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=Liz Miles (Editor)
 
|title=Truth and Dare
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=I love anthologies, especially ones containing a host of unfamiliar authors, so when I was given the chance to get my hands on a collection of twenty stories by writers who, in the main, I hadn't encountered before, I jumped at it. The selection, however, of
 
this score of tales about ''slipping on the stepping stones of life'' left me feeling curiously unsatisfied in many cases.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015864</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Candle Man: Society of Dread
 
|author=Glenn Dakin
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=We left Theo after he had discovered his true identity as the Candle Man and defeated his evil ex-guardian, Dr Saint. The young boy is still ambivalent about his superhero status and conflicted over his ability to use tripudon energy to melt his - and London's - enemies. But the fight against evil pays no attention to inexperience or moral ambiguity and Theo is about to find himself down in the Network again. This time, his attempts to return The Society of Good Works to its original benevolence are thwarted by the renaissance of an old, and even more terrifying, villain - Dr Pyre. With his friends abducted and enslaved, Theo must use his Candle Man abilities once again...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405246774</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Bang Bang You're Dead
 
|author=Narinder Dhami
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Mia is holding her family together. She's never known her father, her mother is suffering from manic depression which she refuses to seek help for, and her twin brother Jamie is causing
 
her real concern. So when the fire alarm is set off at school and rumours fly around that there's a pupil with a gun on the loose, she starts to worry that Jamie has done the unthinkable. Ignoring all common sense, she desperately tries to see for herself whether he could be the one with the gun...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>055256043X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Momentum
 
|author=Saci Lloyd
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=London, 2030. Energy wars are consuming the globe now peak oil is past. Britain creaks on with ever-declining influence and is now partly dependent on aid from China. The gap between rich and poor is now so great that the poor (the Outsiders) live in dreadful slums while the rich (the Citizens) spend most of their time plugged into the net, experiencing life as a fantasy. Civil unrest is springing up, only to be ruthlessly put down by the Kossacks, the new security force.
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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>1444900811</amazonuk>
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|isbn=000862657X
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Asylum
 
|author=Rachel Anderson
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Sunday arrived in the UK at Lowestoft. He'd have preferred Iceland, ''which, so he'd heard, was cold and treeless but democratic and respectful of human life''. Sent from a refugee camp by his Auntie Pru, Sunday is very religious and very respectful of human life, unlike the militia who destroyed his village. So it's difficult for Sunday to become a Muslim. But that's what he has to do. His papers confiscated by a shady people trafficker, Sunday finds himself the unpaid caretaker at Hawk Rise, a condemned London tower block. And his name isn't Sunday any more; it's Piet Ali.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340997680</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Darkness Becomes Her
 
|author=Kelly Keaton
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Growing up in foster care has always left Ari wondering where she came from. The teal coloured eyes and strange, unchangeable, silver hair just adds to the mystery surrounding her. When she searches for answers to her questions about her past, she finds a simple message left for her by her mother – ''RUN''. Desperately seeking answers and with scary figures on her trail, she returns to her birthplace of New 2, once known as New Orleans, to find herself plunged into a power struggle which could have far reaching consequences.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857071459</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|title=The Deserter
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|title=Wild East
|author=Peadar o Guilin
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=It's been four years coming, but this sequel to The Inferior won't disappoint those who have loyally waited. I've loyally waited. And I would like to say that four years has been too long. In that time dystopian fiction for young adults has become more and more popular - lots of it is very good - and I did wonder if I would love the central character Stopmouth quite as much as I had before. I shouldn't have worried. He's a gorgeous creation - brave, honest, loyal and committed, he will appeal equally to male and female readers.  
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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>0385610963</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|author=Paige Harbison
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|title=Here Lies Bridget
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|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Bridget Duke, daughter of a famous celebrity, is the undisputed queen of her school. Popular, wanted by the boys and feared or adored by the girls, she barely even notices the trail of destruction she leaves behind her as friends, teachers and even her stepmother end up being hurt by her actions. So when Bridget is in a car accident, and ends up in limbo, she's sent into the shoes of those she's wronged to see the effect she's had on them. Can she redeem herself?
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>077830499X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Karen McCombie
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=Six Words and a Wish
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jem has a dad who's a clown, a best friend who's a hypochondriac, a house where it's always Christmas, and a sister who's missing – or is she? Gracie left home after something Jem said, and the younger girl has always wondered whether she's to blame for her big sister's disappearance. When her mother receives a present from Gracie on her birthday, she thinks she might finally be able to ask her. As well as hoping her sister returns, Jem also tries to form a band, helps her dad do his clown shows, and may even have found a cute boy she likes…
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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>1407107887</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Bali Rai
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|title=Compass and Blade
|title=Killing Honour
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Sat comes from a prosperous Sikh family in Leicester. His mother spends a lot of time at the gurdwara but his father and brother don't and are not above breaking parts of the Sikh code - they both eat meat and drink alcohol. Overall, though, Sat's family is a traditional one and so when his parents hear a rumour that his sister Jas has a boyfriend at college, they withdraw her and arrange a marriage to Taz Atwal, a wealthy local businessman.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552562114</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Paula Rawsthorne
 
|title=The Truth About Celia Frost
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Celia Frost has always been extremely careful, never playing with other children, always wearing gloves and long sleeves, and never getting into unwanted confrontations. For she knows from her mother that the rare disorder that she suffers from, which is not unlike haemophilia, will mean that just a small cut, a seemingly insignificant graze, can leave her bleeding uncontrollably until she dies. However, one day Celia snaps. When she humiliates a bully, the boy gets his revenge and with a small flick of a knife starts a cut that will kill her.
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|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409531090</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.
|author=Kelley Armstrong
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|isbn=0008664730
|title=Darkness Rising: The Gathering
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Maya has lived her whole life in strange little rural town, Salmon Creek. Although 'little' means a population of less than 200 and 'rural' really does mean in the middle of nowhere, Maya is happy living where she does. Sure, she gets more contact with cougars than she does with people some days, but she's always loved nature and she's always been content at Salmon Creek.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907410171</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Harry Allen
|author=Carlos Ruiz Zafon
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|title=Children of the Sun
|title=The Midnight Palace
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Calcutta, 1916. Lieutenant Peake sacrifices his life to save two twin babies from a terrifying and murderous demon.
 
 
 
Sixteen years later, the separated twins meet again. Sheere has spent her childhood moving from place to place with her grandmother - never staying still, always hypervigilant. Ben has lived in a Calcutta orphanage and has a band of friends - the Chowbar Society - who are all about to be released from care to make their way in the world.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444001671</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Green
 
|title=Looking For Alaska
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=When Miles Halter leaves his safe, comfortable life in Florida for Culver Creek – a boarding school his father used to attend – he's looking for what French poet Francois Rabelais called the Great Perhaps. Miles thinks he's found it in Alaska Young – beautiful, flirty, sexy, but messed up Alaska. Her mood changes like the flip of a switch. She smokes and drinks too much. Miles couldn't be more in love with her.
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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>0007424833</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1805140493
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alexia Casale
|author=Katy Moran
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|title=Dangerous to Know
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=
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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?
Jack and Bethany are in love. But Bethany's mother thinks Jack is a bad influence. He comes from a bad family - a broken home, one brother was a drug dealer, the other smoked too much dope and ended up sectioned - and he just isn't the sort of boy Bethany's mother wants her daughter to spend time with. It's not all snobbery though - Bethany's father is terminally ill and the family has too much on its plate to be thinking of first love affairs. Says Bethany's mother. But not Bethany.
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|isbn=0571373801
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406317292</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=R J Anderson
 
|title=Ultraviolet
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Alison wakes up to find herself sectioned in a secure psychiatric unit for teenagers. Arriving home with blood on your hands and gibbering endless confessions to having killed a girl who's gone missing will do that. But there isn't any proof and Tori is still missing so both the police and Alison's doctors want to get to the bottom of what happened.
 
 
 
The thing is, Alison herself can't explain what happened.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408312751</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|author=Kit Berry
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|title=Deadlock
|title=Magus of Stonewylde
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Stonewylde is a mysterious self-contained community that exists in the heart of modern England but operates in isolation from the rest of the world, offering a very alternative lifestyle. Pagan culture is an intrinsic part of Stonewylde, with its various seasonal festivals, unique style of living, and most importantly its reverence of nature. Society in the community is also pretty unorthodox, being based upon an autocracy ruled by the Magus, a figure who is blessed with Earth Magic, during each of the eight seasonal festivals, that gives him the power to run Stonewylde.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575098821</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Morgan Matson
 
|title=Amy and Roger's Epic Detour
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Amy hasn't got in a car for months, since her dad died in the crash, so she can't believe it when her mother tells her she needs to take it from California to the East Coast, even if she '''has''' arranged for Roger, the seriously cute son of a family friend, to drive. She thinks the trip will be a four day nightmare, as scheduled by her mother. Except Roger's not keen on overly regimented trips, and Amy's so upset at being forced into doing this that she's happy to go off track… so the pair decide to take the scenic route and explore America on the way there.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857072684</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Amy Plum
 
|title=Die For Me
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Ever since Kate's parents died, she's been living life on pause – moving from day to day without actually ever living. She's moved with her sister to Paris to live with their grandparents, but even the beautiful city of love can't shake her out of her apathy. At least, not until she meets Vincent.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190741102X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Benjamin J Myers
 
|title=Bad Tuesdays 4: The Nonsuch King
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=
 
With Chess teaching herself the skills she'll need when time reaches the fifth node and with Box stuck on a distant planet fighting for his life with the other Fleshlings, it's time to see what Splinter is doing...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556428</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Steve Voake
 
|title=Dark Woods
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Cal has been taken on holiday to America by the latest in a long line of foster families. Despite the trip, there are tensions. Cal has been let down so many times that he refuses to trust in anyone and he rejects any overtures his foster mother makes. He knows they'll send him back to the children's home - the only question is when. So when he meets Eden - vital, funny, exciting - at a campsite and she suggests a walk in the woods, Cal snatches at the chance to get away with someone who doesn't know anything about him or his past.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571260055</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alan Gibbons
 
|title=An Act of Love
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Chris and Imran were childhood friends. Blood brothers. They swore it when they played together in the wilderness behind the estate where they lived. But not any more. The riots put paid to that. 9/11 put paid to that. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan put paid to that. Ten years on, Chris is a veteran of Afghanistan, waiting to receive a medal from the country for which he lost a leg. Imran is angry and rebellious, flirting with extremism. Terrorism has wrecked their friendship and sent them in different directions. And now, terrorism is threatening to end their very lives...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444002287</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Darren Shan
 
|title=Ocean of Blood (The Saga of Larten Crepsley)
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In book two of this prequel series about the beloved orange-haired vampire from Darren Shan's Cirque du Freak series, we find Larten Crepsley and his friend Wester Flack finally free of the restrictions and privations imposed upon them by their master, Seba Nile. The young vampires have joined the Cubs, and are wandering the world enjoying all the "pleasures" human life can give them - wine, women, song, and a ringside seat at as many bloody wars as they could shake a stick at (plus a good supply of fresh blood in the aftermath of battle).
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007315880</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gennifer Choldenko
 
|title=No Passengers Beyond This Point
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=India is fourteen and, like many teenagers, doesn't see much outside her own narrow sphere of interest. She's spiky and defensive and reacts to any setbacks with anger and aggression, usually turned against her family. But inside, like many teenagers, she's rather lonely and lost. Finn is twelve and not as good at basketball as he'd like. He's not as popular as he'd like either. But he is honest and loyal, and he longs for a chance to prove it. Mouse is six and a bit of an oddity. She has an imaginary friend and a brain the size of a planet. This doesn't always make her easy to get along with.  
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815729</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lex Croucher
|author=Hilary Freeman
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
|title=Piccadilly Love Stories: Don't Ask
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Lily thinks of herself as being about a 6 out of 10 on the scale of 'hideous gargoyle to Brad Pitt' and she knows her boyfriend Jack is an 8. So why would he want to be with her? Despite him seeming to be the perfect boy  she's convinced there's something in his past and only gets more suspicious when he keeps clamming up about it. So when she finds his ex-girlfriend on a social networking site it seems like a great idea to create a fake profile and make friends with her. Is it worth telling this many lies just to find the truth?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1853409979</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Simmone Howell
 
|title=Notes From the Teenage Underground
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Gem, only child of arty mother Bev and an absent haiku-obsessed father always found fitting in difficult until the mysterious Lo turned up at school. The trio of her, Lo and Mira have been inseparable for a while now but as they plan their summer project – an Andy Warhol inspired underground film – she starts to feel pushed out by the other two. Can she deal with exams, romance co-worker Dodgy, save her friendship with Mira and Lo and cope with her father’s reappearance?
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|summary=Who knew that what I really needed to read right now was a gay Arthurian RomCom?  But honestly, it lifted my spirits in a most delightful way. In this story, Gwen and Arthur have been betrothed since they were tiny, much to their mutual disgust!  Gwen, you see, is in love with Bridget (the kingdom's only female knight) - something that Art discovers from her private diaries.  And then when Gwen then catches Art kissing a boy they find themselves becoming reluctant allies, creating the subterfuge of falling in love with each other, when really they are enabling their own other romantic attachments. But as their impending wedding draws ever closer, will they find a way in which they can both truly be themselves, or are they destined to live a lie their whole lives?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747585121</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526651793
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nick Brooks
|author=Ellie Irving
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|title=Promise Boys
|title=For the Record
 
|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
 
|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 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848774532</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035003155
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1919635017
|author=Matt Haig
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|title=The Radleys
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|author=Kitt Townsend
 
|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= 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>1406330280</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|author=Maria V Snyder
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|title=Different for Boys
|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>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Moira Young
 
|title=Blood Red Road
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=
 
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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407124250</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gill Lewis
 
|title=Sky Hawk
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Teens  
|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.  
+
|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>0192756230</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1529509491
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Cat Patrick
 
|title=Forgotten
 
|rating=3.5
 
|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.''
 
 
 
As you can imagine, life is quite tricky for London. At 4.33am every morning, her memory resets.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405253614</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1800901232
|author=Lauren Oliver
+
|title=Stitched Up
|title=Delirium
+
|author=Steve Cole
|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=Dyslexia Friendly
|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?  
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444001922</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Patrice Lawrence
|author=Bryony Pearce
+
|title=Needle
|title=Angel's Fury
+
|rating=3
|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.
+
|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>1405251352</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1800901011
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Ann Sei Lin
|author=Tom Clempson
+
|title= Rebel Skies
|title=One Seriously Messed-Up Week: in the Otherwise Mundane and Uneventful Life of Jack Samsonite
+
|rating= 5
|rating=4
+
|genre= Teens
|genre=Teens
+
|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=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.
+
|isbn=1406399590
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907410554</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|author=Alex Woolf
+
|title=Wrath
|title=Chronosphere: Time Out of Time
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=It's the 22nd Century, and finally the ideal gap year is available.  Before 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-cons.  But of course all is not well in paradise.  His peers have a habit of vanishing without trace, and who knows? - even his newly-found friends may have something to do with it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907184554</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alex Epstein
 
|title=The Circle Cast
 
|rating=4
 
|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 change.  Her 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 vengeance.  And her name - from Anna, to Morgan.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1896580637</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Colin Mulhern
 
|title=Clash
 
 
|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.
+
|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>1846471168</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1800900899
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=John Marsden
+
|title=The Devil Makes Three
|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
 
|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.
+
|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>0312555121</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789098130
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|author=Megan Abbott
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|title=The End of Everything
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|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.
+
|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>0330535455</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Kevin Crossley-Holland
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|title=Bracelet of Bones (Viking Sagas)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|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...
+
|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>1847249396</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1510107789
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author= Jonathan Stroud
 +
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
 +
|rating= 4
 +
|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?
 +
|isbn=1406394815
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]

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

0241645441.jpg

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

1471196585.jpg

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

0008666482.jpg

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

0008664730.jpg

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

1805140493.jpg

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

0571373801.jpg

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

1839944420.jpg

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

1035003155.jpg

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

1919635017.jpg

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

1529509491.jpg

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

1800901232.jpg

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

1800901011.jpg

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

1406399590.jpg

Review of

Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin

5star.jpg Teens

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

1800900899.jpg

Review of

Wrath by Marcus Sedgwick

4.5star.jpg Teens

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

1789098130.jpg

Review of

The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino

4.5star.jpg Teens

Working all summer in her boarding school's library is the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herself. What makes it worse is the man who requested the books: Mr Birch. The boarding school's headmaster, and a man Tess hates. As a petty act of revenge for making her find and deliver such a large request, Tess sticks post-it notes on each of the books, scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think of. They're never meant to reach him, of course. Her plan is to get her anger out like this, and then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would be, if someone hadn't delivered them for her. Full Review

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Review of

Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep by Philip Reeve

5star.jpg Confident Readers

In a word, rich. There is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on it, and sea-witches, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it or not. Full Review

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Review of

Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a summer, in the far NE of the Scottish islands. Here be Vikings, that kind of Scottish island. Dad is going to be automating the lantern, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark. And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night. Full Review

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Review of

The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne by Jonathan Stroud

4star.jpg Teens

Scarlett McCain is an outlaw, rejecting the draconian conformity of the Surviving Towns and Faith Houses to wander the wildlands between the Seven Kingdoms of Britain, robbing banks and shooting other outlaws to keep herself alive. But then she meets Albert Browne, a dark boy with dark powers and a darker past. With mysterious militiamen hunting them down, they plan to flee to the mythical Free Isles of the London Lagoon. Together, they must brave man-eating wildlife, the cannibalistic Tainted and all the horrors of post-apocalyptic society to reach the Free Isles, but will they be any more accepted there than they are in the rest of Britain? Full Review

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