Rose Christo

"Skylar is my name, tragically." Sixteen-year-old Skylar is witty, empathetic, sensitive--and mute. Skylar hasn't uttered a single word since his mother died eleven years ago, a senseless tragedy he's grateful he doesn't have to talk about. When Skylar's father mysteriously vanishes one summer afternoon, Skylar is placed in the temporary custody of his only remaining relative, an estranged grandmother living on an Indian reservation in the middle of arid Arizona. Adapting to a brand new culture is the least of Skylar's qualms. Because Skylar's mother did not die a peaceful death. Skylar's mother was murdered eleven years ago on the Nettlebush Reserve. And her murderer left behind a son. And he is like nothing Skylar has ever known.

Gives Light

"There's nothing wrong with trying to get to know my son's boyfriend." Skylar knows he's lucky to have an open-minded father. It's not just that Skylar and Rafael are both boys. Between their families exists a dark and turbulent past: Rafael's father was the first serial killer in the history of the Nettlebush Indian Reserve, and Skylar's mother was his last victim. Skylar is ready to put the past behind him. But Skylar's future is tenuous at best. Skylar is still a ward of the state, and foster care can take him away from the reservation at a moment's notice. Voiceless and powerless, Skylar learns firsthand what it means to be a Native American in the 21st century. And when Skylar stumbles across his father's best-kept, twelve-year-old secret, not even Rafael can shield him from the fallout.

Looks Over

Michael Mirez witnesses a sexual assault and does nothing to stop it. Torn apart by guilt, Michael sabotages his own life, until one year later, when Michael unexpectedly crosses paths with the victim again. Michael is determined to make it up to Noah, a painfully shy Native American boy whose only ambition is to travel into space. But Noah doesn't remember Michael; and Michael doesn't have the courage to refresh his memory. And behind Noah's attack lies a disturbing pastime with roots as old as America itself.

The Dogs of Balboa

"I never want to hurt you. You get that, right?" Skylar knows Rafael wants something very specific from him--and Skylar wants him to have it. Convincing Rafael is going to take some serious innovation. Skylar lost his voice twelve years ago to the Nettlebush Indian Reserve's first and last serial killer. That serial killer was Rafael's father. Rafael's father, Skylar learns, isn't the problem. Something else happened when Skylar survived that blustery summer night. Something Skylar never thought twice about. Something Rafael can't look past. The Supreme Court ruling on Kelo v. New London changes the face of US property laws, plunging the reservation into an insidious tug-of-war between the Bureau of Land Management and the Plains Shoshone who have called the soil home for centuries. History, Skylar realizes, is repeating itself. Their parents powerless, the law their enemy, Skylar and his friends are going to have to get creative if they want to keep what's left of their land.

St. Clair

"Your dad's Indian. Your mom's black. Why are you white?" Skylar St. Clair's been getting questions like these all his life. Skylar's home is the Nettlebush Indian Reserve; his family, the hundreds of Plains Shoshone living there. Skylar can't help it if he better resembles his biological mother, a woman whose untimely death left him with more secrets than memories. Skylar's father has been in federal prison for the past fifteen years. The summer of his release coincides with familial matters of a different nature: Skylar and his husband are trying to adopt a daughter. Piecing together a fragmented family is no small task. All the patience in the world cannot contend with thirty-three years of reticence. But love can.

Why the Star Stands Still

Shawn Wapaw has two weeks to stop a suicide six hundred and sixty miles away. Shawn Wapaw is blind.

Snowblind

"Sometimes my imagination bleeds into reality."Eleven years ago a serial killer menaced the Nettlebush Indian Reservation. Rafael Gives Light is his son. A loner, Rafael relies on his startlingly overactive imagination to escape the distrust and vitriol of his peers.In the summer of 2000 an exceptionally blond boy moves to Nettlebush. Rafael learns that the boy is his father's last living victim. The boy wants to be friends.

Lending Light

Wendy Rozas doesn't remember the car wreck that claimed her parents' and best friend's lives. Wendy doesn't understand why she still suffers crippling migraines months after brain surgery. Wendy doesn't know why her headaches coincide with strange, inexplicable accidents. Azel Asad wants to help Wendy. Azel is a high school senior, an Arabian expat, and the only person left in Oregon who doesn't think Wendy is losing her mind. Wendy may not be losing her mind. But what awaits there is a shrouded labyrinth of secrets and lies--a tangled web where neuroscience intersects with the unknown--and a tremendous truth that may not be worth uncovering.

Swansong

A heartbreaking and wryly hopeful memoir of surviving the NYC foster care system—and how one girl's “masterpiece of literary disaster” (io9.com) connected her to a community that could help her find her lost brother. In the early 2000s, Rose Christo was separated from her five-year-old brother and shuttled between foster homes in Brooklyn to the Bronx and back again. Desperate to be reunited with her sibling, she traveled the five boroughs, unable to find any trace of him, as New York state’s child care agencies failed to help her time and again. Then, with the help of one beloved foster sister, Rose created an infamous piece of Harry Potter fanfiction titled My Immortal, posting it online under the pseudonym XXXbloodyrists666XXX. The “forty-four chapters and 22,000 words of hysterical, typo-laden hyperbole” (BuzzFeed.com) went viral as the most notoriously terrible fanfic ever read by the community. For years, fans, writers, and editors researched, debated, and contested the story’s origin and its mysterious author: was this grammatically-challenged rant actually written by a suicidal Goth teenager named Tara Gilesbe living in Dubai, or was this a hoax perpetrated by a group of professional authors making fun of fanfiction? The truth is a gripping, compelling, and surprisingly funny story of how a young girl infiltrated and used the fan fiction community to search for her brother by baiting their attention with a deliberately badly written tale, creating a ten-year mystery that garnered pop culture media attention and remained unsolved—until now.

Rose Christo

About

Books

Join the club