Books with author Rachel Cooke

''I'm here to take you to live with your father. In Tokyo, Japan! Happy birthday!''In the Land of the Rising Sun, where high culture meets high kitsch, and fashion and technology are at the forefront of the First World's future, the foreign-born teen elite attend ICS -- the International Collegiate School of Tokyo. Their accents are fluid. Their homes are ridiculously posh. Their sports games often involve a (private) plane trip to another country. They miss school because of jet lag and visa issues. When they get in trouble, they seek diplomatic immunity.Enter foster-kid-out-of-water Elle Zoellner, who, on her sixteenth birthday discovers that her long-lost father, Kenji Takahari, is actually a Japanese hotel mogul and wants her to come live with him. Um, yes, please! Elle jets off first class from Washington, DC, to Tokyo, which seems like a dream come true. Until she meets her enigmatic father, her way-too-fab aunt, and her hyper-critical grandmother, who seems to wish Elle didn't exist. In an effort to please her new family, Elle falls in with the Ex-Brats, a troupe of uber-cool international kids who spend money like it's air. But when she starts to crush on a boy named Ryuu, who's frozen out by the Brats and despised by her new family, her already tenuous living situation just might implode.My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life is about learning what it is to be a family, and finding the inner strength to be yourself, even in the most extreme circumstances.

If Cyd Charisse knows one thing, it's that Shrimp is her true love. Shrimp, the hottest pint-size surfer-artist in San Francisco. That boy (as her mother called him), who was the primary cause of Cyd being grounded to Alcatraz, formerly known as her room. The boy who dumped Cyd before she left home to spend the summer in New York City. Now it's the start of senior year. Cyd has changed, but maybe Shrimp has changed too -- and maybe Cyd and Shrimp will need to get to know each other all over again to figure out if it's for real. Can Cyd get back together with Shrimp and keep the peace with her mom? And can she get a life outside of her all-encompassing boy radar? This sequel to Gingerbread has all the sharp humor and searing attitude of the original, which ELLEgirl praised as "not just Another Teen Novel" and Teen People called "unforgettable." In Shrimp, Cyd might be a little older and a little wiser, but she's still the same irrepressible free spirit determined to find her own way in the world, on her own terms.

If Cyd Charisse knows one thing, it's that Shrimp is her true love. Shrimp, the hottest pint-size surfer-artist in San Francisco. That boy (as her mother called him), who was the primary cause of Cyd being grounded to Alcatraz, formerly known as her room. The boy who dumped Cyd before she left home to spend the summer in New York City. Now it's the start of senior year. Cyd has changed, but maybe Shrimp has changed too -- and maybe Cyd and Shrimp will need to get to know each other all over again to figure out if it's for real. Can Cyd get back together with Shrimp and keep the peace with her mom? And can she get a life outside of her all-encompassing boy radar? This sequel to Gingerbread has all the sharp humor and searing attitude of the original, which ELLEgirl praised as "not just Another Teen Novel" and Teen People called "unforgettable." In Shrimp, Cyd might be a little older and a little wiser, but she's still the same irrepressible free spirit determined to find her own way in the world, on her own terms.

Miles has spent almost her entire life in the shadow of her first cousin Laura. Laura is completely overprivileged--smart, gorgeous, and a student at a prep school outside of D.C. Miles is overweight, anti-social, and lives with her mom in the carriage house on her uncle's property. As far as Miles is concerned, Laura has the perfect life--until she commits suicide, leaving her dad Jim and Miles lost in the wake of the event. Miles already feels like she has no future--she was planning to drop out of school--and now she has no one. Her best friend, Jamal, is dating Bex, one of Laura's annoying friends, and Miles's mother jets off to London for the summer, leaving her with her virtual-stranger dad, Buddy. When Miles finds out that her mother isn't planning to return and Jamal tells Miles that he and Bex are planning to move to NYC, Miles hits rock bottom and overdoses on drugs. She almost dies--just like Laura did. But with the help of Jim, Buddy, Jamal, and even Bex, Miles gains the strength to face her situation and accept help. This is a forceful, emotional story about finding love and cobbling together a family.

When fifteen-year-old Wonder Blake is plucked from her job at the Dairy Queen and given the chance to be a teen idol, it seems like a dream come true - even if it wasn't her dream, but her older sister, Lucky's...Lucky was on her way to becoming a pop star when she died, and Wonder and her family are still trying to recover from their loss. Offered a recording contract, Wonder jumps at the chance to escape from a dead-end town, her fractured family and, worst of all, high school. Suddenly she has it all: a hot new look, a chart-busting hit single, and a tour opening up for superstar, Kayla. But stardom isn't all glamour - it's hard work - and it's especially tough trying to find a guy who likes her just for herself...