Book pros - help me identify these two books!?

I read these books a while ago, and I remember the stories but I don't remember the title or author.

The first one is about a girl who lives in the mountains and likes to read and is obsessed with words and makes her own words up. Her best friend is a black boy whose mother saved up for him to go to college but something happens to the money. A dead body turns up on the lake by the hotel that she works at and the girl finds the diary of a girl who dies. She lives with her father who I think was abusive.

Another is the autobiography of a chinese girl. She was the youngest in her family I think. She had a very strict, rigid family that abused her and treated her poorly. Her parent re-married and she was treated second class to her step brothers and sisters. She had to dress in unfashionable clothes and had to walk to school while her step siblings got rides. She was very close to her grandparents but they died.

Sorry this is so vague - I read them a long time ago!