Why am I passionate about this?

I learned to fear adolescence as a child, when my mother made predictions about how difficult I would be as a teen. Then, as a mother, I felt that old concern arise in me, that my warm, cuddly children would turn into feral teens bent on rejecting me. This was the point at which I became, as a psychologist, a student of adolescence. I write nonfiction books on adolescents, their parents and friends, their self-consciousness and self-doubt, as well as their resilience and intelligence. But creative fiction writing often leaps ahead of psychology, so I welcome the opportunity to offer my list of five wonderful novels about teens.  


I wrote

The Teen Interpreter: A Guide to the Challenges and Joys of Raising Adolescents

By Terri Apter,

Book cover of The Teen Interpreter: A Guide to the Challenges and Joys of Raising Adolescents

What is my book about?

While they may not show it, teenagers rely on their parents’ curiosity, delight, and connection to guide them through this…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Member of the Wedding

Terri Apter Why did I love this book?

“Haven’t you grown!“ is often a grown-up’s exclamation of delight in a teen’s growth spurt, but rarely do we see this from the teen’s view. It can be scary as well as exciting seeing your body change so rapidly, and I love McCullers description of Frankie’s worry that she will continue to grow at the current pace; then she will be a “freak” – a word that is likely to resonate with all adolescents. Frankie's private, unspoken fears taken place in the midst of a quintessentially social celebration and remind us how often teens, even when surrounded by joy and support, struggle with self doubt as to who they are and how they look.

By Carson McCullers,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Member of the Wedding as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the master of Southern Gothic, Carson McCullers's coming-of-age story like no other about a young girl's fascination with her brother's wedding.

Twelve-year-old Frankie is utterly, hopelessly bored with life until she hears about her older brother’s wedding. Bolstered by lively conversations with her family maid, Berenice, and her six-year-old cousin—not to mention her own unbridled imagination—Frankie takes on an overly active role in the wedding, hoping even to go, uninvited, on the honeymoon, so deep is her desire to be a member of something larger, more accepting than herself.


Book cover of Middlesex

Terri Apter Why did I love this book?

There is something in the tone of this novel that I loved at the time I read it and which I appreciate even more now. This is a story about intersex “Cal” whose gender identity was chosen by their parents, hidden from them throughout childhood, then revealed in adolescence when they negotiate a strange gender landscape devoid of signposts. There is no outrage or placard-waving certainty in the novel, just gentle, sad confusions that resonate with far more common teen experiences of parental betrayal (“for their own good”) and sexual perplexities.  

By Jeffrey Eugenides,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Middlesex as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974.'

So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and her truly unique family secret, born on the slopes of Mount Olympus and passed on through three generations.

Growing up in 70s Michigan, Calliope's special inheritance will turn her into Cal, the narrator of this intersex, inter-generational epic of immigrant life in 20th century America.

Middlesex won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.


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Book cover of Welcome To The Hamilton: A Hotel Hamilton Novel

Welcome To The Hamilton by Tanya E. Williams,

Two sisters. One opulent hotel. A chance to change everything.

For 17-year-old Clara Wilson, the glamour of the Roaring Twenties feels worlds away. With her family on the brink of eviction, Clara pins her hopes on a position at the grand Hotel Hamilton. But when her adventurous sister impulsively follows…

Book cover of The House on Mango Street

Terri Apter Why did I love this book?

I grew up in the same city as the 13-year-old protagonist of this powerful novel, not far from where it is set, but one closed off to me. Though I read this novel long after my own teen years, it took me back to a younger self in which I grappled, inarticulately, with ethnic and class difference, both despising those who would exclude me and longing for inclusion in a shallow, idealized version of what others have. The novel is controversial, partly because it deals with abuse and coercion, but the narrator’s name Esperanza enforces the positive direction of this teen’s story.

By Sandra Cisneros,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The House on Mango Street as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A coming-of-age classic, acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world—from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Told in a series of vignettes-sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous-Sandra Cisneros' masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.

“Cisneros draws…


Book cover of Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Terri Apter Why did I love this book?

When I read this book as a young teen I admired the freedom the young characters had to be absorbed in their own worlds, and, as a result, constantly getting into scrapes and suffered scolding. Much later I re-read this and was struck by the comic magic of Tom and his friends, assumed to have died, returning to witness their own funeral. Here the boys who were constantly found wanting are now being praised without reservation. This reveals the see-saw action of the adolescent self: one moment teens see themselves as wonderful, beloved, treasured, and at another cast down, and always they carry around an “imaginary self” where they cannot escape concern about how people see them. 

By Mark Twain,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Adventures of Tom Sawyer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, and 10.

What is this book about?

Explore or rediscover Mark Twain's novel of American adolescence in an elegantly designed, cloth-bound, portable format with an elastic closure.


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Book cover of Benghazi! A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink

Benghazi! A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink by Ethan Chorin,

Benghazi: A New History is a look back at the enigmatic 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, its long-tail causes, and devastating (and largely unexamined) consequences for US domestic politics and foreign policy. It contains information not found elsewhere, and is backed up by 40 pages of…

Book cover of Call Me by Your Name

Terri Apter Why did I love this book?

I am convinced that most grown-ups forget and then minimize the intensity of teen heartbreak. It has a special impact on boy teens, and this cuts across the assumption that relationships matter more to girls than to boys. Call Me by Your Name depicts the suffering of a 17-year-old teen who experiences heartbreak in the context of pressing questions about his sexuality and identity. It is a wonderful story and also a case study in the special vulnerability of late male adolescence, where myths about manhood threaten emotional expression. 

By André Aciman,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Call Me by Your Name as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now a Major Motion Picture from Director Luca Guadagnino, Starring Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet, and Written by James Ivory

WINNER BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY ACADEMY AWARD
Nominated for Four Oscars

A New York Times Bestseller
A USA Today Bestseller
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller
A Vulture Book Club Pick

An Instant Classic and One of the Great Love Stories of Our Time

Andre Aciman's Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. Each is unprepared…


Explore my book 😀

The Teen Interpreter: A Guide to the Challenges and Joys of Raising Adolescents

By Terri Apter,

Book cover of The Teen Interpreter: A Guide to the Challenges and Joys of Raising Adolescents

What is my book about?

While they may not show it, teenagers rely on their parents’ curiosity, delight, and connection to guide them through this period of exuberant growth.

In The Teen Interpreter, psychologist Terri Apter looks into teens’ minds―minds that are experiencing powerful new emotions and awareness of the world around them―to show how parents can revitalize their relationship with their children. She illuminates the rapid neurological developments of a teen’s brain, along with their new, complex emotions, and offers strategies for disciplining unsafe actions constructively and empathetically. Apter includes up-to-the-moment case studies that shed light on the anxieties and vulnerabilities that today’s teens face, and she thoughtfully explores the positives and pitfalls of social media.

Book cover of The Member of the Wedding
Book cover of Middlesex
Book cover of The House on Mango Street

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Girls 93 books
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