Difference between revisions of "Newest Teens Reviews"

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[[Category:Teens|*]]
 
[[Category:Teens|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Teens]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Teens]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
==Teens==
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Leanne Egan
{{newreview
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|title=Lover Birds
|author=Ellie Irving
 
|title=For the Record
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Luke is obsessed with records. He's so busy planning on breaking world records when he grows up, and playing world records DVD games, that he doesn't take much of an interest in what's going on around him. But that's about to change, because when the village of Port Bren is chosen to host a waste-incinerator plant his house will be demolished and the graveyard where his dad's buried will be destroyed – unless the village is too historically important for this to happen. How can they put themselves on the map in one week? Luke comes up with the idea to break 50 world records… but why won't his mum let him take part?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370331982</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Yasutaka Tsutsui
 
|title=The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Kazuko is clearing up her school science lab after hours when something strange happens.  She appears to disturb an intruder busy doing some kind of chemistry experiment - one that leaves a lavender scent to the room.  She faints, and comes to to find no trace of any disturbance.  But things get weirder - she starts to see her and her schoolfriends enduring disaster after disaster.  Has she now got powers of premonition, or is something odder at foot?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184688134X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Don Calame
 
|title=Swim the Fly
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Matt and his friends, Coop and Sean, set themselves a challenge every summer. This year, with fifteenth birthdays under their belts and hormones a-go-go, their goal is to see a girl - any girl - naked. They know it won't be easy but, as Coop insists, it's step one in a very important and natural order of things. I'll let you draw your own conclusions as to what the final step could be...
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|summary=When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it?  Because Lou is straight, isn't she?  Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them?  So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848774532</amazonuk>
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|isbn=000862657X
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|author=Matt Haig
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|title=Wild East
|title=The Radleys
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Rowan Radley is a freak who has to wear factor 60 sunblock. Clara is wasting away as she tries to turn vegan. Their parents are a normal suburban couple – aren't they? When a bully tries to take advantage of Clara in a secluded field, he finds he's bitten off rather more than he can chew – and she's bitten off rather more than he can survive without. Who do you call when you need a body to be buried? Abstainers Peter and Helen haven't had to deal with this sort of thing since they gave up drinking human blood – so in a moment of desperation they turn to Will, Peter's brother, who's rather more of a traditional vampire. Things are about to get messy…
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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>1406330280</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Maria V Snyder
 
|title=Outside In
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Although the revelation that Inside, a society crammed into a self-contained cube-shaped metal hull, is actually floating through space came as a shock to the population of Inside, both the Uppers and the Lowers of society expected life to get better after the success of the revolution and the deposition of the tyrannical Travas. However, Trella learns that setting up a new society that smooths over the divides and prejudices that consumed the old one is a cumbersome process. When bombs start exploding and violence begins to flare, a new potent threat has to be confronted by the divided population of Inside, in the form of Outsiders.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778304132</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Franny Billingsley
 
|title=Chime
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Briony is a witch. She's ready to be hanged 'now, please.' She's an engaging and captivating central character struggling to cope with the death of her beloved stepmother and looking after her slightly deranged twin sister Rose. And she can talk to the Old Ones, a crew of supernatural spirits who are best compared to ghostly rejects from 'Cold Comfort Farm'. Chime is in turns beguiling, frustrating, enjoyable and annoying.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747583811</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|author=Moira Young
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|title=Blood Red Road
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=
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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.
Saba has lived in the desolation surrounding the dried-up Silverlake for all of her eighteen years. The family has just one neighbour - a chaal addict, so not exactly sociable - so Saba's only companions are her father, her twin brother Lugh, and younger sister Emmi. Saba worships Lugh, resents Emmi for their mother's death in childbirth, and is confused by her father, who believes he can read the future in the stars. But it's all she knows and as long as Lugh is close, she's happy enough.  
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|isbn=1471196585
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407124250</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Gill Lewis
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=Sky Hawk
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Rob and Euan want to chase Iona McNair off Callum's farm. She's newly returned to the village, staying with her grandfather, her mother nowhere to be seen. It's a close community and rumours abound - and Iona is a bit of a pariah amongst the children. But something about her draws Callum in and Iona returns the favour by trusting him with her deepest secret: she's found an osprey's nest high above the loch and she's desperate to protect the endangered birds. And so the two of them forge a friendship as they try to keep Iris and her mate out of harm's way.
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|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky.  For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192756230</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Cat Patrick
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|title=Compass and Blade
|title=Forgotten
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=''Here's the thing about me: I can see the future in flashes, like memories. But my past is a blank. I remember what I'll wear tomorrow, and argument that won't happen until this afternoon. But I don't know what I ate for dinner last night.''
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|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
  
As you can imagine, life is quite tricky for London. At 4.33am every morning, her memory resets.  
+
Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405253614</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008664730
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Harry Allen
|author=Lauren Oliver
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|title=Children of the Sun
|title=Delirium
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Imagine a world without love... Where romance was dead, parents felt no affection for their children, and Romeo and Juliet was studied as a cautionary tale. Lena's world has nearly reached that stage. The cure has been found for amor deliria nervosa, and is given to all children when they reach the age of 18. After her mother's suicide for love Lena is desperate to reach that age and receive the cure. She knows things will change - she's seen the effect it has on those who go through it and the way it makes them all calmer - but she's ready to welcome it. And then she meets a boy, and her views on love are turned completely upside down. But with the date of the cure so close, can she possibly do anything about her new feelings?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340980915</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Cliff McNish
 
|title=The Hunting Ground
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=When Elliott and Ben move into Glebe House with their father, a professional renovater, they don't expect anything other than another short pause in their peripatetic lives. Elliott kind of wishes the family could put down some roots, but there is something to be said for staying in huge mansions with grounds to explore. But right from the start things aren't as they should be. Why does Elliott wake at night, feeling afraid? Why is Ben lying about going into the abandoned East Wing? Who is the old lady with the dead flowers pinned to her dress? And why is the house full of pictures of a previous owner, all with a hunting theme?
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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>1444001922</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1805140493
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alexia Casale
|author=Bryony Pearce
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|title=Angel's Fury
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=From the very first lines of this powerful story we are dragged into a terrifying world where Cassie's nightmares are so real she continues to feel the pain of the injuries even after she has woken up. She fights sleep, dreading the bullet-ridden agony, the screams of family and playmates, and the awful, breathless hunt through the field of barley until at last the gun fires again, ending Zillah's life. Such a nightmare would shake a person for days afterwards . . . but Cassie goes through this night after night after night.
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|summary=It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate a life-changing disability too, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle of a dance performance that was going to change her life.  But she comes back fighting, desperate to avoid the pity stares, and desperate to get back to a life that's as normal as she can possibly manage.  Meanwhile there's a new (cute!) boy in school, her music A Level performance piece to try to sort out, and just the day to day traumas of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigate.  So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405251352</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571373801
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|author=Tom Clempson
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|title=Deadlock
|title=One Seriously Messed-Up Week: in the Otherwise Mundane and Uneventful Life of Jack Samsonite
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Teens
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|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the run.  They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions.
|summary=Jack is an endearing lad with all the uncertainties, desires and preoccupations of his ilk. One minute he is worshipping the lovely Eleanor from afar, praising her as a pure and beautiful angel, and the next he is comparing the merits of various girls' mammary glands with his mates. He plays it cool but constantly frets about looking like an idiot; he wants to do well in his exams but skips class with barely a qualm, and he rarely allows something as unimportant as a lesson to intrude on his conversations. He is, in fact, that collection of contradictions, anxieties and bravadoes which is known as the average teenage boy.
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|isbn=1839944420
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907410554</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lex Croucher
|author=Alex Woolf
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
|title=Chronosphere: Time Out of Time
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=It's the 22nd Century, and finally the ideal gap year is availableBefore being forced into a career prescribed him by his big society, Raffi buys his way into the Chronosphere, whereby his body will live in stasis for one minute in general time, while passing a year of sunny hedonism, with sports, shopping, girls and partying in a perfect idyll of mod-consBut of course all is not well in paradiseHis peers have a habit of vanishing without trace, and who knows? - even his newly-found friends may have something to do with it.
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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 wayIn 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 diariesAnd 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 attachmentsBut as their impending wedding draws ever closer, will they find a way in which they can both truly be themselves, or are they destined to live a lie their whole lives?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907184554</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526651793
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nick Brooks
|author=Alex Epstein
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|title=Promise Boys
|title=The Circle Cast
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Anna is just a girl of eleven, when her father is involved in protecting the British Isles from the Saxon invaders.  But, when the warlord Uter Pendragon decides to claim her mother Ygraine as his, with lethal consequences, things changeHer locale - from southwestern England, to sanctuary in Ireland.  Her standpoint - from proud young girl absorbing some passed-down military knowledge, to a young woman of magic, bent on vengeanceAnd her name - from Anna, to Morgan.
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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 suspectsEach, seemingly, has a grudge of some description against Principal Moore, and each could have been there at the time of his murderBut who killed him, and why, and if any of the boys are innocent, will they be able to clear their names?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1896580637</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035003155
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1919635017
|author=Colin Mulhern
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|title=Clash
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|author=Kitt Townsend
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Alex Crow is the sort of kid who you stay well away from, whether you're the nerdy classroom joker or the loudmouthed bully of the class. From Kyle's point of view he appears to be a disturbed psycho, with barely restrained brutality, and he does everything possible to avoid him. However, events conspire to bring the two together, and we learn that there is a lot more to both characters than first impressions seem to imply. As tensions mount and stakes are upped, it is down to a tortured Alex to overcome his internal confusion, fight to save those close to him, and redeem himself as a person.
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|summary= Solomon Klyne isn't a bad lad, so why is he running around London committing a series of robberies? And how did he learn to crack safes? You'll have to wait to get an answer to the second question because I avoid spoilers. But I'll answer the first one: for his grandmother...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846471168</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|author=John Marsden
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|title=Different for Boys
|title=Tomorrow When The War Began
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Ellie and her friends are going to Hell. On a camping trip, that is. Taking enough supplies to last a week, the Australian teens are determined to have fun in the remotest part of the bush and get to know each other a little better. Or a lot better in certain cases… The week goes well, but all too soon it’s time to
 
leave. Except when they get back, it’s to find their worlds have been turned completely upside down. Their farms are devastated, animals dead or dying, and families nowhere to be found. How can this have happened, and is it related to the mysterious planes they saw flying overhead on Commemoration Day? The teens set out to find out what happened to their families and work out just how they can survive.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857387332</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Carol Lynch Williams
 
|title=Miles From Ordinary
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Teens  
|summary=Lacey wakes up one summer morning ready to start her new job at the library. Maybe she'll actually make her first real friend. It's also Lacey's mother's first day too, working at the local grocery store. But, Lacey's mother is ill – she hears voices, or to be more specific she hears the voice of Lacey's dead Grandfather telling her what to do. But they need the money after Lacey's mother spent all their money on tinned food ready for the end of the world that Lacey's Grandfather had told her was coming. Everything starts off well, and Lacey even manages to become friends with one of the cool kids, Aaron, on the bus to the library. But, as the day goes on Lacey's memories come flooding back and what started off as a normal day starts to spiral out of control.
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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>0312555121</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529509491
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1800901232
|author=Megan Abbott
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|title=Stitched Up
|title=The End of Everything
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|author=Steve Cole
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
 +
|summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be a fashion designer.  Life in the rural village where she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperous, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came to the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be missed.  Some money changed hands and Hanh was on the mini-bus to Hanoi.  Only, Hanh and the other girls were not going to work in a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factory.  You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legs?  The ones with the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched them?  It's quite possible that Hanh and her co-workers made them.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Patrice Lawrence
 +
|title=Needle
 +
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=On the surface this book is about the disappearance of a thirteen-year-old girl. Her best friend and neighbour Lizzie relates how she searches for clues, how she discovers that a local man may be involved, and how Evie and Lizzie's families struggle to cope. But look again at the title. What really unfolds here is the story of the effect a single incident has on three families, not two, how that one event came about, and why nothing will ever be the same for everyone involved. It is a book which is complex, deep and very, very intense.
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|summary=Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers both.  Kicked out of multiple homes and schools, she's fostering with a pleasant yoga tutor, Annie, and has taken up residence in her son Blake's old room while he's at uni. Such a tempestuous personality may be in need of a comfort blanket, you might perhaps think, and the creation of one such item is part of the plot here, as Charlene is a wonder knitter, and is making something full of love for her younger sister – a younger sister she's allowed contact with no more. We see Charlene prove her belligerence with a store detective, and then force people to give her two days off school, when she shouts someone down as expletively ignorant. And then... well, what exactly happens is not for me to say, only to remark how sharp and pointy those knitting needles can be...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330535455</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800901011
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Ann Sei Lin
|author=Kevin Crossley-Holland
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|title= Rebel Skies
|title=Bracelet of Bones (Viking Sagas)
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|rating= 5
|rating=4
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|genre= Teens
|genre=Confident Readers
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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…
|summary=It's 1036 in Trondheim, Norway. Solveig lives with her father, stepmother and stepbrothers. Her mother died many years ago and neither Solveig nor her father Halfdan have ever truly recovered. Before his injury, Halfdan was a Viking mercenary and his dearest wish is to rejoin his old commander, Harald Hardrada in Miklagard (Constantinople). He promises Solveig that, should the call ever come, he will take her with him...
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|isbn=1406399590
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249396</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|author=Justin Richards
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|title=Wrath
|title=The School of Night: Creeping Terror
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=When a boy and his father enter a village asking for directions, the unexpected happens. They find all the inhabitants observing a WWII blackout, and thinking it's 1943.  But it's definitely 2011.  Luckily the lad belongs to the School of Night, an arcane institute of ghost-hunters where merely talking to the shade of your dead sister could come across as a fail.  It will still take a lot of pluck and smarts from staff and students to solve the problem of the ghost village of Templeton, and the evil barriers surrounding it.
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|summary=Meet Fitz, a young Scottish lad full of frustration at himself. Lockdown is only just over, and he should be free to do what he wants, to go where he wants and with whom he wants, but he cannot stop himself from putting his foot in it when he talks to his best friend, Cassie. They were half of a desultory school band, but Cassie was also one hundred per cent the enigmatic – saying she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earth. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying the end of the world is already a done deal? Is it some spooky new kind of music she's dreaming of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out the truth? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he can't...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571245099</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800900899
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ali Sparkes
 
|title=Unleashed : A Life and Death Job
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=A new series about what happens when Britain's most important and secret assets - teenagers with paranormal abilities - get a week's holiday. In book one, Lisa gets involved with kidnapping and assassination attempts. And she only wanted to go shopping at Harvey Nicks!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192756060</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=Rachel Hawkins
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|title=The Devil Makes Three
|title=Hex Hall: Raising Demons
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Raising Demons (published in the US under the title Demonglass) is the second book in a planned trilogy about a teenager who has strong magical powers. This review may contain spoilers for the first book in the series, [[Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins|Hex Hall]]; the book certainly does.
+
|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>1847387233</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789098130
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|author=Martyn Bedford
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|title=Flip
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=With no warning, no hint of anything wrong or out of the ordinary in his life, Alex wakes up one morning having lost six months of his life and in a foreign house filled with strangers; the morning turns from weird and scary, to outright crazy and terrifying when Alex discovers that the body he has woken up in is not his own but that of a boy called Philip, or ''Flip'' for short. Before he has time to even contemplate the horrifying possibility that he isn't dreaming or hallucinating, and is actually stuck in the body of a boy who he has never seen before, Alex is forced to face a day in the life of Philip Garamond, literally. As he goes through every possible route of enquiry, every logical way to at least make sense of his situation, if not try to reverse it, growing panic sets in and a chaotic, thrilling, and truly frightening sequence of events are set off.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406329894</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Rosalie Warren
 
|title=Coping With Chloe
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Anna and Chloe are twins who share everything. If anything, the terrible accident Chloe suffered has brought them closer. Apart from teacher Miss Tough and new boy Joe, though, everyone seems worried by Anna's references to her twin. They seem to think Chloe's dead – but can't they understand the two girls are just sharing a body? Then Chloe falls for Joe, who Anna likes herself, and Anna is left trying to see how this could ever work…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907912029</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jenny Nimmo
 
|title=The Secret Kingdom
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Protected by a moon cloak, a ring, and three mysteriously powerful leopards, Timoken the magician and his camel Gabar seek a new home after the boy is forced to flee the secret kingdom. But will they ever find peace with the vicious viradees on their trail? This prequel to the Charlie Bone series contains new and old characters, including a couple of brief cameos from Charlie himself, but is well worth reading as a stand-alone or introduction to the series if you've never heard of it.
+
|summary=In a word, rich. There is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on it, and sea-witches, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it or not.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405257326</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Sarah Blakley-Cartwirght
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|title=Red Riding Hood
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Ok, the biggest let down of this book was the missing chapter at the end, which will be made available after the film is released – bad move. I understand that it's meant to keep people interested in it, and not spoil the film, but honestly, it's just frustrating, Now, my book will be forever incomplete – not good.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907410821</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Stephens
 
|title=The Emerald Atlas: The Books of Beginning
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Whisked away from their parents in the dead of night ten years ago, Kate, Michael and Emma have seen more than their fair share of orphanages. Nobody wants to adopt three children together - least of all when the youngest has a strong penchant for using her fists whenever she can - and so when we meet them, they're on their way to yet another. But the orphanage at Cambridge Falls is unlike any other. They're the only children in residence, the housekeeper seems to think they are members of the French royal family, and the town is in the middle of a barren wasteland and is bereft of children.
+
|summary=Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a summer, in the far NE of the Scottish islands. Here be Vikings, that kind of Scottish island. Dad is going to be automating the lantern, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark. And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857530186</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1510107789
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=M J Putney
 
|title=Dark Mirror
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Born around a hundred years after the nobility decided that magic was a tool which should be used only by commoners, when Tory Mansfield discovers she can float in the air she knows she must keep it to herself. Until a terrible accident leaves her powers as the only thing that can save one of her family, and she's forced to reveal herself and face disgrace and humiliation. For an outed mage in London's high society there's only one thing that can be done – a
 
spell in Lackland Abbey, the school which can cure youngsters of magic. Not everyone at Lackland wants to be cured, though… and Tory needs to decide whether her powers are a curse or a gift.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0312622848</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sarah Singleton
 
|title=The Stranger
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=After the the events of ''The Island'', Otto, Jen and Charlie have gone their separate gap year ways. Otto is in Mumbai but isn't having nearly such a good time as he'd anticipated. Jen has moved on from the retreat and is travelling with Kumar, but is getting itchy feet. She's not sure she wants to take things with Kumar any further. But Charlie is ecstatic in her dream job at the tiger sanctuary. It's challenging - poaching and corruption are big problems standing in the way of the sanctuary's funding - but she loves it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857070738</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Janni Howker
 
|title=The Nature of the Beast
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Bill Coward is mature for a child his age – cooking for his father and grandfather (Chunder), undressing his father and putting him to bed when he comes home drunk. So when the mill his father and grandfather work at is closed down, their world is thrown into turmoil. Mike's (Bill's best friend) father has a nervous breakdown. Bill's father goes off to Scotland to work in the oil fields.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406329908</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Frances Hardinge
 
|title=Twilight Robbery
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Mosca and her companions will be familiar to readers of 'Fly By Night', but it is in no way necessary to have read the first volume of her adventures to thoroughly enjoy this book. She is a twelve-year-old orphan, who travels the roads with her homicidal goose, and a rather shifty poet called, charmingly, Eponymous Clent. We meet them just after a particularly energetic display of destruction by the said goose: Eponymous has been thrown into jail until he can pay for the damage, and Mosca is trying to raise some cash by reading aloud an old newspaper to illiterate townsfolk.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405055391</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Judy Bartkowiak
 
|title=NLP For Teens
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Home and Family
 
|summary=
 
NLP For Teens is part of the Engaging NLP series and is a follow-on from NLP for Children. Many a parent has been tempted to leave home when their children are teenagers; difficult as it is for the parents it's a traumatic time for the teens and anything which makes it a little easier is to be applauded particularly when the changes will come from the teens rather than being imposed by the parent.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685901</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Caragh M O'Brien
 
|title=Birthmarked
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Sixteen-year-old Gaia lives in a post-climate change America, near one of the Great Lakes - or the unlake as its waterless hollow is now known. Gaia is a midwife-in-training, following after her mother. For this family, the cool age - that is, our age - is almost forgotten. There is no power in Wharfton, and both water and food is in short supply. But Wharfton sits outside the walled city of Enclave, and things are entirely different there - the scenes of leisure, wealth and plenty are played out on the Tvalter's big screen, which serves as entertainment for Wharfton's residents.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857071394</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|author=Gillian Philip
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|title=The Opposite of Amber
+
|rating= 4
|rating=5
+
|genre= Teens
|genre=Teens
+
|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?
|summary=''Jinn was quick and shining bright; Jinn was motor-mouthed and nurturing... Actually she catered for my every whim to the point where she anticipated it asked for it, spoke for me There was never any need for me to speak and I know I could never say anything as well as she did, so I didn't bother. I didn't resent her or anything. I was proud to be spoken for by Jinn, sparky and bold. I was spoiled voiceless.''
+
|isbn=1406394815
 
 
''Spoiled voiceless'' - isn't that a whole world of meaning contained in just two words?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747599920</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
|author=James Black
 
|title=Robin Hood Vs the Plague Undead (Mash Ups)
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In 1194 AD, strange reports reach Robin Hood and his men in Sherwood Forest. There's an outbreak of plague in Nottingham and its victims are refusing to stay dead...
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Hood vs. The Plague Undead is a 'mash up' of the Robin Hood myth with contemporary zombie tales. All the usual Robin Hood characters are there - Friar Tuck, Little John, the Sheriff of Nottingham - but with loads of zombies thrown in as well. It must be very difficult to bring the two strands together and I don't think the author has quite succeeded. The problem is that both mythologies endure for different reasons and it's hard to fuse them together without compromising the strengths of both – zombies may work better in an urban setting, and having Robin Hood fighting zombies rather than the rich tends to undermine his leftwing credentials.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140831388X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Elizabeth Chandler
 
|title=Evercrossed (Kissed by an Angel)
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=''Evercrossed'' picks up where ''Kissed by an Angel'' left off. After her boyfriend Tristan was killed in a car accident, Ivy took up with Gregory, who turned out to be a serial murderer and all-round bad guy. She was saved from him by a combination of Tristan in angel form, her psychic best friend Beth and stalwart admirer Will. Now the three of them are working at a holiday inn for the summer, alongside Beth's cousin Kelsey and her friend Dhanya. Will is now Ivy's boyfriend but it's almost a year since Tristan died and Ivy is finding herself thinking about him more and more.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389171</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lois Duncan
 
|title=I Know What You Did Last Summer
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=A year ago, four teenagers committed a shocking crime after a party where they all had too much to drink, and overwhelmed by indecision, fear and desperation they made a pact to keep the incidents of the fateful night a secret. However, someone knows their secret and that someone is determined to make them face up to the consequences of their actions. Their binding pact has held together for a year, partly out of the friendship they shared and mostly out of guilt, but when it becomes apparent that there is someone who is looking for revenge, it suddenly becomes deadly important that they face up to the truth, for their own sakes.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907410600</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Will Hill
 
|title=Department 19
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Jamie Carpenter lived a normal, happy, suburban life until the night strange creatures arrived at his house and men in black combats with strange, ultra-violent weapons burst in and executed his father. Since then, Jamie and his mother have lived in a succession of miserable, dour little houses and Jamie has become less and less interested in a succession of miserable, dour little schools. He resents his mother, like all good disaffected teenagers do.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007354452</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=K M Grant
 
|title=Belle's Song
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Chaucer was a fascinating bloke. Not only did he write the famous Canterbury Tales, but he also found the time and courage to be a spy for the king at a time of civil unrest and political intrigue in Britain. So a story set during one of his journeys, one which combines his secret work and some of the more memorable characters from the tales, is an intriguing proposition, metaphorically as well as literally. Add a dreamy, motherless girl whose guilt at causing her father's accident only reinforces her tendency to self-harm and obsessive behaviour, and a cracking good plot emerges.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849164088</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

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Review of

Wrath by Marcus Sedgwick

4.5star.jpg Teens

Meet Fitz, a young Scottish lad full of frustration at himself. Lockdown is only just over, and he should be free to do what he wants, to go where he wants and with whom he wants, but he cannot stop himself from putting his foot in it when he talks to his best friend, Cassie. They were half of a desultory school band, but Cassie was also one hundred per cent the enigmatic – saying she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earth. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying the end of the world is already a done deal? Is it some spooky new kind of music she's dreaming of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out the truth? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he can't... Full Review

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