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
 
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|title=Lover Birds
{{newreview
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|rating=4.5
|author=Melvin Burgess
 
|title=The Hit
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Manchester. About thirty years from now. Hardly anyone has a job that pays enough to live on. Life is mean and limited for most people. And then a rock star gives his final concert. Jimmy Earles dies on stage after taking Death, a new drug that gives the ultimate high at an equally high price - it kills you after seven days and there is no antidote.
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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>190843533X</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=Lindsey Leavitt
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|title=Wild East
|title=Going Vintage
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=After finding out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her with a girl he met online, Mallory decides that the best way to make her life less complicated is to get rid of the boy, and of the new technology that's the cause of her woes. Finding a list her grandmother wrote as a teen in the Sixties, she decides to go vintage, and live as her grandmother did. Will she find the answer to her modern-day problems in the past?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140713485X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=S B Hayes
 
|title=Don't Look Back
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Ever since they were children, Sinead has been taunted by her older brother Patrick. Always their mother's favourite, he constantly plays games with her, trying to force her to follow him. When he goes missing, it seems to be his most sinister game yet - as he leaves a trail of clues which lead to Benedict House, a strange place where time seems to stand still.
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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>0857386816</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|author=Will Hill
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|title=Department 19: Battle Lines
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=The wheels have been set in motion for Dracula to rise. Department 19 is in disarray, dealing with deaths, the disappearance of their chief Henry Seward, and the dreadful knowledge that there could be yet more traitors in the ranks. Jamie Carpenter is trying to train rookies into a fighting force who can take on vampires more dangerous than any newly-turned ones that have ever been seen before, Matt Browning is desperately trying to find a cure for vampirism, and Larissa Kinley is in the USA trying to help in the fight against her own kind. With Zero Hour coming ever closer, can the department save the day?
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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>0007354517</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Janine Southard
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=Queen & Commander (A Hive Queen Novel)
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Science Fiction
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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=In Rhiannon's world, your entire future depends on your final school test results. Everyone is classified according to personality type and entry to any career or university depends upon your personality type. It's impossible to cheat the test... unless you're Rhiannon. Rhiannon should really be a Perceiver. But all her life she has wanted her own hive. And to achieve this, she must test as a Queen or Commander. And this she does. The only person to ever have manipulated the test. Rhiannon's future is set: leadership training, followed by a choice of Devoted to serve her, followed by command of a prestigious space ship and hive.
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|isbn=0008666482
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00BRM30SE</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Teri Terry
 
|title=Fractured
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=As a teen criminal in Lorder-run Britain, Kyla was slated - her memories erased and her personality "reset". But Kyla wasn't like the other Slateds - she retained tantalising memories of her previous life. ''Fractured'' picks up Kyla's story after she's lost Ben and just as a mysterious man from her past comes back into her life. It seems that Kyla's memories represent more than just a failed slating. She has a role to play in the fight against the Lorders. But it's not as easy as that. Is Kyla a victim? A freedom fighter? A terrorist? And can the end ever justify the means? The more Kyla learns about her history, the more such questions burn. And the more danger she finds herself in...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408319489</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Sarah Mussi
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|title=Compass and Blade
|title=Siege
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Leah Jackson is miserable and in detention. This is particularly infuriating because the detention means she's likely to be late for her ''fame and fortune'' interview, one of the few chances kids at YOP schools have to make it into college and to get a life worth having. But Leah's worries are about to become much, much more immediate. Year 9 kids storm into the room. They're armed. And they're shooting. Leah escapes the melee by hauling herself up into the roofspace. But only just. Kids are dead. Teachers are dead. Everyone else is rounded up in the gym. Only Leah and Anton are free, but they are trapped above the ceiling tiles.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444914847</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Cora Carmack
 
|title=Losing It
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
 
|summary=Bliss is a drama student, but what else would you expect with a name like that? And yet, when we first meet her, I would never have guessed that was her major. She just doesn’t seem the type. She’s also not the type to pick up random men in bars, but that’s exactly what she does as the book starts. It’s her friend Kelsey’s fault. She’s determined to get Bliss out there, because that’s not where Bliss normally is. About to graduate at the end of the year, Bliss has made it through college without one key college experience: sex. And it’s time to change that.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091953383</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Brittany Geragotelis
 
|title=What The Spell
 
|rating=2.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Brooklyn just wants to be noticed by someone – the popular kids at her high school, the cute guy she likes, anyone other than the guidance counsellor who’s her only real friend. Luckily for her, she’s counting down the days until her sixteenth birthday - when she’ll have her powers as a witch finally unbound. When this happens, though, even though it initially seems like it will give her everything she wants, her new abilities could have caused more problems than ever.
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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>1471117073</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=Chris Priestley
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|isbn=0008664730
|title=Through Dead Eyes
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=After an unfortunate episode at school, Alex has joined his father on a business trip to Amsterdam. He had been hoping to spend some time with his father, but instead he is palmed off on Angelien, daughter of his father's new girlfriend. But Angelien is pretty and so Alex is quite happy to be shown around by her. When her boyfriend Dirk isn't around, that is. At an antique market, Alex finds himself drawn to an ancient-looking mask. He can't help but buy it. And once bought, he can't help but put it on.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408811065</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Harry Allen
|author=Anne Cassidy
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|title=Children of the Sun
|title=Killing Rachel: The Murder Notebooks
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|rating=5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Rose's mother and Josh's father - both members of the police cold case squad - have been missing for more than five years now. Although their bodies were never found, the authorities have always insisted that they are probably dead. But in the [[Dead Time: The Murder Notebooks by Anne Cassidy|first book]] in this series, the step siblings find information that suggests Kathy and Brendan are still alive. So Rose, Josh and friend Skeggsie are pursuing every lead they have - including trying to decipher the cryptic notebooks they have discovered.  
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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>1408815516</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1805140493
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alexia Casale
|author=Tom Clempson
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|title=One Seriously Messed-Up Weekend: In the Otherwise Un-Messed-Up Life of Jack Samsonite
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Two years after the ''messed-up week'' described in the [[One Seriously Messed-Up Week: in the Otherwise Mundane and Uneventful Life of Jack Samsonite by Tom Clempson|first Jack Samsonite book]], things aren't all that different for our hero. He's still trying to get together with a girl - despite having ended book 1 in bed with someone, things didn't go as he would have wanted after that. He's also struggling at school again, and it's even more important than his attempts to pass his GCSEs were. This time, he needs to get into film school. He has a weekend to make a film, and he needs a girl to kiss, and at least one enemy to fight.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907411690</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lauren Oliver
 
|title=Requiem
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=
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|summary=It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate a life-changing disability too, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle of a dance performance that was going to change her life.  But she comes back fighting, desperate to avoid the pity stares, and desperate to get back to a life that's as normal as she can possibly manage. Meanwhile there's a new (cute!) boy in school, her music A Level performance piece to try to sort out, and just the day to day traumas of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigate. So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead?
Out in the Wilds, Lena is now trying to cope with the return of her first love Alex along with her feelings for Julian, but these relationship issues take a backseat as life becomes very dangerous for her, and everyone else. Back in Portland, her friend Hana is set to marry the man who will become Mayor - a perfect pairing, surely? While both girls have changed a lot since the start of book one, the biggest changes are still to come...
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|isbn=0571373801
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444722972</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|author=Alan Gibbons
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|title=Deadlock
|title=Raining Fire
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Teens
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|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the run. They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions.
|summary=Gangs have always dominated the Green, an inner-city estate with an ominous undercurrent of violence. Growing up in the Green, Ethan has never really known anything different; however, he has always harboured a hope to escape from the place, and his position on a professional football training programme might just give him the chance to do so. Unfortunately, the Green won't let him go so easily. Drawn into a violent feud between two major gangs, Ethan will have no choice but to play his part, if he doesn't want a gun put to the heads of everyone he cares about.
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|isbn=1839944420
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780620276</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lex Croucher
|author=Simon Mayo
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
|title=Itch Rocks
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Itchingham Lofte, we are told, is the most protected boy in the worldWhile I hadn't read the [[Itch by Simon Mayo|first book]] about him, we are snappily and easily informed that he has previously been involved in an adventure regarding a very rare chemical – element 126 – and the various people that would control itWhile it's obvious to all those in his Cornish village and at his school that something major happened, due to him disappearing for a couple of months of specialised medical care, and returning with an MI5 armed guard constantly at watch over him and his family, only those few people (mum, dad, sister, tomboy cousin, and his various guards) have any idea of what has happenedOh, and of course a couple of enemies resilient enough to turn up for the sequel…
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|summary=Who knew that what I really needed to read right now was a gay Arthurian RomCom?  But honestly, it lifted my spirits in a most delightful wayIn this story, Gwen and Arthur have been betrothed since they were tiny, much to their mutual disgust!  Gwen, you see, is in love with Bridget (the kingdom's only female knight) - something that Art discovers from her private diariesAnd then when Gwen then catches Art kissing a boy they find themselves becoming reluctant allies, creating the subterfuge of falling in love with each other, when really they are enabling their own other romantic attachmentsBut as their impending wedding draws ever closer, will they find a way in which they can both truly be themselves, or are they destined to live a lie their whole lives?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857531328</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526651793
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nick Brooks
|author=Chris Higgins
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|title=Promise Boys
|title=The Day I Met Suzie
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Everyone takes an instant dislike to Suzie Grey, the new girl at college. There's just something about her that makes people's skin crawl. Everyone, that is, save Indie. Indie is a soft touch. She just can't help herself. She's a sucker for a sob story and most of her hard-earned wages from her part-time job at the salon go on bailing out her boyfriend's many disasters. Indie feels sorry for Suzie, this mousy, hard-done-by girl, and she takes her under her wing.
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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>0340997028</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035003155
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1919635017
|author=Dave Cousins
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|title=Waiting For Gonzo
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|author=Kitt Townsend
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Oz is newly arrived in the sleepy village of Slowleigh. At first, he wishes life there was more exciting, but drawing a moustache on a photo of schoolmate Isobel Skinner - nicknamed Psycho - might bring him the wrong sort of excitement. Someone else who's wishing her life was rather less exciting is his sister Meg, who's hiding a secret which Oz knows but her parents don't - can he survive Psycho and help his sister?
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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>0192745468</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|author=Tammara Webber
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|title=Different for Boys
|title=Between The Lines
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=Teens  
|genre=Teens
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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.
|summary=Emma is a seventeen year old actress, thrust into the spotlight in a modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with a co-star who half of America's teens are drooling over. Reid is a Hollywood heartthrob with an ego the size of Los Angeles and a reputation as a player. When the two meet, sparks fly - but can Emma trust the superstar, or would she be better off going for the less-exciting but more sensible Graham?
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|isbn=1529509491
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141347465</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1800901232
|author=Kevin Brooks
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|title=Stitched Up
|title=The Bunker Diary
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|author=Steve Cole
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
|summary=Linus is taken from the streets simply for having done a good turn. While patrolling his usual haunt at Liverpool Street station - there are often good pickings for the homeless there - he offers to help a blind man loading a van. He wakes up feeling dreadful with vague memories of a pad soaked in anaesthetic held over his mouth and nose. It appears he's in some kind of underground bunker. A lift is the only way in and out. At first, Linus thinks he has been kidnapped for ransom - this particular street kid has a rich and famous father. But then the lift opens and a young girl appears, having been similarly drugged. Over the next few days, four more people arrive.
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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>0141326123</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrice Lawrence
|author=Siobhan Curham
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|title=Needle
|title=Finding Cherokee Brown
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|rating=3
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Claire Weeks is timid, lonely, and characterised by a pronounced limp. On the other hand, Cherokee Brown is confident, cool, and unafraid to stand up for herself. On her fifteenth birthday, Claire discovers that her birth name was actually Cherokee Brown, and that her birth father, who had supposedly abandoned her for America, has been living just a tube journey away from her for over a decade. Meeting her father, Claire discovers a whole new side to her life that she couldn't have imagined. Spurred on by this rush of self-discovery Claire decides to embrace Cherokee and all that she stands for.
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|summary=Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers both. Kicked out of multiple homes and schools, she's fostering with a pleasant yoga tutor, Annie, and has taken up residence in her son Blake's old room while he's at uni. Such a tempestuous personality may be in need of a comfort blanket, you might perhaps think, and the creation of one such item is part of the plot here, as Charlene is a wonder knitter, and is making something full of love for her younger sister – a younger sister she's allowed contact with no more. We see Charlene prove her belligerence with a store detective, and then force people to give her two days off school, when she shouts someone down as expletively ignorant. And then... well, what exactly happens is not for me to say, only to remark how sharp and pointy those knitting needles can be...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405260386</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800901011
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Ann Sei Lin
|author=Kim Harrington
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|title= Rebel Skies
|title=Perception
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|rating= 5
|rating=4
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|genre= Teens
|genre=Teens
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|summary= Kurara has spent her entire life as a servant on the Midori, a massive dining hall floating in the sky where soldiers of the Empire come to drink and make merry between their conquests. However, when a man named Himura arrives to tell her that she is a Crafter like him, someone with the power to form paper into whatever she desires – a power sought after all across the Empire. He asks her to come with him, to leave the life of dreary servitude that is all she has known. Well, soon Kurara won't have any say in the matter, because the Midori is destroyed by a monstrous paper spirit known as a shikigami, and she is forced to flee out into the world. She joins Himura aboard the Orihime, a sky-ship whose express purpose is to hunt down shikigami, and a whole world of adventure awaits her…
|summary=After solving a murder over the summer, Clarity 'Clare' Fern finds herself the centre of attention at school. Mostly it's annoying, but harmless - popular girls wanting her to use her unique gift for show and entertainment - but someone is sending her increasingly creepy messages, and Clare keeps getting the feeling she's being followed.
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|isbn=1406399590
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407130862</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|author=Ilsa J Bick
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|title=Wrath
|title=Drowning Instinct
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Jenna is 16 years old, and fresh out of a psychiatric hospital when her parents enrol her at a new high school in the wilds of Wisconsin. Being the new kid at school adds to an already iffy situation (parents who ignore her angst in favour of their own; a brother who enlisted to get away from them) and she’s not really looking forward to term starting. But then she meets someone, someone special who is kind to her, pays attention to her, looks out for her. Someone she can trust. Mr Anderson is a Chemistry teacher and athletics coach, but he’s more than that to Jenna. Against the rules, and against the odds, he becomes her ally, and so much more.
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|summary=Meet Fitz, a young Scottish lad full of frustration at himself. Lockdown is only just over, and he should be free to do what he wants, to go where he wants and with whom he wants, but he cannot stop himself from putting his foot in it when he talks to his best friend, Cassie. They were half of a desultory school band, but Cassie was also one hundred per cent the enigmatic – saying she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earth. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying the end of the world is already a done deal? Is it some spooky new kind of music she's dreaming of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out the truth? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he can't...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780870434</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800900899
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michelle Hodkin
 
|title=The Evolution of Mara Dyer
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Mara knows that the things that have been haunting her for the past year are not necessarily all in her head. The problem is persuading everyone else of that. When Mara's parents don't believe that she saw Jude - Jude who died in the building collapse that started all of Mara's problems - alive and well, Mara realises that anything she says is just going to convince them she's more crazy. She tries to pretend that she knows she has problems and she's trying to get better, but that's made difficult when Jude keeps trying to scare her - leaving dead cats in the garden, messages written in blood.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857073656</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=Holly Smale
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|title=The Devil Makes Three
|title=Geek Girl
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Harriet Manners is clever, works hard, and retains lots of information. She knows more facts than just about anyone else at her school. She just doesn't know why barely anyone seems to like her...
+
|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>0007489447</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789098130
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|author=Saci Lloyd
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|title=Quantum Drop
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We're in London. The London that's left after the next financial crash devastates life for most people right across the world. Money is hard to come by, and most people survive on black market credits, supplied by the Betta. Everyone either works for the Betta or borrows from them. And when Anthony's girlfriend gets on the wrong side of the Betta and is taken out in a gang hit, he must venture into the virtual world of the Drop if he is to find out who is responsible and how to get justice. But the Drop is a dangerous, dangerous place...
+
|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>144490082X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|title=Burn for Burn
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Kat wants revenge on her ex-best friend, who now taunts her whenever they cross paths. Lillia wants revenge on the boy who's started treating her little sister as more than a friend. Mary wants revenge on the boy whose cruelty led to her leaving Jar Island for years, only returning now. Individually, they may not be able to do much - but as a trio, they're sure they can wreak vengeance on those people who've wronged them. Just how far will these three 17-year-olds go?
+
|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>1442440759</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1510107789
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|author=CJ Flood
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|title=Infinite Sky
+
|rating= 4
|rating=4.5
+
|genre= Teens
|genre=Teens
+
|summary= Scarlett McCain is an outlaw, rejecting the draconian conformity of the Surviving Towns and Faith Houses to wander the wildlands between the Seven Kingdoms of Britain, robbing banks and shooting other outlaws to keep herself alive. But then she meets Albert Browne, a dark boy with dark powers and a darker past. With mysterious militiamen hunting them down, they plan to flee to the mythical Free Isles of the London Lagoon. Together, they must brave man-eating wildlife, the cannibalistic Tainted and all the horrors of post-apocalyptic society to reach the Free Isles, but will they be any more accepted there than they are in the rest of Britain?
|summary=As summer begins, Iris is finding that life can be quite tricky. Her mother has packed up and left to go travelling. Her father isn't coping too well with having been abandoned by his wife. Her brother, Sam, is in trouble at school and in danger of going off the rails generally. And Iris herself is feeling overtaken by her best friend, who is obsessed with boys and fashion while Iris prefers to run wild in the woods as she's always done.
+
|isbn=1406394815
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085707802X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gail Carriger
 
|title=Etiquette and Espionage
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is being sent to a finishing school. She's none too happy about it, until she gets there and finds there's rather more to Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality than meets the eye. Because while her mother thought she was there to be finished, she's also going to learn just '''how''' to finish - 'anything or anyone who needs finishing.'
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907411585</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
|author=Erin Lange
 
|title=Butter
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Bullied by his classmates at school, harassed by his parents at home, and weighing over 400 lbs, Butter really has very little to keep living for. And so he decides to stop. Living, that is. But he’s not going to throw his not unsubstantial frame under a bus, or jump off a cliff. He’s going to do what he does best – eat.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571294405</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Barrowman and Carole E Barrowman
 
|title=Bone Quill
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Twins Matt and Em Calder have both their mother's Animare gift of bringing paintings to life and their father's telepathic Guardian gifts. This makes them an unknown to the Guardian Council - some of whom would have the twins bound, their powers trapped forever.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780550316</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Naima B Robert
 
|title=Black Sheep
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Sixteen-year-old Dwayne is a badman – a wannabe rapper who hangs around with other gang members and doesn't see any future in education. Misha, high-flying university-bound daughter of a local councillor, should have nothing in common with him, but when they meet there's an undeniable attraction, and they start to date in secret. Misha makes Dwayne want to be a better person – but with his old life tempting him back at every turn, can he make a break from it, or will he be drawn back in?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847802354</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Meagan Spooner
 
|title=Skylark
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Lark's city is run on magic - they've found a way to use it like electricity, it powers everything. This magic comes from teenagers. When a child comes of age they find their magical power, which is then harvested. Once this is done, your magical abilities have gone. However, there are stories about people who are Renewable, there magic just keeps coming back. Someone like this would be invaluable to society, and unfortunately for Lark, this is exactly what she is. Determined not to be a slave, and having been tortured by the government for her powers, she escapes (with the help of another Renewable who is a prisoner of the city) and leaves. She begins her journey to find others like her - Renewables - her only clue to 'follow the birds'.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552565563</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 09:54, 8 July 2024

000862657X.jpg

Review of

Lover Birds by Leanne Egan

4.5star.jpg Teens

When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she? Full Review

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Review of

Wild East by Ashley Hickson-Lovence

4.5star.jpg Teens

Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words. Full Review

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Review of

Us in the Before and After by Jenny Valentine

5star.jpg Teens

Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together. Full Review

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn? Full Review

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Review of

Compass and Blade by Rachel Greenlaw

3.5star.jpg Teens

I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.

Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear. Full Review

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Review of

Children of the Sun by Harry Allen

5star.jpg Teens

Ra Eun Seo lives in a North Korean town and she is a talented singer. Life is hard and food is difficult to come by, so Seo and her friends Nari and Min go foraging every evening, looking for tree bark and edible grasses to supplement the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at home. Full Review

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Review of

Sing if you Can't Dance by Alexia Casale

5star.jpg Teens

It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate a life-changing disability too, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle of a dance performance that was going to change her life. But she comes back fighting, desperate to avoid the pity stares, and desperate to get back to a life that's as normal as she can possibly manage. Meanwhile there's a new (cute!) boy in school, her music A Level performance piece to try to sort out, and just the day to day traumas of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigate. So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead? Full Review

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Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the run. They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions. Full Review

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Review of

Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

4star.jpg Teens

Who knew that what I really needed to read right now was a gay Arthurian RomCom? But honestly, it lifted my spirits in a most delightful way. In this story, Gwen and Arthur have been betrothed since they were tiny, much to their mutual disgust! Gwen, you see, is in love with Bridget (the kingdom's only female knight) - something that Art discovers from her private diaries. And then when Gwen then catches Art kissing a boy they find themselves becoming reluctant allies, creating the subterfuge of falling in love with each other, when really they are enabling their own other romantic attachments. But as their impending wedding draws ever closer, will they find a way in which they can both truly be themselves, or are they destined to live a lie their whole lives? Full Review

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Review of

Promise Boys by Nick Brooks

4star.jpg Teens

When the principal (headmaster) of Urban Promise Prep school is murdered, three boys find themselves called into the police station as suspects. Each, seemingly, has a grudge of some description against Principal Moore, and each could have been there at the time of his murder. But who killed him, and why, and if any of the boys are innocent, will they be able to clear their names? Full Review

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Review of

A Thief to Catch a Killer by Kitt Townsend

4.5star.jpg Teens

Solomon Klyne isn't a bad lad, so why is he running around London committing a series of robberies? And how did he learn to crack safes? You'll have to wait to get an answer to the second question because I avoid spoilers. But I'll answer the first one: for his grandmother... Full Review

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Review of

Different for Boys by Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix

4.5star.jpg Teens

Ant is in Year Eleven at quite a standard school, and is surprised to find his geography class (within which it seems absolutely nothing about geography is ever learnt) has been restructured, so his desk is one of four with both his best buddy from the football team, and two other old muckers – in fact they all go back to primary school days together. As they're all fired up, straining at the leash only a single-sex school can form, the talk in class and out often turns to sex. Which is confusing for Ant, as he doesn't know what his score is, where his achievements in that regard lie. He's had a casual relationship, a secret one, for several months now, and so has effectively progressed up the ladder headed by 'experienced', but whether that's set in stone, he can't be sure. And that's mostly because of who he's been having the relationship and the sex with. Full Review

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Review of

Stitched Up by Steve Cole

5star.jpg Dyslexia Friendly

Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be a fashion designer. Life in the rural village where she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperous, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came to the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be missed. Some money changed hands and Hanh was on the mini-bus to Hanoi. Only, Hanh and the other girls were not going to work in a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factory. You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legs? The ones with the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched them? It's quite possible that Hanh and her co-workers made them. Full Review

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Review of

Needle by Patrice Lawrence

3star.jpg Teens

Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers both. Kicked out of multiple homes and schools, she's fostering with a pleasant yoga tutor, Annie, and has taken up residence in her son Blake's old room while he's at uni. Such a tempestuous personality may be in need of a comfort blanket, you might perhaps think, and the creation of one such item is part of the plot here, as Charlene is a wonder knitter, and is making something full of love for her younger sister – a younger sister she's allowed contact with no more. We see Charlene prove her belligerence with a store detective, and then force people to give her two days off school, when she shouts someone down as expletively ignorant. And then... well, what exactly happens is not for me to say, only to remark how sharp and pointy those knitting needles can be... Full Review

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Review of

Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin

5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Wrath by Marcus Sedgwick

4.5star.jpg Teens

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

1789098130.jpg

Review of

The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino

4.5star.jpg Teens

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

1788452372.jpg

Review of

Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep by Philip Reeve

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1510107789.jpg

Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1406394815.jpg

Review of

The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne by Jonathan Stroud

4star.jpg Teens

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

Move on to Newest Thrillers Reviews