Difference between revisions of "Newest Teens Reviews"

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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tom Ellen and Lucy Ivison
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|author=Leanne Egan
|title=Freshers
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|title=Lover Birds
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary= Away from home. Away from friends. Leaving behind parts of the person that you were growing up, in the hopes of finding more of the person that you want to become. Going to university is a monumental transition. For some, it's an escape. A chance to start anew. A freedom of the sort that you'll rarely have at any other point in life. An opportunity to make lifelong friends and memories that will stay with you forever. However, student life can also be a double-edged sword. There's a fine line, after all, between the opportunity to meet new people and the pressure to make new friends. With great freedom comes great responsibility. In the hands of new young adults, just leaving the nest, it's something that can get very messy, very quickly. Phoebe and Luke went to the same high school, but never really floated in the same circles. But when the two collide in the madness of Fresher's week, little do they realise that they're about to get pulled into each other's worlds for a messy, intense and hilarious term that neither of them will ever forget.
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|summary=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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910655880</amazonuk>
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|isbn=000862657X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ian Livingstone
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|title=Fighting Fantasy: The Port of Peril
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|title=Wild East
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Fantasy
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|genre=Teens
|summary=As I promised I would when I looked back at the beginning of the 35 year history of ''Fighting Fantasy'' gamebooks [[Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone|(here)]], I took to the brand-new-for-2017 volume with my pen, mapping paper, and most importantly, diceFor the first time in a long, long time, I would not read a book for review.  I would play it.  And so, armed with healthy stamina, reasonable luck but frankly embarrassing skill, I set off.  This is the report of that journey – as well as hopefully being the usual useful book review.
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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 rapperBut 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>1407181297</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Sophie McKenzie
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|title= SweetFreak
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|rating=3.5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary= Carey and Amelia are best friends, so both are naturally very upset when SweetFreak, a malicious online account, begins to abuse Amelia. To make matters worse, the police soon find evidence that Carey was the one who sent the messages. Soon everyone, even Amelia, is convinced of Carey's guilt. Only her sister, Poppy, accepts her innocence. When the online threats spill over into real life, Carey is determined to discover who is framing her.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471122239</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lisa Heathfield
 
|title= Flight of a Starling
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary= Rita and Lo are sisters and best friends tooTheir partnership extends to a double act as a trapeze act in the travelling circus that forms a backdrop to their lives. Always on the move, travelling from one place to another, never staying in one town for long is all they have ever known. The sisters are surrounded by the love of their family and the close friends who make up the other circus acts. Their lives are happy and secure. Until one day Lo meets a boy, a special boy named Dean. Their growing friendship, together with a secret that Lo discovers, will change things for ever.  
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|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connectionThey 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405285907</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sharon Cohen
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|author=Max Boucherat
|title=The Starman and Me
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''He wasn't an alien, I was sure of that. It was more like he'd walked in through an ancient door from the past... except he was here, in my bedroom and his misty forest was somewhere real on Planet Earth.''
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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?
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|isbn=0008666482
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Rachel Greenlaw
 +
|title=Compass and Blade
 +
|rating=3.5
 +
|genre=Teens
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|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
  
Twelve-year-old Kofi thought he was seeing things when he spied a tiny human on a roundabout near to his house. But he wasn't. Rorty Thrutch is as real as you or me. But how did Rorty come to be hiding out in the middle of a roundabout in Bradborough? And why is he so insistent that he'll soon be ''bad dead''?
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786540088</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008664730
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Patrice Lawrence
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|author=Harry Allen
|title=Indigo Donut
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|title=Children of the Sun
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=
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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.
''In Bailey's opinion, Indigo didn't look like she needed a hero. One by one, she looked Mona, Saskia, Betti and Kay in the eye. Then she gave them the finger: slow motion. Headphones on again, she sauntered off towards the science wing. Hell. That was... She was...''
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|isbn=1805140493
 
 
That's Indigo for you! Indigo is seventeen. And on her umpteenth school. Pitt Academy is a last chance for Indigo and her foster mother Keeley is anxious that she makes it there. But it's not easy for Indigo - her reputation for kicking off always precedes her. And that's the least of it - because someone always finds out about her past: that ''she'' is the tiny little girl who was found by the body after her father killed her mother.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444927183</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Various Authors
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|author=Alexia Casale
|title= A Change Is Gonna Come
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|rating= 5
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|rating=5
|genre= Teens
 
|summary= ''A Change Is Gonna Come'' is an anthology of stories and poems interpreting the theme of change by twelve BAME writers. It's Stripes Publishing's response to the under-representation of BAME authors in the UK. And it's a great response.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847158390</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Andrew Shvarts
 
|title= Royal Bastards
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary= A group of teens witness something that they shouldn't and find themselves hunted by half the kingdom. Royal plots, magic, adventure and a rich culture to immerse yourself in. Can the pack of bastards make it to safety before the vicious warriors chasing them catch them?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1484767659</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=No Filter
 
|author=Orlagh Collins
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Em - Emerald - has led a pretty privileged life. Her wealthy parents have sent her to a posh private school. She's friends with all the right people, as her social media accounts will attest. Everything is sweetness and light in Em's world. Or is it? Equivocation over covering up bullying has put Em in the crosshairs of the school's cool girl pecking order. Friends are suddenly less friendly. There are secrets at home about to turn from secret to open crisis. And when Em's mother overdoses, the dominoes start to topple.
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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>1408884518</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571373801
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Hayley Long
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|author=Simon Fox
|title= The Nearest Faraway Place
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|title=Deadlock
|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary= On Griff's thirteenth birthday, he and his brother's lives change forever when their entire family is caught up in a road accident. ''The Nearest Faraway Place'' is told from the point of view of his brother, Dylan, as they both try to come to terms with the end of their world as they know it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471406261</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Clementine Beauvais
 
|title=Piglettes
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The results are in – and for the first time in three years Mireille has not been voted ugliest girl in school, but only the third ugliest.  When her replacement at that exalted low position comes calling for sympathy, Mireille is at first too hard-hearted to give a damn, for angry self-defence is her default mode.  But soon all three medallists in the unwanted competition form a trio, and all three see a reason to go and gatecrash the 14th July Presidential Garden Party – one girl because her favourite band are playing there; another as her brother has been ignored for a major military honour in favour of his ex-superior, who should instead be getting hauled over the coals and not applauded; and for Mireille, the reason is that the President's husband is her natural birth father, and has never acknowledged her…
+
|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>1782691200</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Jenna Evans Welch
 
|title= Love & Gelato
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary= I picked up ''Love & Gelato'' in hope of a light-hearted summery read, with an added draw being that the action takes place in Italy, a favourite country of mine, and that's exactly what I got. The novel tells the story of Lina, a teenager who fulfils her dying Mother's wish by spending a summer in Tuscany, conveniently staying just outside of Florence, getting to know the father she has never known. She is aided on this quest by a journal her Mom left her, documenting the year she met Lina's father whilst studying photography in Florence.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406372323</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Callie Bates
 
|title= The Waking Land
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Fantasy
 
|summary=''They need something to believe in, something beyond crowns and kingdoms. They need to believe in the old stories. In the power of the land.''
 
 
 
It was fourteen years ago that Elanna's life changed completely. Fourteen years ago that her father's plans of revolution fell through, and at the tender age of five, King Antoine held a pistol to her head and took her hostage. Raised by the King, Elanna grows into adulthood suppressing her magic and resenting the parents she once loved. Now twenty, Elanna prepares for either study or marriage, until King Antoine dies and she's condemned to death for treason. On the run, Elanna encounters her father's men, and finds herself moving from one imprisonment to another. Her father it seems, wants to carry out the revolution that failed fourteen years ago, he wants to unite the people in creating a fair kingdom and he wants Elanna to be the face of the rebellion. He wants her to be the Steward of the Land capable of powerful magic to make the very Earth move. Elanna must to decide which side she'll align with and how she will shape her destiny. Can she deny her people the help they desperately need to build a new world?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473638720</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Ethan I Was Before
+
|author=Lex Croucher
|author=Ali Standish
+
|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Ethan and his family are moving to a little town in Georgia from the big city of Boston in a last ditch attempt to help Ethan get over the loss of best friend Kacey. And the move does give Ethan a great deal else to think about. There's living in Grandpa Ike's dilapidated old house and the uncommunicative Grandpa Ike himself. There's a new school with a new pecking order to navigate. There's a new friend in Coralee, who has a great line in tall stories and who likes adventures almost as much as Kacey did. But it's hard to leave grief behind, especially when you feel as guilty as Ethan does...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408342928</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sonya Hartnett
 
|title=Surrender
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Anwell lives with his physically abusive father - vicious corporal punishment for a minor infraction is a constant threat - and his mentally abusive mother who loses no opportunity to belittle her young son and express her disappointment in him. Anwell is not popular at school and his life at home is severely proscribed. So, when Finnigan appears, Anwell is grateful for a friend. Finnigan is strange and wild and full of a dark freedom. He doesn't even go to school.
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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>1406368210</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526651793
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Cassandra Clare
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|author=Nick Brooks
|title= Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices 2)
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|title=Promise Boys
|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary=
 
After the cataclysmic events of the devilishly macabre 'Lady Midnight', Cassandra Clare produces another melodramatic magical mêlée for its sequel, conjuring up new risks and agonisingly painful decisions for the Blackthorn family and their friends. Their troubles are by no means over as they face the aftermath of Malcolm Fade's reign of madness and the malicious machinations of the cohort [a sect of power-hungry Centurions who want to punish Downworlders and minority groups with draconian legislation]. Above all Julian wants to keep his siblings safe but his self-destructive love for Emma and the reappearance of Annabel threatens to tear them apart.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471116654</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Derek Landy
 
|title=Resurrection
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Skulduggery Pleasant – the sharply dressed and wise-cracking skeleton – is back and he needs help. A small group of disgruntled sorcerers have banded together and have plans to use their unique set of skills to wage war on the mortal world. Others have tried this in the past but this particular group have a scheme that should guarantee their success: they're going to resurrect a terrifying evil. Despite his powers, Skulduggery can't defeat them alone. He successfully persuades his former partner – Valkyrie Cain – to join him for just twenty-four hours. But will she stay when the time runs out? Will they be able to save the world?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0008169020</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Claire Hennessy
 
|title= Like Other Girls
 
|rating= 4.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Like Other Girls is a story about a girl called Lauren. She is not like other girls, though she does sometimes like other girls. For one, her mum is the headmistress of her school, for two, she doesn't fit in to a clique, and for three, her boyfriend thinks she's mad. Lauren's world has been turned upside down by a revelation of someone close to her and when something enormous happens to Lauren, she has no one she can turn to, or so she believes.
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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>1471406342</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035003155
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Rook
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|isbn=1919635017
|author=Anthony McGowan
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|rating=5
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|author=Kitt Townsend
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
 
|summary=When Nicky and his learning-disabled brother Kenny come across a rook being attacked by a sparrowhawk, they chase off the raptor and rescue the rook.Kenny is convinced that a good dollop of love and affection is all that's needed to keep the bird alive but Nicky is sceptical. And in any case, Nicky has other things to worry about, like avoiding the bully at school and finding a way to talk to the girl he likes. In the previous two books in this sequence, troubles were dogging Kenny and the boys' father but in ''Rook'' it's Nicky who could do with a helping hand. Things are about to go wrong. Will Nicky find a way through?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781127239</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Stewart Foster
 
|title= All The Things That Could Go Wrong
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary=Alex has OCD, and as if that wasn't awful enough, he's getting badly bullied at school. Dan's the guy who's bullying him, but he's not really sure why he is apart from the fact Sophie says he should. The only thing Dan does know is that he really misses his brother, Ben. ''All the Things that Could Go Wrong'' follows both Alex and Dan's stories as they just try to make it through the days. While Alex fights his OCD and his bullies, Dan fights his loneliness and all the anger that he seems to have inside him now. You might think this is going to be a cut and dried story of the nice boy who's being bullied and the bad boy who's doing the bullying, but it isn't.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471145425</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Catherine Barter
 
|title=Troublemakers
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Ever since Alena can remember, it's been her step-brother Danny and his boyfriend Nick who have looked after her. Her mother died when she was just three years old. It might be small and unorthodox, but Alena's family is a loving one. However, simmering political tensions in London, triggered by a series of bombings, threaten to spill over and shatter the stability of the only family Alena has ever known. Faced with complicated questions about family and politics, Alena finds herself looking back into the past, at the life of activism that her mother led, a life that her brother has always been suspiciously secretive about, in the hope of finding some answers.
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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>1783445246</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Maggie Thrash
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|title=Honor Girl
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|title=Different for Boys
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens  
 
|genre=Teens  
|summary=''It's camp. It's supposed to be fun.''<br>
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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 sexWhich 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.
''Well excuse me for not having the time of my life.''
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|isbn=1529509491
+
}}
That simple piece of dialogue is the key to this autobiographical graphic novelWhy is Maggie not happy at camp? Forget the way she's isolated by being a sleep-walker, and ignore the fact she's from a different state to every other girl around, and practically only there to obey her mother's family tradition – she's all of a sudden become an ace shot on the rifle range, and can boss the Backstreet Boys-themed talent performanceBut those aren't enough for Maggie to feel settled and like she's enjoying her summer, and anyway they do come with their own problemsNo, the bigger problem is something else – the fact that she seems to be falling in love with one of the counsellor campers, there to look after the welfare of the younger inmates – being potentially a lesbian is a shock to our narrator.
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{{Frontpage
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763687553</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800901232
 +
|title=Stitched Up
 +
|author=Steve Cole
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
 +
|summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be a fashion designerLife 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 HanoiOnly, 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.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Karen M McManus
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|author=Patrice Lawrence
|title= One of Us Is Lying
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|title=Needle
|rating= 5
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|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary='The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars?' Sign me up, please. But this YA mystery is more like a teenage Agatha Christie: it's twisty, complex, and at several points I began to wonder if the final reveal would be that everyone was the murderer.
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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>0141375639</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800901011
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Shannon Hale and Dean Hale
+
|author= Ann Sei Lin
|title= Marvel: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World
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|title= Rebel Skies
 
|rating= 5
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|genre= Teens
|summary= Doreen Green moves from California to New Jersey and, quite by accident, embarks on a journey to become a hero. A fantastic origin tale for the brilliant Squirrel Girl character this story is engaging, fast-paced, hip and extremely cool. What would a person be like if they had the proportional strength and agility of a squirrel? Wonder no more.
+
|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>1405287667</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1406399590
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Ron Butlin
+
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|title= Steve and Frandan Take on the World
+
|title=Wrath
|rating= 4.5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre= Teens
+
|genre=Teens
|summary= Like many books for confident readers and teens, our heroes are the victims of cruel bullies – to be precise, as we are well into the twenty-first century here, of the cyber kind. But this isn't some worthy self-help, tell-an-adult book, nor is it a gloomy book about young people who can't see the point of going on. Nope – these guys take the unusual (and, in the light of later events, utterly daft) decision to simply sail away into the sunset, to take a break from civilisation, online Thor and his idiot Viking horde, and the insanities in general of all adults. In their defence, it seems a sensible move at the time...  
+
|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>1780274394</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1800900899
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Contagion: Book 1 (Dark Matter)
+
|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=Teri Terry
+
|title=The Devil Makes Three
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=It's not a spoiler if I tell you that Callie dies because she does die and she dies in the first few pages of ''Contagion''. Callie - Calista - disappeared more than a year ago. Her brother Kai is still looking for her, hopeful that she will be found alive and well. But Callie isn't alive and well. She's been taken to a secretive medical facility on the island of Shetland, experimented on, and then burned to death. But Callie survived the burning in non-corporeal form. How?
+
|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>1408341727</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789098130
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Tanya Landman
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|title=Passing for White
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In 1847, in Macon, Georgia, Benjamin was a slave. He 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=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>178112681X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=The Harder They Fall
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Bali Rai
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|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...
+
|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>1781126828</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1510107789
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Patrick Ness
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|title= Release
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= Confident Readers
 
|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...
 
... well, best not to think about that.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406331171</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Sebastien de Castell
 
|title= Spellslinger
 
 
|rating= 4
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Teens
 
|genre= Teens
|summary=''And when did I volunteer to die down there just so two lousy humans could live?''
+
|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
 +
}}
  
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.
+
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785761315</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Countless
 
|author=Karen Gregory
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408882507</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Pearl Thief
 
|author=Elizabeth Wein
 
|rating=4.5
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408866617</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Fallen Children
 
|author=David Owen
 
|rating=5
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>034900269X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Angie Thomas
 
|title=The Hate U Give
 
|rating=5
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406372153</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

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

1406399590.jpg

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

1800900899.jpg

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