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Young Adult Books for Women

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Nicholas Nickleby

Nicholas Nickleby

Nicholas Nickleby is a novel by Charles Dickens. The novel centres on the life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, a young man who must support his mother and sister after his father dies. Nicholas Nickleby is Charles Dickens' third published novel. He returned to his favourite publishers and to the format that was considered so successful with The Pickwick Papers. The story first appeared in monthly parts, after which it was issued in one volume. The style is considered to be episodic and humorous, though the second half of the novel becomes more serious and tightly plotted. Dickens began writing 'Nickleby' while still working on Oliver Twist and while the mood is considerably lighter, his depiction of the Yorkshire school run by Wackford Squeers is as moving and influential as those of the workhouse and criminal underclass in Twist. 'Nickleby' marks a new development in a further sense as it is the first of Dickens' romances. When it was published the book was an immediate and complete success and established Dickens's lasting reputation. The cruelty of a real Yorkshire schoolmaster named William Shaw became the basis for Dickens's brutal character of Wackford Squeers. Dickens visited his school and based the school section of Nicholas Nickleby on his visit. Like most of Dickens' early works, the novel has a contemporary setting. Much of the action takes place in London, with several chapters taking place in Dickens' birthplace of Portsmouth, as well as settings in Yorkshire and Devon. The tone of the work is that of ironic social satire, with Dickens taking aim at what he perceives to be social injustices. Many memorable characters are introduced, including Nicholas' malevolent Uncle Ralph, and the villainous Wackford Squeers, who operates an abusive all-boys boarding school at which Nicholas temporarily serves as a tutor.
Reborn: The Son She Couldn't Break

Reborn: The Son She Couldn't Break

I woke up gasping, sunlight stabbing my eyes. My old room, posters of bands from twenty years ago still on the wall. My hands were smooth and young. I was seventeen again, a high school senior, and the State University scholarship was arriving today. In my first life, this was the pivotal moment, the day it all went wrong. My mother, Brenda, a human boa constrictor, would begin her "episodes." She'd clutch her chest, wail about her weak heart, demanding I stay. Her "love" was a saccharine poison, justifying every dream she crushed. I gave up my scholarship, my military aspirations, and even Olivia, the love of my life, all for her. My youth curdled into a bitter, joyless middle age. I worked dead-end jobs, a ghost haunted by what-ifs. Brenda sneered, calling me a "disappointment," a "failure," despite my sacrifices. At 35, my heart physically failed, but I knew it was despair that truly killed me. The searing injustice of it – a life stolen by a mother who saw me only as a possession, a slave to her manufactured frailty. Why had I let her weaponize her 'love' and destroy me? To what twisted end had I sacrificed everything for someone who thanked me with contempt? But now, I am seventeen again, all the painful knowledge of the past a burning weapon. The scholarship letter is in the mail. This time, things will be different. I will not let her break me, and I will save my younger sister, Chloe, too. I am alive, and this time, I am going to fight.
Sister's Shadow, Brother's Betrayal

Sister's Shadow, Brother's Betrayal

My mom' s cough was a constant reminder: ace everything, win that scholarship, or her medical bills would drown us. A top university was my only shot. But then, Jake gave me a "good luck" bracelet before the physics exam. I aced it, naturally. Except, my score came back a C-. Jake' s? An A+. "Coincidence," I thought, until I overheard Maya, my best friend since kindergarten, admit she'd gotten Jake the 'Swapper's Charm'-a cursed trinket designed to steal my success and bind me. That charm wasn't just stealing grades; it was destroying my life. My GPA plummeted, scholarships vanished, and I was forced to take the fall for a vandalized science project. Suddenly, I was a pariah, jobless, beaten within an inch of my life. Maya, the 'sister' I trusted, abandoned me for Jake, even poisoning my sick mother against me. My mom ended up in the ER, her fragile health shattered by the stress they inflicted. How could the girl who called me 'family' orchestrate such calculated cruelty? How could the friend I considered a brother betray me so completely? My life, my entire future, was crumbling around me, sacrificed for their ambition, all while a bizarre, cursed bracelet tightened its hold. Was this magic real, or was I losing my mind? But lying in the hospital, watching my mother fight for her life, a cold resolve settled in my gut. I had been their sacrifice, their pawn. With the help of a mysterious street vendor, I learned how to break the charm' s hold-and how to make its twisted magic boomerang. They wanted my success? Fine. Now, they' d get a taste of their own cursed medicine.
The Life-Story of Insects

The Life-Story of Insects

Among the manifold operations of living creatures few have more strongly impressed the casual observer or more deeply interested the thoughtful student than the transformations of insects. The schoolboy watches the tiny green caterpillars hatched from eggs laid on a cabbage leaf by the common white butterfly, or maybe rears successfully a batch of silkworms through the changes and chances of their lives, while the naturalist questions yet again the 'how' and 'why' of these common though wondrous life-stories, as he seeks to trace their course more fully than his predecessors knew.Everyone is familiar with the main facts of such a life-story as that of a moth or butterfly. The form of the adult insect (fig. 1 a) is dominated by the wings—two pairs of scaly wings, carried respectively on the middle and hindmost of the three segments that make up the thorax or central region of the insect's body. Each of these three segments carries a pair of legs. In front of the thorax is the head on which the pair of long jointed feelers and the pair of large, sub-globular, compound eyes are the most prominent features. Below the head, however, may be seen, now coiled up like a watch-spring, now stretched out to draw the nectar from some scented blossom, the butterfly's sucking trunk or proboscis, situated between a pair of short hairy limbs or palps (fig. 2). These palps belong to the appendages of the hindmost segment of the head, appendages which in insects are modified to form a hind-lip or labium, bounding the mouth cavity below or behind. The proboscis is made up of the pair of jaw-appendages in front of the labium, the maxillae, as they are called. Behind the thorax is situated the abdomen, made up of nine or ten recognisable segments, none of which carry limbs comparable to the walking legs, or to the jaws which are the modified limbs of the head-segments. The whole cuticle or outer covering of the body, formed (as is usual in the group of animals to which insects belong) of a horny (chitinous) secretion of the skin, is firm and hard, and densely covered with hairy or scaly outgrowths. Along the sides of the insect are a series of paired openings or spiracles, leading to a set of air-tubes which ramify throughout the body and carry oxygen directly to the tissues.Such a butterfly as we have briefly sketched lays an egg on the leaf of some suitable food-plant, and there is hatched from it the well-known crawling larva[1] (fig. 1 b, c, d) called a caterpillar, offering in many superficial features a marked contrast to its parent. Except on the head, whose surface is hard and firm, the caterpillar's cuticle is as a rule thin and flexible, though it may carry a protective armature of closely set hairs, or strong sharp spines. The feelers (fig. 3 At) are very short and the eyes are small and simple. In connection with the mouth, there are present in front of the maxillae a pair of mandibles (fig. 3 Mn), strong jaws, adapted for biting solid food, which are absent from the adult butterfly, though well developed in cockroaches, dragon-flies, beetles, and many other insects. The three pairs of legs on the segments of the thorax are relatively short, and as many as five segments of the abdomen may carry short cylindrical limbs or pro-legs, which assist the clinging habits and worm-like locomotion of the caterpillar. No trace of wings is visible externally. The caterpillar, therefore, differs markedly from its parent in its outward structure, in its mode of progression, and in its manner of feeding; for while the butterfly sucks nectar or other liquid food, the caterpillar bites up and devours solid vegetable substances, such as the leaves of herbs or trees.
The Captives

The Captives

Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE (13 March 1884 – 1 June 1941) was an English novelist. He was the son of an Anglican clergyman, intended for a career in the church but drawn instead to writing. Among those who encouraged him were the authors Henry James and Arnold Bennett. His skill at scene-setting and vivid plots, as well as his high profile as a lecturer, brought him a large readership in the United Kingdom and North America. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s but has been largely neglected since his death. After his first novel, The Wooden Horse, in 1909, Walpole wrote prolifically, producing at least one book every year. He was a spontaneous story-teller, writing quickly to get all his ideas on paper, seldom revising. His first novel to achieve major success was his third, Mr Perrin and Mr Traill, a tragicomic story of a fatal clash between two schoolmasters. During the First World War he served in the Red Cross on the Russian-Austrian front, and worked in British propaganda in Petrograd and London. In the 1920s and 1930s Walpole was much in demand not only as a novelist but also as a lecturer on literature, making four exceptionally well-paid tours of North America. As a gay man at a time when homosexual practices were illegal in Britain, Walpole conducted a succession of intense but discreet relationships with other men, and was for much of his life in search of what he saw as "the perfect friend". He eventually found one, a married policeman, with whom he settled in the English Lake District. Having as a young man eagerly sought the support of established authors, he was in his later years a generous sponsor of many younger writers. He was a patron of the visual arts and bequeathed a substantial legacy of paintings to the Tate Gallery and other British institutions. Walpole's output was large and varied. Between 1909 and 1941 he wrote thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two original plays and three volumes of memoirs. His range included disturbing studies of the macabre, children's stories and historical fiction, most notably his Herries Chronicle series, set in the Lake District. He worked in Hollywood writing scenarios for two Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films in the 1930s, and played a cameo in the 1935 version of David Copperfield (font: Wikipedia)
Can't Help Falling in love

Can't Help Falling in love

Find-somewhere-else-to-sit-I-don't-relate-with-people-from-the-slums!" Those were his first words to her. She regretted meeting him, and even thinking of him as cute, how can a human be so mean, rude and snobbish. Meet Audrey Kathleen, a young girl of sixteen, very lively, very jovial and friendly. She is from a poor family, well not exactly a poor family because her supposed Father is a very rich man but unfortunately he abandoned her mom and she while she was still a foetus. So she was born as a poor girl with a rich father who she wasn't fortunate enough to meet. Audrey after moving to a new home and school gets to meet Simon; The arrogant son of the school founder; Mr Anderson; popularly known as Mr Wealthy due to his massive net worth. Being the son of the richest man in Wearous (WEAthy and prospeROUS) estate, he doesn't want anything to do with the middle class fools, but there is a cog change in the wheel of his life when he meets Audrey. The strange thing about love is that it doesn't ask for permission, it doesn't care about background, class, status or fame, and just like death...it's inevitable. What happens when the famous son of Mr Wealthy falls head over heels in love with the girl from the slums, meanwhile her best friend Kyle is also in love with her therefore creating a complicated love triangle that puts important relationships at stake Things get even more complicated when the mystery behind her father's disappearance is unveiled and the Simon's real identity is discovered. Audrey is left to battle it all, her feelings! Her relationships! And her family, but as they say, love is indeed the greatest!!