Difference between revisions of "Newest Teens Reviews"

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[[Category:Teens|*]]
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Dead and Buried (Murder Notebooks)
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|author=Leanne Egan
|author=Anne Cassidy
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|title=Lover Birds
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=
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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?
It's been five years since Rose's and Josh's parents disappeared and Rose is determined finally to start getting on with her life. She hasn't seen Josh for a few weeks and although she misses him, she can't but help feeling a sense of relief. But then policeman Henry turns up at her door with more bad news: the body of a teenage girl has been found buried in the garden of her old home, the one she shared with her mother, Josh, and his father Brendan. With their parents implicated, Rose and Josh have no choice but to try to solve one last murder...
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|isbn=000862657X
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815532</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|title=Shattered (Slated Trilogy)
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|title=Wild East
|author=Teri Terry
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
 
|summary=Kyla - or is she Lucy? or Rain? or Riley? - was ''slated'' as a teen criminal in Lorder-run Britain. All memory of her past life was erased and she was sent to live with a new foster family, controlled by a wrist bracelet that could kill her if she stepped out of line. But that was some time ago. Since then, some of Kyla's memories have resurfaced and she has discovered that she isn't a run-of-the-mill Slated. Used as a weapon by an anti-Lorder terrorist group, Kyla's brain has been messed with in more than one way.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408319500</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The God Beneath the Sea
 
|author=Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=When a baby falls from the sky into the sea, Thetis, goddess of the sea, takes him into her care and names him Hephaestus. Raised lovingly by Thetis and her sister Eurynome, Hephaestus still grows to question who he is and where he came from. The sisters tell him he was born on Olympus, and so begins the twisting turning tales of the Titans and the Gods - their battles for supremacy, their betrayals, their vengeance.
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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>0857533118</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|title=The Spectacular Now
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|author=Tim Tharp
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Sutter Keely, The Sutterman, has life pretty good. Sure, he's got no long-term plan and may spend his life folding shirts, but he's having a ton of fun, he's hugely popular - even his ex-girlfriends still like him - and his relationship with the wonderful Cassidy will get back on track soon enough. Then he meets the sci-fi obsessed, shy, put-upon Aimee, and decides he can make a difference in her life. The plan is to help her gain some confidence, become popular, and find a nice guy - but Sutter doesn't bargain on things going further than he was planning on. Will he change Aimee's life for the better, or for the worse?
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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>1407146459</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1471196585
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Max Boucherat
 +
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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?
 +
|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Megan Miranda
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|title=Compass and Blade
|title=Vengeance
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=''Vengeance'' is a follow-up to [[Fracture by Megan Miranda|Fracture]], in which Delaney almost died, drowned under the ice of a lake. Things never got back to normal after that. Delaney can sense death. She is irresistibly drawn to people who are about to die. And people take a long time to get over the accident. Delaney survived for 11 minutes under the ice - how was this possible? And Carson, the boy who pulled her out, is dead. There are mutterings that Falcon Lake is cursed. It wanted Delaney and, denied her, is now taking others in some kind of freakish revenge.
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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>140883958X</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.
|title=The Children of the King
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|isbn=0008664730
|author=Sonya Hartnett
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=In a prosperous area of London during World War II the two Lockwood children, twelve year old Cecily and her older brother Jeremy, are dispatched, together with their socialite mother, to stay with family in the north to keep them safe. On their arrival, at Cecily’s insistence, they take in a young evacuee, ten year old May. As they wander the countryside close to Cecily’s Uncle Peregrine’s country estate the two girls find two strange boys hiding in the ruins of Snow Castle and do not tell the rest of the family about their discovery. As the children attempt to cope with their changed circumstances and the fear of an approaching enemy, each evening Uncle Peregrine tells the children a dark and sinister story of intrigue in the Royal courts of long ago and so begins the story within a story.  This intriguing book then goes on to combine two periods of English history in an extraordinary adventure that is not only an historical novel but a moving coming of age story too.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407137514</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Harry Allen
|title=Tilly's Promise
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|title=Children of the Sun
|author=Linda Newbery
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
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|genre=Teens
|summary=Tilly often wished things would change in the sleepy little village she called home, but she gets more change than she bargained for when war breaks out. First her sweetheart joins up, then Tilly signs on a nurse and finally her brother Georgie is called up, despite the fact that he is completely unfit for service. Georgie is different, big and strong but with the mind of a child - how could he possibly survive the horrors of war? So many promises are made, Tilly promises her sweetheart Harry she will wait - Harry assures her he won't be away long - sure it will probably be over by Christmas (famous last words).  When Georgie is posted to Harry's unit, Tilly extracts a somewhat reluctant promise from him to look after her brother. More promises will be made - but  promises are hard to keep in wartime. As Georgie and Harry face the harsh reality of life in the trenches, Tilly finds herself near the frontline as a nurse. Everything seems to have changed. Will even love remain the same - especially in the aftermath of a broken promise?
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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>1781122938</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1805140493
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alexia Casale
|title=Boys Don't Knit
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|author=T S Easton
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Ben Fletcher is a pleasant and fairly quiet boy - so when the 17-year-old gets roped into taking part in the Great Trolley Robbery to grab some booze for a party, it's just his luck that he's the one who ends up getting assaulted by a lollipop lady and put on probation! Forced to keep a journal, give back to the victim of his crime, and take up an approved hobby, he reluctantly chooses knitting - only to find a real talent for it. Can he keep his new-found hobby a secret from his dad and his mates, get the girl of his dreams, and become a champion knitter?
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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>1471401472</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571373801
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|title=The Kissing Game
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|title=Deadlock
|author=Jean Ure
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Salvatore d'Amato - sometimes nicknamed Sally Tomato - is twelve years old and has never been kissed. He's determined to change that before his next birthday. But will Lucy, the object of his affections, ever return them? He has a secret weapon - his poetry. Is it going to win her heart, or just disgust her? And will Harmony Hynde, the girl in his class who works as a library assistant, stop bothering him?
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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>0007519516</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lex Croucher
|title=Unnatural Creatures
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
|author=Neil Gaiman
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=
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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?
''I wished I could visit a Museum of Unnatural History, but even so, I was glad there wasn't one... If someone actually caught a werewolf, or a dragon, if they tamed a manticore or stabled a unicorn, put them in bottles, dissected them, then they could be only one thing, and they would no longer live in the shadowy places between the things I knew and the world of the impossible, which was, I was certain, the only place that mattered.''
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|isbn=1526651793
 
 
So says Neil Gaiman in the introduction to this anthology of sixteen ''unnatural creatures'' (to capitalise or not to capitalise, that is the question).
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408845466</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nick Brooks
|author=Darren Shan
+
|title=Promise Boys
|title=ZOM-B Gladiator
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=WARNING: ''Gladiator'' is the sixth book in the ''ZOM-B'' series, so if you don't want to catch any spoilers, look away now.
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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?
 
+
|isbn=1035003155
Don't say I didn't warn you.
 
 
 
You're gone, right?
 
 
 
Good.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857077724</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1919635017
|title=The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|author=Catherynne M Valente
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|author=Kitt Townsend
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=A while ago a friend recommended a book called [[The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M Valente|The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making]].  I have to say, the title alone intrigued me, but somehow that title sat on my 'to get' pile and I never actually got around to reading it.  Since then several other people (all adults) have suggested I might like it, so when I saw the latest book in this series was available I decided to give it a try. I really should have read the first two books, I think. This is the third in the series, and I believe there are going to be five altogether. There are some series which you can dip into without feeling too lost, but this isn't one of them!
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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>1472110218</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|title=Old Dog, New Tricks
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|title=Different for Boys
|author=Bali Rai
+
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Teens
 +
|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.
 +
|isbn=1529509491
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1800901232
 +
|title=Stitched Up
 +
|author=Steve Cole
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
 
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
|summary=Nick is a miserable old sod by anyone's definition. His equally mangy dog, Nelson, is the only friend he has, as his nasty nature puts everyone off. But while he may be unpleasant to most people, he is downright horrible when the Singh family move in, bringing out the worst of his racist views - but can a man who likes Bob Marley really hate anyone of another colour? Is Nick just an ignorant and  offensive old git, or is there something more beneath the surface? No one seems to have really bothered to find out before a common love of dogs draws young Harvey Singh to attempt to befriend not only the unkempt dog, but the lonely old man as well.
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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>1781123470</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrice Lawrence
|author=Mark Lingane
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|title=Needle
|title=Tesla 1
+
|rating=3
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Sebastian has lost both his parents. His father died of a mysterious wasting disease whereas his mother is just... well... lostThe only thing he has he has to remember his mother by is a note telling him to go to the mysterious Steam Academy.  However, first he has to find his way there in a futuristic Australia without widespread technology but with dangerous cyborg warriors.  What's worse, despite fighting humans in general for thousands of years, the cyborgs now seem to have turned their attention and energy to killing Sebastian in particular.  What's he done to deserve that?  More to the point, whatever he's done, how can he survive?
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|summary=Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers bothKicked 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>0992377951</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800901011
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Ann Sei Lin
|title=Red
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|title= Rebel Skies
|author=Libby Gleeson
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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=''Mud. In her mouth, her nose and her eyes. Mud in her hair and caked on her neck and her arms. Mud filling her shoes and seeping through her clothes. She lay sprawled on her side, a garbled, barely distinct sound coming from her: jaymartinjaymartin.''
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|isbn=1406399590
 
 
Who is ''jaymartin''? And who is this girl? Red doesn't know who she is or what has happened to her. She doesn't know what has caused the devastation all around her. Rescued from the mud by Peri, Red discovers that she's in Sydney in the aftermath of a terrible hurricane. Chaos is all around as the emergency response struggles to get to grips with the dead, injured and displaced. Through the noticeboard at the rescue centre, Red and Peri discover that she has a name. And a father. And a frightening secret.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444917307</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|title=Dead Ends
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|title=Wrath
|author=Erin Lange
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Dane is a rebel who's close to getting kicked out of a school; Billy D is the new kid in town. One of Dane's few rules of behaviour is that he won't hit kids in special ed, so Billy D figures hanging around with someone tough who won't hit him is a good idea - although it's not that easy to convince Dane of this. He really needs to, though, because he has a puzzle to solve and Dane could be the perfect person to help him.
+
|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>0571308821</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800900899
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tori Bovalino
|title=Nomad (Faery Rebels)
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|title=The Devil Makes Three
|author=R J Anderson
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Ok. Before we begin, you should know that ''Nomad'' is the second in a sequence. So if you haven't yet read [[Swift by R J Anderson|Swift]], you should probably start there. Don't read this review: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.
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|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.
 
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|isbn=1789098130
We meet up with Ivy again as
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408326485</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Philip Reeve
|title=The Forbidden Stone (The Copernicus Legacy)
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|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|author=Tony Abbott
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=If you like your fiction full of heart-stopping adventures, mysterious cults and constant danger, then you'll love this book. Codes, puzzles and ancient secrets abound, and there is no doubt that the publisher's comparison with the novels for adults written by Dan Brown is justified. There's drama and deadly peril on pretty well every page.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000754734X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Emily's Quest: A Virago Modern Classic (Emily Trilogy)
 
|author=L M Montgomery
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=When I read this book as a teenager (many times over!) I loved Emily's passion for writing, I loved the excitement of all the different events through the story and I loved the happy ending.  Coming to the story now, twenty-plus years later, I found the book had a rather different flavour to it.  It is, at times, terribly, desperately sad.  I was surprised, by a book that is widely regarded as a children's story, at just how bleak Emily's life appears to be, and how traumatic the events in her life are.  It is very well written, and I still experienced the same compulsion to read it as I used to find when I was younger, yet even with the final, desperate happy ending that Montgomery manages to squeeze in I was left feeling rather contemplative.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844089878</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jane Elson
 
|title=A Room Full of Chocolate
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Sometimes family isn't the one you are born into but the people and pigs you collect along the way.''
+
|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.
 
+
|isbn=1788452372
Grace doesn't want to leave her London home and go and live with misery guts Grandad while her mum goes into hospital to get a LUMP sorted out. Grace can't see why she couldn't look after her mum herself. After all, the LUMP was just caused by Mum dancing too much, wasn't it? WASN'T IT? But Mum won't hear of it and Grace must move away, start a new school, make new friends and miss her mum so much that even chocolate doesn't help. Things go from bad to worse when Grace upsets the resident school bully on her very first day.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444916750</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|title=The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|author=Paige Toon
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Jessie Jefferson isn't having a great time of it. Her mum died in a freak accident. On Jessie's birthday. While buying Jessie's birthday cake. Grief and anger at the loss of her mother has sent Jessie into a spiral of teenage rebellion. She's drinking and smoking and partying and stepfather Stu is at the end of his tether. So much so that he finally tells Jessie something she's always wanted to know: the identity of her biological father...
 
 
... it's Johnny Jefferson, global rock star.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471118789</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Crystal Chan
 
|title=Bird
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Grandpa stopped speaking the day he killed my brother, John.''
+
|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.
 
+
|isbn=1510107789
That was also the day Jewel was born. Birthdays for Jewel are miserable affairs during which her parents' grief for their son trump their joy in their daughter. In fact, Jewel doesn't see that her parents have ''any'' joy in their daughter at all. She's quite certain that nobody will ever love her as much as Mom, Dad and Grandpa loved John. Until, one day, she finds a mysterious boy sitting in one of her favourite trees. Grandpa doesn't like this new John, but Jewel does. She finally has someone that she can really talk to, who really understands the way her mind works. But John isn't everything he says he is. And his arrival is about to change Jewel's life forever...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848531230</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jo Cotterill
 
|title=Looking at the Stars
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Amina and Jenna are sisters living under the Kwana regime. Because the Kwana have banned girls from going to school, they contribute to the family finances by weaving baskets and mats from reeds. Life under the Kwana is tough but Potta and Mamie tell their children to keep their heads down and get on with life as best they can. But fighting is breaking out across the country and when Amina sees a column of liberating soldiers, she begins to think life might get better soon.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178230018X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Hunger (Hammer 1)
 
|author=Melvin Burgess
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Beth wakes up one morning covered in dirt and consumed by a ravening hunger. She puts it down to illness and sleepwalking at first but when the hunger doesn't go and reports of a grave desecration surface, Beth has to admit that something sinister is afoot. Beth doesn't know it yet, but she is a special person. She carries a conduit from the land of the living to the land of the dead and a newly-awakened demon wants her very much. But can Beth, together with brother Louis and friends Ivan and Coll, defeat him?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099576643</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Shadowplay
 
|author=Laura Lam
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Micah Grey and the clown Drystan have left the circus. Trying to escape their past, and the terrible tragedy that ended Pantomime, they find Jasper Maske, a retired magician who owes Drystan a favour. While they seem to have found a safe haven, the return of a figure from Maske's past reignites an old rivalry. Can they help Maske and avoid detection when the mysterious Shadows seek both Micah and the person he once was? And who is the mysterious Cyan, and can they trust her?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908844396</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Storm and Stone
 
|author=Joss Stirling
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=American student Raven Stone doesn't like it at her exclusive English boarding school. People are going missing, and return seeming very different. The teachers pick on her as a scholarship students, and her classmates hate her - one of them enough to send her death threats. Just as the mystery starts to deepen, two new boys arrive. Joe is friendly and charismatic, but it's Kieran's analytical brain which may be the clue to solving her problems. Although her problems may be bigger than either of them had realised...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192735683</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The One Safe Place
 
|author=Tania Unsworth
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Devin lives on a farm with his grandfather, away from the rest of the world. He knows a little about it – how the gap between rich and poor is far wider than the world we live in, and how many children now live on the street, scavenging for scraps to say alive. But, he’s never been that concerned. On the farm the life is a simple one, but they can grow enough food to get by, and they’re happy. When tragedy strikes, Devin is forced to leave his home and venture into the city for the first time.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444010239</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|title=Crash Into You
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|author=Katie McGarry
+
|rating= 4
|rating=5
+
|genre= Teens
|genre=Teens
+
|summary= Scarlett McCain is an outlaw, rejecting the draconian conformity of the Surviving Towns and Faith Houses to wander the wildlands between the Seven Kingdoms of Britain, robbing banks and shooting other outlaws to keep herself alive. But then she meets Albert Browne, a dark boy with dark powers and a darker past. With mysterious militiamen hunting them down, they plan to flee to the mythical Free Isles of the London Lagoon. Together, they must brave man-eating wildlife, the cannibalistic Tainted and all the horrors of post-apocalyptic society to reach the Free Isles, but will they be any more accepted there than they are in the rest of Britain?
|summary=This is the second companion book to McGarry's stunning debut [[Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry|Pushing The Limits]], following [[Dare You To by Katie McGarry|Dare You To]]. In the wonderful Pushing The Limits, we were introduced to main characters Noah and Echo and an excellent supporting cast including Noah's best friends and surrogate family Beth and Isaiah.
+
|isbn=1406394815
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848452543</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
|title=Salvage
 
|author=Keren David
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Cass is adopted. She's always been happy in her new family, getting on well with her parents and feeling protective of their natural son Ben. So when her father, a high-ranking MP, is revealed to be having an affair with a woman not much older than her the betrayal hits her hard. Aidan, her brother, manages to get back in touch with her shortly afterwards and seems to be the bright spot in her life. But how much do these siblings really know about each other?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349001375</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=This Song Will Save Your Life
 
|author=Leila Sales
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Elise is a fragile girl who's never felt like she fitted in anywhere. Shuttled between her divorced parents, she's desperate to be popular at school but can't work out how. Then a chance event leads to her DJ'ing in Start, a hot underground nightclub and her life suddenly improves dramatically - but can she really leave behind her old self, or are the bullies who make her feel like there's nothing worthwhile about her life right all along?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447252837</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

1471196585.jpg

Review of

Us in the Before and After by Jenny Valentine

5star.jpg Teens

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

0008666482.jpg

Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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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

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

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