For most of us, clicking “like” on social media has become fairly routine. For a Marine, clicking “like” from the battlefield lets his social network know he’s alive. This is the first time in the history of modern warfare that US troops have direct, instantaneous connection to civilian life back home. Lisa Ellen Silvestri’s Friended at the Front documents the revolutionary change in the way we communicate across fronts. Social media, Silvestri contends, changes what it's like to be at war. Based on in-person interviews and online fieldwork with US Marines, Friended at the Front explores the new media habits, attitudes, and behaviors of troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some of the complications that emerge in their wake. The book pays particular attention to the way US troops use Facebook and YouTube to narrate their experiences to civilian network members, to each other, and, not least of all, to themselves. After she reviews evolving military guidelines for social media engagement, Silvestri explores specific practices amongst active duty Marines such as posting photos and producing memes. Her interviews, observations, and research reveal how social network sites present both an opportunity to connect with civilians back home, as well as an obligation to do so—one that can become controversial for troops in a war zone. Much like the war on terror itself, the boundaries, expectations, and dangers associated with social media are amorphous and under constant negotiation. Friended at the Front explains how our communication landscape changes what it is like to go to war for individual service members, their loved ones, and for the American public at large.

Junie's down on her luck and stuck living with her mom and stepdad. But she'll be out from under their roof again just as soon as she can save enough tips from her waitressing job, if her mom and stepdad don't get her fired first. She should be working tonight, but they've forced her to stay home. While Mom is off on a weekend women's retreat, Junie has to stay behind to play waitress for her stepdad and his lecherous friends. She has a plan, though - one that will have her stepdad ordering her to get out of the house. Unless he has an entirely different reaction instead. Sometimes, a naughty stepdaughter's plans turn out better than she could've imagined.

This eye-opening study gives a nuanced, provocative account of how German soldiers in the Great War experienced and enacted masculinity. Drawing on an array of relevant narratives and media, it explores the ways that both heterosexual and homosexual soldiers expressed emotion, understood romantic ideals, and approached intimacy and sexuality.

The companion to The Dead Inside, "[An] unnerving and heartrending memoir" (Publishers Weekly) This is the story of my return to high school. This is the true story of how I didn't die. High school sucks for a lot of people. High school extra sucks when you believe, deep in your soul, that every kid in the school is out to get you. I wasn't popular before I got locked up in Straight Inc., the notorious "tough love" program for troubled teens. So it's not like I was walking around thinking everyone liked me. But when you're psychologically beaten for sixteen months, you start to absorb the lessons. The lessons in Straight were: You are evil. Your peers are evil. Everything is evil except Straight, Inc. Before long, you're a true believer. And when you're finally released, sent back into the world, you crave safety. Crave being back in the warehouse. And if you can't be there, you'd rather be dead.

“This is a best friend in book form.”—Andrew Kaufman, author of All My Friends Are Superheroes Today, Carrie Hope Fletcher is living her dream as an actress and YouTube star. But not long ago, she was trying to survive the many perils of the Teen Age . . . The Rumor Mill: The more a rumor is spread, the farther it gets from the truth. It’s like a giant taffy pull. The Disgusting Business of Falling in Love: I’ve never known something to be so gleefully wonderful and soul-crushingly exhausting. The Twitter-Sphere: If the Internet is starting to crush your soul . . . close the laptop! Bears: Self-explanatory. Thankfully, she made it through! And although memories of her struggles, woes, and foibles stick around (as Soul Shrapnel, if you will), they look a little different today, thanks to The Amazing Goggles of Hindsight. So, in All I Know Now, Carrie shares, well, exactly that—heartfelt advice and hopeful thoughts on growing up. She just did it herself. She has the stuffed animals to prove it!