"Obviously, Doctor," she said, "you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl.”

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

New York : Farrar Strauss & Giroux, 1993.

From the opening paragraph, it becomes apparent that this book is different. Written in the rare first person plural, the book is told from the perspective of a group of teenage boys obsessed with the memory of five sisters, the Lisbons, who committed suicide and who, many years later, they have not forgotten. Set in a dreamy, nostalgic version of the 1970s but released in the 1990s (along with a career-making film adaptation by Sofia Coppola), the book offers lots in the way of atmosphere and emotion, but little in the way of answers.

“To speak behind others' backs is the ventilator of the heart.”

Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi
New York, N.Y. : Pantheon Books, 2005.

By the author of the critically acclaimed Persepolis, Embroideries is written as one long conversation between three generations of Iranian women. The reader takes the place of a main protagonist and we listen to the astonishing (and frequently blush-worthy) tales of the older women. A realist memoir rendered in beautiful graphic form, this one is a fast read that you’ll want to take a closer look at. 

"Who is to say that it is not everything else that is the dream?”

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd
London : Walker Books, 2011.

Every night, at 12.07, a monster calls on thirteen year-old Conor. He lives in England with his mother, who is slowly but surely dying of cancer. This book is based on a story idea by Siobhan Dowd, but cancer took her life before she was able to finish it. Patrick Ness, author of the utterly brilliant Chaos Walking trilogy, finished it off, and his dark, compelling voice illuminates the pages.

Home is the hunter, home from the hill, and the sailor home from the sea.

Homecoming by Cynthia Voight
New York : Atheneum, c1981
At thirteen years-old, Dicey is old enough to see that there is something wrong with her mother. Poverty and hardship have chipped away at her sanity. Her worst fears are confirmed when, en route to visit an aunt they've never met, her mother leaves her and three siblings in a car while she goes to the supermarket, and they don’t see her again. Armed with almost no money, but steely inner strength, a sharp mind and a glimmer of hope, Dicey must do what seems impossible to keep her family together and walks them across America, into the unknown.

Set in the early eighties, this book reads well as a stand-alone novel but was extended into a cycle of seven books for those who wish to keep reading.