Books like Train Wreck by Kathleen Duey

A poignant young‑adult tale of two teens—Hazel and Augustus—who meet in a cancer support group, and whose unlikely romance forces them to confront love, illness, and the meaning of life.

At Culver Creek Boarding School, Miles "Pudge" Halter leaves his uneventful home life to find adventure, only to be drawn into the complex world of Alaska Young – a brilliant, enigmatic student whose presence challenges and changes him forever.

A coming‑of‑age epistolary novel that follows introverted teen Charlie through his freshman year in a 1990s Pittsburgh suburb as he navigates high school, friendship and the challenges of adolescence.

When Clay Jenkins discovers 13 tapes left by his classmate Hannah Baker, who recently committed suicide, he must confront the 13 reasons that drove her to end her life—one of which is him.

Two teens on the brink of heartbreak and despair find an unlikely friendship that turns their worlds upside‑down, teaching them that hope can bloom even beside the darkest thoughts.

Go Ask Alice presents the diary of a teenage girl who falls into drug addiction, tracing her descent from a suburban family life to the streets of a city as she battles heroin, LSD, and other substances.

A chronically ill teenager allergic to the world discovers love and possibility when a new family moves in next door, adding color to her isolated life.

Seventeen‑year‑old Mia faces a life‑altering medical crisis after a family car crash—she must decide whether to live a new life in the present or return to her former world as a coma patient.

it's a debut young-adult novel by Jasmine Warga

Oliver the elephant leaves his home seeking a new job after the circus finds its elephant quota satisfied.

A New York City teen’s struggle with depression is told with irreverent humor, charting his day‑to‑day life and his time in a psychiatric hospital.

Ten‑year‑old Hastin leaves his desert village in India to become a circus elephant keeper, battling child‑labor hardships while protecting the gentle elephant Nandita from a cruel circus owner.

Jack, a flying elephant, helps the circus train, defying skeptics among his peers to prove his worth.

On the maiden voyage of the massive train The Boundless, teenage Will teams with a traveling circus to outwit villains threatening the journey across Canada.

Seventeen‑year‑old Landon Carter reflects on the first love that changed his life, a passionate romance that begins in North Carolina and ends with a painful, enduring memory of the battle against leukemia.

Why can't we look away? Whether we admit it or not, we're fascinated by evil. Dark fantasies, morbid curiosities, Schadenfreude: as conventional wisdom has it, these are the symptoms of our wicked side, and we succumb to them at our own peril. But we're still compelled to look whenever we pass a grisly accident on the highway, and there's no slaking our thirst for gory entertainments like horror movies and police procedurals. What makes these spectacles so irresistible? In Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck, the scholar Eric G. Wilson sets out to discover the source of our attraction to the gruesome, drawing on the findings of biologists, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers, theologians, and artists. A professor of English literature and a lifelong student of the macabre, Wilson believes there's something nourishing in darkness. "To repress death is to lose the feeling of life," he writes. "A closeness to death discloses our most fertile energies." His examples are legion and startling in their diversity. Citing everything from elephant graveyards and Susan Sontag's On Photography to the Tiger Woods sex scandal and Steel Magnolias, Wilson finds heartening truths wherever he confronts death. In Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck, the perverse is never far from the sublime. The result is a powerful and delightfully provocative defense of what it means to be human—for better and for worse.

When a boy in 1870s London cares for the enormous African elephant Jumbo at the London Zoo, he embarks on a journey that takes the elephant across the Atlantic to join P.T. Barnum’s circus, discovering friendship and adventure along the way.

A small elephant with huge ears rises to stardom in the circus, using his unique gift to capture the hearts of audiences.

1 v. (unpaged) : col. ill. ; 27 cm.AD600L Lexile

After her sister’s death, seventeen‑year‑old Lennie grapples with grief, a love triangle, and her ambition to become a musician.

Sammy the Elephant learns to build strength and confidence with Mr. Camel’s guidance, discovering new talents while mastering his circus duty of carrying water.

“Wintergirls” follows Lia, a teenage girl battling anorexia after the death of her best friend Cassie, as her internal voice pushes her to stay strong, lose weight, and control her life.

A young boy named Kipper travels from England to France by train, discovering the excitement of a cross‑channel journey.