Inside Manhattan's private school world of fast-paced over-the-top entitlement and superficial gloss lurk many secrets--the secrets of emotionally charged teenage and adult lives. In this eloquent novel set during one class's senior year at the Griffin School, among the queen bees and the wannabes, Michael Avery and Julianne Coopersmith begin a relationship. Their backgrounds are so different--he's beyond privileged and rich, her mother is a writer who drives a cab--but it's the rich boy who ends up being the needy one, with an emotional hole they both believe only Julianne can fill. Their...

Even life in the greatest city in the world can sometimes feel like a little too much. For this New Yorker, running away to the Heartland may be just the antidote.

When New York City native Desiree Christian-Cohen flees her sometime-boyfriend, unhappy mother, Nina (who's recently learned her soon-to-be ex-husband Patrick is gay), and failing grandfather, she picks the flight plan by randomly dropping her finger on a map and hitting: Honey Creek, Kansas, population 1,623. And if being a "tourist" in Honey Creek weren't noticeable enough, try hanging out in the Sweet Tooth...