Washoe County Library System

Seventeen-year-old Pattyn, the eldest daughter in a large Mormon family, is sent to her aunt's Nevada ranch for the summer, where she temporarily escapes her alcoholic, abusive father and finds love and acceptance, only to lose everything when she returns home.

"Majella is happiest out of the spotlight, living a quiet life away from neighbors' stares and the gossips of the small town in Northern Ireland where she grew up during the Troubles. But underneath her seemingly predictable existence, she doesn't know where her father is, and every person in her town has been changed by the lingering divide between Protestants and Catholics. When Majella's grandmother dies, she comes to realize there may be more...

As The Avenger searches for the teenage boys who trashed a house in his neighborhood, Buddy, one of the trashers, increases his drinking in order to cope with his parents' separation and his obsession with the daughter of the owner of the vandalized house.

Chronciles the emotional war between Irene America, a beautiful, introspective woman of Native American ancestry, struggling to finish her dissertation while raising three children, and her husband Gil, a painter whose reputation is built on a series of now iconic portraits of Irene.

"Drinking cost Helen her marriage and custody of her seven-year-old son, Ollie. Once an aspiring art photographer, she now makes ends meet taking portraits of school children and working for a caterer... When she meets Ava and Swift Havilland, the vulnerable Helen is instantly enchanted. Wealthy, connected philanthropists, they have their own charity devoted to rescuing dogs. Their home is filled with fabulous friends, edgy art, and dazzling parties.Then...

As she worries about her mother who is entering a rehab facility for alcoholism, eleven-year-old Veronica struggles with secrets, her favorite sport softball, and what she really wants to do with her life.

Joey, who is still taking medication to keep him from getting too wired, goes to spend the summer with the hard-drinking father he has never known and tries to help the baseball team he coaches win the championship.

"This monumental novel about an anguished East German writer interrogates with bitter wit the detritus of late twentieth-century life: alcoholism, car culture, consumerism, God, love, statelessness, and above all else, the writer's place in a "century of lies.""--

Manny relates his coming of age experiences as a member of a poor Mexican American family in which the alcoholic father only adds to everyone's struggle. Includes Spanish words or phrases.

Relates the angst-ridden life of fourteen-year-old Libby Madrigal as she tries to deal with her unhappily married alcoholic father and overeating mother, moving to a new town, and finding the perfect boy to "seriously" kiss.