Books like 'Don't Know Tough'

Readers who enjoyed Don't Know Tough by Eli Cranor also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.

contemporary  young adult  dark romance  sports  suspense  mystery  christian

  • Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

    Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 161 ratings
    Check out the #1 New York Times bestseller Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, called “a surefire hit” by Entertainment Weekly.   "The secrets burrowed in this seemingly placid small town...are so suburban noir they would make David Lynch clap with glee..
    Categorized as:
    suspense  mystery  contemporary  abuse  dark  young adult  humor  rape
  • Real Girl by Sheridan Anne

    Real Girl by Sheridan Anne

    Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars
    · Steam rating: 5 of 5
    Explicit and plentiful [?] · 27 ratings
    Lucien Valentine must die.It’s the thought that’s kept me going for four long years. I’ve imagined it, dreamed about it, relished in it. I want it so bad, but the question is, do I have what it takes to make it happen?Taking a life isn’t for the faint-hearted. Just ask Lucien, he knows.He’s taken me back to where it all started and I know exactly how it’s going to go...
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  • Reckless Dynasty by Tracy Lorraine

    Reckless Dynasty by Tracy Lorraine

    Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars
    · Steam rating: 5 of 5
    Explicit and plentiful [?] · 16 ratings
    USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Tracy Lorraine brings you the next installment of her dark mafia, high school bully romance story set in the Knight's Ridge Empire world.My life has been full of half-truths tangled in lies—I’d been to hell and back more times than I could count...
  • Aggro by Coralee June, Carrie Gray

    Aggro by Coralee June, Carrie Gray

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · Steam rating: 5 of 5
    Explicit and plentiful [?] · 29 ratings
    Two boys.One tragedy.Grief bonds us.The mystery of this murder will break us.My best friend was brutally ripped from this world, but her brother and boyfriend are still here.One of them wants to use me.The other wants to forget me.Both of them make me feel alive.We’ll find Violet’s murderer, no matter the cost.Two boys.One tragedy.Grief bonds us.Love will tear us apart...
  • The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

    The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 56 ratings
    A contemporary YA novel that examines rape culture through alternating perspectives. Alex Craft knows how to kill someone. And she doesn’t feel bad about it.Three years ago, when her older sister, Anna, was murdered and the killer walked free, Alex uncaged the language she knows best—the language of violence. While her own crime goes unpunished, Alex knows she can’t be trusted among other people...
  • Wild Girl by Sheridan Anne

    Wild Girl by Sheridan Anne

    Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars
    · Steam rating: 5 of 5
    Explicit and plentiful [?] · 27 ratings
    Have you ever known what it feels like to die?It’s not great. Trust me, I don’t recommend it.I’ve always said that my life is about surviving, but I didn’t realize how true that was until the devil sent me soaring off a bridge with the love of my life and lodged a bullet through my thigh.It’s not my time to die...
  • The Old Wheel by Gregory Ashe

    The Old Wheel by Gregory Ashe

    Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars
    · 9 ratings
    Blackmail. Breakups. Boys. Trouble always comes in threes.Life is different for Jack Moreno. Good. Definitely good. Well, better, anyway.He’s back in school (although classes are harder than he expected). And his dad is healthy (which means he’s worrying again about things like Jack’s curfew and, oh yeah, grades)...
  • On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

    On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

    Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars
    · Steam rating: 2 of 5
    Behind closed doors [?] · 56 ratings
    I'm dreaming of the boy in the tree. I tell him stories. About the Jellicoe School and the Townies and the Cadets from a school in Sydney. I tell him about the war between us for territory. And I tell him about Hannah, who lives in the unfinished house by the river. Hannah, who is too young to be hiding away from the world. Hannah, who found me on the Jellicoe Road six years ago...
  • Now Is Everything by Amy Giles

    Now Is Everything by Amy Giles

    Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars
    · 27 ratings
    This is a previously published edition of ISBN 0062495739.The McCauleys look perfect on the outside. But nothing is ever as it seems, and this family is hiding a dark secret.Hadley McCauley will do anything to keep her sister safe from their father...
  • Fall With Me by Lucy Smoke

    Fall With Me by Lucy Smoke

    Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars
    · 13 ratings
    Isaac Icari: The God of Hazelwood University. My stepbrother.My lover.My enemy.It was dangerous to let myself be swept up by him but he’s a drug that I crave.I should have walked away the second I realized what he was involved with, when he revealed who his father truly was.Now it’s too late.We should have known better. Get too close to the sun and you get burned...
  • Game by Barry Lyga

    Game by Barry Lyga

    Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars
    · 32 ratings
    Billy grinned. “Oh, New York,” he whispered. “We’re gonna have so much fun.” I Hunt Killers introduced the world to Jazz, the son of history’s most infamous serial killer, Billy Dent. In an effort to prove murder didn’t run in the family, Jazz teamed with the police in the small town of Lobo’s Nod to solve a deadly case...
  • Before I Break by Portia Moore

    Before I Break by Portia Moore

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 32 ratings
    Out of the past six years of my life, I only remember about half of it. After a dozen doctors and thousands in medical bills, I was diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder--one that causes me to lose track of time. Sometimes it’s hours, days or even weeks with no recollection of anything. The good thing is it's been almost two years since I had my last ‘black out’...
  • Forever Golden by Rachel Jonas, Lessa Lamb

    Forever Golden by Rachel Jonas, Lessa Lamb

    Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars
    · 33 ratings
    West Golden—Fierce protector. The one.The cocky jock I once wanted to kill with my bare hands is now the only one I trust with my heart.In a city full of corruption and dark secrets, knowing who’s on your side gets harder to determine every day. Especially now that Vin’s on the warpath, passing out threats he fully intends to see through to the end...
  • Hometown Girl Memories by Kirsten Fullmer

    Hometown Girl Memories by Kirsten Fullmer

    Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    "I was crying one minute and laughing the next. A definite must read!" Winnie is content in her role as the reining matriarch of Smithville, but when a letter arrives from a long-lost friend, the door to her past is reopened. Memories come flooding in, drawing her back to 1968, her college days; a time filled with people and events she hasn’t allowed herself to recall...
  • Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas, Abby McDonald

    Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas, Abby McDonald

    Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars
    · 41 ratings
    It's Spring Break of senior year. Anna, her boyfriend Tate, her best friend Elise, and a few other close friends are off to a debaucherous trip to Aruba that promises to be the time of their lives. But when Elise is found brutally murdered, Anna finds herself trapped in a country not her own, fighting against vile and contemptuous accusations...
  • These Dark Hearts by L.A. Cotton

    These Dark Hearts by L.A. Cotton

    Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars
    · 13 ratings
    Harleigh Wren Maguire has loved Phoenix Wilder for as long as she can remember.He's everything she isn't.Brave.Reckless.One-hundred percent unapologetic.But it's Halloween... the perfect excuse to dress up and be someone you're not. To step out of your comfort zone and do things you wouldn't usually do.And Harleigh is determined to make her best friend notice her for once.There's only one problem...
  • Half Truths by Claire Contreras

    Half Truths by Claire Contreras

    Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars
    · Steam rating: 1 of 5
    Glimpses and kisses [?] · 27 ratings
    You’ve heard of these groups – the secretive ones that only the crème de la crème are invited into, the ones outsiders speculate about for centuries – I’m the second in my family invited to attend, but to them, I’m fresh meat. New blood. New money, too. They think they’ll elbow past me, that I’m here for their amusement, for them to walk all over, they’ll find out soon enough that I’m not...
  • Born Wrong by C.M. Stunich

    Born Wrong by C.M. Stunich

    Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars
    · 22 ratings
    When you're born wrong, sometimes you get bent and you get f*cked. Sometimes your life takes you places you don't want to go.Sometimes, it does. Dax McCann is as cold as ice. I'm intrigued by him. But I can't get close to him either. His music strokes my soul, butchers my broken heart. I wish he'd see me, but he only sees her...
  • Never His Girl by Rachel Jonas, Nikki Thorne

    Never His Girl by Rachel Jonas, Nikki Thorne

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 36 ratings
    West Golden--Football star. Playboy. Dead to me.Nothing puts the final bullet in a girl’s rep like a leaked sex tape. Especially one starring her and the cocky quarterback who’s had it out for her since day one. Yep, you guessed it. That girl is me.At Cypress Prep, West is king, but all I see when I look at him is the wicked prick who gets off on trying to break me.His plaything.Go ahead...
  • The End of Gods by Con Template

    The End of Gods by Con Template

    Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    In every Kingdom, every government entity, and every secret society, there is an epic era that defies the boundaries of times and immortalizes itself in the history books. These unforgettable eras are unpredictable by nature and rare in occurrence. The centuries may come and go and such an extraordinary era may never grace the lives of those who live for it...
  • Broken: The Dorms by J.L. Weil

    Broken: The Dorms by J.L. Weil

    Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    Kenna: Growing up, everyone thought I was in love with my brother’s best friend. They were right. They just had the wrong friend. Fynn Dupree broke my heart, and he didn’t even know it. Well, as much as a fifteen-year-old girl’s heart could break. The night Fynn rejected me, my entire life changed...
  • Unstable by Alexandra Ivy

    Unstable by Alexandra Ivy

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · Steam rating: 2 of 5
    Behind closed doors [?] · 10 ratings
    WHEN IT COMES TO KILLINGA dead man in a cemetery isn’t news—unless he’s found on top of a grave, with a bullet through his head. The body belongs to Jude Henley, who was supposed to be buried below. Instead, the grave contains the remains of Staci Gale, thought to have run away nearly three decades ago...
  • The Dead List by Jennifer L. Armentrout

    The Dead List by Jennifer L. Armentrout

    Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars
    · 32 ratings
    It's Ella's senior year of high school and she and her best friend Linds plan to make it the best year ever. At Brock Cochran's end of summer pool party, the girls vow to have as much fun as possible before they head off to different colleges next fall. But when Ella is mysteriously attacked on her way home from the party, everything changes...
  • I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

    I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

    Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars
    · 45 ratings
    What if the world's worst serial killer...was your dad? Jasper "Jazz" Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say. But he's also the son of the world's most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could—from the criminal's point of view. And now bodies are piling up in Lobo's Nod...
  • Tough Luck by C.M. Stunich

    Tough Luck by C.M. Stunich

    Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    * This is NOT the last book in the series. There will be later books featuring Turner and Naomi again, and they also appear in this volume quite a bit. ;) Ronnie McGuire is my target. But I wish he wasn't. I didn't sign up for this destruction, this pain. In his music, I hear his soul crying out for me...
  • Scarred, Part 3 by Kylie Walker

    Scarred, Part 3 by Kylie Walker

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    After agreeing to attend a Gala in New York with Derek, Chloe stumbles into her worst nightmare. Vince Donovan...District Attorney of New York...Jesse Donovan's father. RUN... is the only thought firing in her head. When Derek finally catches up with her, she realizes that her world has been flipped upside down and out of control. Chloe now decides to let the flood gates open...
  • Ómorphi by C. (Cody) Kennedy

    Ómorphi by C. (Cody) Kennedy

    Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    "Hauntingly beautiful, a book that you never wanted to end because you were so much a part of the characters lives. When you finish the book you want to know more, to pick up the phone and call Christy. Magically written, the voices and setting of the story were so clear you lived each moment with the characters...
  • Locked and Loaded by Nenia Campbell

    Locked and Loaded by Nenia Campbell

    Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars
    · 11 ratings
    Keep your friends close and your enemies closer... Christina Parker agreed to go to work for the BN because she thought it would keep her and her loved ones safe. But the BN's training facility is more like a prison than a school, and rumors about her illicit relationship with an IMA assassin make assimilation difficult - if not impossible...
  • Hate List by Jennifer Brown

    Hate List by Jennifer Brown

    Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars
    · 55 ratings
    Five months ago, Valerie Leftman's boyfriend, Nick, opened fire on their school cafeteria. Shot trying to stop him, Valerie inadvertently saved the life of a classmate, but was implicated in the shootings because of the list she helped create. A list of people and things she and Nick hated. The list he used to pick his targets...
  • A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

    A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

    Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars
    · 43 ratings
    Faulkner’s most famous, most popular, and most anthologized short story, “A Rose for Emily” evokes the terms Southern gothic and grotesque, two types of literature in which the general tone is one of gloom, terror, and understated violence...
  • Right Behind You by Gail Giles

    Right Behind You by Gail Giles

    Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    When he was nine, Kip set another child on fire. Now, after years in a juvenile ward, he is ready for a fresh start. But the ghosts of his past soon demand justice, and he must reveal his painful secret...
  • All Bets Are Off by G.N. Wright, Samantha Bee

    All Bets Are Off by G.N. Wright, Samantha Bee

    Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars
    · Steam rating: 5 of 5
    Explicit and plentiful [?] · 11 ratings
    Blurb:I bet you can’t.Four words that started a game that would alter the course of our lives forever.You never know when one moment is going to change everything. What handful of little words will shift the path you always thought you were going to take.Elias. Ashton. Zaiden. Hudson.I thought nothing would break us. That nothing could tear us apart.But those four little words did...
  • Shattered Legacy by Caitlyn Dare

    Shattered Legacy by Caitlyn Dare

    Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Mia Thompson wants only one thing: to survive Gravestone University, graduate, and get far far away from her hometown and its archaic traditions.But she’s about to become a pawn in a game she doesn’t understand.Bexley Danforth wants only one thing: to keep his head down, survive four years at college, and get far far away from his past and the mistakes that haunt him...
  • What She Found in the Woods by Josephine Angelini

    What She Found in the Woods by Josephine Angelini

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    Magda just wants to forget what happened. But there's a nightmare lurking —and it's coming for her...This is Magda’s last chance. Recovering from a scandal at her elite New York City private school that threw her life into a tailspin, she’s shipped off to live with her grandparents in the Pacific Northwest for the summer...
  • Conviction by Amanda Lance

    Conviction by Amanda Lance

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    Falling in love with each other was unlikely. Surviving their adventure was doubtful. Living without each other: impossible. To everyone else, it may look like she’s leaving for college, but for Addie Battes, it is the beginning of another adventure. She and her kidnapper Charlie Hays have found a way to be together and eluded authorities...
  • Clean Slate by E.J. Fechenda

    Clean Slate by E.J. Fechenda

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    In Clean Slate, Book Two of The New Mafia Trilogy, a battered and bruised Natalie Ross leaves her family and boyfriend behind in Philadelphia and makes her way to Los Angeles to seek forgiveness from her estranged best friend, Chelsea. Natalie wants to start over and forget all about the past year she spent as the girlfriend of an enforcer for the Philly Mob...
  • Goal Boy by Ruby Wolff

    Goal Boy by Ruby Wolff

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    A Dark College Sports Romance.LoganI wasn’t supposed to be born.And Dad made sure I knew it. Taking everything from me.Not anymore I’m going to break him, slowly.I always thought I was broken, until I saw her.One look into her eyes I could see the broken dove she was, and I was going to enjoy fixing her, only to break her again.Until I found out the truth.MeadowHe took everything from me...
  • Cheerleading Can Be Murder by Carissa Ann Lynch

    Cheerleading Can Be Murder by Carissa Ann Lynch

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    Getting on the cheerleading squad is hard enough without a psycho on the loose… For Harrow High freshman Dakota Densford, life should be easy. All she has to worry about is talking to cute boys and remembering her locker combination. But when cheerleading tryouts draw near, she learns the cards are stacked against her—spots on the varsity team are limited...
  • Girl, Stolen by April Henry

    Girl, Stolen by April Henry

    Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars
    · 38 ratings
    Sixteen-year-old Cheyenne Wilder is sleeping in the back of the car while her stepmom fills a prescription for antibiotics. Before Cheyenne realizes what's happening, the car is being stolen. Griffin hadn't meant to kidnap Cheyenne and once he finds out that not only does she have pneumonia, but that she's blind, he really doesn't know what to do...
  • He Found Me by Whitney Barbetti

    He Found Me by Whitney Barbetti

    Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars
    · 21 ratings
    When I was seventeen, I disappeared. I walked out the door of my apartment with a backpack and never looked back. I left the life of Cora Mitchell behind, seeking freedom from my real-life nightmare. But my freedom came with a cost. I lived a fictitious life for the next six years, never letting anyone close enough to see underneath the facade that was Andra Walker...
  • Shine by Lauren Myracle

    Shine by Lauren Myracle

    Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars
    · 40 ratings
    When her best guy friend falls victim to a vicious hate crime, sixteen-year-old Cat sets out to discover who in her small town did it. Richly atmospheric, this daring mystery mines the secrets of a tightly knit Southern community and examines the strength of will it takes to go against everyone you know in the name of justice...
  • By a Thread by R.L. Griffin

    By a Thread by R.L. Griffin

    Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars
    · 15 ratings
    Stella's future was set, and it was a bright one. She was engaged to a man she adored, and was headed to law school in the fall. Tragically, her perfectly planned future ends just as it was beginning. With no ties to family or friends, Stella finds herself alone in a new city, spiraling out of control. Her typical day comes to a close with her passed out on the floor; sometimes clothed...
  • Dead Girls Don't Lie by Jennifer Shaw Wolf

    Dead Girls Don't Lie by Jennifer Shaw Wolf

    Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    Rachel died at two a.m . . . Three hours after Skyler kissed me for the first time. Forty-five minutes after she sent me her last text. Jaycee and Rachel were best friends. But that was before. . .before that terrible night at the old house. Before Rachel shut Jaycee out. Before Jaycee chose Skyler over Rachel. Then Rachel is found dead...
  • All the Little Lights by Jamie McGuire

    All the Little Lights by Jamie McGuire

    Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars
    · Steam rating: 1 of 5
    Glimpses and kisses [?] · 30 ratings
    From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jamie McGuire comes a riveting tale of first love that starts young but runs deep. The first time Elliott Youngblood spots Catherine Calhoun, he’s just a boy with a camera, and he’s never seen a sadder and more beautiful sight. Both Elliott and Catherine feel like outcasts, yet they find an easy friendship with each other...
  • Mad Love by Hannah McBride

    Mad Love by Hannah McBride

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 9 ratings
    I TRIED TO BE MADELAINE.It started with a twin switch that was supposed to be temporary. It ended with me being locked up in an asylum, hidden from Ryan Cain, the man I love more than life. Vowing to avenge my sister's murder may have resulted in my captivity, but there's one truth that still remains:I'LL ALWAYS BE MADISON.We underestimated what my father was capable of, and now I'm on my own...
  • Crash and Burn by Michael Hassan

    Crash and Burn by Michael Hassan

    Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    On April 21, 2008, Steven "Crash" Crashinsky saved more than a thousand people when he stopped his classmate David Burnett from taking their high school hostage armed with assault weapons and high-powered explosives. You likely already know what came after for Crash: the nationwide notoriety, the college recruitment, and, of course, the book deal...
  • Liar Liar by L.A. Cotton

    Liar Liar by L.A. Cotton

    Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    An angsty and gritty romance duet from USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Wicked Bay series and Rixon High series.Moving to Credence is supposed to be the fresh start Becca Torrence desperately needs.But it’s about to become her worst nightmare...
  • How to Lead a Life of Crime by Kirsten Miller

    How to Lead a Life of Crime by Kirsten Miller

    Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    A meth dealer. A prostitute. A serial killer. Anywhere else, they’d be vermin. At the Mandel Academy, they’re called prodigies. The most exclusive school in New York City has been training young criminals for over a century. Only the most ruthless students are allowed to graduate. The rest disappear. Flick, a teenage pickpocket, has risen to the top of his class...
  • The Execution by Ruby Vincent

    The Execution by Ruby Vincent

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · Steam rating: 1 of 5
    Glimpses and kisses [?] · 33 ratings
    They think they won. The Elite thought it would end at the battle, but I'm taking them to war. I will topple Landon, Michael, and Cole off their thrones even if it means bringing the system to its knees. Tensions are boiling beneath the surface of Breakbattle Academy. Protests are erupting, the lower classes are fighting back, and the Elites aren’t as invulnerable as they thought...
  • Cut Me Free by J.R. Johansson

    Cut Me Free by J.R. Johansson

    Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars
    · 23 ratings
    Seventeen-year-old Charlotte barely escaped from her abusive parents. Her little brother, Sam, wasn't as lucky. Now she's trying to begin the new life she always dreamed of for them, but never thought she'd have to experience alone. She's hired a techie-genius with a knack for forgery to remove the last ties to her old life...
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