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=Kelley Armstrong
 
|title=The Calling
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Maya Delaney and friends have just survived a forest fire they think might have been set deliberately. Safely flying away in a helicopter, they think their troubles are over. Until the pilot turns out to be on the same side as those setting the fire.
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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>1907410473</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=Jon Mayhew
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|title=Wild East
|title=The Bonehill Curse
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Anthony Bonehill has created the perfect plan. Seven people will together summon a djinn. Six will gain a wish each, while the seventh will use their wish to kill the djinn and avoid it taking revenge on them. But when Carlos, the seventh, double crosses the rest, and ends up sending the bottle containing the djinn to Bonehill’s daughter Necessity, she’s launched into a race against time to stop the djinn from wreaking havoc on her world.
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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>1408803968</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|author=Sherrilyn Kenyon
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|title=Infamous
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|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Nick Gautier has just found out that the mysterious being he thought was his uncle is actually his future self. Over the course of the past 2 books, the majority of other people he’s close to –- apart from his unsuspecting mother – have been revealed to be some form of demon. Oh, and apparently, he’s got the potential to be the person who will end the world. When someone starts spreading vicious rumours about other students at his school, you’d hardly think it would register with him given everything else going on, but he dives in to try and trace the perpetrator with help from Bubba, Mark, and various others.
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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>1907411550</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1471196585
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Alexander Gordon Smith
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=The Fury
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Brick felt itDaisy felt it. Cal felt it.  All three, unconnected kids, had the same noisy, throbbing headache at the same time - and all aches went at the same time, in very disappointing circumstancesBrick took his girlfriend to his favourite place, an abandoned theme park, and found her response to both it and him to be not what he expected.   Daisy was the school Juliet, and found the experience quite traumatic - almost as bad as what she found back at home.  Cal was more regularly after the attention, as the school's best football player, but found everyone's eyes turned to you is one thing, everyone turning against you is another.
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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 lonesomeWhat could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's worldBut first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky.  For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571276164</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Teri Terry
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|title=Compass and Blade
|title=Slated
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=It's Britain about fifty years from now and sixteen-year-old Kyla is just about to leave the hospital and go home with her new, adopted family. Kyla has been slated - her memories deleted and her entire personality erased. Kyla is a blank slate. This is what happens to child criminals under the Central Coalition, who were responsible for wiping out the gangs and the riots that had dominated the country for so long. In their eyes, Kyla has been given a second chance.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408319462</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jennifer Bosworth
 
|title=Struck
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Mia Price and her family had moved to LA shortly before a massive earthquake devastated the city. Mia has a connection to the storm that caused the earthquake - lightning seems to be attracted to her and she has been struck and survived countless times. But Mia is also attracted to lightning. It's like a drug for her and her entire body pulses when a storm is coming. Amidst the lawlessness and devastation of the city, two rival factions are gaining influence and both want to recruit Mia. Both say the entire world is in great danger - the Seekers believe that annihilation can be averted but the Followers welcome it. But who is right? And what part must Mia play?
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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>085753095X</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=Leigh Bardugo
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|isbn=0008664730
|title=The Gathering Dark
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=The country of Ravka has been at war for many years. It has also been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a mysterious black fog filled with the volcra, monsters who feast on human flesh, created by an evil Darkling many centuries ago. All seems lost for this once-great country - until orphan Alina crosses the fold, and manages to fight off the volcra by releasing a power she never knew she had. Taken to the royal court to learn how to use her power, will she be Ravka's saviour? And while the current Darkling needs her to help him to repent for his predecessor's crimes, and she feels attracted to him - why can't she ever forget her childhood friend Mal?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780621108</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Harry Allen
|author=Kody Keplinger
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|title=Children of the Sun
|title=The Duff: The designated ugly fat friend
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|rating=5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Bianca Piper is proud of her cynicism. She's not an air-head. She's not obsessed with dating jocks. She has no desire to flirt with every male in sight. But when Wesley Rush, the school heartthrob, tells her she's a DUFF - a Designated Ugly Fat Friend - it really gets to Bianca. Things aren't going well for Bianca on the domestic front either. Her mother is away all the time and Bianca is afraid her father might start drinking again, after eighteen years. As things get further and further out of control at home, Bianca finds herself in the most unlikely of place - the arms of the hated Wesley Rush.  
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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>1444903500</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1805140493
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alexia Casale
|author=Jo Nesbo
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|title=Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder: The End of the World. Maybe.
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=If you put authors you least expect to diversify from more literary to children's works on a scale of one to ten, [[:Category:Jeanette Winterson|Jeanette Winterson]] must be a four, [[:Category:Ian McEwan|Ian McEwan]] a high eight, and [[:Category:Jo Nesbo|Jo Nesbo]], Nordic crime sensation de nos jours at least eleven.  But this is now the third in the series of youthful, frivolous adventures, and this time the titular professor, diminutive smart Alec Nilly and Lisa (and their seven-legged spider) have to save the world.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857073893</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Rebecca Serle
 
|title=When You Were Mine
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In this modern-day retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Rosaline has been best friends with Rob ever since they were tiny. But recently, their friendship has grown. The electric crackle of attraction is sparking between them and they are tentatively inching their way towards a relationship. One night they kiss and Rosaline believes they are about to become the couple she has always believed they were destined to be. But then her estranged cousin Juliet arrives back in town. She makes it clear she wants Rob and will stop at nothing to get him. Rosaline can do nothing but watch as Juliet steals her boyfriend and her best friend...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857075160</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Will Hill
 
|title=Department 19: The Rising
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=HE RISES. The graffiti is breaking out everywhere. For those who don't know what it's referring to, it's a minor annoyance. For Blacklight operatives, it could be the harbinger of the end of the world. Because ''HE'' is Dracula, and Valeri Rusmanov has succeeded in bringing his old master back to life – or the vampire equivalent of it, at least. The only hope is that they can track him down before he reaches his full power. Can Jamie Carpenter, along with new Blacklight operatives Larissa (his vampire girlfriend) and Kate Randall, who he rescued from Lindisfarne at the climax of the last book, help to stop him? That's about all of the plot that I feel comfortable talking about, such is my desperation to avoid spoiling anything.
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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>0007354487</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571373801
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sherrilyn Kenyon
 
|title=Invincible
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=
 
With Nick Gautier having survived the onslaught of zombies, and finding out that most of the people he knows are supernatural, he’s left wondering what to do now. He hasn’t got long to decide, though – because his new coach is putting pressure on him to steal some special items, and boys of his age are turning up dead. Will he be next? Not if he can help it! Can Nick avoid being murdered, deal with his coach, and work out just who he can trust?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0312603274</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|author=Marie-Louise Jensen
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|title=Deadlock
|title=The Girl In The Mask
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Sophia has been living relatively freely while her father has been in the West Indies, running the estate, shooting pistols with her cousin Jack and generally being unladylike. But now her father is back and more than keen to see her married off to the next suitable gentleman who so much as looks in her direction.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192792792</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil
 
|title=Black Arts
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=London, 1592. Jack successfully completes a test with a local crime family and becomes a "nipper" or cutpurse thief. But Jack's first victim accidentally brings him into contact with a London even more dangerous than the one he already knows - one where magic is real and the fight between good and evil can have fatal consequences. Jack returns home to find his mother murdered by Nicholas Webb, a charismatic Puritan preacher currently whipping up the London crowds against demons and witches.
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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>0385615132</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Conrad Mason
 
|title=The Demon's Watch
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=''We're the Demon's Watch, son. Best you don't think of us as the good folk. More like the dangerous folk.''
 
 
 
Joseph Grubb lives in Fayt, a busy port between the Old and the New Worlds. In Fayt, humans, elves, trolls, ogres and fairies live together in relative peace. But it's not all harmony. The League of Light is threatening the port, wanting to force back into the Old World way of segregation and persecution of the fey folk. And there is suspicion of multiculturalims even in Fayt itself - Joseph is a half-goblin and an orphan. His goblin father was murdered for marrying a human woman and Joseph now lives and works at a tavern owned by an uncle who despises him and calls him Mongrel.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857560298</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lex Croucher
|author=James Dawson
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
|title=Hollow Pike
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Lis London has troubles in her life. She's been badly bullied by girls at her old school. She has bad dreams about an unseen assailant trying to kill her. Moving to Hollow Pike to live with her older sister Sarah is meant to be a fresh start. Except as soon as Lis gets there, she seems to recognise the location of her recurring nightmare. Then there's a death... and Lis starts to wonder whether the rumours of witchcraft are more than just rumours. Will the new start she'd so looked forward to turn out to have a gruesome end?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780620039</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Green
 
|title=The Fault in Our Stars
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Having been diagnosed at age 12 with stage 4 thyroid cancer, Hazel was prepared to die. Then at age 14, a miracle treatment shrunk the tumours in her lungs...for the time being. Hazel could live for years, or she could die at any time, but her days are spent tethered to an oxygen tank and under constant surveillance and treatment to keep the cancer at bay. Hazel is now 16. With her life in a constant holding pattern, Hazel meets Augustus Waters at a cancer support group. Augustus is gorgeous, sharp-witted, in remission and completely attracted to Hazel. As their relationship blossoms and grows, Hazel finds she has to re-examine her attitude about life and death, illness and wellness and love. Their brief journey together leaves a lasting legacy behind that will change everything.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0525478817</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sarah Silverwood
 
|title=The Traitor's Gate: The Nowhere Chronicles Book 2
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=There is a storm coming, a storm of rage and fury and chaosThe friendship between Fin, Christopher and Joe, which held strong through their last adventure, is breaking down as Joe, now a holder of two of the five stories that hold the worlds together, finds his mind being warped by the stories and their uncontrollable power. The Knights of Nowhere, inter-world peacekeepers with the ability to pass between the worlds of Somewhere and Nowhere, barely have time to initiate a few new members to their dwindling force before they find themselves pushed to their limits, simultaneously dealing with something that is attacking people at random and causing madness, and the implications of the Prophecy, which heralds a war to end all wars. All his life people have called Fin special, for some reason unknown to him, and perhaps unknown to them. However, when Fin finally learns the true nature of his parents, his very existence is shaken to the core, and he suddenly finds himself questioning everything he previously believed in.
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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 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>1780620659</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526651793
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nick Brooks
|author=Carl Hiaasen
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|title=Promise Boys
|title=Chomp
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Wahoo isn't a cool kid. He can't play sports, and he doesn't have the latest gear. But no one at school bullies him because Alice, the twelve-foot alligator who lives in his dad's zoo, accidentally bit his thumb off one day. The other kids reckon if he can walk away from an ordeal like that, then he must have something going for him. And by the time this story is over, he'll be up to his ears in street-cred.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444005065</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kathy Reichs
 
|title=Virals
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Tory Brennan is just a normal girl with an extraordinary aunt - the renowned forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan. Desperate to follow in her relative's footsteps, she seems to have little opportunity to do so living in South Carolina - but that quickly changes when she and her friends stumble on a decades old corpse. Desperately trying to find out what happened to the dead person, and cure a sick dog they've liberated from a laboratory on their island home, the quartet's lives have suddenly become rather complicated. And that's before a mysterious virus hits them all and leaves them with some very strange side effects...
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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>0099543931</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035003155
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1919635017
|author=Andrew Motion
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|title=Silver: Return to Treasure Island
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|author=Kitt Townsend
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=Even if you have not read Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 classic ''Treasure Island'', or you have read it a long time ago, the chances are that you will be broadly familiar with the story and in particular some of the rich characters he created because they have entered into the culture of our image of pirates. Before Johnny Depp convinced us that pirates looked like Keith Richards, it was the terrifying image of Long John Silver and his parrot, squawking 'pieces of eight', double dealing his way to buried treasure and the innocence of young narrator Jim Hawkins that conjures up what we think of in terms of pirate adventure. But Stevenson left some tantalizing threads to his tale, not least the fact that Silver made off with only the majority of the treasure and left the remaining silver behind together with three marooned pirates to fend for themselves. Setting the story 40 years after these events, Andrew Motion picks up the tale and has the offspring of Hawkins, in the form of his son also called Jim and Long John Silver's daughter Natty returning to collect the remaining bounty. Of course, it's never going to be that simple.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224091190</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sophie Flack
 
|title=Bunheads
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Nineteen-year old Hannah Ward, a dancer with the Manhattan Ballet Company, has devoted her entire life to dance. She works hard, watches her weight like a hawk, and navigates the complicated maze of relationships with the rest of the company who, in many cases, are both friends and rivals. But then she meets musician Jacob, and she realises just what she's missed out on while growing up like this. Will she do the unthinkable and give up her career, or pass up the chance of love in the hope of gaining success in the ballet world.
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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>1907411275</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|author=Jillian Larkin
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|title=Different for Boys
|title=The Flappers: Vixen
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Teens  
|summary=Gloria Carmody is a society princess in 1920's Chicago. Engaged to Sebastian Grey, both powerful and handsome, she is expected to be little more than an ornament to him. After spending a night at the notorious speakeasy the Green Mill, though, Gloria knows that there's more to life than balls and socialising...
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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 togetherAs 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 sexWhich 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>0552565040</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529509491
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Catherine Jinks
 
|title=The Paradise Trap
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=When Marcus's mum has to economise over their holidays, it means just the two of them, revisiting a campsite she herself knew as a child, in a grotty old second-hand caravanIt's a greasy, shabby, squeaky little closet of a caravan, and no-one can agree on what the awful stink pervading it reminds them ofBut when the trip is hyped up as a great time for both, it seems to have a chance of coming true, for a bizarre cellar to the caravan leads everyone to their dream trip - if only, unfortunately, one way...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857386735</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1800901232
|author=Nicky Singer
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|title=Stitched Up
|title=The Flask
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|author=Steve Cole
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
|summary=Twelve-year-old Jess is dealing with a lot. Her beloved Aunt Edie has just died. Her mother is expecting twins - but these new babies will be Jess's half-brothers and will complete Jess's mother's marriage to her stepfather. But will they complete Jess's family? Will they even survive? Because the twins are conjoined. And in 70% of separations, only one twin lives. And if this weren't enough in the way of trials and tribulations, Jess's best friend Zoe is moving towards a relationship with a boy. Does this mean she will leave Jess behind?
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|summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be a fashion designer. Life in the rural village where she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperous, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came to the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be 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>0007438761</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrice Lawrence
|author=Margie Gelbwasser
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|title=Needle
|title=Pieces of Us
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|rating=3
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Every summer Katie and her sister Julie meet up with Alex and his brother Kyle at a lakeside community in New York. They leave behind their problems - which are legion - and find comfort in each other. But when a dark secret of one of them leaks out, the four are all left reeling by the far-reaching consequences.
+
|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>0738721646</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1800901011
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Ann Sei Lin
|author=Stephanie Guerra
+
|title= Rebel Skies
|title=Torn
+
|rating= 5
|rating=4.5
+
|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=Stella Chavez is a fairly ordinary girl until she meets Ruby Caroline. She gets pretty good grades, has friends she's grown up with, and is a soccer star. New girl Ruby, on the other hand, is trouble with a capital T, right from the moment she storms into her first class wearing a band-aid of a skirt and swearing like a trooper. There's something about Ruby, though, that draws Stella to her, and the pair quickly become inseparable. But as Ruby's behaviour gets more and more erratic, and she's drawn into bad habits and an unsuitable relationship, can Stella save her friend - or will she get dragged down with her?
+
|isbn=1406399590
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0761462724</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Avery Williams
 
|title=The Alchemy of Forever
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Back in the Middle Ages, Seraphina nearly died. Her boyfriend Cyrus saved her life - at the cost of someone else's. Using his newly discovered Alchemy potion, he transferred her soul into another body. They've now lived over 600 years, changing bodies every decade or so, but Sera is tired of this unnatural existence and is determined to end it. She runs away from Cyrus, ready to die for real this time. When she finds sixteen-year-old Kailey, who's just been involved in a car accident, her good intentions waver and she takes over the dying girl's body. Could this be her chance for a new start?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857076817</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|author=Gemma Malley
+
|title=Wrath
|title=The Killables
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In the City, evil has been eradicated. Each of its citizens has undergone the New Baptism - having the evil part of their brain, the amygdala, removed. But even this isn't enough - the City still needs its System, which monitors every citizen and labels accordingly. Any sign of evil results in a lower classification and the lowest classification of all is "K". Ks are sent for reconditioning. After this, they disappear and are never seen again.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444722778</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michelle Hodkin
 
|title=The Unbecoming Of Mara Dyer
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Mara has just started her whole life over - new city, new school, new start. It's just what the doctor ordered, and her family - though still treating her like she might fall apart at any moment - are tentatively hopeful that it's just what she needs to get back on her feet. Mara just hopes her memories return. She needs to know what happened the night her two best friends and her boyfriend died in an accident she somehow managed to escape unscathed.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085707363X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sam Hawksmoor
 
|title=The Repossession
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Genie Magee hasn’t seen her boyfriend Rian all summer. In fact, she hasn’t seen anyone all summer – apart from the creepy worshippers of the Church of Free Spirits, whose leader Reverend Schneider has persuaded her mother she’s possessed, due to her strange mystical gift. Rian hasn’t stopped thinking of her, though, and has hatched a daring plan to rescue the love of his life and escape the town of Spurlake – but their escape will lead them into a situation more dangerous than they could ever have imagined.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340997087</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lauren Oliver
 
|title=Pandemonium
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Having escaped from Portland at the end of book 1, Lena is alone in the Wilds. Having to face the unthinkable - life without Alex – she chooses to join the resistance of the Invalids in an attempt to bring down those who have made love into a disease. Flicking between the early days immediately following her escape, as she settles into the community along with her new allies Raven and Tack, and a time a bit later on when she plays a more active role in the resistance, Pandemonium has more of the thrills and excitement that made the first book an enjoyable read.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444722921</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sufiya Ahmed
 
|title=Secrets of the Henna Girl
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Sixteen-year-old Zeba Khan wasn't particularly looking forward to the family holiday with her parents in Pakistan. It was eight years since she'd been there and she had only vague memories of the heat, the mosquitoes, her Uncle's home and her cousin Asif, who is eight years older than her.  She's just finished her GCSE exams and - along with her best friend Susan - was planning which subjects she would take for A level and university as well as looking at future careers. She's always been happy in her Muslim faith and the lack of boyfriends, alcohol and drugs had never worried her, although she was perhaps a ''little'' envious of the fact that Susan could go out in the evenings.
+
|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>0141339802</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1800900899
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=Simon Mayo
+
|title=The Devil Makes Three
|title=Itch
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Itchingham Lofte - cool name, cool guy, but he's Itch to you and me - is an element-hunter. Like many kids, he's a collector-magpie, but football stickers and manga-style cards aren't his thing. Itch is a science geek and he is trying to collect a sample of all 118 elements. Itch lives in Cornwall, where he has recently arrived from London, and his element-hunting doesn't carry much kudos at his school, where he spends most time dodging the bullies. At home, Itch has a tendency to formulate disastrous experiments and the latest explosion not only removed his eyebrows but also got his collection banished to the shed.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857531301</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jesse Andrews
 
|title=Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Greg is trying to survive high school, and is doing rather well at it. He's got a wonderful tactic of just avoiding pretty much everyone - never getting close to any group of people, never alienating any group either, just coasting along on nodding terms with everyone. The exception is Earl, who he makes low-budget version of cult classic films with. His life is about to be changed, though, as his mother is determined that he should rekindle an old friendship with Rachel Kushner – who’s dying of leukemia.
+
|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>1419701762</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789098130
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Andrew Hammond
 
|title=CRYPT: Traitor's Revenge
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=There are teenage spies, ghosts and gore aplenty in store for readers of this series: the books are a non-stop, fast-paced battle against all manner of supernatural nasties, where the adrenalin remains high and the body count just keeps on mounting.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755378229</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|author=Laura Jarratt
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|title=Skin Deep
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=14-year-old Jenna survived a car crash which killed her best friend. Sometimes, she wishes it was her who was dead. Because the crash left her face scarred, and she can't stop feeling like a freak. As if that wasn't hard enough to cope with, her dad is out for justice and has set up a pressure group in response to the light sentence given to the driver of the car she was in - and the youth is responding with intimidation. Just as she hits rock bottom, though, 16-year old New Age traveller Ryan comes into her life. Could he be the person to see past her scars?
+
|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>1405256729</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Karen Blumenthal
 
|title=Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Framed by Jobs' iconic speech at a Stanford College graduation ceremony, and the three stories he told the students, about connecting the dots, love and loss, and mortality, this biography gives a succinct and balanced account of Jobs' life, his successes and his failures, his passions and his ideals, and his infamously polarized personality. The author actively annotates the backstory of Jobs with references from this speech, as well as future events, carefully chosen statistics, and Jobs' own reminiscence, giving a rich context to his story. Jobs' achievements are incredible and they're not simply down to his genius, but his attitudes towards life and his incredible charisma.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408832062</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Sarah Singleton
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|title=Dark Storm
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Ellie is spending the summer with her grandparents, in the house where her mother grew up, while her dad and his new girlfriend go on holiday together. Although it's been more than a year since her mother's death, Ellie is finding it hard to move on with her life. Whilst shopping in an antique shop one day she comes across the model of an old theatre, and sets free a ghost who made the model theatre with his sister hundreds of years ago. With this model is a script for Romeo and Juliet, which the local theatre group are currently putting on. Ellie's grandparents are keen for her to join the group, and it's here she meets new friends and begins to fall in love with a ghost.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857070754</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kai Meyer
 
|title=Arcadia Awakens
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Rosa can't wait to get away from New York. En route to Sicily to be reunited with sister Zoe and her continental extended family, she makes sure every aspect of her American life is deleted, right down to the songs on her iPod. Arriving in Palermo, she's thrown into a sinister Mafia underworld filled with murder, corruption and clan rivalries going back more generations than you could shake a stick at. Zoe seems at home in this world but Rosa kicks against it right from the outset. Her rebelliousness is only exacerbated by the mutual attraction that springs up between Rosa - an Alcantra - and Alessandro - a Carnevare. Romance between scions of warring clans? It can't be tolerated.
+
|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>1848770081</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1510107789
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Elizabeth Wein
 
|title=Code Name Verity
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=
 
It is probably impossible to read this book without crying. It is one of the most heart-breaking and yet uplifting books around, and reading it feels like a privilege. Begin it early in the day, because you will not want to put it down until you have reached the very last page, and when you do you will care for many of the main characters like friends. You will weep for those who die (or most of them, at any rate: even the gentlest of readers will be glad that the world is rid of one or two). You will be proud to be human, if people like these are in our world, and you will burn for shame that others can be so cruel, so cold and so vicious. And the worst of it is, our study of history tells us that even if these precise events did not happen, then there are many other events in war, both in the past and doubtless now as well, which resemble them. The whole book is a testament to human courage and human frailty.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405258217</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Veronica Roth
 
|title=Divergent
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=Beatrice - or Tris as she becomes - belongs to one of five factions in a segregated future world. Beatrice is Abnegation (selflessness) but has always struggled with the self-effacing lifestyle embraced by her faction. But she's not sure if she's any better-suited to one of the others: Candor (honesty), Amity (kindness), Erudite (intellect) or Dauntless (courage). So Tris approaches the faction aptitude test taken by all sixteen-year-olds in her society with a large dollop of trepidation.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007420412</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jennifer Lynn Barnes
 
|title=Every Other Day
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=When Kali sees the Orobouros mark on cheerleader, Bethany, at her high school, she doesn't hesitate in tempting the parasitic creature - a Chupacabra - out of Bethany and into her own body. The parasite is a death sentence for humans. Some days, Kali's blood is toxic to paranormal creatures. Some days she's blessed with strength, speed and killer instinct, and the parasite feeding off her memories wouldn't have stood a chance. But not on this day. On this day, Kali is completely human. And she has to survive the next 17 hours before she changes back.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085738970X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=SD Crockett
 
|title=After the Snow
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=On a near future Earth, Willo lives with his family in an isolated community without technology.  His parents remember a time when there were machines but all this has changed.  Now there's only enough petrol for the sinister government trucks.  One day Willo finds himself totally alone, his parents missing, presumed taken.  Armed with his father's cryptic sayings and his only friend, (a dog's skull that speaks through his imagination) Willo leaves all that's familiar in order to find his loved ones.  The unknown is a ruthless place filled with Stealers and starvation but there's escape from what he needs to do.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230759351</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
 
|title=Wyrmeweald: Bloodhoney
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Micah and his mentor, the grizzled old tracker Eli, have holed up in a mountain cave: fullwinter in Wyrmeweald is harsh, and few humans could survive its rigours. With them is Thrace, a kingirl who bonded with a whitewyrme but who was abandoned by the enormous dragon-like creature after she and Micah fell in love. Used to flying free across the skies, she finds the confinement almost unbearable, and she is wasting away before their eyes.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385617429</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kathryn Erskine
 
|title=Mockingbird
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Mockingbird is the story of Caitlin, an 11-year old girl with Asperger's syndrome trying to recover from the death of her brother Devon in a school shooting. With her dad struggling to cope and Caitlin no longer having her brother to explain to her things she doesn't understand, the young narrator must seek closure on the tragedy herself.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409538583</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|author=Jim Carrington
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|title=Drive By
+
|rating= 4
|rating=4
+
|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=It's hot. Johnny and his friends tire of the park and ride their bikes to the local shop for an ice cream. Sitting outside in her husband's car is the Poisoned Dwarf, the miserable old lady who burst their football when it landed in her garden. Armed with water soakers, the boys just can't resist. But this "drive-by soaking" has catastrophic consequences. The Poisoned Dwarf has a heart attack and is carted off in an ambulance. And a few days later, she dies. Johnny is overwhelmed with remorse but is too afraid to come forwards. But are the weird things that start happening - waking up at the same time every night, a feeling of being watched - just tricks played by a guilty conscience? Or is the Poisoned Dwarf haunting him?  
+
|isbn=1406394815
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408822784</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
|author=J D Sharpe and Charles Dickens
 
|title=Oliver Twisted
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=A small boy, Oliver, is brought up in a workhouse before being sent to work for an undertaker. Running away from the cruel undertaker and his wife, he finds himself in London, where he falls in with a disreputable old rogue called Fagin and his gang of thieves. Think you know the story? Think again - and add soul stealers, werewolves, and magic...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405258179</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 09:54, 8 July 2024

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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

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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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