Difference between revisions of "Newest Teens Reviews"

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[[Category:Teens|*]]
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Mary Hoffman
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|author=Max Boucherat
|title=Tilt
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=To make an author, you first show someone books.  To make a reader, you first show them the books they want to, and/or can, readTo make a builder, you first show someone buildings.  I use those platitudes to introduce Simonetta, or Netta, who lives in Pisa late in the thirteenth centuryShe is surrounded by fabulous buildings – it's not for nothing the area will become known as the Field of Miracles, for the Cathedral, Baptistry and bell tower look gorgeousBut something is wrong with the latter one – it's definitely leaning, cracks are showing, and over the hundred-plus years it's taken to get this far people have built the floors at odd angles to correct the problemNetta is intent on being the person who can solve it, alongside her father who's employed to finish it off.  But therein lies the problem it's all well and good showing someone buildings, and making them want to be an architect, but if they're the wrong gender then all hope is lost… or is it?
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|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesomeWhat could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's worldBut first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spookyFor the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tamperingWhen malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781125651</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Linda Newbery
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|title=Until We Win
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|title=Compass and Blade
|rating=5
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|rating=3.5
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
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|genre=Teens
|summary=The best journeys are made with little steps. Lizzy is slowly leaving her boring village behind – by being cheeky yet clever at her lessons, and getting a job in an office in the nearest proper town – and by saving to buy, and teaching herself to ride, a bicycle. All that's under the watchful eye of a mother insistent she learns to knuckle down with the housework on behalf of the men, and an older brother working at the village hunt.  At the office, however, further steps are suggested to her – shorthand and typing classes, but she gets diverted.  A chance encounter in a tea rooms puts more stepping stones in her way – en route to becoming a fully committed Suffragette, concerned only with making demands for votes for women.
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|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781125791</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.
 +
|isbn=0008664730
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=The One Memory of Flora Banks
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|author=Harry Allen
|author=Emily Barr
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|title=Children of the Sun
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Flora Banks has anterograde amnesia. This means that she hasn't laid down any new memories since she was ten years old and had a brain tumour removed. She's now seventeen and can remember life before the tumour but can't hold on to anything that happened after that for more than an hour or two. She gets by with the help of her very protective parents and her best friend Paige, and from the endless notes she writes to herself that tell her who she is, what's wrong with her, and what's been happening in her life. Flora has a tattoo on her arm. It simply says ''be brave''.
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|summary= Ra Eun Seo lives in a North Korean town and she is a talented singer. Life is hard and food is difficult to come by, so Seo and her friends Nari and Min go foraging every evening, looking for tree bark and edible grasses to supplement the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at home.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141368519</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1805140493
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Life in a Fishbowl
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|author=Alexia Casale
|author=Len Vlahos
+
|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Jared Stone has been diagnosed with a brain tumour. It's inoperable and he has only a few months left to live. Desperate to ensure financial security for his family after he's gone, Jared decides to auction himself - the rest of his life, his death, everything - on eBay for a reserve price of one million dollars. Unsurprisingly, eBay cancels the auction as against their terms and conditions but that's okay because Jared has come to the attention of a reality TV producer...
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|summary=It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate a life-changing disability too, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle of a dance performance that was going to change her life. But she comes back fighting, desperate to avoid the pity stares, and desperate to get back to a life that's as normal as she can possibly manage.  Meanwhile there's a new (cute!) boy in school, her music A Level performance piece to try to sort out, and just the day to day traumas of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigate. So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408870630</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571373801
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Elizabeth Laird
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|author=Simon Fox
|title=Welcome to Nowhere
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|title=Deadlock
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
|genre= Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Omar is a twelve-year-old boy living in Bosra, Syria. He works two small jobs before and after school. He prefers the jobs to school. Omar dreams of becoming a successful entrepreneur with a network of businesses to rule over. He's already developing a successful sales patter. Omar has a clever sister who wants to be a teacher, and a clever brother who few realise is clever because he has cerebral palsy and people can't see past his speech impediment. He has a father who works for the government, a mother who worries too much, a hypercritical granny and a couple of annoying younger siblings.
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|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the run. They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509853448</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sara Barnard
+
|author=Lex Croucher
|title= A Quiet Kind of Thunder
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
|rating= 4.5
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|rating=4
|genre= Teens
 
|summary= Steffi has just started a) sixth form and b) medication for her anxiety. It's all rather tricky, as you can imagine, particularly as Tem, Steffi's best - well, only - friend has enrolled at the local FE college to do an NVQ and so Steffi is all by herself. On the first day, a teacher introduces Steffi to Rhys, a new boy to the school and also just starting sixth form. Rhys is deaf and Steffi knows a little bit of sign language, hence the introduction. Both kids have communication barriers - Rhys can't hear and Steffi, who suffers from selective mutism and severe anxiety, often can't talk.
 
And they fall into friendship, attraction, and love. But it's a rocky road...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509810986</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jonathan Maberry
 
|title=The X-Files Origins: Devil's Advocate
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Dana Scully can be added to the list of teenaged people upset by their family moving home in those key yearsHer naval father being relocated has meant she has been uprooted from a nun's Catholic school to a regular, secular school elsewhere, but echoes of religion are still everywhere – not least a no-longer-used church opposite their new home.  But it's inside that the strongest taste of faith is residing – Dana is seeing visions that could be claimed to be precognitive, and dreams possibly peopled by a satanic angel figure.  That would all be troubling enough, but school children are dying in allegedly drug-fuelled car wrecks that nobody can really believe in, so straight-edged are the victims – and Dana is having even more troubling experiences as a result.  Working out the cause and effect here could fill an X-File, but of course we're in the years long before those exist.  Dana might well be on her own in her investigations...
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|summary=Who knew that what I really needed to read right now was a gay Arthurian RomCom?  But honestly, it lifted my spirits in a most delightful wayIn this story, Gwen and Arthur have been betrothed since they were tiny, much to their mutual disgust!  Gwen, you see, is in love with Bridget (the kingdom's only female knight) - something that Art discovers from her private diaries.  And then when Gwen then catches Art kissing a boy they find themselves becoming reluctant allies, creating the subterfuge of falling in love with each other, when really they are enabling their own other romantic attachments.  But as their impending wedding draws ever closer, will they find a way in which they can both truly be themselves, or are they destined to live a lie their whole lives?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349002983</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526651793
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kami Garcia
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|author=Nick Brooks
|title=The X-Files Origins: Agent of Chaos
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|title=Promise Boys
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Give a person a book and you might change their day.  Give the right person the right book and you might change their lifeThat is the philosophy of The Major, the father of the nearest thing Fox Mulder has to a best schoolmate.  He may well appear to be a wacky – some could even go as far as saying Spooky – conspiracy nut, with some novel manner in home security, but he certainly swears that the truth to his wife's death, and so much more, is either out there, or in the pages of a Michael Moorcock fantasy novel.  It's a situation not a million miles away from that which Fox finds himself in, for he is eternally frustrated at the lack of effort he sees in the search for his own baby sister.  But before he can settle back with his new read, and before The Major can really prove himself formative, Fox gets rapt in new, local cases of child kidnap, that even though he and his father moved state recently, have a galling familiarity…
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|summary=When the principal (headmaster) of Urban Promise Prep school is murdered, three boys find themselves called into the police station as suspectsEach, seemingly, has a grudge of some description against Principal Moore, and each could have been there at the time of his murder.  But who killed him, and why, and if any of the boys are innocent, will they be able to clear their names?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349002967</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035003155
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Phil Earle
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|isbn=1919635017
|title=Mind The Gap
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
 +
|author=Kitt Townsend
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens 
 
|summary= When Mikey's dad dies, he stops caring about anything. Indeed, he becomes so desperate to feel something that he deliberately provokes the one person on the estate who no one messes with. Not surprisingly it ends badly and not just for him. Mikey's best mate also ends up in a pool of blood. But that doesn't matter because his friend has already lost something more important. He lost Mikey when his dad died and he's determined to find a way to bring his best friend back. That's why he sets off on a one boy crusade to find a way to help Mikey remember his dad. He just needs to find a movie, a radio extract, or a YouTube clip – something that will allow his friend to remember his dad's voice. Mikey's dad was an actor, so how difficult can it be?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781125899</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Keren David
 
|title=The Liar's Handbook
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Everyone tells River that he's a liar but he doesn't see it that way – as far as River is concerned he just thinks up interesting stuff to fill in the gaps in what he knows. His lies are harmless: unlike the lies that his mum's new boyfriend, Jason, tells. Jason is a total fake and River is on a crusade to expose him. However, River's investigation doesn't work out as planned. He does uncover a serious deception (involving his biological father and the police) but will anyone believe him?
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|summary= Solomon Klyne isn't a bad lad, so why is he running around London committing a series of robberies? And how did he learn to crack safes? You'll have to wait to get an answer to the second question because I avoid spoilers. But I'll answer the first one: for his grandmother...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781126801</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jeanne Ryan
+
|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|title=Charisma
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|title=Different for Boys
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Teens  
|summary=Charismatic is exactly what Aislyn was not. She was shy, to the extent that she panicked when she was in large crowds. This shyness clearly affected her, and at the beginning of the book it showed how much of an impact it would have on her future had it been left untreated. Her best friend, Evie, knows just how bad it is and has tried multiple ways to help her, but to no avail. So, naturally, when Aislyn is offered Charisma, an underground drug with a guarantee to bring her out of her shell, she accepts it.
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|summary=Ant is in Year Eleven at quite a standard school, and is surprised to find his geography class (within which it seems absolutely nothing about geography is ever learnt) has been restructured, so his desk is one of four with both his best buddy from the football team, and two other old muckers – in fact they all go back to primary school days together. As they're all fired up, straining at the leash only a single-sex school can form, the talk in class and out often turns to sex. Which is confusing for Ant, as he doesn't know what his score is, where his achievements in that regard lie.  He's had a casual relationship, a secret one, for several months now, and so has effectively progressed up the ladder headed by 'experienced', but whether that's set in stone, he can't be sure. And that's mostly because of who he's been having the relationship and the sex with.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471163938</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529509491
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Johanna Handley
 
|title= The Burning of Juniper Slaide (The Juniper Series)
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary=Juniper and James are best friends, but their friendship is more intense than most, even though James' father is in prison for murdering Juniper's family. Most outsiders would consider their relationship ''toxic,'' but for painfully shy Juniper, having a close friend who can make decisions for her and speak in her behalf is her comfort blanket. So for now, it's James and Juniper against the world. Well, it would be, if James hadn't gone missing. Now Juniper feels guilty. She was the last person to see James alive and they had a terrible argument. Now Juniper is all alone and exposed, with nobody to shield her from the scary outside world.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>191095716X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Johanna Handley
 
|title= The Burning of Juniper Slaide (The Juniper Series)
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary=Juniper and James are best friends, but their friendship is more intense than most, even though James' father is in prison for murdering Juniper's family. Most outsiders would consider their relationship ''toxic,'' but for painfully shy Juniper, having a close friend who can make decisions for her and speak in her behalf is her comfort blanket. So for now, it's James and Juniper against the world. Well, it would be, if James hadn't gone missing. Now Juniper feels guilty. She was the last person to see James alive and they had a terrible argument. Now Juniper is all alone and exposed, with nobody to shield her from the scary outside world.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>191095716X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Anne Cassidy
 
|title=No Virgin
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=This book, although rather short, managed to put its message across clearly. I was interested to read this, as it is a theme that I had not read before in a book. I found it very difficult to read at times, but I always found myself turning the next page a minute after the last. I was quite nervous to read this, but after I had finished, I could not have been more glad I had chosen it - it showed me the mind-set of the main character after her experience. I found this an interesting and unique book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471405788</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Song from Somewhere Else
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|isbn=1800901232
|author=A F Harrold and Levi Pinfold
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|title=Stitched Up
 +
|author=Steve Cole
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
|summary=If you were being stalked by the school bully and his two sidekicks, and if a kindly soul rescued you from them in the park, you'd be grateful, right? Or would you? Frank knows she should be grateful when Nick rescues her from Neil Noble and his acolytes Rob and Roy. But she also knows that Nick - laughed at for being flea-ridden and smelly at school - is not a person you'd want to be associated with. So Frank intends to say thanks and get the heck out of Nick's house as quickly as she can...
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|summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be a fashion designer.  Life in the rural village where she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperous, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came to the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be missed.  Some money changed hands and Hanh was on the mini-bus to Hanoi. Only, Hanh and the other girls were not going to work in a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factory.  You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legs?  The ones with the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched them?  It's quite possible that Hanh and her co-workers made them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408853361</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Sun is also a Star
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|author=Patrice Lawrence
|author=Nicola Yoon
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|title=Needle
|rating=4
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|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Natasha is a rationalist. She thinks life is all about observable facts: data and the effective analysis of it. In fact, she wants to become a data analyst and help make the world a better place through the evidence-based policies that will flow from it. But this ambition is looking less likely now. Because Natasha is an undocumented immigrant to New York, the authorities have found out about it thanks to her reckless father, and unless there's a miracle, Natasha will be deported back to Jamaica in just twelve hours.
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|summary=Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers both.  Kicked out of multiple homes and schools, she's fostering with a pleasant yoga tutor, Annie, and has taken up residence in her son Blake's old room while he's at uni. Such a tempestuous personality may be in need of a comfort blanket, you might perhaps think, and the creation of one such item is part of the plot here, as Charlene is a wonder knitter, and is making something full of love for her younger sister – a younger sister she's allowed contact with no more. We see Charlene prove her belligerence with a store detective, and then force people to give her two days off school, when she shouts someone down as expletively ignorant. And then... well, what exactly happens is not for me to say, only to remark how sharp and pointy those knitting needles can be...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552574244</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800901011
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Leigh Bardugo
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|author= Ann Sei Lin
|title= Crooked Kingdom
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|title= Rebel Skies
 
|rating= 5
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|genre= Teens
|summary=''They don't know who we are. Not really. They don't know what we've done, what we've managed together… so let's show them they picked the wrong damn fight.''
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|summary= Kurara has spent her entire life as a servant on the Midori, a massive dining hall floating in the sky where soldiers of the Empire come to drink and make merry between their conquests. However, when a man named Himura arrives to tell her that she is a Crafter like him, someone with the power to form paper into whatever she desires – a power sought after all across the Empire. He asks her to come with him, to leave the life of dreary servitude that is all she has known. Well, soon Kurara won't have any say in the matter, because the Midori is destroyed by a monstrous paper spirit known as a shikigami, and she is forced to flee out into the world. She joins Himura aboard the Orihime, a sky-ship whose express purpose is to hunt down shikigami, and a whole world of adventure awaits her…
 
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|isbn=1406399590
First things first if you haven't read [[Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo]] yet, the first book in the duology, you should read it as soon as possible, buy it or borrow it before anything else and then read Crooked Kingdom. Trust me, because while Six of Crows is unimaginably clever, with diverse characters and a brilliant heist plot, Crooked Kingdom is on a whole other level.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780622309</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Allie Esiri
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|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|title= A Poem for Every Night of the Year
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|title=Wrath
|rating= 4
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|rating=4.5
|genre= Children's Rhymes and Verse
 
|summary=Poetry can feel a little intimidating, to children and grown-ups.  All those school lessons of dissecting poems in order to ascertain exactly what the poet intended with every word and stylistic form tend to kill the beauty of a well-written poem.  This collection is a year-long tour through a vast history of poetry, and gives the reader a new poem to try every night, with everything from Michael Rosen to Shakespeare to Christina Rosetti.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509813136</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Ransom Riggs
 
|title= Tales of the Peculiar
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary= A fork-tongued princess. A boy who can control the currents of the sea. Cannibals who feast on the limbs of a village of peculiars. These are just a few of the brilliant stories to be found in ''Tales of the Peculiar'', all of which hold mystical information about the peculiar world  - a place familiar to many of us since its first introduction by Ransom Riggs in [[Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs|Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children]]. The stories in this collection explore peculiar history and folklore in a wonderfully imaginative way, and also include some beautiful illustrations to accompany each of the tales.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141373407</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Richard Smith
 
|title=The Darziods' Stone
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=When the school summer trip to Blackpool gets cancelled, Harry's parents offer to include Harry's friends in their trip to Tredock Cove in Cornwall. Amelia, Mitch and Asad are grateful - Cornwall will be great and, even if it isn't as great as Blackpool, anything is better than being stuck at home, right? Ryan is less convinced. He's not the most open-minded of boys and he sincerely believes that Cornwall is full of carrot-crunchers. But he goes along anyway, even if it is reluctantly. Even Ryan doesn't want to be left at home by himself.
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|summary=Meet Fitz, a young Scottish lad full of frustration at himself. Lockdown is only just over, and he should be free to do what he wants, to go where he wants and with whom he wants, but he cannot stop himself from putting his foot in it when he talks to his best friend, Cassie. They were half of a desultory school band, but Cassie was also one hundred per cent the enigmatic – saying she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earth. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying the end of the world is already a done deal? Is it some spooky new kind of music she's dreaming of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out the truth? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he can't...
And it doesn't take long for the quiet break in Cornwall to turn into something much more exciting - and frightening. The kids find a secret code and become convinced that cracking it will lead them to hidden treasure. And it might well do, but the code will also lead them to something much more dangerous...
+
|isbn=1800900899
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784563730</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Hypnotist
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|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=Laurence Anholt
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|title=The Devil Makes Three
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Pip's parents died in a traffic accident and he has been living in an orphanage ever since. He has only one treasured possession - a battered copy of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, given to him by his schoolteacher mother. That's how Pip got his name and he has a vague but treasured memory of his own father telling him of his own great expectations. It's thanks to his ability to read that Pip finds himself released into the care - well, sold, actually - of old Zachary, who wants a companion for his bedridden wife, Lilybelle, at Dead River Farm. Lilybelle likes being read to.
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|summary= Working all summer in her boarding school's library is the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herself. What makes it worse is the man who requested the books: Mr Birch. The boarding school's headmaster, and a man Tess hates. As a petty act of revenge for making her find and deliver such a large request, Tess sticks post-it notes on each of the books, scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think of. They're never meant to reach him, of course. Her plan is to get her anger out like this, and then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would be, if someone hadn't delivered them for her.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552573450</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1789098130
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Clover Moon
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|author=Jacqueline Wilson
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Clover Moon lives in Cripps Alley, a slum street in Victorian England. Her father works at the factory and the heavy work has taken a toll on his health. He likes to drink an ale or two after work, spending money the family can barely afford. Clover's mother died giving birth to her younger sister, Megs, a wispy, shy child. Father married again - to Mildred, a sharp-tongued woman who is free with a beating, particularly if the beating goes to Clover. Clover has another four half-siblings and it's Clover, rather than Mildred, who takes care of them.
+
|summary=In a word, rich. There is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on it, and sea-witches, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it or not.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857532731</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Saint Death
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Anapra is a slum just outside the Mexican city of Juarez, right on the border with the United States. People scrape a living working at one or more of the American factories, which pay wages so low that workers can barely feed themselves. This is where people come to try and find their own way into the US, or pay people traffickers to do it for them. It's also a place where the drug cartels run everything and things don't end well if you get on the wrong side of the drug cartels.
+
|summary=Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a summer, in the far NE of the Scottish islands.  Here be Vikings, that kind of Scottish island. Dad is going to be automating the lantern, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark. And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444000527</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1510107789
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Haunt Me
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|author=Liz Kessler
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|rating=4
+
|rating= 4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre= Teens
|summary=Some quite difficult themes of anxiety, bullying and self-harm in this beyond the grave love story, which at the same time creates a positive message about finding a path through them. Cute and enjoyable.
+
|summary= Scarlett McCain is an outlaw, rejecting the draconian conformity of the Surviving Towns and Faith Houses to wander the wildlands between the Seven Kingdoms of Britain, robbing banks and shooting other outlaws to keep herself alive. But then she meets Albert Browne, a dark boy with dark powers and a darker past. With mysterious militiamen hunting them down, they plan to flee to the mythical Free Isles of the London Lagoon. Together, they must brave man-eating wildlife, the cannibalistic Tainted and all the horrors of post-apocalyptic society to reach the Free Isles, but will they be any more accepted there than they are in the rest of Britain?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444009184</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1406394815
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer Niven
+
|author=Mercedes Helnwein
|title=Holding Up the Universe
+
|title=Slingshot
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary= High school can be far from the easiest place to navigate through for a lot of teenagers, but some have a harder job than others. After the sudden death of her mother, Libby started eating and she didn't stop until she almost killed herself. Years of doctors, counsellors and psychologists, combined with determination, sweat and tears, and she is finally ready to return to school after almost five years out. Libby is determined to make up for lost time, and refuses to be defined by her weight – she wants to be a girl who can do anything, a girl whose confidence and self-esteem is immune to anything that a few idiot high schoolers might throw her way. On the surface, Jack Masselin seems like the archetypal idiot high school guy: charming but thoughtless, superficial, and far too concerned with fitting in to do what he really knows is the right thing; but beneath all the charm and swagger, Jack is a nervous ticking time bomb. Every day is a struggle to get through, and he is constantly just one mistake away from embarrassing or hurting himself and the people around him. Because Jack has prosopagnosia, a cognitive disorder that means he can't recognise faces, whether it be his own, his family's or any of the hundreds of school kids that he is constantly surrounded by.  
+
|summary=Gracie Welles has resigned herself to being lonely. As a secret illegitimate daughter of a man with a "real" family, she is used to not being a priority in people's lives. But when she defends a random boy in her class with her slingshot, her simple existence is changed for good. No longer can she spend her time writing novels in solitude, for her life now has a boy in it that she never asked for: Wade Scholfield.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141357053</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=152905818X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Katharine McGee
+
|author= T L Huchu
|title= The Thousandth Floor
+
|title= The Library of the Dead
 
|rating= 4.5
 
|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|genre= Teens
|summary= The future's bright, and the future's TALL. In 2118, New York, life centres around The Tower. It's 1000 stories tall, takes up most of the island, and is now home to Grand Central station, Central Park, schools, shops, restaurants and gyms. A whole city under one very high roof. Where you live on within the tower is a proxy for who you are and how successful you, or at least your parents, have become. Higher floors trump lower floors, and the pinnacle is that 1000th floor penthouse, owned by Avery and her family.
+
|summary= Ropa Moyo is a ghostalker, using Zimbabwean magic (and a bit of Scottish pragmatism) to take messages from the dead of Edinburgh for their living relatives. Ever since she dropped out of school, she's been using it to support not only herself, but her younger sister and her aging grandmother. However, there's an evil stalking the ruined streets of Edinburgh, targeting the city's children. Soon, Ropa is pulled into the search for a missing boy at the request of his dead mother. She will end up discovering an occult library and realise that the world of magic is far bigger and more dangerous than she ever could've imagined. Will she find the missing children and bring an end to this evil, or will it claim her too?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0008179972</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= 1529039452
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Susin Nielsen
+
|author=Kristen O'Neal
|title=Word Nerd
+
|title=Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre= Confident Readers
 
|summary= Ambrose Bukowski is your typical nerd – clever and geeky with no friends and appalling dress sense. However, to add to his problems, he's also got a serious nut allergy and a slightly insane overprotective mother. When the school bullies almost kill him by putting a peanut in his sandwich, Ambrose is pulled out of school and educated at home. Lonely and bored, life is not looking good for Ambrose until he meets his neighbour's grown up son, Cosmos, who has just been released from prison. Outwardly the two have nothing in common other than a love of Scrabble but, as we soon discover, this turns out to be enough to form an unlikely friendship that helps them both.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783444606</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti
 
|title=Swarm
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=The Zeroes have found a new home.  If you didn't meet them all [[Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti|last time]], they are six super-powered teens, with a guru amongst them and generally a skill that works best when concerning crowds of people.  Their home is a night-club – one can imbue the simple act of handing out flyers to it with the magic of his inner voice that tells everyone what they want most to hear, the lighting gal is so in tune with technological signals she is practically part of her rig, and the DJ herself can feed off and feed back to the emotions of the revellers. But while their secretive little club – also a Faraday cage – is an ideal place for them to experiment, to enhance their powers and learn every nuance of using them and what that means, they are inviting regular humans to come along.  That is, of course, until two brand new Zeroes slip the net – and prove to be quite talented, and more than a little malicious…
+
|summary= Having recently been diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, Priya has to come to terms with the fact that she may be in constant pain for the rest of her life. She joins ''Oof Ouch My Bones'', an online support group where she talks to a bunch of other teens living with chronic illnesses. They talk about their troubles and help each other out, while also providing an escape to just joke and mess around. When Brigid—one of her closest friends—doesn't respond to the chat for a while, Priya becomes concerned. She decides to steal her parents' car and drive to Brigid's house to check up on her. But what she doesn't expect to find there is a werewolf in the basement – and for that werewolf to be the girl she has been talking to online for the past few months.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471124916</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1683692349
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ryan Graudin
 
|title=Blood for Blood
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=Second and final book in sequence set in a world where Germany won WW2 and Nazi experiments on Jewish children has produced shapeshifting humans. Can Yael defeat the Wehrmacht? Interesting, moving and absorbing.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780622058</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Kendare Blake
 
|title= Three Dark Crowns
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary= ''Three Dark Crowns'' is a high class fantasy novel following a set of triplets: Katharine, Arsinoe and Mirabella, who are each gifted with specific magic and are equal heirs to the crown. Katharine is a poisoner with the ability to ingest the deadliest poisons, a girl who cannot die. Meanwhile, Arsinoe is a naturalist, who has the power to bloom flowers and control the fiercest animals. Finally, Mirabella is an elemental, one gifted with the ability to create fire and incredible storms powerful enough to topple buildings. On the island of Fennbirn, as is tradition, the queens are separated at the age of nine and fostered by families who share their magic. From that point onwards, they are each trained to use their magic as a weapon in the fight to the death against the other sisters. On the night of the sisters'sixteenth birthday, they will each begin their quest to secure the throne and become the rightful Queen. While the crown awaits the victor, death awaits the two weaker queens.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509804552</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]

Revision as of 09:13, 8 April 2024

0008666482.jpg

Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn? Full Review

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Review of

Compass and Blade by Rachel Greenlaw

3.5star.jpg Teens

I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.

Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear. Full Review

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Review of

Children of the Sun by Harry Allen

5star.jpg Teens

Ra Eun Seo lives in a North Korean town and she is a talented singer. Life is hard and food is difficult to come by, so Seo and her friends Nari and Min go foraging every evening, looking for tree bark and edible grasses to supplement the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at home. Full Review

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Review of

Sing if you Can't Dance by Alexia Casale

5star.jpg Teens

It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate a life-changing disability too, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle of a dance performance that was going to change her life. But she comes back fighting, desperate to avoid the pity stares, and desperate to get back to a life that's as normal as she can possibly manage. Meanwhile there's a new (cute!) boy in school, her music A Level performance piece to try to sort out, and just the day to day traumas of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigate. So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead? Full Review

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Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the run. They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions. Full Review

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Review of

Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

4star.jpg Teens

Who knew that what I really needed to read right now was a gay Arthurian RomCom? But honestly, it lifted my spirits in a most delightful way. In this story, Gwen and Arthur have been betrothed since they were tiny, much to their mutual disgust! Gwen, you see, is in love with Bridget (the kingdom's only female knight) - something that Art discovers from her private diaries. And then when Gwen then catches Art kissing a boy they find themselves becoming reluctant allies, creating the subterfuge of falling in love with each other, when really they are enabling their own other romantic attachments. But as their impending wedding draws ever closer, will they find a way in which they can both truly be themselves, or are they destined to live a lie their whole lives? Full Review

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Review of

Promise Boys by Nick Brooks

4star.jpg Teens

When the principal (headmaster) of Urban Promise Prep school is murdered, three boys find themselves called into the police station as suspects. Each, seemingly, has a grudge of some description against Principal Moore, and each could have been there at the time of his murder. But who killed him, and why, and if any of the boys are innocent, will they be able to clear their names? Full Review

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Review of

A Thief to Catch a Killer by Kitt Townsend

4.5star.jpg Teens

Solomon Klyne isn't a bad lad, so why is he running around London committing a series of robberies? And how did he learn to crack safes? You'll have to wait to get an answer to the second question because I avoid spoilers. But I'll answer the first one: for his grandmother... Full Review

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Review of

Different for Boys by Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix

4.5star.jpg Teens

Ant is in Year Eleven at quite a standard school, and is surprised to find his geography class (within which it seems absolutely nothing about geography is ever learnt) has been restructured, so his desk is one of four with both his best buddy from the football team, and two other old muckers – in fact they all go back to primary school days together. As they're all fired up, straining at the leash only a single-sex school can form, the talk in class and out often turns to sex. Which is confusing for Ant, as he doesn't know what his score is, where his achievements in that regard lie. He's had a casual relationship, a secret one, for several months now, and so has effectively progressed up the ladder headed by 'experienced', but whether that's set in stone, he can't be sure. And that's mostly because of who he's been having the relationship and the sex with. Full Review

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Review of

Stitched Up by Steve Cole

5star.jpg Dyslexia Friendly

Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be a fashion designer. Life in the rural village where she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperous, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came to the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be missed. Some money changed hands and Hanh was on the mini-bus to Hanoi. Only, Hanh and the other girls were not going to work in a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factory. You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legs? The ones with the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched them? It's quite possible that Hanh and her co-workers made them. Full Review

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Review of

Needle by Patrice Lawrence

3star.jpg Teens

Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers both. Kicked out of multiple homes and schools, she's fostering with a pleasant yoga tutor, Annie, and has taken up residence in her son Blake's old room while he's at uni. Such a tempestuous personality may be in need of a comfort blanket, you might perhaps think, and the creation of one such item is part of the plot here, as Charlene is a wonder knitter, and is making something full of love for her younger sister – a younger sister she's allowed contact with no more. We see Charlene prove her belligerence with a store detective, and then force people to give her two days off school, when she shouts someone down as expletively ignorant. And then... well, what exactly happens is not for me to say, only to remark how sharp and pointy those knitting needles can be... Full Review

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Review of

Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin

5star.jpg Teens

Kurara has spent her entire life as a servant on the Midori, a massive dining hall floating in the sky where soldiers of the Empire come to drink and make merry between their conquests. However, when a man named Himura arrives to tell her that she is a Crafter like him, someone with the power to form paper into whatever she desires – a power sought after all across the Empire. He asks her to come with him, to leave the life of dreary servitude that is all she has known. Well, soon Kurara won't have any say in the matter, because the Midori is destroyed by a monstrous paper spirit known as a shikigami, and she is forced to flee out into the world. She joins Himura aboard the Orihime, a sky-ship whose express purpose is to hunt down shikigami, and a whole world of adventure awaits her… Full Review

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Review of

Wrath by Marcus Sedgwick

4.5star.jpg Teens

Meet Fitz, a young Scottish lad full of frustration at himself. Lockdown is only just over, and he should be free to do what he wants, to go where he wants and with whom he wants, but he cannot stop himself from putting his foot in it when he talks to his best friend, Cassie. They were half of a desultory school band, but Cassie was also one hundred per cent the enigmatic – saying she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earth. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying the end of the world is already a done deal? Is it some spooky new kind of music she's dreaming of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out the truth? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he can't... Full Review

1789098130.jpg

Review of

The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino

4.5star.jpg Teens

Working all summer in her boarding school's library is the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herself. What makes it worse is the man who requested the books: Mr Birch. The boarding school's headmaster, and a man Tess hates. As a petty act of revenge for making her find and deliver such a large request, Tess sticks post-it notes on each of the books, scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think of. They're never meant to reach him, of course. Her plan is to get her anger out like this, and then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would be, if someone hadn't delivered them for her. Full Review

1788452372.jpg

Review of

Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep by Philip Reeve

5star.jpg Confident Readers

In a word, rich. There is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on it, and sea-witches, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it or not. Full Review

1510107789.jpg

Review of

Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a summer, in the far NE of the Scottish islands. Here be Vikings, that kind of Scottish island. Dad is going to be automating the lantern, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark. And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night. Full Review

1406394815.jpg

Review of

The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne by Jonathan Stroud

4star.jpg Teens

Scarlett McCain is an outlaw, rejecting the draconian conformity of the Surviving Towns and Faith Houses to wander the wildlands between the Seven Kingdoms of Britain, robbing banks and shooting other outlaws to keep herself alive. But then she meets Albert Browne, a dark boy with dark powers and a darker past. With mysterious militiamen hunting them down, they plan to flee to the mythical Free Isles of the London Lagoon. Together, they must brave man-eating wildlife, the cannibalistic Tainted and all the horrors of post-apocalyptic society to reach the Free Isles, but will they be any more accepted there than they are in the rest of Britain? Full Review

152905818X.jpg

Review of

Slingshot by Mercedes Helnwein

3star.jpg Teens

Gracie Welles has resigned herself to being lonely. As a secret illegitimate daughter of a man with a "real" family, she is used to not being a priority in people's lives. But when she defends a random boy in her class with her slingshot, her simple existence is changed for good. No longer can she spend her time writing novels in solitude, for her life now has a boy in it that she never asked for: Wade Scholfield. Full Review

1529039452.jpg

Review of

The Library of the Dead by T L Huchu

4.5star.jpg Teens

Ropa Moyo is a ghostalker, using Zimbabwean magic (and a bit of Scottish pragmatism) to take messages from the dead of Edinburgh for their living relatives. Ever since she dropped out of school, she's been using it to support not only herself, but her younger sister and her aging grandmother. However, there's an evil stalking the ruined streets of Edinburgh, targeting the city's children. Soon, Ropa is pulled into the search for a missing boy at the request of his dead mother. She will end up discovering an occult library and realise that the world of magic is far bigger and more dangerous than she ever could've imagined. Will she find the missing children and bring an end to this evil, or will it claim her too? Full Review

1683692349.jpg

Review of

Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O'Neal

5star.jpg Teens

Having recently been diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, Priya has to come to terms with the fact that she may be in constant pain for the rest of her life. She joins Oof Ouch My Bones, an online support group where she talks to a bunch of other teens living with chronic illnesses. They talk about their troubles and help each other out, while also providing an escape to just joke and mess around. When Brigid—one of her closest friends—doesn't respond to the chat for a while, Priya becomes concerned. She decides to steal her parents' car and drive to Brigid's house to check up on her. But what she doesn't expect to find there is a werewolf in the basement – and for that werewolf to be the girl she has been talking to online for the past few months. Full Review

Move on to Newest Thrillers Reviews