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'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Rebecca Skloot
|title=The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=In John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, in October 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a mother of five children, died of cervical cancer at the age of 31. However, a sample of her cancer cells taken the same year lived on, grew and reproduced. Often referred to as HeLa cells, cells with their origins in the original sample are still being used in medical and scientific research today, nearly sixty years on. Many of the scientific breakthroughs that have been made using HeLa cells are hugely profitable. But her children have spent their lives in low waged jobs and on welfare, unable to afford basic health insurance. Understandably they feel a lot of anger at this injustice.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230748694</amazonuk>
}}
 
 
{{newreview
|author=Walter Mosley
|summary=Tom Harvey is wandering along after school on his way to meet up with his friend Lucy when he hears his name called from up high in one of the tower blocks on his estate. He doesn't have time to look up before everything goes up. Waking up in hospital days later, Tom discovers he has fragments of a shattered iPhone embedded in his brain. And still worse, his friend Lucy has been gang-raped in a brutal attack that Tom had been so closed to walking in on.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141326107</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Daniel Waters
|title=Passing Strange (Generation Dead)
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Karen DeSonne, the sexiest zombie amongst the many differently biotic teenagers in Oakvale, gets a turn at centre stage in the latest in Daniel Waters's ''Generation Dead'' series.
 
Karen has always worn a disguise. When she was alive, her various camouflages hid the crippling depression that engulfed her so often and eventually led to her suicide. Now she's dead, make up, hair dye and blue contact lenses enable her to "pass" as a living girl. She talks fluently and her movements are fluid, unlike most of her differently biotic peers, whose pauses, stutters and jerky movements mark them out for all to see.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389600</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Adam Ross
|title=Mr Peanut
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The main couple who tend to take centre stage here are called David and Alice Pepin. They live a kind of comfortable, middle-class life in busy and bustling Manhattan. After more than a decade of generally happy married life together, they want to take the next step and have a family. Easy to say but things don't quite work out according to plan. We are taken on various 'dark' journeys within their marriage. These are situations which most of us can identify with. Some of these situations are painful, stressful, unhappy.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087738</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Kirsty Robinson
|title=Grass Stains
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Being the editor of a style magazine has its perks: free tickets, free gigs, endless parties, alcohol and drugs. And that is what Louisa's life consists of – one continuous binge. Louisa spends her life going from one party to another, but it's not all it's cracked up to be and her life is starting to fall apart.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954119X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=DO Dodd
|title=Jew
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A man regains consciousness to find himself stifled. Pushing and pulling at the weight on top of him, he gradually realises the horrific truth. He's in a mass grave and he's covered with bodies. He has no memory of who he is or how he came to be there. He struggles out. He finds a uniform and he puts it on. He takes a gun and he buckles on its holster. He finds a man and a woman, naked on a bed. He shoots the man. He gets into a car and he drives into town, where he's greeted as the man in charge.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842433512</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Keith Gray
|title=Losing It
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Doing it for the first time... you know, ''Losing'' It. It.
 
Sex. They talk about it a lot, teenagers. And eventually, they do it. But when is the right time? Where is the right place? Who is the right person? Is everyone else doing it already? Will they be cheap if they do it too? Or will they be left behind on the peripheries of all that's important in life? And there's so much eagerness in teenagers - not just for sex, but for everything. They sure do hate to wait. But sometimes, it's better to wait. The trick for the poor things, I suppose, is knowing when exactly to stop waiting. And when you've never done it, how on earth can you possibly know that?!
 
Stepping into the breach come eight of my favourite writers in today's teen market, each with a story about virginity.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849390991</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Camilla Reid and Ailie Busby
|title=Lulu's Loo
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=We've been here before, as Lulu introduced us to her [[Lulu's Shoes by Camilla Reid and Ailie Busby|shoes]], [[Lulu's Clothes by Camilla Reid and Ailie Busby|clothes]] and [[Lulu's Christmas by Camilla Reid and Ailie Busby|Christmas]]. Here, she's kind enough to show us all that goes on with her loo, nappies and potty. As before, there are plenty of interesting flaps to lift and things to explore.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802651</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Maria Edgeworth
|title=Helen
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Sweet-tempered Helen Stanley has been left penniless and homeless after her uncle's death. Soon her best friend Cecilia writes to encourage Helen to come and live with her and her new husband, General Clarendon at Clarendon Park. Helen soon finds herself settled in to Clarendon Park and reacquaints herself with Cecilia and more importantly with Cecilia's mother, Lady Davenant, who considers Helen a daughter, and even prefers her to Cecilia.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956003893</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Nicholas Shakespeare
|title=Inheritance
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Andy Larkham's life and career are going nowhere. He works for a small publishing house, Carpe Diem, that specialises in publishing self-help books, his fiancée is about to dump him and he has no money and mountains of debt. And that's before we begin to talk about his dysfunctional family. His only real role model was the Montaigne-loving teacher, Stuart Furnivall, whose funeral he is late for. But an unexpected inheritance of £17 million has a habit of changing one's outlook on life. But while he trades self-help for help yourself, Andy also realises that he has inherited a mystery.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553156</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Pamela Fudge
|title=A Change For The Better
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=
Jo Farrell had spent all her life caring for other people. After she lost her alcoholic husband and her demanding, hypochondriac mother she had time for herself, but when she looked in the mirror she wasn't particularly impressed by what she saw. The middle-aged, slightly plump woman with grey curls reminded her of her mother and the clothes she was wearing did little to help either. It was something odd which helped her to change. The very scruffy man from downstairs (the sort you would cross the road to avoid) came to borrow a newspaper and somehow they got talking about what needed to be done to change her life.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090609</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Cath Staincliffe
|title=The Kindest Thing
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Imagine that your partner of twenty or so years discovers that they are dying from a terminal disease. Now imagine that they've asked you to help them to die a little sooner, on their own terms. What would you do? This is the dilemma that faced Deborah and, after she went ahead and helped her husband Neil to die, she found herself charged and standing trial for murder with her own teenage daughter, Sophie, testifying against her.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849012083</amazonuk>
}}

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