Julie Halpern

"Tenth graders Eliana and Dmitri could not be more different. He's an outgoing, self-confident drummer in a punk band called Unexpected Turbulence. Eliana is introspective and thoughtful, and a movie buff who is living with depression. Dmitri quite literally falls for Eliana when he sees her in gym class and slams into a classmate. The pair then navigate the ins and outs of first love. Exciting, scary, unexpected, and so much more difficult than they...

When Anna returns from a three-week stay in a mental hospital she struggles to resume a normal life in the face of her parents' arguments and peers who are afraid to ask her what happened.

When high school sophomore Jessie's long-term best friend transforms herself into a punk and goes after Jessie's would-be boyfriend, Jessie decides to visit "the wild nerd yonder" and seek true friends among classmates who play Dungeons and Dragons.

Anna Bloom, confined to a mental hospital by her parents who do not know how to deal with her depression and panic attacks, writes letters to her best friend Tracy sharing the funny details of her life and the people she is getting to know at Lakeland.