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
__NOTOC__
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|author=Leanne Egan
 
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|title=Lover Birds
{{newreview
 
|author=Mike Lancaster
 
|title=1.4
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Peter Vincent lives a privileged life. His father is a world-renowned scientist and fully expects his son to follow in his footsteps. But Peter has other ideas. He wants to study literature. Although he enjoys gaming and social networking, he's uncomfortable about spending too much time on The Link, a system which connects the minds of every individual on the planet. So when he meets Strakerite Alpha, he is immediately attracted to her. Peter's father hates the Strakerites, who believe that human evolution depends on regular upgrades from alien aggressors.
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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?
 
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|isbn=000862657X
So when Alpha contacts Peter to tell him that people are disappearing, he is more than willing to help. Together, they will uncover a conspiracy to hide the clock ticking down to the next upgrade...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405258187</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|author=Maureen Doyle McQuerry
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|title=Wild East
|title=The Peculiars
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Lena's Father left when she was a child, disappearing North to the dangerous and mysterious wilderness called Scree where The Peculiars live - people with unnatural physical features. Lena, herself, has unnaturally long and awkward hands and feet which makes her an easy target for bullies. But Lena wants to know more about herself, why has she got these hands and feet? Is it because she has 'goblin blood' like her bitter Grandmother tells her?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1419701789</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Diane Messidoro
 
|title=How To Keep A Boy As A Pet
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Circe Shaw is a fifteen-year-old girl who lives with Daniel Craig, Johnny Depp and Jude Law. Sounds like heaven, right? Sadly, Daniel, Johnny, and Jude are her pets, and the only actual men around are two who are interested in her mum, not her. What’s a girl to do? Circe decides to start a blog to help her reach her goal of becoming a journalist, and to find out the truth about boys.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405258160</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Laura Powell
 
|title=Burn Mark
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Glory comes from a long line of witches. She knows the fae will show itself in her eventually. And when it does, Glory intends to make sure her East End coven regains its former and elevated status. Lucas is the privileged son of the Inquisition's Chief Prosecutor. He holds the prevalent view that witchcraft and witchcrime are all but synonymous and that witchkind generally presents a serious threat to national security. He intends to follow his father into the Inquisition...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815222</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Philippa Gregory
 
|title=Changeling
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Luca Vero is expelled from his monastery after being accused of heresy. The seventeen-year-old is recruited to map the End of Days, and his first task is to go to a nunnery where a Lady Abbess of his own age has been accused of witchcraft. Will he find Isolde guilty and condemn her to the pyre, or is there more to the case than meets the eye?
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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>0857077309</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|author=Mark Walden
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|title=Earthfall
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary='They are coming. If you are caught, you will not escape. If you escape, they will hunt you down. You must not be captured. Everything depends on you. Prepare for Earthfall.'
 
 
 
Life is chugging along pretty much as normal for Sam Riley when his father suddenly turns grey with fear and rushes off to an emergency at work. Within 24 hours, alien spaceships have appeared above every major city across the world and enslaved the entire population with a mind probe. Except Sam. Sam has no idea why he is immune to the alien signal or how he recovered from a terrible injury after a fight with one of their drones. But after a year hiding in London's sewers, he has learned how to survive.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815664</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michael Williams
 
|title=Now is the Time for Running
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=In a remote village in Zimbabwe, Deo is playing football with his friends while his brother Innocent looks on. Innocent takes a bit of looking after - deprived of oxygen during birth, he's not quite like other children and Deo is fiercely protective of him. Then the soldiers arrive, looking for a delivery of food aid and the traitors who welcome help from the evil Americans, and they destroy the entire village. Now orphans, the two boys have no choice but to flee to South Africa in the hopes of finding their long-lost father. Since their only possessions are Innocent's bix box and Deo's football (stuffed with worthless billion dollar notes), it won't be easy...  
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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>1848530838</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Veronica Roth
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=Insurgent
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Teens
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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?
|summary=''Insurgent'' (clever title, you'll see) begins right where [[Divergent by Veronica Roth|Divergent]] left off. The social structure of Tris's world is beginning to fall apart. After the Erudite simulation attack on the Abnegation, the factions are in disarray. The Dauntless are split - half providing the military muscle for the Erudite and the other half seeking alliances with the other factions. But Amity insist on remaining neutral in the hopes of avoiding further conflict and the Candor don't have anything to bargain. The few remaining Abnegation are refugees. But there is another group - the factionless - who may hold the key to defeating the Erudite.
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|isbn=0008666482
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007442920</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ellie Phillips
 
|title=Dads, Geeks and Blue Haired Freaks
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Sadie Nathanson is stunned to get a card from her dad on her fifteenth birthday. Not only has she never met her dad, but to all intents and purposes he doesn't even exist. He was a sperm donor, that's all. In view of this, it's fairly obvious that the card is a mean joke, probably played by her ex-best friend Shonna Matthews. But it makes her start to think about her dad a bit more, and she decides to track him down.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405258195</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=A C Gaughen
 
|title=Scarlet
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Everyone knows the story of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. But what if they weren't all men? What if Will Scarlet, the violent youngster who can throw a knife with the same accuracy as Robin shoots a bow, was a girl?  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408819767</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Julia Green
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|title=Compass and Blade
|title=Bringing the Summer
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Freya is returning home from a summer spent with her grandparents, ready to start her A levels. The train she is travelling on stops suddenly and Freya is horrified when she realises that a girl has committed suicide on the line. A sense of obligation leads her to attend the girl's funeral. There, she meets Gabes, a gorgeous boy who goes to her college. Freya is instantly attracted, not just by Gabes, but by his whole, slightly bohemian, family, so different to her own. But there's also a more dangerous attraction. Theo, Gabes's older brother, makes his own interest in Freya very apparent. Theo is very different from Gabes - unpredictable, dark, wild.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408819589</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gill Lewis
 
|title=White Dolphin
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Things aren't going too well for Kara. She's mocked at school for her dyslexia. Her father is struggling to find work and they're cooped up living with judgemental Auntie Bev. And, worse of all, Mum is not around. A marine biologist, she disappeared on an expedition along with several of her colleagues and no bodies were ever found. Kara clings on determinedly to her belief that her mother will return some day, much to the frustration of everyone around her, and her only solace is sailing in her father's boat, Moana.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192756222</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Lukens
 
|title=Going Too Far
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Adults of a certain age remember a time when kids were respectful when you met them in the street.  They certainly didn't answer you back, skateboard on the pavements and take drugs, so the idea of electing a sheriff - the man in overall charge of the police in a town - who pledged to get tough on these kids appealed to them.  In fact, what's not to like about the idea? It takes crime off the streets, makes the town a safer place and it must be better that kids are taught to obey the law.  Common sense, when you think about, isn't it?  Well, there is another side to the story.  What if these kids are just having a bit of innocent fun in an area that was little more than a traffic island?  What if the drug taking is hardly serious?  What if one of the kids dies?
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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>B007TX65UK</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michael Grant
 
|title=Fear
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Darkness is falling in the FAYZ. The dome that isolates the children from the outside world is turning black, and Sam, Astrid and the rest know that this could be the worst thing yet to happen to them. I'm leaving the plot summary there, because it deserves to be read with as few spoilers as possible.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140525761X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Aidan Chambers
 
|title=Dying to Know You
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Karl is seventeen and hopelessly caught in the throes of first love. The object of his affections is Fiorella, a girl who seems above him so many ways. Fiorella's family is both healthy and wealthy, while Karl's father is dead and his mother gets by but not much more. Fiorella is a bright girl on her way to university, while Karl is dyslexic and has left school to work as a blue collar apprentice plumber. Fiorella is articulate, while Karl is reserved.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370332369</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jill Hathaway
 
|title=Slide
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Everyone thinks Vee suffers from narcolepsy. The truth, however, is much stranger than that. She 'slides' into people's bodies when she touches an object they were emotionally attached to, becoming a helpless observer and leaving her body at risk. It's bad enough normally when this happens, as she sees the mean things people do to each other - but it gets much worse when she slides, and finds herself holding a knife and standing over a young girl's body. While everyone else thinks it's suicide, Vee knows Sophie's death was murder - but can she work out whose body she was occupying before the killer strikes again?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007446373</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=Cathy Farr
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|isbn=0008664730
|title=Moon Chase
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=When Wil dreams, it's as if he is inhabiting someone - or something - else's body. And when he wakes one morning after dreaming of a terrible crime and a desperate Fellhound, he knows the dog that he can hear howling is that very Fellhound. Following Farrow to try to rescue her injured master, Wil is captured by the Saranians, who believe he is the one to have tried to murder young Seth Tanner. His sentence is harsh - track and kill the Wraithe wolves in the Moon Chase and return alive and unharmed and go free, die in the attempt, or return injured and be hanged.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907652868</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Harry Allen
|author=Dan Wells
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|title=Children of the Sun
|title=Partials
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Since the Break, no baby has lived longer than three days. Scientists have studied every baby to try and find a cure, but with no luck. The human race is on the verge of extinction after the Partials (genetically engineered soldiers who were made to fight for humans) turned on their makers and released the deadly virus that has wiped out most of the population. For those lucky to survive, they now spend their time trying to cure the virus that kills every baby.
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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>000746522X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1805140493
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alexia Casale
|author=Shelley Coriell
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|title=Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=After being crowned Mistletoe Queen, Chloe Camden should be on top of the world, and more popular than ever. A jealous friend can't cope with her success, though, and trashes her reputation, leaving her a sudden social outcast. When her new guidance counselor tells her she needs to change her junior independent social project, Chloe is forced into a school radio station which is on its last legs, run by a bunch of losers who she'd never even have spoken to before. Taking a risk which could either kill or save the station, Chloe is thrust into a position as host of a new chat show. Will the risk pay off? Will Chloe find a new circle of friends?
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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>1419701916</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571373801
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Roy Apps
 
|title=The Party Animal and Don't Look Under the Bed (Deadly Tales)
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=
 
''Bored with sleeping soundly? Fed up with sweet dreams? Well this is the book for you! ''Deadly Tales'' features two nightmare urban legends that you'll pray aren't true''.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445103389</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|author=Johan Harstad
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|title=Deadlock
|title=172 Hours On The Moon
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's 2018 and people at NASA want to go back to the moon. But no one's been there since the 70s, so with funding and public support limited, they need an angle. A draw. Something to get people all over the world buzzing. Their answer is a worldwide lottery to select three teens who can accompany the NASA team on their week long jaunt into space. The chance of a lifetime! An unforgettable, unrepeatable experience! An adventure that truly is out of this world!
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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>1907411518</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lex Croucher
|author=Emma Smith
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
|title=The Cambridge Shakespeare Guide
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Home and Family
 
|summary=Does the world need another guide to Shakespeare's plays? There are plenty about and students these days have the added resource of the Internet to get the basics. However, if it does, then this is as good as any you will find. It's nicely written and beautifully clear and above all, succinct. In fact I'm doing a disservice to Emma Smith already by terming it a guide to his plays, because she also includes the poems and sonnets.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>052114972X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Miriam Halahmy
 
|title=Illegal
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Lindy’s life started to fall apart when her baby sister Jemma died. With her parents gambling and drinking, and her younger brother needing her to look after him, she’s desperate to hold the family together. So when her brother Garth, who’s in jail, manages to set her up with a job working for her charming cousin Colin, she thinks it’s a great opportunity. Then she finds out, though, that Colin’s business isn’t what it seems, and she’s quickly caught up in a nightmare cycle of drugs and threats… can she find the strength to stand up for herself, helped by the strange and reclusive mute boy Karl?
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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>1845395247</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526651793
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nick Brooks
|author=Anne Cassidy
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|title=Promise Boys
|title=Dead Time: The Murder Notebooks
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Rose's mother and stepfather - Kathy and Brendan - went out for dinner one night and never came back. Rose was taken in by her grandmother who sent her off to a posh boarding school, while her stepbrother Josh went up north to live with an uncle.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815508</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Andrew Fukuda
 
|title=The Hunt
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Gene - not that he remembers he's called Gene - is one of the few remaining survivors in a city peopled by vampires. His mother and sister were killed when he was just tiny and his father finally succumbed to a fang bite infection some years before. Gene's life is all about concealment. He shaves his body hair. He's careful to avoid any situation in which he might sweat - swimming is ok, but other sports are not. He files his nails. He behaves, always, as a vampire would behave. Everything is going so well until the Heper Hunt is announced...
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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>0857075411</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035003155
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1919635017
|author=Kelley Armstrong
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|title=The Calling
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|author=Kitt Townsend
 
|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= 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>1907410473</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|author=Jon Mayhew
+
|title=Different for Boys
|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=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>1408803968</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529509491
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sherrilyn Kenyon
 
|title=Infamous
 
|rating=4
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907411550</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1800901232
|author=Alexander Gordon Smith
+
|title=Stitched Up
|title=The Fury
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|author=Steve Cole
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Brick felt it.  Daisy 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 circumstances.  Brick 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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571276164</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Teri Terry
 
|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
 
|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?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085753095X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Leigh Bardugo
 
|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>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kody Keplinger
 
|title=The Duff: The designated ugly fat friend
 
|rating=3.5
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444903500</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jo Nesbo
 
|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=Dyslexia Friendly
|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.  
+
|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>0007354487</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Patrice Lawrence
|author=Sherrilyn Kenyon
+
|title=Needle
|title=Invincible
 
 
|rating=3
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=
+
|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...
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?
+
|isbn=1800901011
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0312603274</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Marie-Louise Jensen
 
|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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Ann Sei Lin
|author=Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil
+
|title= Rebel Skies
|title=Black Arts
+
|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=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.
+
|isbn=1406399590
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385615132</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|author=Conrad Mason
+
|title=Wrath
|title=The Demon's Watch
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|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.''
+
|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...
 
+
|isbn=1800900899
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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=James Dawson
+
|title=The Devil Makes Three
|title=Hollow Pike
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|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?
+
|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>1780620039</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789098130
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|author=John Green
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|title=The Fault in Our Stars
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|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.
+
|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>0525478817</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Sarah Silverwood
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|title=The Traitor's Gate: The Nowhere Chronicles Book 2
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|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.
+
|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 islandsHere 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>1780620659</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

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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

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

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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

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

1788452372.jpg

Review of

Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep by Philip Reeve

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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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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