I'd Rather Burn Than Bloom

Packed with voice, this is a powerful coming-of-age YA novel about a Filipina-American teen who tries to figure out who she really is in the wake of her mother's death. Some girls call their mother their best friend. Marisol? She could never relate. She and her mum were forever locked in an argument with no beginning and no end. But when her mother dies suddenly, Marisol is left with no one to fight against, haunted by all the things that she both said and didn’t say. And when Marisol sleeps with her best friend's boyfriend - and then punches said best friend in the face - she's left alone, with nothing but a burning anger. And Marisol is determined to stay angry. After all, there’s a lot to be angry about. But as a new friendship begins to develop, Marisol reluctantly starts to open up to her, and to the possibility there’s something else on the other side of that anger - something more to who she is, and who she could be.