Read Big Swiss Summary

... Read Billy and the Minpins Summary

Bitter in the Mouth, by Monique Truong, is a contemporary work of literary fiction first published in 2010. The novel is written in a stream-of-consciousness style in which the protagonist, Linda Hammerick, recounts her experience growing up as a Vietnamese American girl with synesthesia adopted by a white family in Boiling Springs, North Carolina in the 1970s. The novel explores issues of race, gender, sexuality, family, truth, and trauma.The novel is split into two parts... Read Bitter in the Mouth Summary

... Read Black Cake Summary

Marlon James’s Black Leopard, Red Wolf (2019) is a dark fantasy novel. It’s the first title in his Dark Star Trilogy, and a fusion of conventional epic storytelling, oral tradition, and creative folklore. A finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, as well as one of Washington Post’s Top Ten Books of 2019, this novel had its film rights purchased only weeks after publication.Plot SummaryAn interrogation frames the story: Tracker, a mercenary, recounts his... Read Black Leopard, Red Wolf Summary

... Read Blood of Hercules Summary

... Read Blood Over Bright Haven Summary

Bluefish (2011) is a young adult novel by Pat Schmatz. This text is also sometimes classified as middle grade. The novel centers around Travis, an eighth grader who has lost his parents and dog and recently moved to a new school. Travis befriends Velveeta, a charismatic girl who is grieving the loss of her stand-in father figure, Calvin. As Travis and Velveeta’s friendship develops, they explore the challenges of coping with loss and family trauma... Read Bluefish Summary

Gordan Korman’s 2006 young adult coming-of-age novel Born to Rock follows teenager Leo Caraway as he sets out to get to know his biological father—the frontman of a legendary punk rock band—hoping to fund his college tuition while navigating the foreign world of punk rock and gets to know his roots. The novel, which was written for and dedicated to Korman’s son, also named Leo, explores themes of genetics, identity, self-expression, and lying.Korman is a... Read Born to Rock Summary

... Read Born to Run Summary

... Read Bottle of Lies Summary

Boy, Snow, Bird is a novel about race in mid-20th-century America. The novel’s central protagonist is Boy Novak, though the book employs two participant narrators: Boy, in Part I; Boy’s daughter, Bird, in Part II; then Boy once more, in Part III. The novel takes place almost entirely in Flax Hill, Massachusetts, except for the first chapter; however, it jumps in time, with the first portion set in the 1950s, while the latter portion is... Read Boy, Snow, Bird Summary

... Read Brain Damage Summary

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a 1958 novella by Truman Capote. In the story, an unnamed narrator is introduced to a young woman named Holly Golightly and the unique New York world she inhabits. The novella is one of Capote’s most popular works and has been adapted as a musical, a play, and most famously as an Academy Award–winning film in 1961 starring Audrey Hepburn. This guide refers to the eBook version of the 2000 Penguin... Read Breakfast at Tiffany’s Summary

... Read Bright Young Women Summary

Bring Up the Bodies (2012) is a Tudor-era historical novel by British writer Hilary Mantel. It is the second novel in a trilogy depicting the life and career of Thomas Cromwell, a 16th-century English politician and advisor to King Henry VIII. Bring Up the Bodies followed Wolf Hall (2009) and preceded The Mirror and The Light (2020). It received significant critical acclaim and was awarded the 2012 Man Booker Prize. BBC produced a television adaptation... Read Bring Up The Bodies Summary