Difference between revisions of "Newest Teens Reviews"

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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Clive Gifford and Professor Anil Seth
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|author=Leanne Egan
|title=Brain Twisters: The Science of Thinking and Feeling
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|title=Lover Birds
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
+
|genre=Teens
|summary=Meet the brainWe all have one.  We all use it (and by 'it' I mean a heck of a lot more of it than the 10% of urban myth) every second of the day. We engage with different parts of it for balance, catching a ball, memorising a list of moves in controlling a video game character, or understanding things ranging from written instruction to body language.  It's such a vital part of the body, taking up 20% of our glucose fuel intake as well as of oxygen, that understanding of it cannot come at too young an age.  But in this varied and complex book, looking at a varied and complex subject, I do wonder if the right approach has been taken at all times.
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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 herA misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn't she?  Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them?  So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782402047</amazonuk>
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|isbn=000862657X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Rebecca Lim
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|title=The Astrologer's Daughter
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|title=Wild East
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Horary Astrology is an ancient branch of horoscopic astrology in which an astrologer attempts to answer a question asked at an exact time by the construction of a horoscope around it.  Clear as mud?  Yes, me too.  Suffice to say, an horary astrologer would have to be a very gifted individual indeed and Avicenna Crowe's mother, Joanne, is such an astrologer. In fact, her predictive powers have been uncannily exact for her whole life and with such a gift comes an assortment of negative aspects; stalkers and maniacally obsessed clients at the bad end of the scale to, well, worse.  Sometimes ''much'' worse…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922182001</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Derek Landy
 
|title=Demon Road
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary= Amber Lamont was a relatively ordinary 16-year-old, living a pretty quiet, uneventful life; she went to school, had a part-time job, and a decent relationship with her aloof but loving parents. But over the course of just one day everything goes completely to hell. Amber discovers that she can turn into a demon, a genuine, red-skinned, satanic monster, with horns and talons that can rip a human to shreds. Her demon side is the least of her problems, however. For Amber's parents are also demons, and now that her powers have manifested, they are intent on eating her and absorbing her power for themselves. Amber finds herself on the run, travelling the Demon Road across America in a desperate attempt to escape her parents, accompanied by Milo, an enigmatic guardian, who has dark secrets of his own.  
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|summary=Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school.  The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper.  But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0008140812</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jenny Downham
+
|author=Jenny Valentine
|title=Unbecoming
+
|title=Us in the Before and After
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Three women. Three sets of secrets about to be laid bare.
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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.
Katie lives with her learning-disable brother Chris and her rather controlling mother. They've recently moved to her mother's childhood town after Katie's father got a girlfriend and a new baby. Katie, a hardworking and dutiful girl, is halfway through her AS levels when everything - and I mean everything - goes wrong. First up, Katie kisses her best friend Esme. Esme rejects her and, worse still, tells all the mean girls at school what happened. They miss no opportunity to mock and name call. And then a phone call one night brings Mary into their lives...
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|isbn=1471196585
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910200646</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ursula Dubosarsky
+
|author=Max Boucherat
|title=The Red Shoe
+
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=They may be quite far apart, but three houses in a row in the rural suburbs of 1950s Sydney contain some incredibly unusual people.  In one, a solitary old man of very few words, shuffling to the end of his days, but brandishing a Japanese sword he's purloined after WWII, and with a gun in the corner of his loungeIn the middle, a family of five, with a father figure suffering from PTSD due to the same war, a mother feeling friendless and alone in the isolated time and location, and their three daughters – one of whom has given up on school after an alleged nervous breakdown, the middle one who barely speaks more than the neighbour, and Matilda, our key interest, who likes the idea of spies, and has an imaginary friend who came out of the radio.  The third house however might be where the most interesting people live after all, it had been empty, but now the luxurious building is home to several shady men in suits, who turned up out of the blue in luxury cars, and with at least one gun of their own…
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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 worldBut first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky.  For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering.  When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406358746</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Libba Bray
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|title= Lair of Dreams
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|title=Compass and Blade
|rating= 4.5
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|rating=3.5
|genre= Teens
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|genre=Teens
|summary= After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O'Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. With her uncanny ability to read people's secrets, she's a media darling. It seems like everyone's in love with New York City's latest It Girl – their 'Sweetheart Seer'. But while Evie is enjoying the high life, her fellow Diviners Henry DuBois and Ling Chan will fight to keep their powers secret.
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|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907410422</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.
 +
|isbn=0008664730
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Maureen White
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|author=Harry Allen
|title=Butterfly Shell
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|title=Children of the Sun
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=One of the worst kind of nerve-wracking days has arrived: that first day of Secondary School. As we all remember, that's part scary, part exciting for any girl (or boy too, of course, but this is a girls' school). It's an age when you're anxious about making new friends and fitting in anyway, but at ''her'' new school twelve-year-old Marie falls victim to a group of bullies. They call themselves The Super Six which they think makes them look important. But Marie privately renames them The Stupid Six.
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|summary= Ra Eun Seo lives in a North Korean town and she is a talented singer. Life is hard and food is difficult to come by, so Seo and her friends Nari and Min go foraging every evening, looking for tree bark and edible grasses to supplement the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at home.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184717678X</amazonuk> 
+
|isbn=1805140493
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Chris Weitz
 
|title= The Young World
 
|rating= 3.5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary= After a mysterious sickness wipes out the rest of the population, the young survivors band together in small tribes, desperately trying to rebuild their society of old. In New York City, Jefferson, reluctant leader of the tribe from Washington Square, hears of a potential cure for The Sickness. So, he and a squad of heavily armed teens set out across New York in search of this cure. Along the way they must avoid gangs and cults, and brave the perils of the subway – all in the pursuit of mankind's future.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349001936</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jenn Bennett
+
|author=Alexia Casale
|title=Night Owls
+
|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary= Beatrix is a serious girl; small and slight, considered and studious with a quiet determination to follow her dream of becoming a medical illustratorPretty and petite, too quirky for jocks and not quirky enough for hipsters, Beatrix knows that Jack is all the kinds of boys she should avoidLoose-limbed and slim with a slash of unruly hair that works for him in all those adolescent bad boy ways; Jack is leanly muscled and has cheekbones you can hang from and when Beatrix meets Jack, purely by chance on San Francisco's Night Owl Bus Transit, her world is turned upside down.
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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 lifeBut 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 manageMeanwhile 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>1471125300</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571373801
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Rupert Wallis
+
|author=Simon Fox
|title=All Sorts of Possible
+
|title=Deadlock
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the run.  They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions.
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|isbn=1839944420
 +
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Lex Croucher
 +
|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
 +
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=''When the sinkhole opened, there was no time to break or turn the wheel, and the old green Land Rover was snatched off the dirt road over the smoking rim.''
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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?
 
+
|isbn=1526651793
Somehow, Daniel makes it out of the sinkhole and emerges to safety with just a few scratches and bruises. But his father isn't so lucky. While he lies in hospital in an induced coma due to a severe brain injury, Daniel is released into the care of his aunt, a woman he has never met. There had been a family falling out after Daniel's mother died when he was just a baby, and since then it's just been Daniel and his dad. Although his aunt seems nice enough, Daniel finds it difficult to trust her or open up to her...
 
 
 
... and there's a lot to open up about.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147114366X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Ian Johnstone
+
|author=Nick Brooks
|title= The Mirror Chronicles: Circles of Stone
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|title=Promise Boys
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary= Sylas Tate has been through a lot, considering he wasn't yet in his teens when his journeys began. His mother is lost, leaving him to the less than tender mercies of his uncle, and after a strange incident in book one of this series he found himself travelling to another world. Even more bizarre, while he was there he encountered Naeo, his other half – not some jokey reference to a future wife, but the true second part of his soul. The two worlds (ours, based on science, and the Other, based on magic) were once one, and it is the dearest wish of the down-trodden inhabitants Sylas meets to unite them again.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007491174</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Katie Everson
 
|title= Drop
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= General Fiction
 
|summary= Katie Everson’s debut novel, ‘Drop,’ is a tale of grief and healing, whirlwind romance and brutal honesty. We follow the story of Carla - straight-A-student, rule-abiding daughter and somewhat uninteresting friend - who is determined to change her predictable life. When her absentee mother is offered a job in London, Carla transfers to yet another school and this time she is desperate to not be overlooked.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406356271</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Fuzzy Mud
 
|author=Louis Sachar
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Teens
|summary=Tamaya isn't allowed to walk home from school on her own. And Tamaya doesn't like to break any rules. So when walking partner Marshall insists on taking a "shortcut" through the woods one day, she goes with him, even though she isn't really supposed to walk through the woods. Unbeknownst to Tamaya, Marshall has chosen the route in order to avoid school bully Chad, who has threatened him with a reckoning. A reckoning for nothing at all - but you know, that's how school bullies work.
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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?
 
+
|isbn=1035003155
But lying in the woods is an even greater threat than Chad...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408864746</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Ryan Graudin
+
|isbn=1919635017
|title=The Walled City
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|rating= 4
+
|author=Kitt Townsend
|genre= Teens
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|rating=4.5
|summary= In the walled city of Hak Nam, there are three rules; run fast, trust no one, and always carry your knife. In streets controlled by vicious and sadistic drug lords, three individuals all seek something. Dai seeks information on the criminal brotherhood which employs him, lest he be imprisoned. Jin Ling seeks her sister in the Walled City's brothels, evading the roaming street-gangs as she goes. Mei Yee, trapped in a brothel in the city and forced into sexual relations with the two-faced Ambassador Osamu, desperately seeks freedom. The three have just eighteen days to accomplish this, as the officials of Seng Ngoi plan to evict all residents of Hak Nam in preparation for its demolition…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0316405051</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=The Self-Esteem Team
 
|title=The Self-Esteem Team's Guide to Sex, Drugs and WTFs?!!
 
|rating= 4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary= Did you know that there are (on average) three children in every British classroom who are self-harming? Or that 48% of teenage girls avoid everyday school activities because of a lack of body confidence?
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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...
 
 
Shocking, isn't it?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784186422</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sophie McKenzie
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|title=All My Secrets
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|title=Different for Boys
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Teens  
|summary=Fifteen-year old Evie is a normal teenager until a solicitor from Scotland appears on her doorstep with news of a £10 million inheritance and a secret that turns her world upside down. It's little wonder she struggles to cope and ends up being enrolled on a summer programme for troubled teens on the remote island of Lightsea. Little does she suspect that her troubles are only just beginning. At the same time as coping with her burgeoning attraction to two of the boys on the programme, she discovers the island is linked to her family secret. Evie is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, unaware of the dangers that this will bring for both her and her new friends.
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|summary=Ant is in Year Eleven at quite a standard school, and is surprised to find his geography class (within which it seems absolutely nothing about geography is ever learnt) has been restructured, so his desk is one of four with both his best buddy from the football team, and two other old muckers – in fact they all go back to primary school days together. As they're all fired up, straining at the leash only a single-sex school can form, the talk in class and out often turns to sex. Which is confusing for Ant, as he doesn't know what his score is, where his achievements in that regard lie. He's had a casual relationship, a secret one, for several months now, and so has effectively progressed up the ladder headed by 'experienced', but whether that's set in stone, he can't be sure.  And that's mostly because of who he's been having the relationship and the sex with.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471122212</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529509491
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Will Hill
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|isbn=1800901232
|title= Darkest Night (Department 19, Book 5)
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|title=Stitched Up
 +
|author=Steve Cole
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
|summary= Zero Hour has passed. Despite throwing absolutely everything they had into a full on assault on Dracula's forces, the combined might of the supernatural departments failed to destroy the ancient vampire, and he has returned to full strength, ready to strike at humanity with unadulterated violenceSecrecy is no longer an option as the entire world reels from the revelation that vampires are real. Department 19 has been through so much, shaken to its core by secrets, betrayals and losses. With the public eye now firmly upon them, the very fundamentals of the Department come under fire, as issues of morality that have long writhed beneath the surface finally burst to the fore. Jamie, Larissa, Kate and Matt have always found themselves at the centre of the chaos, and despite each struggling with their own demons, their friendship and companionship has helped them survive and even thrive within the department. Humanity's last stand will need them at their very best, will need every force that the supernatural departments of the world can muster, whether it be human, machine, monster or vampire. For failure simply isn't an option when the entire future of humanity is at stake.  
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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 missedSome money changed hands and Hanh was on the mini-bus to Hanoi. Only, Hanh and the other girls were not going to work in a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factory.  You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legs?  The ones with the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched them?  It's quite possible that Hanh and her co-workers made them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007505892</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Julia Jones and Claudia Myatt
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|author=Patrice Lawrence
|title=Black Waters (Strong Winds)
+
|title=Needle
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Xanthe Ribiero had won the area championships in her sister's boat, but she now had sponsorship ''and'' a new laser dinghyBest of all she had the letter from the GB Racing Committee which confirmed that she was in the squad and was off to the Easter training camp at the National Sailing Academy at Weymouth.  She was full of plans to train harder, watch her diet and - she had to admit - just a little bit pleased that she might not have to worry about exam results and university applications.  ''This'' was as good as it got.
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|summary=Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers bothKicked out of multiple homes and schools, she's fostering with a pleasant yoga tutor, Annie, and has taken up residence in her son Blake's old room while he's at uni. Such a tempestuous personality may be in need of a comfort blanket, you might perhaps think, and the creation of one such item is part of the plot here, as Charlene is a wonder knitter, and is making something full of love for her younger sister – a younger sister she's allowed contact with no more. We see Charlene prove her belligerence with a store detective, and then force people to give her two days off school, when she shouts someone down as expletively ignorant. And then... well, what exactly happens is not for me to say, only to remark how sharp and pointy those knitting needles can be...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1899262261</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800901011
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Meg Haston
 
|title= Paper Weight
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Teens
 
|summary= Stevie had a plan. A good plan (in her mind). But, as is often the way, her plan has been interrupted. In her case it's by an unexpected and involuntary admission to an eating disorder unit in a different state. Under lock and key and constant supervision, she doesn't have the resources or the freedom to go through with it. And it's all a bit annoying.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471404560</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Carl Hiaasen
+
|author= Ann Sei Lin
|title= Skink No Surrender
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|title= Rebel Skies
 
|rating= 5
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Teens
 
|genre= Teens
|summary= Skink No Surrender is a love letter to the wildlife of Florida. The narrative is engaging and fast paced peppered with references to literature, folk legends, the ecological history of the area, the importance of conservation and the art of fishing. Hiaasen's protagonists are vividly observed and fully rounded. Skink is an eccentric, crazy, courageous, reckless renegade with a n anarchic, devil may care attitude and a no nonsense attitude. He is a good hearted protector of the innocent, possesses an assortment of false eyes, wrangles alligators, battles storms, lectures on politeness and deals out rough justice. His portrait is messianic and folkloric in places. Richard is plucky and loyal but is he in over his head? Malley is selfish, stubborn, smart, caustic, sarky and brave but also naive, vulnerable and susceptible to charm.
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|summary= Kurara has spent her entire life as a servant on the Midori, a massive dining hall floating in the sky where soldiers of the Empire come to drink and make merry between their conquests. However, when a man named Himura arrives to tell her that she is a Crafter like him, someone with the power to form paper into whatever she desires – a power sought after all across the Empire. He asks her to come with him, to leave the life of dreary servitude that is all she has known. Well, soon Kurara won't have any say in the matter, because the Midori is destroyed by a monstrous paper spirit known as a shikigami, and she is forced to flee out into the world. She joins Himura aboard the Orihime, a sky-ship whose express purpose is to hunt down shikigami, and a whole world of adventure awaits her…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780622198</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1406399590
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Garth Nix
+
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|title=To Hold the Bridge
+
|title=Wrath
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary= A collection of 21 short stories loosely divided into six different categories, ‘’To Hold the Bridge’’ will probably divide opinion amongst readers. It’s undoubtedly a must-read book for fans of Garth Nix and these fans will, I suspect, quibble with my four star rating and challenge me to add another star. Those new to Garth’s writing might, in turn, think I’ve been over-generous given the mixed nature of the stories in the book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147140448X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jess Vallance
 
|title=Birdy
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary= Frances has always been a loner, quiet and isolated, so when she's asked to look after the eccentric new girl Alberta for a few days she doesn't expect anything to come of it, only hoping that the whole incident will pass without embarrassment. The last thing she expects is for the new girl to become her best friend. Alberta's warm companionship is everything Frances has been missing for so many years, so when conflict inevitably arises, Frances is determined to do anything to save their friendship.
+
|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>1471404668</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1800900899
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Leah Thomas
 
|title=Because You'll Never Meet Me
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|summary=Ollie and Moritz can never meet. Because if they did, one of them would almost certainly die. Why? Because Ollie is allergic to electricty and Moritz has an electrical pacemaker inserted in his heart. Ollie spends his life hidden away in a log cabin in the forest - away from all the electricity that sends him into life-threatening seizures - with only his mother and the occasional visit from Dr Auburn-Stache for company. He did also have a friend, Liz, but he lost her a while back. Moritz is equally isolated even though he goes to school. Born without eyes, Moritz "sees" the world through echolocation, like a bat. You might think that's miraculous, but Moritz just thinks it makes him a freak.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140886262X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Dead End Kids: Heroes of the Blitz
+
|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=Bernard Ashley
+
|title=The Devil Makes Three
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=It's London in 1940. Most of the men have been conscripted and the East End is populated mainly by women and children. Josie and her friends are carrying on much as usual, though, grouping into little gangs and arguing over turf via mud fights along the Thames. But then comes a terrible night of bombing. It's the start of the Blitz and 57 consecutive nights of bombing for the East End. The fire service is stretched way beyond its capacity and the lucky ones make it out of the shelters in the morning, while the unlucky ones don't see another sunrise.
+
|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>1408338955</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789098130
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Accident Season
 
|author=Moira Fowley-Doyle
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=For a month in every year, the month leading up to Halloween, Cara's family are susceptible to accidents. There are cuts and scrapes and bruises. Sometimes there are broken bones. And sometimes, the accidents are even fatal...
 
 
 
... it's a curse, right? What else could it be?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>055257130X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Fire Colour One
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|author=Jenny Valentine
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
+
|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.
Iris has never known her father. He didn't want her, her mother has always said. He threw them out years ago. But now she's about to meet him again. Her father is rich, you see, and dying, and Iris's mother and stepfather have worn out their welcome in LA. So they're running away from debts and towards a rich, terminally ill old man, ripe for exploitation. There's also the small matter of some of Iris's own bad behaviour. But the less said about that, the better
+
|isbn=1788452372
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007512368</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=The Potion Diaries
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Amy Alward
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
+
|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.
Samantha is a mixer of potions extraordinaire. Which is just as well, because someone has to save a princess who has fallen in love with herself. Yes, you heard right! You might not think this is the most enormous problem - princesses are so spoiled and pampered, is it any wonder they fall in love with themselves? But this isn't what's happened. Princess Evelyn has taken a love potion meant to make someone else fall in love with ''her''. And the resulting havoc caused by the wrong person taking the right potion leads to some very unstable magic that could threaten the very kingdom itself.
+
|isbn=1510107789
 
 
Hence the ''Wilde Hunt'', a national quest to find the ingredients for a cure.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471143562</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Thirteen Days of Midnight
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|author=Leo Hunt
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|rating=4.5
+
|rating= 4
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Luke Manchett really isn't that upset when he gets the news that his father has died. You might think that's a tad harsh, but Luke has been estranged from his father for years. His primary concern is his mother, who is disabled by crushing cluster headaches. So, rather than worry her, Luke heads off to a lawyer's office to deal with the reading of his father's will by himself. And he gets a shock. Luke's inheritance adds up to six million dollars. SIX MILLION!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408337460</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Guillermo del Toro, Daniel Kraus and Sean Murray
 
|title=Trollhunters
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=West Coast USA in the 1960s, and the city is wracked and wrecked by a slew of missing children reports.  The parents with their new anguishes, and new rules against playing out after dark, have no idea of the horrors in their vicinity – literally under their feet lies a city of trolls, guilty of snatching the children.  Last to go, Jack Sturgess.  Cue the modern era and Jack's younger, now grown-up brother Jim, and Jim Jr live a sheltered life in the most barricaded and secure home imaginable, and Jim Jr's life is as exciting as you'd expect.  Unfortunately, however, the trolls are about to make a return to their nastiest of ways – and their intentions are a lot more surprising than Jim Jr could ever predict…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471405192</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Marissa Meyer
 
|title= Fairest: The Lunar Chronicles: Levana's Story
 
|rating= 4.5
 
 
|genre= Teens
 
|genre= Teens
|summary= Meyer’s dedication in this prequel to The Lunar Chronicles is to her fans, The Lunartics. This book is especially for voracious readers who have devoured Cinder, Scarlet and Cress and are desperately awaiting Winter, though it works as a standalone too. According to the publisher’s note Queen Levana is a ruler who uses her glamour to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet and Cress, Levana lived a very different story- a story that has never been told… until now.
+
|summary= Scarlett McCain is an outlaw, rejecting the draconian conformity of the Surviving Towns and Faith Houses to wander the wildlands between the Seven Kingdoms of Britain, robbing banks and shooting other outlaws to keep herself alive. But then she meets Albert Browne, a dark boy with dark powers and a darker past. With mysterious militiamen hunting them down, they plan to flee to the mythical Free Isles of the London Lagoon. Together, they must brave man-eating wildlife, the cannibalistic Tainted and all the horrors of post-apocalyptic society to reach the Free Isles, but will they be any more accepted there than they are in the rest of Britain?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1250069661</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1406394815
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
 
|author=Kevin Brooks
 
|title=The Snake Trap: Travis Delaney Investigates
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Teen private investigator Travis Delaney is still looking for the people who killed his parents. He needs more than anything to find out why they died. And, fresh from a narrow escape from death at the hands of a criminal mastermind, Travis now suspects that there's a traitor in the camp. This third installment in the ''Travis Delaney'' series has a barnstorming opening. Travis is abducted by terrorists and held captive alongside Winston, the security officer gone bad who Travis suspects is the person guilty of his father's death.
 
  
Travis has a lot of questions. But will he get any answers? And can he get himself out of this horribly dangerous situation?
+
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447238982</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 09:54, 8 July 2024

000862657X.jpg

Review of

Lover Birds by Leanne Egan

4.5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Wild East by Ashley Hickson-Lovence

4.5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Us in the Before and After by Jenny Valentine

5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Compass and Blade by Rachel Greenlaw

3.5star.jpg Teens

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

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

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Review of

Children of the Sun by Harry Allen

5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Sing if you Can't Dance by Alexia Casale

5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

4star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Promise Boys by Nick Brooks

4star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

A Thief to Catch a Killer by Kitt Townsend

4.5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Different for Boys by Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix

4.5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Stitched Up by Steve Cole

5star.jpg Dyslexia Friendly

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

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Review of

Needle by Patrice Lawrence

3star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin

5star.jpg Teens

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

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