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Things I'll Never Say: Stories About Our Secret Selves

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Things I'll Never Say: Stories About Our Secret Selves

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Overview

Fifteen top young-adult authors let us in on provocative secrets in a fascinating collection that will have readers talking.

A baby no one knows about. A dangerous hidden identity. Off-limits hookups. A parent whose problems your friends won’t understand. Everyone keeps secrets—from themselves, from their families, from their friends—and secrets have a habit of shaping the lives around them. Acclaimed author Ann Angel brings together some of today’s most gifted YA authors to explore, in a variety of genres, the nature of secrets: Do they make you stronger or weaker? Do they alter your world when revealed? Do they divide your life into what you’ll tell and what you won’t? The one thing these diverse stories share is a glimpse into the secret self we all keep hidden.

With stories by:
Ann Angel
Kerry Cohen
Louise Hawes
Varian Johnson erica l. kaufman
Ron Koertge
E. M. Kokie
Chris Lynch
Kekla Magoon
Zoë Marriott
Katy Moran
J. L. Powers
Mary Ann Rodman
Cynthia Leitich Smith
Ellen Wittlinger

Product Details
About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763673079
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	03/24/2015
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.20(d)
Lexile:	HL770L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Ann Angel is the author of many biographies, including Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing, which won a YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. Previously, she served as contributing editor for the anthology Such a Pretty Face: Short Stories About Beauty. A graduate of Vermont College’s MFA program in writing for children and young adults, Ann Angel directs the English graduate program at Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, where she lives with her family.

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

01/19/2015
In this thoughtful anthology of 15 original stories from Ron Koertge, Chris Lynch, Kekla Magoon, and more, readers receive intimate glimpses into the lives of teenagers carrying secrets about their families, friendships, or passions. With the exception of “Cupid’s Beaux,” Cynthia Leitich Smith’s lighthearted fantasy about a guardian angel, the selections have a generally sober tone, addressing serious issues. In two stories, Ellen Wittlinger’s “The We-Are-Like-Everybody-Else Game” and Erica L. Kaufman’s “Three-Four Time,” high-school girls are forced to play adult roles, caring for unstable parents while trying to maintain façades of normalcy. Other stories reveal the unexpected consequences of sexual exploits, like the baby, given up for adoption, who haunts the thoughts of his teen father in Mary Ann Rodman’s “Choices.” Then there’s Luke in editor Angel’s “We Were Together,” who gives his girlfriend herpes after cheating on her. Rather than providing tidy solutions to the characters’ dilemmas, the stories focus on the feelings of entrapment and anxiety that go along with living a lie. Ages 14–up. Agent: Tracey Adams, Adams Literary. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

The collection offers many worthy entries.
—Kirkus Reviews

Rather than providing tidy solutions to the characters’ dilemmas, the stories focus on the feelings of entrapment and anxiety that go along with living a lie.
—Publishers Weekly

This collection will resonate with many young adults who have their own secrets as well as readers who vicariously live through the risqué lifestyles of others.... A very discussible title for fans of Chris Lynch’s and Ellen Hopkins’s hard-hitting realistic fiction.
—School Library Journal

This new collection of short stories about secrets is an ideal combination of form and subject.... The balance and diversity that Angel has achieved here is marvelous, and nearly any teen who picks this up will find a bit of herself or himself—or at least a friend—inside these pages. A collection to treasure and share widely.
—Booklist

The assortment of approaches to the theme of our secret selves offers plenty of surprises for the reader.
—Horn Book

A thought- provoking collection.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Older students who are ready for more mature topics will find these stories perfect for opening a discussion or individual pieces just might reach someone struggling with the same secret.
—School Library Connection

From the Publisher

02/01/2015
Gr 10 Up—In this collection of dramatic short stories by various authors, all of the protagonists have secrets, though some are more intense and life-altering than others. Other than fulfilling this unifying theme, the entries are quite diverse. They span across several genres, including realistic, paranormal, and historical fiction. Regardless of the setting, these tales tackle often taboo subjects, such as inappropriate relations with teachers, gender issues, and mental disorders. Inclusion of drugs, alcohol, swearing, and liaisons between teens and more mature adults make this work appropriate for older readers. As with any short story collection, the quality of writing varies from one story to another. Some are well written like Chris Lynch's atmospheric and well-paced "Lucky Buoy," while others are poorly executed, like Ron Koertge's "Call Me!" with its feeling of not-quite-coherent randomness. Overall, this collection will resonate with many young adults who have their own secrets as well as readers who vicariously live through the risqué lifestyles of others. VERDICT A very discussible title for fans of Chris Lynch's and Ellen Hopkins's hard-hitting realistic fiction.—Carol Hirsche, Provo City Library, UT

School Library Journal

2014-12-10
A collection of 15 short stories by different authors focuses on learning, keeping and telling secrets.The theme provides a common thread, but otherwise, the stories are diverse in both genre and content. Some stories are fantasy and others, realistic; some are lighthearted and others, heavier. Some follow a classic trajectory in which a secret is kept then climactically revealed, while others are more subversive. Quality varies. Kekla Magoon reveals a universe of detail when her character, the only black girl in her grade at boarding school, tells readers she didn't bring any of her eating-disorder-related paraphernalia with her when she left for school, "As if I already knew I wouldn't need it." In Louise Hawes' "When We Were Wild," the alcohol-soaked fairy tales told by the mother of the outcast girl the narrator refuses to admit to being friends with sparkle with twisted hopefulness. Other stories, however, are less memorable. Chris Lynch's "Lucky Buoy" never provides enough background to give the story its full impact, and Cynthia Leitich Smith's "Cupid's Beaux" will resonate most with readers already familiar with the paranormal universe in which the author's books are set. Though uneven, the collection offers many worthy entries. (Anthology. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews

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