Difference between revisions of "Newest Teens Reviews"

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{{Frontpage
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|author=Leanne Egan
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|title=Lover Birds
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|rating=4.5
[[image:0316420239.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0316420239/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
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|genre=Teens
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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?
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|isbn=000862657X
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
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|title=Wild East
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Teens
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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.
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|isbn=0241645441
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Jenny Valentine
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|title=Us in the Before and After
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|rating=5
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|genre=Teens
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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.
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|isbn=1471196585
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Max Boucherat
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Confident Readers
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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
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
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|title=Compass and Blade
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|rating=3.5
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|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.''
  
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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.
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|isbn=0008664730
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Harry Allen
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|title=Children of the Sun
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|rating=5
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|genre=Teens
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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.
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|isbn=1805140493
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Alexia Casale
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
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|rating=5
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|genre=Teens
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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?
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|isbn=0571373801
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Simon Fox
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|title=Deadlock
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Confident Readers
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|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the run.  They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions.
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|isbn=1839944420
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Lex Croucher
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
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|rating=4
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|genre=Teens
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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?
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|isbn=1526651793
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Nick Brooks
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|title=Promise Boys
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|rating=4
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|genre=Teens
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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?
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|isbn=1035003155
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1919635017
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
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|author=Kitt Townsend
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Teens
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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...
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
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|title=Different for Boys
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Teens
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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.
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|isbn=1529509491
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1800901232
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|title=Stitched Up
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|author=Steve Cole
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|rating=5
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|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
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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.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Patrice Lawrence
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|title=Needle
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|rating=3
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|genre=Teens
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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...
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|isbn=1800901011
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author= Ann Sei Lin
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|title= Rebel Skies
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|rating= 5
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|genre= Teens
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|summary= Kurara has spent her entire life as a servant on the Midori, a massive dining hall floating in the sky where soldiers of the Empire come to drink and make merry between their conquests. However, when a man named Himura arrives to tell her that she is a Crafter like him, someone with the power to form paper into whatever she desires – a power sought after all across the Empire. He asks her to come with him, to leave the life of dreary servitude that is all she has known. Well, soon Kurara won't have any say in the matter, because the Midori is destroyed by a monstrous paper spirit known as a shikigami, and she is forced to flee out into the world. She joins Himura aboard the Orihime, a sky-ship whose express purpose is to hunt down shikigami, and a whole world of adventure awaits her…
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|isbn=1406399590
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Marcus Sedgwick
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|title=Wrath
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Teens
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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...
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|isbn=1800900899
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Tori Bovalino
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|title=The Devil Makes Three
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Teens
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|summary= Working all summer in her boarding school's library is the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herself. What makes it worse is the man who requested the books: Mr Birch. The boarding school's headmaster, and a man Tess hates. As a petty act of revenge for making her find and deliver such a large request, Tess sticks post-it notes on each of the books, scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think of. They're never meant to reach him, of course. Her plan is to get her anger out like this, and then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would be, if someone hadn't delivered them for her.
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|isbn=1789098130
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Philip Reeve
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|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
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|rating=5
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|genre=Confident Readers
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|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.
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|isbn=1788452372
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
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|title=Julia and the Shark
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|rating=4
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|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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.
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|isbn=1510107789
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author= Jonathan Stroud
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|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
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|rating= 4
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|genre= Teens
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|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?
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|isbn=1406394815
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}}
  
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Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
 
 
===[[Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel by Val Emmich]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
Evan Hansen spends a lot of time indoors by himself. This worries his mother, who has engaged a therapist to try to help Evan with his extreme anxiety issues. Evan's therapist assigns him the task of writing a daily letter to himself as a way of getting Evan to think more constructively about himself and the world around him. But Connor Murphy, a rather scary boy at school, finds one of Evan's letters and gets the wrong end of the stick because Evan has mentioned Zoe, the girl he has a crush on and who is Connor's sister. [[Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel by Val Emmich|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
Raised in a small village surrounded by woodland on the border of Moldova and Ukraine, sisters Liba and Laya have lived a sheltered life - although there are whispers of troubling times ahead for Jews. When their grandfather takes ill, their parents must leave the sisters behind while they travel to his sickbed, but life for Liba and Laya is about to drastically change. Before their parents leave, Liba discovers that the fairy tales she heard as a child are in fact true as she learns that her Tati can turn in to a bear and her Mami in to a swan. Liba must carry this secret in order to help protect her sister, but the arrival of a mysterious group of men in the village carries more danger as Laya is dragged under their spell. Both sisters must stick together if they are to survive what is happening around them and they soon realise that their new-found magical heritage may be what saves them. [[The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Snowglobe by Amy Wilson]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Confident Readers|Confident Readers]], [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
Jago doesn't like Clementine. He knows there is something different about her and he doesn't like it. And he never lets her forget it. Clementine knows she's different too, and that the difference is magic. And as much as she tries to ignore it, Clementine's magic is getting stronger. So when Jago's bullying gets too much, it's not really surprising that Clem loses control of it and gets herself suspended from school.  [[Snowglobe by Amy Wilson|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Light Between Worlds by Laura Weymouth]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
Five years ago Evelyn, Philippa and James Hapwell escaped to the safety of their air raid shelter as bombs fell all around the streets of London. In the terrifying darkness waiting for their parents to join them, Evelyn prayed to be anywhere else.
 
A plea that was answered by The Woodlands. One moment in grey London and the next surrounded by a rich green forest, the three children were transported from one world trapped in war, to another on the brink of its own. [[The Light Between Worlds by Laura Weymouth|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Only Love Can Break Your Heart by Katherine Webber]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
Though it's been 5 years since Mika died, Reiko still sees the ghost of her sister every day, forever 14. It's something that brings her comfort, but also a constant reminder that she has to make up for being one when there should have been two. She has to shine bright enough for both of them. When she befriends outsider Seth, he presents her with an escape. From her family, her friends, the grief and loss that continue to scar them all. Seth is instantly smitten with her. After all, who wouldn't fall for gorgeous, popular Reiko Smith-Mori? But while she falls in love with the escape that he represents from her grief, it's not so clear that she's falling in love with him.  [[Only Love Can Break Your Heart by Katherine Webber|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Phantom by Leo Hunt]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
Sixteen-year-old Nova is an undercity dweller and a leecher - a futuristic kind of pickpocket who uses tech hacks to steal byts from hapless corps workers. The higher up in the city you live, the more sunlight you see and the easier your life. For leechers like Nova, four hundred storeys below the surface, life is tough. But with the help of the hacking program Phantom, invented by legendary anti-corps hacker the Moth, Nova can sneak up to the city, leech some byts and at least make rent. v[[Phantom by Leo Hunt|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Truth About Lies by Tracy Darnton]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
Jess is in a meeting with Dr Harrison, the school counsellor. Dr Harrison is hoping to help Jess come to terms with the death of her room-mate, Hanna. But he's not having much success, largely because Jess has no intention of telling him how she feels. Instead, she feigns a grief she does not feel so that he is satisfied and she gets out of there as quickly as possible. [[The Truth About Lies by Tracy Darnton|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Chaos of Now by Erin Lange]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
Eli, a talented hacker, is one of those people who manage to fly below the radar. When new friends offer him the chance to enter a prestigious competition he soon realises this golden opportunity has a sting in its tail. How many people can hand on heart say that they have not made mistakes? Most people are fortunate not to have a permanent online reminder, the very presence of which refuses to allow you to adapt, to change, to grow.  Eli has a few mistakes skulking online, moments of madness that if discovered would change his life forever. [[The Chaos of Now by Erin Lange|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Colour Me In by Lydia Ruffles]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
Reeling from a tragedy and unable to cope, unemployed actor Arlo decides to get on a plane and go somewhere new. [[Colour Me In by Lydia Ruffles|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[You Only Live Once by Jess Vallance]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
Gracie Dart is a studious, responsible student with a colour coded timetable and French verbs covering her walls.  She's hardworking and smart but once her final school exams are over, Gracie has a revelation. After she mistakenly thinks she's contracted a fatal illness (the perils of looking up symptoms on the internet) Gracie decides to start living her life. Her studies are finished for the summer so Gracie wants to say yes to every opportunity that comes her way, and just like her meticulous study timetable, Gracie Dart doesn't do anything by half measures. [[You Only Live Once by Jess Vallance|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Island by M A Bennett]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
 
 
 
A contemporary take on the savage classic ''Lord of the Flies'': a group of mismatched, modern-day teenagers must fight to survive on a deserted island. Link is a fish out of water. Newly arrived from America, he is finding it hard to settle into the venerable and prestigious Osney School. Who knew there could be so many strange traditions to understand? And what kind of school ranks its students by how fast they can run round the school quad - however ancient that quad may be? When Link runs the slowest time in years, he immediately becomes the butt of every school joke. And some students are determined to make his life more miserable than others... [[The Island by M A Bennett|Full Review]]
 
 
 
 
 
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===[[The Weight of a Thousand Feathers by Brian Conaghan]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
''Funny how no one ever uses the word 'love' when discussing my case. I do what I do because she's my mum. That pure and that simple.''
 
 
 
Bobby Seed's mum has MS and it's getting worse. Bobby, who is seventeen, shoulders most of her care. And he also keeps house and also looks after his little brother Danny. He gets some help from his best friend Bel, who has her own reasons for spending as much time as possible not at home, but it's still a slog. But Bobby doesn't mind because he loves his mum and they have a wonderful relationship, mostly based on taking the mickey out of each other. Bobby also attends a support group for young carers. It's a bit daft with all the role play exercises and the like, but it's nice to meet other kids in the same boat as you. Especially Lou, the American boy with the weird way of speaking and the Vespa and the air of cool. Bobby can barely keep his eyes off Lou.
 
[[The Weight of a Thousand Feathers by Brian Conaghan|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Ascension by Victor Dixen]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]]
 
 
 
Six girls, six boys. Each in the two separate bays of a single spaceship. They have six minutes each week to seduce and to make their choices, under the unblinking eye of the on-board cameras. They are the contenders in the Genesis programme, the world's craziest speed-dating show ever, aimed at creating the first human colony on Mars. Leonor, an 18 year old orphan, is one of the chosen ones. She has signed up for glory. She has signed up for love. She has signed up for a one-way ticket. Even if the dream turns to a nightmare, it is too late for regrets.  [[Ascension by Victor Dixen|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
Miryem comes from a long line of moneylenders – but her Father isn't very good at it at all. Lending freely and rarely collecting, he leaves the family on the edge of poverty, until Miryem must step in. Hardening her heart and collecting what is owed from local villagers, she becomes a person of great interest when she borrows a pouch of silver pennies from her Grandfather and returns it full of gold, soon becoming entangled with an array of strange creatures, from the dark beings that haunt the wood through to a King who's eager to exploit Miryem's talents – she soon becomes aware that her skills may be more trouble than they're worth… [[Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Monsters We Deserve by Marcus Sedgwick]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:Horror|Horror]]
 
 
 
Two hundred years ago, bad weather, bad company (well, the kind that is also mad, and dangerous to know), a spooky reading list and a few chance topics of discussion all led a young woman to start writing her first, and definitely her most famous ever, book. The narrator of this novel has brought himself to a remote Alpine building, in the centre of that first novel's world, to revisit it in honour of its bicentenary. He hates it, for he sees it as badly written and with some unwelcome biases. He seems to only be there and doing this for the publisher to whom he addresses a lot of the script we read. But what if some greater force wanted him there too? [[The Monsters We Deserve by Marcus Sedgwick|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[A Thousand Perfect Notes by C G Drews]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
''What he wants most in the world is to cut off his own hands. At the wrist would be best.''
 
 
 
What child would think such a thing? Beck would think such a thing. The son of a talented pianist who became ill and could no longer play, Beck is the servant of his thwarted mother's ambitions. He must be the pianist now. And Beck's mother - the Maestro - makes him practise for hours every day. If he rebels in any way, his mother's response is violent. But Beck doesn't want to play Chopin. He wants to compose. Forbidden music fills his head but it's an impossible dream.
 
[[A Thousand Perfect Notes by C G Drews|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Survival Game by Nicky Singer]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:Dystopian Fiction|Dystopian Fiction]]
 
 
 
Mhairi Anne Bain is fourteen years old and is on her way home to the Isle of Arran. But Mhairi's world has been ravaged by climate change and the mass movement of people and it is one defined by borders, checkpoints and soldiers with guns. Mhairi has made it across Africa and onto a plane to Heathrow  - which is more than can be said for Muma and Papa. She's even made it out of the detention centre at the airport. And during this journey, Mhairi has learned that you can't rely on anyone else and you can't allow anyone else to rely on you...  [[The Survival Game by Nicky Singer|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Boy Who Lied by Kim Slater]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Confident Readers|Confident Readers]], [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
''None of them believed me. Nobody believed I really couldn't remember what happened to my brother. I wanted to scream at them to listen. Because, for the first time in a long, long time, I was actually telling the truth.''
 
 
 
Ed Clayton is a teller of tall stories. He just can't help it - even though he knows and everybody else knows that most of what comes out of his mouth is complete fantasy. It all started when Ed's father was accused of fraud and sent to prison. Then mum's mental health went to pieces. Then, with nobody bringing money into the house, poverty - real, grinding, poverty - set in and life became all about scratching about for pennies and visiting the food bank. All of this is horribly shaming, so is it any wonder that Ed has become a bit of a Billy Liar, hiding the truth of his home life in the hopes the power of imagination can make it all disappear?
 
[[The Boy Who Lied by Kim Slater|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Bookish Boyfriends by Tiffany Schmidt]]===
 
 
 
[[image:2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
Merrilee Campbell is a book-lover romantic and real life has never measured up. Now she and her best friend are starting a new high school where boys and girls mix. Merrilee is sure this is where her dreams will come true and she'll find her first proper romance, or even meet the love of her life just like her parents. But just like in the books she loves, this doesn't go quite to plan. When her English teacher assigns them Romeo and Juliet to read, Merrilee's life starts taking quite a novel turn. [[Bookish Boyfriends by Tiffany Schmidt|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[All of This Is True by Lygia Day Penaflor]]===
 
 
 
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
''Undertow'' is the latest YA novel to hit the best seller lists. It's a study in grief and Miri is its biggest fan. So, when author Fatima Ro comes to Long Island for a book signing, Miri is determined to meet her and takes her friends along. Soleil has writing ambitions of her own and so she is overjoyed when Fatima takes the group of friends under her wing. Penny wants to be noticed and will do anything for Fatima, who notices. And Jonah? Well, Jonah has secrets and Fatima loves secrets... [[All of This Is True by Lygia Day Penaflor|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Skylarks by Karen Gregory]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
 
 
Joni is halfway through her A levels. But she has a lot more than A levels to think about. Life is pretty tough at the moment. There isn't much money about, the family is behind on bills, Dad's back is getting worse and worse, and little brother Jack has a school trip coming up that needs to be paid for. Older brother Jamie got the sack from his dream job and, although he found somewhere else to work, is a big ball of resentment. To make matters worse, the charity that runs the housing on their estate is running out of money and thinking of selling up. But Joni has a great group of friends and a lovely mum and dad and a teacher who thinks she could get into university. [[Skylarks by Karen Gregory|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Colour of the Sun by David Almond]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:Confident Readers|Confident Readers]]
 
 
 
''This book... explores what excites and mystifies me about the nature of being young, and dramatises the joys and excitements of growing up. And I guess it embodies my constant astonishment at being alive in this beautiful, weird, extraordinary world.''
 
 
 
This is what David Almond says about his latest novel for young people, ''The Colour of the Sun''. And, having now read it, I see what he is saying so clearly. This is a story of being young - both older than you used to enjoy being and younger than you aspire to be. And it's a story of finding strangeness in ordinary things.
 
 
 
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Latest revision as of 09:54, 8 July 2024

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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