College Life Fiction

College sophomore Ethan Follett never says what's on his mind and never wants to rock the boat. Out in the open, things couldn't be better, but secretly Ethan yearns for some real excitement in his life. He finds it in cocky frat boy Greg Sanderson, who challenges every rigid, preconceived notion Ethan lives by. Soon, their sparring relationship turns sexual, and these enemies-with-benefits "get their freak on" all over campus. Yet the more Ethan comes out of his shell, the more Greg retreats into his, working overtime to keep his ladies' man public persona intact.

Alex is a mind-reading college dropout who just can't control his telepathic powers. After cheating on the entrance exam for the prestigious Elf University of Earth, he finds himself amidst a mesmerizing campus filled with dazzling elves, precocious dragons, and plenty of opinions about non-elves on campus. As he grapples with the prejudices of the elven student body, Alex forms unlikely connections that will hopefully help him graduate. (Or at least survive his freshman year!)

How can you graduate with honors, choose exciting activities, build a head-turning resume, gain access to the best post-college opportunities, and still have a life? Based on interviews with star students at universities nationwide, from Harvard to the University of Arizona, How to Win at College presents 75 simple rules that will rocket you to the top of your class.

Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best Book, 2007.
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, 2006.
Friends at Brown University, Marina, Danielle, and Julius are still looking to make their marks as they approach their 30s.

Edna Pontellier is married, twenty-eight, and at the cross road of her life. She is passionate and artistic, but has no one who understands her deep yearnings. She jumps at the chance to spend a summer away from her husband and the heat of New Orleans at a small costal retreat.

Mack Sutton is a normal guy who just happens to attend a very abnormal school. In a college where the pretty girls can kill you with a whisper and most of the guys can bench press a car, Mack and his sister Jetta are just run of the mill people—or are they?

The young men in these stories are eager, willing, horny, and ready for anything. From at parties, community showers, dorm rooms, come back to the best four years of your life and hear stories of hook-ups, new love, sexual awakening, and erotic connections.

As her sophomore year begins, Karen enters into the back-to-school revelry - particularly at a fraternity called GBC. When she wakes up one morning on the lawn of Raghurst, a house of radical feminists, she gets a crash course in the state of feminist activism on campus. GBC is notorious, she learns, nicknamed "Gang Bang Central" and a prominent contributor to a list of date rapists compiled by female students. Despite continuing to party there and dating one of the brothers, Karen is equally seduced by the intellectual stimulation and indomitable spirit of the Raghurst women.

The free-spirited Anne Shirley has a beautiful way of looking at the world and touching our hearts. In this, the third volume of the Anne of Green Gables series, the irrepressible Anne dreams of the woman she hopes to be when she decides to leave Green Gables and her beloved Prince Edward Island for college. She is eager for new adventure.

Judy Moody is in a mood. Not a good mood. And definitely NOT a math mood. The substitute teacher in Class 3T thinks Judy's math skills need improving. So Judy has to start meeting with a math tutor. Does this mean flash cards? Does this mean baby games? Does this mean school on weekends? But when Judy meets her tutor - a sick-awesome college student with an uber-funky sense of style - and gets a glimpse of college life, Judy's bad math-i-tude turns into a radical glad-i-tude.

The Pants first came to us at the perfect moment. That is, when we were splitting up for the first time. It was two summers ago when they first worked their magic, and last summer when they shook up our lives once again. You see, we don't wear the Pants year-round. We let them rest so they are extra powerful when summer comes. (There was the time this spring when Carmen wore them to her mom's wedding, but that was a special case.)

Aaron Lange has pinned all his hopes on law school. He's been busting his butt to keep his grades up and keep the scholarship he's worked so hard to earn. Then, his world is turned completely upside down when he runs--literally--into the girl of his dreams. Suddenly he can't focus on school, his grades are slipping, and Aaron is facing the very real possibility that he'll lose his golden ticket. It will take all his self control to ignore his distracting feelings and double-down on his studies.

Ryden Malby had a plan. Step One: do well in high school, thereby achieving Step Two: get a kick-butt college scholarship. Step Three—limit her beer pong in order to keep said scholarship—wasn't always easy. Now that she's finally graduated, it's time for Step Four: moving to LA to land her dream job at the city's best publishing house. So far, Ryden's three-for-three, but she's about to stumble on Step Four When Jessica Bard, Ryden's college nemesis—the prettiest, smartest, most ambitious girl at school—steals her perfect job, Ryden's forced to move back to her childhood home in the Valley.

Seven hours. That's how long I knew her in college. But that hasn't stopped me from thinking about her every day since. That's why I recognized her the second she walked into my bar. She glances over, but it's obvious she doesn't recognize me. And why would she? I think she only looked at my face once that night. Most of the time, she had her head buried in my chest, wailing about her idiot boyfriend. You'd think those few short hours would fade from my memory by the time I woke up the next morning, but no such luck.

This prizewinning author of over thirty books for young people confronts the period of struggle and confinement that marked the end of his own youth. On the surface, the narrative tumbles from one crazed moment to the next as Gantos pieces together the story of his restless final year of high school, his short-lived career as a criminal, and his time in prison.

Welcome to the world of the fabulously wealthy in London, 1909, where dresses and houses are overwhelmingly opulent, social class means everything, and women are taught to be nothing more than wives and mothers. Into this world comes 17-year-old Victoria Darling, who wants only to be an artist - a nearly impossible dream for a girl. After Vicky poses nude for her illicit art class, she is expelled from her French finishing school. Shamed and scandalized, her parents try to marry her off to the wealthy Edmund Carrick-Humphrey. But Vicky has other things on her mind....

The vibrant stories in I’ll Give You a Reason explore race, identity, connection, and belonging in the Ironbound, an immigrant neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. A young widow goes on her first date since her husband’s death and finds herself hunting a bear in the woods with a near stranger. An unhappy wife compares her mother’s love spells and rituals to her own efforts to repair her strained marriage. A self-conscious college student discovers a porn star who shares her name and becomes obsessed with her doppelgänger’s freedom and comfort with her own body.

Campus Chronicles will inspire you, amuse you, and support you through your college years. Whether you are a high-school student just leaving for college, or a college senior who has seen it all, these stories will illuminate the college experience for you.

Living under the shadow of two gifted parents, Astrid Nordling feels trapped everywhere but at the piano, finding solace in Schubert and Debussy. Her piano teacher is convinced that she is a prodigy; her mother is not so sure. Set in 1960s Chicago, this excerpt from Lisa Heiserman Perkins' upcoming novel shows that there can be such a thing as too much talent in a single family. As Astrid competes with her dramatic, high-strung mother for the spotlight, their tug-of-war threatens to pull the family apart.

In this poignant, funny, and romantic novel, four nights of epic partying will see two teens through their highest highs and lowest lows over the course of one unforgettable year.