Difference between revisions of "Newest Teens Reviews"

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[[Category:Teens|*]]
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tanya Landman
+
|author=Leanne Egan
|title=Passing for White
+
|title=Lover Birds
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|genre=Teens
|summary=In 1847, in Macon, Georgia, Benjamin was a slaveHe was a talented carpenter too, but on November the 19th he was unnerved: a white woman was looking at him, smiling and being polite.  What was going on?  He wasn't just unnerved, but nervous: you see, Benjamin was looking at the white woman, looking ''her'' in the eye and a slave could get himself killed for less than that. Only this wasn't a white woman: this was Rosa, who was mixed race. She could pass for white, but she too was a slave. Rosa and Benjamin eventually married, but it didn't stop Rosa's master from taking sexual advantage of her and when she found that she was pregnant she had no way of knowing who the father was.
+
|summary=When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around herA misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178112681X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=000862657X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Harder They Fall
+
|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|author=Bali Rai
+
|title=Wild East
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|genre=Teens
|summary=Cal loves comic books. He also dreams of being a superhero and saving the day while simultaneously winning the heart of the girl (Freya being the girl, hopefully). Batman is his favourite superhero. But Cal's world outside his daydreams is not particularly superhero-like. Because Cal is a bit of a geek and he is being bullied by mean girl Anu, who makes him complete homework assignments which she then sells on to lazy classmates. Still, it's not all bad. Cal's parents are lovely and the gorgeous Freya is making friendly overtures...
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|summary=Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper.  But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781126828</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Patrick Ness
+
|author=Jenny Valentine
|title= Release
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|rating= 4.5
+
|rating=5
|genre= Confident Readers
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|genre=Teens
|summary= Adam lives in small-town America in a deeply religious household. His father is an evangelical preacher. His brother is at a Christian college training to be an evangelical preacher. Adam is used to a restricted life and he is also used to an atmosphere of suspicion. Because Adam is gay. And this must be unspoken because to acknowledge it would lead to...
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|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable.   Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.
... well, best not to think about that.
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|isbn=1471196585
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406331171</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Sebastien de Castell
 
|title= Spellslinger
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary=''And when did I volunteer to die down there just so two lousy humans could live?''
 
 
 
Enter the world of the Jan'Tep, powerful mages with the ability to draw on the seven magics. Then meet Kellen, who despite being the son of one of the most formidable mages in the clan, has no magical ability whatsoever.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785761315</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Countless
+
|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Karen Gregory
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Hedda is 20 weeks pregnant. It was a one-night stand, so there's no father on the scene. She's 17. She's in the grip of an eating disorder and has been for years. Her best friend recently died. She's living in a grotty flat because her relationship with her parents has broken down. I think we can all agree that the situation is dire.
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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 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408882507</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Pearl Thief
+
|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Elizabeth Wein
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|title=Compass and Blade
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Julie Beaufort-Stuart - Lady Julia to you and me, if you please - has just returned to Strathfearn. It's 1938 and her grandfather, the Earl of Strathfearn, has recently died, leaving a mountain of debt behind him. The family's ancestral home has been sold to meet the debt and the death duties and will soon become a school. But, as the contents of the estate and its treasures are catalogued and renovations are underway, there is time for Julie and her family to spend the summer making their goodbyes - to home and landscape and to friends, including the McEwans, a family of Highlands Travellers, loved by the family but hated by the authorities.
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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>1408866617</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.
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|isbn=0008664730
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Fallen Children
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|author=Harry Allen
|author=David Owen
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|title=Children of the Sun
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Life is tough on the Midwich Estate. Kids living there don't have much hope in the future. They're already judged by their poverty, their religion, their race. Carving out a prosperous future from this inauspicious place seems like a pipe dream. But, in their various ways, Siobhan, Keisha, Maida and Morris are all trying - whether that means making plans to get out, or developing strategies to cope with life as it has been dealt.
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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>034900269X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1805140493
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Angie Thomas
+
|author=Alexia Casale
|title=The Hate U Give
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary= Garden Heights is a neighbourhood notorious for all the wrong reasons: poverty, drugs, shootings, it ticks all the ghetto stereotypes. It's also the place that sixteen-year-old Starr Carter calls home. Even if most people there only know her as 'Big Mav's daughter who works in the store', Garden Heights is where she was born and raised. It's where she can be herself and not care about what people think or how people expect her to act - a freedom that isn't afforded to her at the posh suburban high school where she is one of just a handful of black students. However, Garden Heights is also where her childhood friend was shot in a drive-by. And now, it's the place where Starr witnesses the devastating, fatal shooting of her unarmed friend, Khalil. At the hands of a police officer. It's an event whose repercussions will irrevocably change her life, and the lives of everyone around her.  
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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>1406372153</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571373801
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Simon Fox
 +
|title=Deadlock
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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.
 +
|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Laura Lam
+
|author=Lex Croucher
|title=Masquerade (Micah Grey Trilogy)
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary= It's been a remarkable journey for our young protagonist.  It wasn't long ago that Micah Grey was still living the life of Iphigenia Laurus, daughter of a noble family, trapped in a gilded cage forever hiding her true self. Since running away, Micah has managed to reinvent himself, first as a circus acrobat, and then as a magician's apprentice. Along the way he's discovered love and friendships that have helped keep him afloat, even as betrayal and tragedy seem ready to strike at every turn. But there's only so long he can keep running. His powers are growing, the Chimaera are returning, and Ellada is about to reach a violent tipping point.
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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 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509807780</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526651793
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Tom Hoyle
 
|title=The Challenge
 
|rating= 3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary= One ordinary afternoon, Ben's best friend Will goes missing. Soon after, twins Sam and Jack move to Ben's school and take an interest in him. It turns out both twins have an obsession with enacting challenges they set each other, and it doesn't take long for Ben to get involved in their strange game. But with every new challenge they set him, he starts to wonder whether they might be slightly unhinged…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447286774</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Cat Clarke
 
|title= Girlhood
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= General Fiction
 
|summary=''Girlhood'' focuses on a group of friends; Harper, Rowan, Lily and Ama, who are fast approaching the end of term at an elite boarding school in the middle of nowhere. The arrival of Kirsty causes a seismic shift in this previously supportive friendship group and Harper soon finds herself caught between her old friends and the mysterious new girl who seems to have so much in common with her. But is Kirsty who she claims to be?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784292737</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jeff Zentner
+
|author=Nick Brooks
|title=Goodbye Days
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|title=Promise Boys
|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary= ''Where are you guys? Text me back.''
 
 
 
Ending three lives with seven words becomes Carver's reality when he sends a simple, impatient text to his best friend. His best friend who is driving and on the way to pick him up at any moment. His best friend who in replying to his text, rams into the back of a truck instantly killing himself and their other two best friends in the car.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783445513</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Letters to the Lost
 
|author=Brigid Kemmerer
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Juliet has always written letters to her mother. The award-winning photojournalist wasn't at home much and letters always seemed somehow more personal and intimate than email or Skype. And Juliet is still writing those letters even though her mother died in a hit-and-run accident, rushing home to surprise her daughter by arriving earlier than expected. Juliet leaves them at her graveside, overwhelmed with grief and guilt. If her mother hadn't come home early for her daughter, she would still be alive today.
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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 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140888352X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035003155
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Stargazing for Beginners
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|isbn=1919635017
|author=Jenny McLachlan
+
|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|rating=4
+
|author=Kitt Townsend
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Meg loves space. And when we say Meg loves space, this doesn't quite explain how much Meg loves space. Meg loves all things space to the exclusion of almost everything else. She has a space mural in her bedroom. She belongs to a stargazing club with her grandfather. She is determined to become an astronaut one day. And she dreams of winning a competition that will earn her a place on a trip to NASA in Houston.  
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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>1408879751</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Kiran Millwood Hargrave
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|title= The Island at the End of Everything
+
|title=Different for Boys
|rating= 5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre= Confident Readers
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|genre=Teens
|summary= Set in the Philippines at the beginning of the last century, Ami lives with her mother on Culion Island. It's a beautiful place covered in lush forests and surrounded by a blue sea that matches the sky. It's Ami's home and the only place she has ever known. But Culion is an island for people with leprosy who are sent there to live on the edge of the world away from civilisation. Ami's mother is among the infected but Ami herself remains untouched, so when government official Mr Zamora arrives to transport the islanders who are free from the sickness to another island, Ami's world is torn apart. Banished across the sea to an orphanage, Ami is determined to get back home and crosses great lengths to return to her sick mother once more, on the island at the end of everything.
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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>1910002763</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529509491
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Cassandra Clare
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|isbn=1800901232
|title= Lady Midnight
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|title=Stitched Up
|rating= 4.5
+
|author=Steve Cole
|genre= Teens
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|rating=5
|summary=  
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|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
Cassandra Clare is particularly impassioned about her latest book as it is set in the City of Angels where she grew up. She recalls, "I was an imaginative teenager, always seeing supernatural creatures and potential magic around every corner". Her novel is imbued with her love of film noir, classical texts and the murky literary gothic world of Edgar Allan Poe. These influences charge her urban crime fantasy with mystery and imagination. It works as a standalone though will appeal especially to teenage fans of 'The Mortal Instruments' who will be happy to rejoin the brave Shadowhunter warriors Emma and Julian last seen battling for their lives at the age of 12 during the Dark Wars in 'The City of Heavenly Fire' and now facing painful decisions.  
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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>1471116611</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ben Davis and Mike Lowery
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|author=Patrice Lawrence
|title=The Private Blog of Joe Cowley: Straight Outta Nerdsville
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|title=Needle
 
|rating=3
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=A lot has happened in the life of our hero Joe since we [[The Private Blog of Joe Cowley by Ben Davis|first met him]]A lot must have happened in the third book in the series too, as we start here with him in a very new situation.  He's in London, not the Midlands town of his upbringing, and three of his flat-mates and buddies are a band about to be signed by a major label, with him as their ostensible manager. And he's got a new, cosmopolitan girlfriend.  But this is a teen diary book full of the comedy of embarrassment, and nothing can ever be expected to go his way…
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|summary=Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers bothKicked 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>0192747959</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800901011
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sue Wallman
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|author= Ann Sei Lin
|title=See How They Lie
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|title= Rebel Skies
|rating=5
+
|rating= 5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre= Teens
|summary= Fifteen year-old Mae has only vague memories of life before her dad, an internationally famous psychiatrist, set up Hummingbird Creek. To Mae the strict timetable, stringent exercise routine and perfectly balanced organic diet are normal. The Creek's patients teens with psychological problems – might find it unnerving to be trapped in the middle of nowhere with no mobile phone or internet but Mae thinks she's lucky. Or she does until a chance incident reveals her parents have been lying about her mum's family. Mae starts to wonder what else they might have lied about. Soon Mae is questioning everything she's been told about Hummingbird Creek with dangerous, and potentially deadly, consequences.
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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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407165380</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1406399590
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kenneth Oppel
+
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|title=Every Hiddden Thing
+
|title=Wrath
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Three things stir Samuel's teenaged heart. Duty to his father is one, and another is admiration for the man's career as a dinosaur hunter and aspiration to follow in his tracks. Dad has never been a professor as such, but gets called it anyway, having lucked into being quite a pioneer in the field of finding fossils.  And the third thing? Rachel.  Not conventionally beautiful, Samuel still finds enough in her to arouse things.  But that's where the trouble lies, for Rachel's father and his are confirmed enemies and rivals. And as luck would have it, they're all four headed to the same remote, outlawish region in search of notable remains. How can they be loyal to the science, and to their families, ''and'' to their hearts?
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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...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910989576</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800900899
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Meg Grehan
+
|author=Tori Bovalino
|title=The Space Between
+
|title=The Devil Makes Three
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=''The Space Between'' tells the story of Beth, over the course of a year.  We see Beth dealing with her mental illness, locked away in her own, personal 'safe' world where she feels she can maintain her happiness by remaining isolated.  Mouse the dog, however, has other ideas about this!  With the entrance of Mouse into her life there comes, also, Alice and slowly Alice brings both light and love to Beth's world.
+
|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>1910411590</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1789098130
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=W S Markendale
 
|title=Owen Pendragon
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Monsters are slipping through somehow from somewhere to kidnap children in Cornwall and the army seems powerless to do anything about it.  12-year-olds Owen and Mary assume they too are therefore powerless as they watch friends and neighbours disappear.  Imagine their surprise when they realise that thanks to an ancient relative, they have more influence on what happens than they think and not just on what happens on Earth. And their distant relative?  The former monarch and head of the round table, no less: King Arthur.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524667579</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Stefan Mohamed
 
|title= Stanly's Ghost: Book 3 (The Bitter Sixteen Trilogy)
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|summary= Cynical, solitary Stanly Bird used to be a fairly typical teenager – unless you count the fact that his best friend was a talking beagle named Daryl. Then came the superpowers. And the super powered allies. And the mysterious enemies. And the terrifying monsters. And the stunning revelations. And the apocalypse. Now he's not sure what he is. Or where he is. Or how exactly one is supposed to proceed after saving the world. All he knows is that his story isn't finished. Not quite yet …
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630764</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kenneth Oppel and Jon Klassen
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|title=The Nest
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Steven can narrate this book to us, but he can hardly ever mention the name of his newborn baby brother. That's not down to a fault with Steven, although there are many of those – obsessive hand-washing, nightmares, anxiety attacks.  It's because there's something wrong with the new addition to the family.  His parents mutter behind closed bedroom doors of regretting trying for a new child so late in life, but whatever the reason there is something demanding a lot of medical care and attention, even if the child can more or less live in the family home.  But hope seems to be shining a light into Steven from the most unlikely source – angels that come to visit him in his dreams, from within a pleasant, light-filled haven, with full knowledge of the family's troubles and an offer of a way out. Obviously, worried for the happiness of his family, and knowing this is just a dream, Steven will only say yes to the offer of help…
+
|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>1910200875</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Rachel Ignotofsky
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|rating=5
+
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Women in Science'' takes fifty prominent women in STEM fields and celebrates their achievements. There are women from the ancient world and women working today. Each of them is given a double page spread including a stylised portrait and infoboxes with factoids on one side and a page of text with a brief biography and outline of her achievements. These intrepid women are inspirational for their work and their discoveries but also for the barriers they overcame - barred from classes or employment because they were women or even barred from employment because they were black in racially segregated America.
+
|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>1526360519</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1510107789
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Victoria Aveyard
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|title= King's Cage
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|rating= 4.5
+
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Teens
 
|genre= Teens
|summary=''He caught me in a prince's trap. And now I'm in a King's cage. But I'm not leaving this place unless I leave behind his corpse – or mine.''
+
|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?
 
+
|isbn=1406394815
The third instalment in the Red Queen series, picks up right after the final events of Glass Sword. Mare has been taken prisoner; shackled in Silent Stone and powerless without her lightning. At the mercy of the boy who wears the crown, Mare is haunted by the consequences of her past decisions. Tortured and weak, Mare has a front seat to watch Maven's clever tactics unfold and destroy all that she believes in. Being broken and beaten, Mare will never be the same again after her captivity but can she escape the Palace with her life to fight another day? 
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409151190</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Siobhan Dowd and Emma Shoard
 
|title= The Pavee and the Buffer Girl
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Graphic Novels
 
|summary=When Jim's family halt at Dundray, his heart grows heavy. A new Buffer school for this Pavee boy to attend. Jim doesn't like school. He doesn't like Buffers. And you know, you couldn't really blame him because the distrust and suspicion is mutual. Prejudice against the Traveller community is strong and when Jim and his cousins turn up on their first day, it's to stares and muttered insults from the pupils and condescension from the teachers. Within days, Moss Cunningham and his gang have accused Jim of stealing a CD - he did no such thing - and have begun a campaign of threats, bullying and worse.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911370049</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
 
|author= Gemma Fowler
 
|title= Moondust
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary=''Lunar Inc. is lying to us. It's been lying to us from the moment lumite power was discovered.''
 
  
After the dark days of future Earth, where an energy crisis has led to chaos, lumite power has become the only solution for peace.  Yet that peace is fragile. The memory of the reactor explosion at Andrianne, ten years ago, is still fresh in the public's mind. FALL, the First Anti-Lumite League, continues to campaign fiercely against the United Government and the company responsible for lumite power – Lunar Inc.
+
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910655422</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Chloe Daykin
 
|title=Fish Boy
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Billy is struggling at school.  He's being picked on by the school bully and he's starting to feel very alone.  His mum is sick, although nobody seems to know what's wrong with her.  She has been sick for a long time meaning that she can't work, so Billy's dad is working extra hours to try to keep the family afloat and Billy is frequently left to fend for himself.  His only escape is in watching his favourite, David Attenborough, or in swimming in the sea.  One day, however, things take a magical turn as whilst swimming Billy meets a mackerel who speaks to him!  This, combined with the entrance of a new boy at school, starts to change Billy's life in some rather unexpected ways.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571328229</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jack Cheng
 
|title=See You in the Cosmos
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Meet Alex.  He's just eleven, but is sure he has the responsibility age of a thirteen year old.  He'll prove this by taking his rocket ''Voyager 3'' and his dog Carl Sagan on an Amtrak train to the desert to a launch festival for hobbyist rocket-makers – and all without the help of the adult brother he only knows now from phone calls, his seemingly comatose couch potato mother, and the father he was told died when Alex was three years old.  This book is a transcript of verbal essays and conversations he has made to put in his rocket to send to the stars, so aliens can learn about life on earth in 2017.  The fact that we're able to find out what's on it does seem to suggest a failure with ''Voyager 3'', but as for finding out about life – we can only suppose the lad is a bit more successful…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141365609</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Martin Jenkins and Stephen Biesty
 
|title=Exploring Space: From Galileo to the Mars Rover and Beyond
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=I take it as read that you know some of the history of space exploration, even if the young person you buy books for doesn't know it all.  So I won't go into the extremes reached by the ''Voyager'' space craft, and the processes we needed to be expert in before we could launch anything.  You probably have some inkling of how we learnt that we're not the centre of everything – the gradual discovery of how curved the planet was, and how other things orbited other things in turn proving we are not that around which everything revolves.  What you might not be so genned up on is the history of books conveying all this to a young audience.  When I was a nipper they were stately texts, with a few accurate diagrams – if you were lucky.  For a long time now, however, they've been anything but stately, and often aren't worried about accuracy as such in their visual design.  They certainly long ago shod the boring, plain white page.  Until now…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406360082</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 09:54, 8 July 2024

000862657X.jpg

Review of

Lover Birds by Leanne Egan

4.5star.jpg Teens

When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she? Full Review

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Review of

Wild East by Ashley Hickson-Lovence

4.5star.jpg Teens

Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words. Full Review

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Review of

Us in the Before and After by Jenny Valentine

5star.jpg Teens

Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together. Full Review

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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

Move on to Newest Thrillers Reviews