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Revision as of 06:48, 30 May 2013
Fragments by Dan Wells
I didn't have much hope for this book - the middle book in a series tends to be filler, and as Partials was so brilliant, I though it was going to be hard to top. I was very wrong. This book is mind-blowing. Full review...
Drummer Girl by Bridget Tyler
Lucy is really pleased when Harper McKenzie decides to start talking to her again and suggests forming a band. From then, life gets increasingly wonderful as they recruit three other girls, enter a talent show, and make it to the finals. Parties, fame, and success await - until everything comes crashing down. What went wrong? Full review...
Boy Nobody by Allen Zadoff
Zach Abram has a choice - death or death. He can either choose the death of others or his own death. At the age of 12, his parents were killed and he was abducted by a shadowy American government agency, trained as an assassin and give a simple a choice kill and keep killing or die. He is told that he is a patriot, that those he kills are enemies of the state, and as such deserve to die. But this is very state which will kill him if he makes one mistake. Zach is 16 now, but he isn't Zach anymore, he is whoever the agency wants him to be, and for 2 years he has gone from one target to another. He has used his youth as cover, befriending the children of his future victims and killed without remorse or emotion. But something is different this time, he has started to experience feelings and question his assignment. This will be his most dangerous mission yet, and if he fails he will have more to fear from his own side than his enemies. But if he succeeds what will the cost be to himself? Full review...
The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Good and bad luck combined have forced Irene and her family – mother Simone and insular younger brother Dorian – to live in the Normandy village of Blue Bay. It's a way to relieve the poverty her deceased father left them in, as Simone is now housekeeper to Lazarus Jann, a mysterious elderly businessman who lives in a mansion peopled by countless automata, and the isolated shell of what used to be his healthy wife. Irene herself has met the maid's brother, which the village network has immediately inflated into a long-term romance. Dorian is happy enough to be errand-boy for Jann's peculiar correspondence. So far, so interesting. But is there a dark secret to be had with the clockwork toys keeping Jann company? Is the tale of a ghost on the lighthouse islet true? And what else could be implied in the book's very title? In such a small village, for anyone to hold a secret it has to be very big, and very powerful… Full review...
Diary of a Crush: French Kiss by Sarra Manning
When Edie moves up to Manchester and starts college she’s a little scared – scared to be in a new town with new people, and none of her old friends. But then she meets a trouser-shape by the name of Dylan and everything changes. She develops a huge crush on the handsome but complicated boy, and chronicles her feelings for him in her diary. Well that explains the title, then. Full review...
Noble Conflict by Malorie Blackman
Kaspar believes in the Alliance with a whole heart. Who wouldn't? In the face of terrorist attacks from the Crusader Insurgency, the Alliance's response is non-fatal. Its security forces are equipped with stun guns and captured insurgents are not killed. They're incapacitated, given medical treatment and imprisoned. Guardians like Kaspar are trained to defend themselves against these unprovoked attacks in the least violent way possible. And considering the Crusaders destroyed their own country before attacking Kaspar's, you can see how measured and ethical the Alliance's response seems. Full review...
The Dead Girls Detective Agency by Suzy Cox
The Dead Girls Detective Agency takes us with Charlotte Feldman, an average school girl who is pushed under a train and wakes up to find that the afterlife for murdered teenagers is a downtown hotel from where they must solve their cases and get the killer to confess in order to move on. I’d call it a fresh and original take on the whodunit if I hadn't seen variants of it before. However, it does have individuality. The sole condition for moving on is solving the murder – there’s no pansying around finding absolution or atoning for transgressions. Full review...
Jelly Cooper: Alien by Lynne Thomas
Jelly Cooper is just turning fourteen. But excitement about her birthday is taking second place to sheer exhaustion. For weeks, Jelly has been having recurring nightmares that leave her shaken and afraid. And it's all taking a toll on her - her friends Humphrey and Agatha are beginning to get worried. Add the night terrors to the figurative nightmare of school, a crush on a boy so cool and gorgeous that Jelly sees no world in which he'd fancy her back, and a cheerleader out to humiliate her at every turn, and you can see that Jelly's life could be better. Full review...
Silver by Chris Wooding
'Silver' has a large ant with silver circuits on the cover, and while there are no actual ants in this book, the illustration is very well suited. This books puts a unique twist on the ever popular zombie genre. Instead of living corpses, we have nanobots which can turn humans into machines. They possess a swarm intelligence similar to ants. This sounds far fetched but a great deal of progress has been made in research currently being conducted with just this in mind - to create nanobots with swarm intelligence - a phenomenon well known in the natural sciences in which a less intelligent organism is capable of highly intelligent behaviour through a hive mind. It would be impossible for scientists to control hundreds or thousands of nanobots independently - so the idea is to control a few and have these control the rest. Of course there would always be safeguards on this type of technology and there were safeguards in the book as well - they just didn't work. Full review...
The Chocolate Box Girls: Coco Caramel by Cathy Cassidy
Coco is the youngest of the Tanberry sisters but very much her own person. For her, life is about animals and she loves going to the stables for riding lessons even if she does overestimate her own abilities. She was hoping that she could pick up a job there a couple of evenings a week so that she could have extra lessons, but it went instead to form-mate Lawrie Marshall and they're not each other's biggest fans. Well, they're not until the pony which Coco has set her heart on is sold to someone who doesn't seem to have the animal's best interest at the front of his mind. Coco and Lawrie unite to save Caramel and another pony which is just about to foal - but how will they cope? Full review...
The Boy with Two Heads by Andy Mulligan
Richard is a nice kid. Dutiful, hardworking, rule-abiding, he makes both parents and teachers proud. But one day, everything changes. Richard wakes up with a painful lump on his neck. Rushed to hospital, his parents get some devastating news from the specialists. Richard is growing a second head. Yowzer. When the head - Rikki - emerges, Richard, his parents, his teachers and his friends, all do their best to cope. But Rikki isn't like Richard. He's spiteful. He's angry. He's rude. He says the most unsayable things and he causes a great deal of trouble. Full review...
Where You Are by Tammara Webber
Between The Lines saw seventeen year old Emma catapulted to fame as she made a film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with heartthrob Reid Alexander and started to fall for him, only to end up with more sensible Graham, another cast member. Now School Pride is nearly ready to be released, and it's time for the cast to start the publicity blitz - which means Emma and Reid, as the stars. will be spending a lot of time together. Can Emma's new relationship with Graham stay strong despite this? Not if Reid, and Brooke - who's desperate to get her hands on Graham and become more than just his friend - have got anything to do with it. Full review...
ZOM-B Angels by Darren Shan
Ok. I'm going to do this for all books in this series except the first one. Before we begin. If you haven't read the first book in this series, DON'T read this review. It contains spoilers. Read my review of the first book, read the first book itself, then come back. If you don't, you'll be sorry... Full review...
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
As far as she knows, Cassie could be the last human on Earth. Surely, she's one of the last few. After the first four waves of the Others - mysterious aliens who appeared and quickly laid waste to humanity - it's impossible for her to trust anyone she meets. Can she ever find the strength to rescue her kid brother? Full review...
Deadlands by Lily Herne
I was hesitant to choose this book. I love a good dystopian future book. The problem is, I don't define very many of them as good. I have read far too many zombie books that really don't offer anything different, plenty of blood, gore, and damsels in distress, but not enough character development, or logical thought. Psychological horror can be ever so much more chilling than blood and guts, but it is also much more difficult to pull off. Sarah and Savannah Lotz, the mother and daughter team who have written this book under the pen name Lily Herne, have managed to do this perfectly. Full review...
Inferno (Chronicles of Nick) by Sherrilyn Kenyon
I'm tempted to say I have a love/hate relationship with the Chronicles of Nick series, but that's probably overstating both aspects of it. Call it a like/dislike relationship, perhaps - at its best - notably in much of the first book, Infinity and Infamous, it's a high-octane thrill ride which is hugely entertaining thanks to the sheer amount of larger than life characters and some very well-written dialogue. At other moments, as in Invincible, Kenyon's narration can make me grit my teeth and the books can have pacing issues. Full review...
The Rising by Kelley Armstrong
Maya Delaney is on the run. Her idyllic life in Salmon Creek was an elaborate ruse run by the St. Clouds - a Mafia like family of supernaturals who want Maya and her friends because of their emerging powers, powers thought to be extinct before now. Maya is losing friends fast as they are recaptured. She'd do anything to get them back, but when making contact with a scientist who might have some answers doesn't play out how they hoped, Maya realises that she and her friends are on their own, and that confronting their enemies might be their only chance. Full review...
Dead To You by Lisa McMann
When Ethan was 7 years old, he was abducted from the street in front of his house. His parents and younger brother Blake were devastated, their lives torn apart. But now, 9 years later, a teenaged Ethan has returned, having escaped his new, often brutal life, to return to his old familiar one. Except it’s not familiar. His mind traumatised by years of neglect culminating with a spell living on the streets, Ethan remembers nothing about his life at home before the abduction. Full review...
Moon Bear by Gill Lewis
Tam's village in rural Laos must make way for a new highway. So Tam and his family move to a new village in the lowlands. They've been promised running water, electricity, and even a school. But the ground in the new village is scattered with bombs left over from America's war in Vietnam. And, while Tam and his father are preparing their field for the new rice crop, one explodes and everything changes again. Tam's father is dead and his mother and sisters won't be able to keep their house unless Tam goes to the city and earns money to send home. Full review...
Dead Boys' Club by Geoffrey Malone
Sam wakes up one morning at dawn. It's strangely quiet. Outside his hut, the village is absolutely silent. No cockerels are crowing. Something is horribly wrong. Stepping outside, Sam's worst fears are realised. A line of children, all armed with AK-47s, are rushing at him, yelling like crazy. It's God's Freedom Army. Full review...
Geekhood: Mission Improbable by Andy Robb
Despite his efforts with Sarah at the start of term, fourteen-year-old Archie is still as geeky and as clueless about girls as ever. Then he meets Clare, a sixteen-year-old who has relationship problems of her own, and they create a fake relationship to try and get their crushes to notice them. What could possibly go wrong? Full review...
Tide by Daniela Sacerdoti
After her parents' deaths at the hands of the demons they fought against, Sarah Midnight was left reeling again by the revelation towards the end of book 1 that her 'cousin' Harry Midnight was actually Harry's friend Sean Hannay. Unable to trust Sean following his lies, Sarah turns to Nicholas, new on the scene. But Nicholas has dark secrets of his own - has Sarah placed her faith in the wrong person? And will she find out the truth about the Midnight legacy before the demons attack again? Full review...
If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch
In the middle of the forest, Carey and Jenessa live with their mother in a tatty old camper van. Cut off from civilisation, they scrabble to take care of themselves and each other, in a setting where every day is a fight for physical and mental survival. They just about make it through, but the girls’ mother is a drug addict with a habit of disappearing, and she’s done just that. It’s been more than a month since they saw her. Maybe more than two. Then, one day, summoned by a letter sent by the girls’ mother, strangers appear in the woods, looking for Carey and Jenessa. They have come to take them away from the woods, and back to the real world. Full review...
Quicksilver by R J Anderson
Before I say anything else, I must warn you. Quicksilver is billed as a companion novel to Ultraviolet with the implication that you could read either first. You can't. You mustn't. So if you haven't read Ultraviolet, go no further.
Quicksilver picks up where Ultraviolet left off. But this time, synaesthete Alison is left behind and the story is told from the point of view of Tori Full review...
Firewallers by Simon Packham
After Jess's dad gets suspended from work, her mum takes her and her older sister out of school. Fleeing from publicity, they go to a remote Scottish island to join a community of people who shun modern technology. The longer they stay on the island, though, the stranger things seem to be. What's going on, and when will Jess see her dad again? Full review...
ACID by Emma Pass
The UK is now the IRB - Independent Republic of Britain. It's no longer run by elected politicians, who were completely discredited after a catastrophic financial crash. Instead, the IRB is a police state, led by ACID, a fearsomely authoritarian organisation. Marriage has been abandoned in favour of life partnering - the state tells you who to live with and whether or not you can have a child. Contact with the outside world is forbidden. Society is divided, with a tiny wealthy elite and a huge mass of an underclass living in poverty and shortage. Full review...
Heroic by Phil Earle
Jammy and Sonny McGann are brothers from the notorious Ghost estate. They and their friends are always there for each other - and with the drugs and violence that dominate the place where they live, they need to be. In particular, Sonny needs his older brother to keep an eye out for him and make the plans for their group. Then Jammy and his mate Tommo join the army and go off to Afghanistan, and Sonny's left to hold the fort at home. With his brother no longer there to look after him, can Sonny keep it together? And when Jammy returns, how will things change? Full review...
After Tomorrow by Gillian Cross
We were looking at a long line of people trudging down a country road. They were loaded with bundles and backpacks and babies and they all looked miserable and exhausted. Refugees, I thought automatically. But they weren't. They were people like us.
After Armageddon Monday - the collapse of all the major banks in the UK - life has become increasingly difficult for Matt and his family. Money is worthless. Food is the main currency. People who have it are resented and hated. They're named and shamed on hoarder websites and subject to violent raids by those who don't. Matt's family has more food than most because they have an allotment and have set up a trading network. But the raiders don't care about how they got their food. They just want it. Full review...
Follow Me Down by Tanya Byrne
Adamma Okomma, daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, isn't keen on moving to boarding school, even the exclusive Crofton College in Wiltshire. However, after arriving there, she quickly makes friends with the beautiful but unpredictable Scarlett. What seems like a beautiful friendship, though, is torn apart when both girls fall for the same guy. After Scarlett goes missing, can Adamma put their problems behind her? Full review...
The Maleficent Seven by Derek Landy
The arrival of Darquesse, the sorcerer destined to destroy the civilised world, is on the horizon. For most people, the obliteration of billions of lives might be something to worry about. In times gone by, Tanith Low would've been on the forefront of the side of good, fighting to protect the world from Darquesse. But now that she has a Remnant bonded to her soul, her conscience has been erased and she has become one of the worst of the bad guys, and all she wants to do is to usher in the end of the world. There are four weapons with the power to kill gods, scattered around the world, and two teams desperately hunting them down. Tanith Low leads a group of dangerous villainous misfits determined to find the weapons and destroy them, and it is up to Dexter Vex, good friend of Skulduggery Pleasant, along with a team of renegade sorcerers, to find these weapons before the others. Full review...
LIGHT by Michael Grant
The dome has become transparent. The teens, and kids, in the FAYZ, are still trapped inside, but now they can see out - and their parents, and others, can see in. With interviews taking place by primitive methods, the outside world are starting to find out just how violent life has been, and this is just adding to the worries of Sam, Astrid, and the rest. How will the world receive them when they get out - or rather, if they get out? The gaiaphage, having taken human form as Caleb and Diane's rapidly-maturing daughter, is as evil as ever, and with Drake as its servant, is destroying anyone in his path. Can those left alive inside the FAYZ survive? Full review...
The Secret of Ella and Micha by Jessica Sorensen
Ella and Micha haven’t seen each other for months, quite unusual for a couple who have been best friends forever. Ella’s been away at college, in Vegas, but Micha didn’t know this as she upped and left without so much as a wave goodbye, so he’s been trying to track her down. But, just as he does so, she shows up back home anyway as it’s summer break and she’s back at her dad’s, the house she grew up in, the house next door to Micha. Full review...
The Hit by Melvin Burgess
Manchester. About thirty years from now. Hardly anyone has a job that pays enough to live on. Life is mean and limited for most people. And then a rock star gives his final concert. Jimmy Earles dies on stage after taking Death, a new drug that gives the ultimate high at an equally high price - it kills you after seven days and there is no antidote. Full review...
Going Vintage by Lindsey Leavitt
After finding out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her with a girl he met online, Mallory decides that the best way to make her life less complicated is to get rid of the boy, and of the new technology that's the cause of her woes. Finding a list her grandmother wrote as a teen in the Sixties, she decides to go vintage, and live as her grandmother did. Will she find the answer to her modern-day problems in the past? Full review...
