If you’ve been keeping up with Ooligan Press news, you’ll know that we’re very excited about our upcoming YA novel, Sleeping in My Jeans by Connie King Leonard.
Set to publish in the fall of 2018, Sleeping in My Jeans follows sixteen-year-old Mattie Rollins as her life gets turned upside down. When Mattie’s mother packs the family and as many clothes as they can carry into their beat-up station wagon, Mattie hopes it’s only for one night. But as the days go on and Mattie’s mother still isn’t able to find them housing, the reality of their situation begins to sink in. Newly homeless, Mattie must find a way to balance going to high school with living out of a car. The local library becomes her new living room, where she and her young sister, Meg, spend the long hours after school while waiting for their mother to get off work. Just as she begins to settle into her new routine, her mother goes missing. Mattie will have to make a difficult choice: either go to the police and possibly end up in foster care, or venture out into danger and find her mother on her own.
Sound exciting? Sleeping in My Jeans is Ooligan Press’s first title that falls into genre fiction. While the story is clearly the YA style we all know and love, it is also filled with suspense and thrills as Mattie navigates the dangers of living on the street. It is our hope that this novel will bring awareness to homelessness in places like Eugene, Oregon, where the novel is set. The author, Connie King Leonard, also plans to donate a portion of the sales toward domestic abuse centers and homeless shelters.
Sleeping in My Jeans will publish in the fall of 2018, but in the meantime, check out these similar YA titles. If you enjoy them, you’ll be sure to fall in love with Sleeping in My Jeans.
- Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow
A New York Times bestseller, this haunting portrayal of a teen dealing with mental illness follows seventeen-year-old Charlotte Davis on her journey of healing after she is prematurely released from a mental health facility for the treatment of girls who have self-injury disorders.
- Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano
Nearly Boswell has enough secrets to keep from her fellow high school students—like the fact that she lives in a DC trailer park or that her mother’s job is an exotic dancer. But she finds herself close to bursting when a serial killer begins to target students and leaves mysterious ads in the newspaper, which only she can decipher.
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
This New York Times bestseller tackles the topics of police brutality and systematic racism as seen through the eyes of sixteen-year-old Starr Carter. Starr may attend a rich suburban prep school, but she lives in a poor neighborhood. She does her best to balance her two very different worlds, but everything comes crashing down when her childhood best friend, Khalil, is fatally shot by a police officer while unarmed.
- Where I Live by Brenda Rufener
Linden Rose has done all she can to keep herself under the radar at her small town high school—no one can know that she’s homeless and has been living in the school. But when Bea, one of the cool-crowd girls, comes to school with a bloody lip, Linden’s past comes back to haunt her. Linden must decide whether to risk everything to tell Bea’s story and confront her own past or remain hidden in the crowd.
- Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver
From bestselling author Lauren Oliver comes the story of Dara and Nick, two sisters who work to find not only each other, but themselves. When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick doesn’t think anything of it. But when another girl goes missing, Nick realizes she must find her sister before it’s too late.
- We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
In this national bestseller, author Nina Lacour tells a story that at its core is about grief and the bonds of friendship. Marin has run away from her old life—and even her best friend Mabel—on the California coast, to a new one at a college in New York. Months later, Marin is still haunted by what happened in her old life. With Mabel coming to visit, Marin must face her past and explain her silence to her best friend.