Annie and Sarah are fifteen-year-old fraternal twins—who only spend time together because they're under the same roof. Annie's life has long been focused around her appearance and the beauty pageants that celebrate it, whereas Sarah's interests are sports and her runner boyfriend, Jeremy.
Then Annie begins to gain more and more weight, and all she seems to hear from her mother is, “You used to be so pretty,” followed by the latest diet to try.
Things begin to unravel for Sarah as well. Jeremy—her boyfriend of more than a year—decides to see if he and Sarah are "right" for each other, dumping her in order to get his head on straight.
Sarah is devastated. Her family is crumbling. The love of her life is dating other people. Her sister is getting heavier and more depressed. When Sarah learns, through gentle questioning, that a neighbor and very good family friend has been sexually abusing her sister, she knows she must act and help the sister who seemingly always had it all.
Told in alternating points of view, Never Said is the story of a family that has been caught up in what doesn’t matter and about two sisters who realize that their relationship—no matter how different the two of them are—is most important.

Never Said

Teen & Young Adult

Williams, Carol Lynch

Literature & Fiction

Blink

For as long as she can remember, Sarah’s family life has revolved around her twin sister, Annie—the pretty one, the social one, the girl who can do anything. The person everyone seems to wish Sarah—with her crippling shyness—could simply become.
When Annie suddenly chops off her hair, quits beauty pageants, and gains weight, the focus changes—Annie is still the star of the family, but for all the wrong reasons. Sarah knows something has happened, but she too is caught in her own spiral after her boyfriend breaks up with her and starts hanging out with one of Annie’s old friends.
Annie is intent on keeping her painful secret safe. But when she and Sarah start spending time together again for the first time in years, walls start to break on both sides … and words that had been left unsaid could change everything.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Mental Health

"Imagine Anna Quindlen or Sue Miller turning her attention to writing a young adult novel, and you have an idea what [Williams] has done for early teen readers…" --Audrey Couloumbis, author of the Newbery Honor Book Getting Close to Baby Thirteen-year-old Lacey wakes to a beautiful summer morning excited to begin her new job at the library, just as her mother is supposed to start work at the grocery store. Lacey hopes that her mother's ghosts have finally been laid to rest; after all, she seems so much better these days, and they really do need the money. But as the hours tick by and memories come flooding back, a day full of hope spins terrifyingly out of control.... "No one can get inside the head and heart of a 13-year-old girl better than Carol Lynch Williams, and I mean no one," said James S. Jacobs, Professor of Children's Literature at Brigham Young University, of her breakout novel, The Chosen One. Now this award-winning YA author brings us an equally gripping story of a girl who loves her mother, but must face the truth of what life with that mother means for both of them.

Miles from Ordinary: A Novel

Children's Books

St. Martin's: Griffin

Carol Lynch Willams' The Chosen One is a dazzling novel about a young teenager's rebellion from the polygamist cult that would have her become the seventh wife to her 60-year-old uncle 
Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated community without questioning the fact that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters, with two more on the way. That is, without questioning them much---if you don't count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with Joshua, the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her. 
But when the Prophet decrees that she must marry her sixty-year-old uncle---who already has six wives---Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family forever.

The Chosen One: A Novel

For the teens at The Haven, the outside world, just beyond the towering stone wall that surrounds the premises, is a dangerous unknown. It has always been this way, ever since the hospital was established in the year 2020. But The Haven is more than just a hospital; it is their home. It is all they know. Everything is strictly monitored: education, exercise, food, and rest. The rules must be followed to keep the children healthy, to help control the Disease that has cast them as Terminals, the Disease that claims limbs and lungs―and memories. 
But Shiloh is different; she remembers everything. Gideon is different, too. He dreams of a cure, of rebellion against the status quo. What if everything they've been told is a lie? What if The Haven is not the safe place it claims to be? And what will happen if Shiloh starts asking dangerous questions?
Powerful and emotional, The Haven takes us inside a treacherous world in which nothing is as it seems. "Imagine Anna Quindlen or Sue Miller turning her attention to writing a young adult novel, and you have an idea of what Carol Lynch Williams has done for early teen readers." (Audrey Couloumbis, author of the Newbery Honor Book Getting Near to Baby)

The Haven: A Novel

Leah Orton and her younger sister, Kelly, never dream that the summer spent with their mischief-loving grandfather, who encourages them to stay up late and drive his car, will end in tragedy.

Kelly and Me

Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Eleven-year-old Leah ultimately comes to terms  with her younger sister's  death.A warm, funny, family story that deals with  overcoming grief and finding inner  strength.To 11-year-old Leah Orton, Adeline  Street was the best place on earth to live. But  since her sister Kelly's death, the old neighborhood  only reminds her of better times. Recent additions  to Adeline Street, like the new church and its  stern preacher, seem like intrusions. So do many of  Leah's confusing new emotions, like her changed  feelings for her best friend, Tom, and her sudden  understanding of her friend Vickie's frightening  secret. Yet as Leah reaches out, she is surprised to  find comfort and some good laughs in unexpected  places.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Adeline Street

Caity and her sister Kara get along pretty well, considering their home life. By sticking together and staying out of their mother's way, they manage to make it to school on time, get meals together, and protect one another from their mother's terrifying and seemingly random verbal and physical attacks. A few sympathetic friends, like Brandon from next door, make a big difference. But when their mother storms out of the house with a suitcase and doesn't come back, they have to face a new reality--they can't cope entirely on their own for long. Yet, as Caity comes to realize, there is a lot they can do to take control of their future. This sensitively written novel deals frankly with parental abuse, but is ultimately about the resilience and resourcefulness of young people who beat the odds.

The True Colors of Caitlynne Jackson

Growing Up & Facts of Life

Sixth grade is over and Elyse Donaldson is ready for a perfect summer. She's going to read her favorite books and write her first novel. She's even determined to get along with her older sister, Jordyn. But her plans quickly unravel. Granny's Alzheimer's is getting worse. So she moves in with Elyse, Jordyn, and their mom, and the girls watch over her while their mother is at work. Sometimes she's fine, but sometimes she slides into the past and doesn't even recognize Elyse. It's frightening to realize that her beloved grandmother is slowly slipping away. Then Elyse gets involved in a neighborhood newspaper, and her mom starts dating for the first time since her father died. Elyse doesn't think she can stand any more changes, any more loss, but she's a lot stronger than she knows. This is the summer she'll learn to stand up for herself and to help the grandmother who has always helped her.

If I Forget, You Remember

Fifteen-vear-old Sage Olivar is writing a Romance novel-with a capital "R." The book's heroine, Angelica, is Sage's ideal wornan-sensitive, strong, and sexy. There is only one small problem with Sage's novel-it's absolutely dreadful! Enter George, Sage's would-be boyfriend and unwilling reader of Angelica stories. When she decides to enter her masterpiece in the school writing contest, George is frantic. How can he save Sage from public humiliation? Told in chapters alternating Sage's and George's point of view, this hilarious story is also a nuanced portrait of teenagers trying to make sense of their feelings and relationships. From the Trade Paperback edition.

My Angelica

Humor

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Williams, Carol Lynch. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Williams, Carol Lynch

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Williams, Carol Lynch. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Never Said

Never Said

Miles from Ordinary: A Novel

The Chosen One: A Novel

The Haven: A Novel

Kelly and Me

Adeline Street

The True Colors of Caitlynne Jackson

If I Forget, You Remember

My Angelica