Difference between revisions of "Newest Teens Reviews"

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Shadowlark by Meagan Spooner

Lark escaped the city of her birth after being tortured and stripped of her magic by its architects. Lark's post-apocalyptic world runs on magic and there isn't enough of it about. So Renewables - people whose magic will replenish after it is drained - are in demand - not as people but as a resource. But the architects have made Lark different. She can drain the magic of others and use it herself. We last saw Lark when she escaped the Iron Wood and went in search of her missing brother Basil. Full review...

Debutantes: In Love by Cora Harrison

Poppy and Daisy Derrington leave Beech Green Manor to launch themselves in London. The pair know they need to marry well as their father is in dire financial straits - but marriage is something of a distraction to their real dreams of films and music. Can they find themselves love and happiness in the Roaring Twenties? Full review...

The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Cassie Hobbes doesn't feel like an average teenager. Average teenagers don't lose their mothers to unsolved murders. Average teenagers can't profile other people within minutes of acquaintance. Average teenagers aren't headhunted by the FBI to train as specifically-talented crimefighters. Cassie Hobbes is special. Full review...

ZOM-B Baby by Darren Shan

WARNING! If you haven't read the first book in this series, STOP READING NOW! NOW! Spoilers ahoy!

Gone? Good.

The story so far Full review...

How to Love by Katie Cotugno

Katie Cotugno's debut novel How to Love is, unsurprisingly, all about love. It has at its centre Reena and Sawyer, a gritty portrayal of first love. But it also has family love, friendship, and all those other kinds of loves. Full review...

The Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher

Popular girl Ashlee is dead. They’re saying the father of her less-popular classmate Emily is responsible. She cannot accept this, cannot accept that her own father could do something like that, but all the evidence points that way. Emily can’t stop thinking about it. She starts investigating what really happened in the woods that night, but the more she uncovers, the more uneasy she feels. Could her father actually be the one who killed Ashlee? And should she stop digging before she unearths something really unpleasant? Full review...

She Is Not Invisible by Marcus Sedgwick

Laureth is used to her father's writerly obsessions and enthusiasms. She's accepted the fact that he will hare off across the world in search of some obscure information for a story, and the fact that he rarely asks her about herself and her life at school, preferring to lecture her instead about his latest theory. He even pays her to answer the fan mail on his website for him. And, like it or not, there's nothing she can do about the barely suppressed hostility that has grown in recent years between her parents. Full review...

The Twistrose Key by Tone Almhjell

Lin and her family are living in a rented house in the city because Lin's mother has been given her dream job as professor of traditional songs at the university. Lin's novelist father doesn't mind: he can write and play at riddling in the city as well as anywhere. But Lin hates it. She misses the farm where she was brought up and she misses playing at troll-hunting with her friend Niklas. But most of all, she misses her pet vole, Rufus, who is buried under a rosebush. Full review...

Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge by Andrew Lane

All Sherlock's deductive powers are called into play as he struggles to find out exactly what is happening in a remote castle on the coast of Galway. How did the servant die, and why did she lose her shoes? Is there really a Dark Beast roaming the local beaches and caves as the villagers claim? And more significantly for world peace, is the self-proclaimed psychic Ambrose Albano a fraud, or can he really find out, and thus reveal, the secrets of international espionage from those beyond the grave? Full review...

The Box of Red Brocade (Chronoptika) by Catherine Fisher

Ok. Let's catch you up. Jake's father is still lost in time. Venn's wife is still dead. Summer, the Queen of the Shee, still hasn't made Venn her husband. Sarah still hasn't prevented the destruction of the future by Janus. And the Scarred Man still hasn't done, well, whatever it is that he's trying to do. The Chronoptika, a mirror made of black obsidian and a time travel device, connects Jake, Venn, Sarah and the rest, but they all want different things from it. Can they all be satisfied? It doesn't look likely. Full review...

Fire With Fire by Siobhan Vivian and Jenny Han

With Reeve hospitalised after the terrible events at the end of Burn for Burn, Lillia, Kat and Mary must face the fallout. Mary is desperate for revenge despite the other two starting to have cold feet, but they agree to go through with their plan in order to give her the satisfaction of seeing his heart broken. As Lillia pretends to fall for the boy, though, she sees another side to Reeve and starts to wonder if he's as bad as Mary says he is. Can their friendship hold up under the strain of all the secrets and lies? Full review...

Wereworld: War of the Werelords by Curtis Jobling

With the Catlords at each other's throats, there appears to finally be a chance for Drew Ferran and his allies to win the war and bring peace to Lyssia. Stacked against him, though, are still fearsome foes - including the dreadful Wyld Wolves, mockeries of lycanthropes. Meanwhile Drew's adoptive brother Trent, bitten by one of the vile creatures, knows that he is doomed to become one but is determined to gain his revenge before he loses control. As the opposing forces gather, huge armies could decide the fate of the Seven Realms... but in Icegarden, perhaps the most deadly force of them all still has a part to play in this war. Full review...

The Company of Ghosts by Berlie Doherty

Morag's family has its very own island. Tiny and remote, it is truly wild and wonderful. And the offer to spend some time there with them couldn't have come at a better time for Ellie, whose parents have just divorced. She'll be able to escape Mum and Angus. And she'll be able to paint for her father. But things don't work out quite as planned. To begin with, awkward, diffident Ellie has to spend the first night on the island alone with George, Morag's brusque older brother. And then George returns to the mainland to pick up supplies. He doesn't return.

Abandoned, Ellie begins to see shadows. Hear footsteps. Feel icy kisses on her cheek each time she falls asleep... Full review...

Model Misfit (Geek Girl 2) by Holly Smale

Harriet Manners has the opportunity of a lifetime. She's been asked to go and model in Japan, a country she's always wanted to visit. Struggling from a break-up with Nick, best friend Nat being sent abroad for the summer, and her father and Annabel preparing for a new baby, this should be exactly what she needs. Of course, for Harriet, life is never quite that simple... Full review...

In Bloom by Matthew Crow

Member of a loving but dysfunctional family, life has rarely been straightforward for Francis Wooton, and he is no stranger to heartbreak. Despite this, he's always maintained sensible plans, to get good grades in his GCSEs and A Levels, and get into University, where he'll finally meet his real friends and the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately, a whole new world of worry presents itself when he is diagnosed with leukaemia. He knows his mother and brother will do everything and anything they can to support him, but even they can do little to ease the constant nausea, the all-pervasive pain, the horror of imminent baldness and the general bleak agony that cancer brings. But every cloud has a silver lining, and it is at the hospital unit that Francis first sets eyes on Amber, a girl unlike anyone else he has met before. Amber makes Francis feel more alive than ever, and if anything can help cure the despair of cancer, first love might just be it. Full review...

Unbreakable by Kami Garcia

Set up centuries ago to fight the threat of a malevolent demon, the Legion is a secret society consisting of just five members at any one time, tasked with the responsibility of fighting and exorcising spirits. When all five members are murdered on the same night, their responsibility suddenly falls to five teenagers. Twins Jared and Lukas, Priest and Alara have been trained from a young age in the skills required to track, fight and destroy vengeance spirits. However, for Kennedy, who knows nothing of her mother's role in the Legion, everything is overwhelmingly new and highly dangerous. She will have to learn fast, as she cannot afford to be a liability as the team prepares to take on a mission with the utmost of stakes. Full review...

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

With the ley lines waking, things are changing around Cabeswater. Ronan is getting more and more adept at bringing his dreams to life, Gansey is needed at home, and Adam has made some mysterious new friends. At the centre of it all, Blue has to try to cope with her curse and her feelings for the Raven Boys. Full review...

Resist (Breathe) by Sarah Crossan

Resist carries on where Breathe left off. To catch you up: deforestation has resulted in environmental catastrophe and the world is a ravaged place in which there isn't enough oxygen to fully sustain human life. A corporation, Breathe, runs the Pod, whose inhabitants are divided into Premiums (plenty of oxygen) and Auxiliaries (barely enough). Outside, drifters struggle to survive. With one alternative to the Pod - The Grove - destroyed by the Pod Ministry, Alina, Bea and Quinn, our three central characters, set out on separate, but equally perilous, journeys to find the other, Sequoia. And back in the Pod, Ronan is rethinking the world he thought he lived in but didn't. Full review...

Ninja: First Mission (Ninja Trilogy) by Chris Bradford and Sonia Leong

Dyslexia Friendly

If you are looking for adventure, Ninja First Mission will certain come up trumps. This book never has a slow moment. But even as the story races along at breakneck speed, there is plenty to think about as well. This book has as much to offer the deep thinker as the adrenaline junky. Tata, a young Ninja in training, is desperate to prove himself. He has failed the test for his black belt three times, but this was just a simple test. The sacred scrolls of his clan have been stolen, and all of the fully fledged Ninja but one are away on another mission. Tata faces another test, but this time the stakes are life and death, not only for himself, but for his clan. In order to succeed Tata must learn to find victory in failure. Most of all he must learn to believe in himself. Full review...

Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with a feather in her hair...

Tiger Lily tells the story of Neverland after Peter Pan arrived but before Wendy came. Our narrator is Tink, the silent, sometimes jealous, fairy. And our heroine is Tiger Lily, the native girl who is strange even to her fellow villagers. Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories but when she meets Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland, her heart burns with a fire she had never expected. Full review...

United We Spy (Gallagher Girls) by Ally Carter

The Circle of Cavan are still on the hunt for Cammie Morgan. Their other plans, though, might be even more terrible than their hunt for the young spy. Can Cammie and her friends save themselves, and take down the Circle before they carry out their deadly mission? Full review...

The Skull in the Woods by Sandra Greaves

Dartmoor wasn't exactly Matt's first choice as a place to spend his school holidays. He barely knows his Uncle or cousins, and there was obviously some bad blood between members of the family. But his father was away for the summer, as were most of his friends and he couldn't stand another day in the house with his mother's new boyfriend, especially as their relationship was dashing any hopes Matt might have held of his parents ever reuniting. But whatever the trouble may have been between Matt's mother and his now dead Aunt Rose, his Uncle Jack has welcomed Matt into his home and treated the boy with all the kindness one might expect for a prodigal son. His youngest cousin Kitty seems delighted to have a new member of the family to play with as well, but Tilda, who is near his own age can't stand him and is determined to have this interloping city dweller out of the way as quickly as possible. Matt treats Tilda with same contempt, with the two children carrying on where their feuding parents left off. Full review...

The Waking World (The Future King) by Tom Huddleston

Many tales have been told of the boy who became our greatest king. Very few have spoken of the future...

Aran is the son of one of the Island's wealthiest Laws. He lives in the underground farmstead of Hawk's Cross. He wants for nothing. But Aran is not entirely happy. Rumours are everywhere and the Island is under threat. Bands of fierce men known as Marauders are beginning to attack further and further inland, burning homes and taking slaves. Aran wants to join the fight against them but that task has been given to his older brother. Aran's future lies in overseeing the farmstead and it's not a future he wants. Full review...

Fire & Ash by Jonathan Maberry

ALERT! Spoilers for early books in the Rot & Ruin series are scattered throughout this review. So if you haven't read the others, get thee over to my words about book one. Full review...

Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan

Kami Glass' hometown is about to become ground zero for a sorcerer fight for supremacy. And the sorcerers aren't bothered about humans becoming collateral damage - in fact, one faction wants a human sacrifice to increase the power of their magic. Full review...

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

In the future, vampires exist, and everyone knows it. To try and deal with the problem of vampirism, cities have been given to the monsters and designated Coldtowns – walled cities where people can enter, but hardly ever leave. With these cities broadcast on TV 24 hours a day, they look glamorous – but those just watching can’t see the deadliness behind the glitz. Seventeen-year-old Tana is about to find out. Along with her ex-boyfriend Aiden, who’s just been infected by a vampire and has to go without drinking blood for eighty eight days or turn into one himself, and a mysterious vampire named Gavriel, she’s headed for the largest Coldtown of them all. Can they get there – and if they do, will any of them survive? Full review...

Haunted by William Hussey

Emma Rhodes is haunted by the memory of her younger brother Richie, whose death has torn apart her family and left Emma plagued by intense guilt. But when the arrival of a mysterious boy, Nick Redway, heralds the arrival of spirits of the dead to Milton Lake, Emma finds herself being haunted by altogether more dangerous entities. The 'unmade' are spirits of people who died violent, unexpected deaths, now corrupt and desperate to possess living flesh. A necromancer is calling the dead back to the world using the fabled Ghost Machine. The more the machine is used, the weaker the gates between life and death grow, until nothing can stop the unmade being unleashed upon the town. Only Nick seems to know how to fight the ghosts, and Emma must help him to find the necromancer operating the Ghost Machine, before all hell breaks loose. Full review...

More Than This by Patrick Ness

Here is the boy, drowning.

And Seth does drown. He is alone; taken by the sea, arms and legs flailing and breaking, skull dashed against the rocks whilst the icy water constricts his muscles and breath. Seth is consciously aware of his final moments. His death consumes him with a heavy, confusing blur until… he awakens and finds himself in a desolate, shattered world; naked, alone, starving and alive. This place looks familiar. It looks exactly like the English village where he spent his early childhood before his brother’s accident and his family’s move to America, but it is now overgrown and devoid of human life. It is as if the whole place was simply abandoned one day. Full review...

The Lord of Opium by Nancy Farmer

At last! A long-awaited sequel to Nancy Farmer's acclaimed House of the Scorpion, in which she explored the life of a little boy who was created solely to provide organs for the failing body of a drug lord. Matt's story was exciting and heartbreaking - would you want to find out you were a clone? It was also incredibly thought-provoking, exploring ideas of prejudice, power, courage, love and sacrifice. And it all took place in a dystopian future in which the drug trade was all but legitimised and in which people are enslaved by microchips in the brain. Full review...

The 100 by Kass Morgan

Nuclear war has rendered the Earth uninhabitable for centuries. The remains of human society, a colony of people that managed to escape the cataclysm, live out their lives on massive city-like spaceships. Unfortunately, the spaceships are becoming unsustainable and as resources begin to run out, the Council is forced to introduce strict new plans and measures in an attempt to protect the remaining population. With options running out, a dangerous mission is conceived as a desperate roll of the dice: one hundred juvenile delinquents are sent to the Earth to test if the planet can once more sustain life. There is no telling what the remaining radiation will do to the teenagers, but in this hardened society, this is a risk worth taking. Full review...

Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper

I loved Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising Sequence, but as surprised as I am to say this - this book is far better. While still suitable for older children, this is definitely a book that adults will want to read as well. The book is more mature than her early works, and while obviously gifted from the start, Cooper's talents have matured as well. This book is nothing short of a masterpiece. Full review...

Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men by Derek Landy

Kingdom of the Wicked left the magical world reeling and on the precipice of conflict, a conflict that erupts into full out war between Sanctuaries. Although the Supreme Council has vastly superior numbers, Ireland is home to some of the most powerful sorcerers in the world, including the legendary Dead Men, creating a formula for endless violence. But this is no straightforward war. Friends and former allies suddenly find themselves on opposing sides of the conflict, and not everyone is prepared to follow orders. Then there is the threat of an army of Warlocks, gathering to attack the mortal population, and thereby reveal the magical population to the world. And despite Roarhaven being the new site for the Irish Sanctuary, can its population, including the secretive Children of The Spider, really be trusted? And looming above all this chaos is the greatest threat of all: Darquesse. Valkyrie knows that she doesn't have any more second chances. If she succumbs to that sinister voice in her head, the lure of that incredible power, she will watch everyone she cares about die by her own hand. Full review...

Hurt by Tabitha Suzuma

Matheo is a golden boy. His family is wealthy and he wants for nothing. He goes to a prestigious private school. Oxbridge beckons. He is a champion diver and a hot prospect for the upcoming Olympics. He moves in the most desirable circles. And he has a beautiful, hot girlfriend in Lola. Most boys would give their eye teeth to be Matheo. Full review...

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

Paul is gay, and confident in his sexuality. With a loving, supportive family, he doesn't have to hide his feelings. Life seems pretty good to him - but falling in love can change everything. Full review...

Ostrich by Matt Greene

General Fiction

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon deserves every piece of praise it received, as a children's novel with plenty to interest older readers and a wonderful way of portraying Asperger's Syndrome through its narrator, Christopher Boone. Ostrich by Matt Greene follows quite similar lines, although this time the narrator, Alex, has a brain tumour. Full review...

Arclight by Josin L McQuein

Many years into the future, after terrifying monsters called the Fade have taken over most of our world, the survivors have banded together in the refuge of the Arclight. With nowhere to go, they stay within their wall of light - until a teenage girl Marina comes out of the Dark and finds them. Marina, though, has lost her memory. What is her secret, why are the Fade taking such a special interest in her, and can she help her rescuers fight back against them? Full review...

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