Newest Teens Reviews
Teens
The Killer's Daughter by Vivian Oldaker
Emma has just moved to Wessex with her Dad and Jan, her Dad's girlfriend. But it's not just adjusting to a new school, a new country that Emma has to deal with. Emma's Dad was accused of murdering her famous Grandmother by pushing her off a cliff in Greece. No one wants to be her friend, and it's not long before she becomes the newest victim to bullies. Slashed swimming costumes, physical fights – being at her new school is difficult. Full review...
She's So Dead To Us by Kieran Scott
Ally Ryan had not expected to return to Orchard Hill – ever. Less than two years previously she and her family had moved out in a hurry when her father’s business dealings had caused serious financial problems in the local community. But her mother has a job in the local school and they move into a small house and try to rebuild their lives. Abby wasn’t exactly expecting a warm welcome but she was surprised when so many of her so called 'friends' cut her dead and it’s made obvious that she now lives on the wrong side of town. Full review...
Firebrand (Rebel Angels) by Gillian Philip
Seth lives in the land of the Sidhe, protected from the world of full-mortals by an ancient magical Veil. There's an uneasy but relatively settled peace, with only the occasional border fray to disturb their long lives. But things aren't easy for Seth - he's the unwanted second son of a Sidhe lord, his mother interested only in the corridors of power at the court of Kate NicNiven, and his father with eyes only for his older brother Conal. The inhabitants of his dun don't trust him, he's half-feral, and his only real tie is to Conal, who has taken him under his wing, and for whom Seth would gladly die. Full review...
The Dream Thief (Horatio Lyle) by Catherine Webb
When an orphan girl appears on Horatio Lyle's doorstep, half-dead and apparently poisoned, the genius inventor finds himself drawn into a conspiracy that reaches to the highest circles of London Society. Someone is kidnapping workhouse children and essentially turning them into zombies. Somone is stealing their dreams. With the help of his young ward, the street-urchin Tess, he sets out into the darkest parts of the city to stop them. Full review...
Prisoner of the Inquisition by Theresa Breslin
Don't read this book if you are of a delicate disposition and prone to nightmares. Within the first few pages a woman is burned at the stake, a man is unjustly accused and hanged, his young son only just escapes the same fate and a woman dies in childbirth. But this is no horror story, and none of the violence is gratuitous: this is quite simply the world of fifteenth century Spain. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are fighting the Moors in Granada, Christopher Columbus is seeking royal funding for a voyage to prove the world is round, and the Inquisition is spreading terror and anguish throughout the land. And against this background of momentous events, we have the thrilling and beautiful account of the lives of two young people, bound together by hatred and love. Full review...
The Burning Mountain by LJ Adlington
In AD79, Gaius Justinius Aquila is drenched in grey ash, trying desperately to help the citizens of Herculaneum as Vesuvius erupts around them. In 1943, German paratrooper Peter Schafer finds himself in Naples. Peter has a secret - he's underage, having run away to sign up. Within the year, Peter will find himself defending Monte Cassino against a huge Allied bombardment. Throughout his time in Italy, Peter will have many encounters with Vittoria, an impoverished Neapolitan who steals to keep herself and a ragbag bunch of orphans alive. Full review...
Blood Feud (Drake Chronicles) by Alyxandra Harvey
Isabeau St. Croix has no care for politics and royalty, and would really rather not spend her time among the newly royal Drake family, attempting to negotiate peace between them and the Hounds, her vampire clan. The Hounds are not well thought of among vampires, who fear their dual fangs and strange rituals. But the Drakes are like no vampires Isabeau has ever met, and they aren't like royalty either. Full review...
Zelah Green: One More Little Problem by Vanessa Curtis
We first met Zelah when her OCD got so bad she was sent off to a live-in centre for treatment. She's at home now, with the OCD still around but not totally debilitating. She's still jumping on the stairs - but not so many jumps and not so often. She's still scrubbing her face, but it isn't quite red raw. You'd call her overly fastidious rather than ill. And her therapist is pleased with her progress. But then... Full review...
The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
Thirteen-year-old Kyra has one father, three mothers, and twenty siblings - yes, twenty - with another two on the way. She lives on a polygamist compound run by Prophet Childs. His father had been Prophet before him, but since his father's death and Prophet Childs' accession, things have taken a turn for the worse. A fence has gone up around the compound. Adolescent boys are driven off, and the Prophet seems to be choosing younger and younger girls to marry older and older men. And now, it's Kyra's turn. Prophet Childs announces that she is to marry her sixty-year-old uncle. And her father is afraid to refuse him. Full review...
By Midnight by Mia James
April Dunne doesn't really consider herself to be a genius, and her family certainly aren't rich - so how did she get accepted by the ultra-prestigious Ravenwood school when her family moved from Scotland to Highgate? She can't work it out but has other problems to worry about, in any case, such as the two local murders and the way people at her school get angry when she tries to take their photograph. On the plus side, there's a seriously stunning boy she's drawn to straight away, Gabriel Swift, and she thinks he likes her, although his behaviour is weird at times. Full review...
Secret Hour (Midnighters) by Scott Westerfeld
If you do have to move into a small American town, make sure it isn't Bixby, Oklahoma. Jessica does, and finds it perhaps more trouble than it's worth. She quickly bonds with some of the more goth-seeming kids at her high school, but it's the night-time activities that intrigue her. She thinks she's in a dream when she walks through a dazzling forest of raindrops, suspended in a moment of frozen time - that moment being exactly midnight. But wouldn't you know? - her goth-seeming friends are active at midnight too - and so are some very dangerous creatures of the terrible kind... Full review...
I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore
Meet John Smith. By all appearances he is the usual fifteen year old American kid, except for the fact he and his 'father' shift location every few months. John is certainly not his real name, but has to face up to reality - school bullies, hot girls and in fact any friends being unattainable with such a peripatetic lifestyle. 'Dad' stays at home, scanning the internet and all news sources, in order to protect the pair - for they are among the remaining dozen or so inhabitants of Lorien, living in hidden exile on Earth, but hunted by their enemies from yet another alien race. Can the fact they are permanently pursued grant them any peace - especially when 'John' is about to undergo some rather prominent alien-style puberty? Full review...
Dark Secrets 2 by Elizabeth Chandler
Those of you who read my review of the first Dark Secrets bind-up will know I absolutely loved that book. This is a similar proposition – two average-sized teen novels packaged together in a very good value volume. Both are set in Wisteria, Maryland. Both feature teenage girls looking for closure on past events, with dark secrets buried in their past – and both are guaranteed to capture the imagination of their target audience of teen girls, and of a fair few other readers besides. Full review...
Forbidden Game by L J Smith
While looking for a game to play for her boyfriend's birthday, Jenny Thorn comes across a strange shop she's never seen before. Going in, she talks to a handsome boy who sells her a mysterious game in a plain box. But when she and her friends open the game to play it, they're transported to a world where the boy is the Shadow Man, and the consequence of losing the game can be deadly. The group of teens are left fighting against their worst nightmares as they try to defeat the sinister Shadow Man and escape – but when some of them finally do get out, they realise that it's just the beginning of the nightmare for them. Full review...
Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma
Maya is sixteen, pretty, sociable and wise beyond her years. But she's never been kissed. Lochan is seventeen, drop-dead gorgeous and most of the girls at his school have crushes on him. He's also highly intelligent, at the top of his class and heading off to a good London university and on the cusp of a bright future. But he's never kissed a girl. You'd think then, that when these two teenagers kiss for the first time, it would be the beginning of a gorgeous first love affair, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong. Because Maya and Lochan are brother and sister... Full review...
Dead Boy Talking by Linda Strachan
They say it takes about 25 minutes to bleed to death. I want to scream and yell but there's no one here to hear me and I... I can't breath enough to yell anyway. I'm going to die here, all on my own.
Josh is lying in the snow in an alleyway in a pool of his own blood. He stabbed one of his best mates yesterday, and now it's happened to him. He knows he's dying and his thoughts turn to how this could possibly have happened. He wonders where Skye is and what she's doing. He hopes Danny is ok. And, as he goes over the events of the day before, which culminated in his stabbing Ranj, his missing brother Gary keeps intruding into the picture. Why did he go? And did his parents' obsession with Gary's disappearance play a part in what's happened? Full review...
Kisses for Lula by Samantha Mackintosh
Girls do worry, about all sorts of things. And one of the things they enjoy worrying about most is whether or not they are passing the milestones on life's journey at the same time as everyone else. The fact that they combine this with loud demands to be treated to be an individual is a major reason for stress-related hair-loss and gibbering in parents. Lula is no exception here. Her sixteenth birthday is approaching fast, and unless she gets kissed before then (by pretty well anyone: she's desperate) she is convinced she will be jinxed for life. Full review...
iBoy by Kevin Brooks
Tom Harvey is wandering along after school on his way to meet up with his friend Lucy when he hears his name called from up high in one of the tower blocks on his estate. He doesn't have time to look up before everything goes up. Waking up in hospital days later, Tom discovers he has fragments of a shattered iPhone embedded in his brain. And still worse, his friend Lucy has been gang-raped in a brutal attack that Tom had been so closed to walking in on. Full review...
Passing Strange (Generation Dead) by Daniel Waters
Karen DeSonne, the sexiest zombie amongst the many differently biotic teenagers in Oakvale, gets a turn at centre stage in the latest in Daniel Waters's Generation Dead series.
Karen has always worn a disguise. When she was alive, her various camouflages hid the crippling depression that engulfed her so often and eventually led to her suicide. Now she's dead, make up, hair dye and blue contact lenses enable her to "pass" as a living girl. She talks fluently and her movements are fluid, unlike most of her differently biotic peers, whose pauses, stutters and jerky movements mark them out for all to see. Full review...
Losing It by Keith Gray
Doing it for the first time... you know, Losing It. It.
Sex. They talk about it a lot, teenagers. And eventually, they do it. But when is the right time? Where is the right place? Who is the right person? Is everyone else doing it already? Will they be cheap if they do it too? Or will they be left behind on the peripheries of all that's important in life? And there's so much eagerness in teenagers - not just for sex, but for everything. They sure do hate to wait. But sometimes, it's better to wait. The trick for the poor things, I suppose, is knowing when exactly to stop waiting. And when you've never done it, how on earth can you possibly know that?!
Stepping into the breach come eight of my favourite writers in today's teen market, each with a story about virginity. Full review...
Million Dollar Mates by Cathy Hopkins
It's nine months since Jess Hall's mother died and she's still finding it difficult to come to terms with what's happened. She and her brother Charlie have been living with Gran but all that's about to change. Jess' Dad has got the job of general manager at Number 1, Porchester Park. These apartments are not just up-market they're where the A-listers live and after some initial reluctance about leaving Gran Jess is excited. There's an Olympic-size pool where she can swim and both she and Charlie will be able to have their own rooms in the house that goes with the job. Everyone at school envies here and it looks as though she's living the dream. Full review...
Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Nick Gautier, scholarship kid teased for his poverty and his mother's job as a stripper, finds life hard enough even before three of his friends try to kill him when he stops them from mugging an elderly couple. But when the man who rescues him turns out to mix in seriously weird circles, things get really bizarre. If anything, really bizarre is a massive understatement. Nick goes on to meet demons, zombies, shape changers, and a host of other mysterious beings, many of whom he already knew in human form as his schoolmates. He ends up on the frontline of a battle against zombies who are running riot in his home of New Orleans. Full review...
The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan
A few weeks after the events of The Demon's Lexicon and Mae is finally ungrounded. Determined to get on with 'normal' life and forget the magic she's lost since brothers Nick and Alan Ryves left, Mae is only interested in hitting the town and meeting up with Seb. Nice, normal Seb. Then Mae learns her brother Jamie has been secretly meeting up with Gerald, the new leader of the Obsidian Circle. Afraid that Jamie is getting involved in dangerous things, Mae does the only thing she can and calls Alan. Full review...
Nobody's Horse by Jane Smiley
Abby lives on her family's farm in California. They specialise in taking horses and ponies which are not at their peak and bringing them on so that they can be sold at a profit. Abby's father is determined that she won't get attached to any of the horses, because that only increases the pain when they inevitably go, but two are going to make an impact on her that she could not have expected. The first is a foal whose dam dies when he's a matter of weeks old and he takes Abby's heart. The second has the opposite effect because every time that Abby rides him he's determined to buck her off. She's frightened of him and it's a tribute to Abby that the worst she calls him is Grumpy George. Full review...
My Life on TV by Kimberly Greene
Sam’s sister, Danni, is a pop star and her mother is Danni’s manager. Dad died before Sam was born, so between the three of them life is quite fraught, particularly as they’re the subject of a reality show which is planned to run for three years. If they manage the full three years the house they live in will belong to their mother, but it all looks to be in jeopardy when Danni decides that she can’t take the pop star life any longer and she’s going to hang up her microphone. Sam’s scared that this will mean they have to leave the house and go back to the days when they had to struggle to pay the rent. There might be a way round it though – what if she was to become a TV star and the reality show could continue? Full review...
The White Cat (Curse Workers, Book 1) by Holly Black
Cassel Sharpe dreams of a white cat and wakes up on the roof of his school building, perilously close to a fatal fall. Afraid that he's suicidal or otherwise unstable, his principal sends him home, while the school decides whether or not he can stay on as a pupil. This is completely devastating for Cassel, who is struggling with some major issues. For starters, he's only non-worker in a family of workers. His gloved hands cover useless fingers. His touch doesn't manipulate emotions, remove memories, bring luck, or kill, maim or otherwise injure. Even in a world where working is illegal, it's hard to be the only normal person in your family Full review...
Nicholas Dane by Melvin Burgess
14-year-old Nicholas Dane is taken into care after his mother, a secret smack head, dies in an accidental overdose. Meadow Hill is an assessment centre, but the truth is that not much genuine assessment is going on. It's a savage, brutal regime and Nicholas fights against it from the start. Eventually, he's taken under the wing of Tony Creal, the deputy head, and the only person in the place who appears to have a shred of common humanity...
... or so Nick thinks. Full review...
Sudden Death (Striker) by Nick Hale
Jake Bastin, son of famous former footballer Steve, thought his life was difficult enough even before his father enters negotiations to join St Petersburg’s newest football team as manager. But when the agent his dad’s discussing the move with collapses of a suspected heart attack, things get far more complicated – because Jake is convinced he was actually poisoned, and can’t understand why his dad seems happy to go along with a cover up. As the pair move to St Petersburg, the bodies start piling up, and Jake goes from having to fight to control his temper, to fight to save his life. With no way of knowing if he can trust anyone, even his own father, can the youngster stand up to criminals who are happy to kill to get what they want? Full review...
Adam and the Arkonauts by Dominic Barker
Adam is on a mission. Both he and his father have spent the decade since his mother was kidnapped by an Evil Scientist looking for her, and perfecting their own skills. They might have got the best clue of all so far - one that has led them to the mysterious, hidden, and downright alarming city of Buenos Suenos. Those skills? Being able to communicate with animals. Since learning to gibber like a spider monkey they can both bark, purr perfectly, and more. It will take the extraordinary menagerie to survive the unusual city, and try and discover what happened to Adam's mum - and what the Evil Scientist might want by holding her hostage for the same skills in return. Full review...
Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper
Grace Parkes is not yet sixteen when she loses her baby. Worse still, it is 1861, and Grace is unmarried. To have a baby out of wedlock is a shameful thing for a girl in Victorian times, even if it is not by her own choice, and Grace has to cope all alone with the shame of her condition and the loss of her child, not to mention a sister who needs constant care and their increasing poverty. But Fallen Grace is not some nineteenth century version of the misery memoir: Grace has resourcefulness and determination as well as beauty, and her story moves at a gripping pace. Full review...
The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
Gabry has lived her whole life behind the safety of the Barrier, in the seaside town of Vista. She isn't keen to venture past it, to explore the remains of an old amusement park, but Gabry is drawn by the allure of Catcher, her best friend Cira's brother. Cira and the others are sure they will be safe from the Mudo – the shambling undead that plague the world Gabry lives in. Gabry decides to risk it, and her whole world is turned upside down. Full review...
The Dead (The Dark) by David Gatward
Lazarus Stone is home alone - his father's away on business and his mother died in a car crash when he was just baby. He's lazing around, chatting on the phone with his best mate Craig, when a foul smell begins to suffuse the house. Tracking it to the lounge, he opens the door and discovers a skinless figure drenched in blood. Not a corpse - Red has crossed over from the other side with a message for Lazarus's father...
Hell is full and the Dead are coming. Full review...
Crossing Over by Anna Kendall
Roger can cross over into the Country of the Dead. To be able to do this he must be in pain, something his abusive Uncle, Hartah, takes full advantage of. So they travel, Hartah, Roger and his Aunt Jo, from faire to faire making money from Roger’s talents and exploiting the grieving. Until, Hartah, takes them to the sea. It is there that Roger gets dragged into helping Hartah and others wreck the Frances Ormund, a navy ship carrying precious cargo back to the Queendom. Full review...
Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce
Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris - the werewolves that took her eye and savaged her body during a brutal attack when she was just a young girl. Scarlett managed to save her sister Rosie, but Grandma Oma died horrifically. Scarlett's body is marked by scar after scar and the scars never let her forget. She lives and breathes the hunt, killing Fenris after Fenris and saving teenaged girl after teenaged girl. Full review...
Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud by Andrew Lane
With his father overseas in the British Army, his mother unwell, and older brother Mycroft busy working for the government, young Sherlock Holmes is forced to spend his school holidays with his unknown uncle and aunt. Looking forward to days of doing whatever he wants, especially after meeting urchin Matty Arnatt, he's initially displeased when Mycroft hires him an American tutor – but the tutor, Amyus Crowe, and his daughter Victoria end up teaming up with Sherlock to solve the mysterious deaths of two local men, and uncover a plot which could have far-reaching consequences… Full review...
Obernewtyn (Obernewtyn Chronicles) by Isobelle Carmody
A nuclear catastrophe called the Great White destroyed most of the world, and only those who lived in isolated parts of the countryside were able to survive by refusing all contact with radiation-infected refugees from the urban centres. In time the cities grew again, but the fear of outsiders and of those who were different remained and became a religion, composed in part of half-remembered elements of faiths from the time before the apocalypse. Full review...
Firespell: The Dark Elite by Chloe Neill
Lily Parker is sent to boarding school in Chicago when her parents get the opportunity to do some prestigious research work in Germany. She was expecting bitchy classmates, and she gets them – but she wasn’t prepared for her suitemate, Scout, who stays out late at night and reappears covered in bruises, a school full of secret hiding places, a principal who knows her parents and seems to have an entirely wrong idea about their work – or a mysterious group of supernatural teens called the Dark Elite. Full review...
The Cardturner by Louis Sachar
How are we supposed to be partners? He can’t see the cards and I don’t know the rules!
17-year-old Alton Richards is shoehorned into becoming the driver and cardturner for his blind, octogenarian, bridge-playing, but above all rich, uncle by his grasping parents - who are up to their eyeballs in debt and have a weather eye on potential legacies. Alton sighs but goes along with it. He's used to being told to call Lester Trapp his favourite uncle and he's used to his unrepentently mercenary parents. Full review...
Star Crossed: Taurus Eyes by Bonnie Hearn Hill
Logan McRae is excited by the prospect of attending a writers' camp hosted by author Henry Jaffa, who starts off by asking them all to write a project idea and then shuffles them around. Instead of her longed-for astrology feature, Logan ends up having to write about folk singer Sean Baylor, whose ghost may be haunting the locality. The only person who doesn't have to switch is the cute boy at the camp, Jeremy, who Jaffa allows to keep his original topic – of Sean Baylor. So, Logan and Jeremy end up fighting over research material while also clearly wanting to get to know each other better – does the ghost exist? Will they get it together? Who will write the best article and get it published? The answers to all these questions and more lie inside the second book in the Star Crossed series (along with some temporary tattoos!) Full review...
Fifteen Minute Bob by Catherine Forde
For years, conscientious student Rory and his hard-working mother have struggled to cope with his father, an eyeliner wearing struggling singer-songwriter unable to hold down a job, and obsessed with a star called Bob Blade. While Rory finds his father's unreliability a nightmare to live with, his two friends Smiler and Barry think he's cool and spend more time hanging out with him than with Rory. As the trio of Smiler, Barry, and Rory's dad team up to make a music video that goes viral on the internet, Rory gets unwittingly involved and, in the words of the blurb from the back, 'everything flips'. Full review...
The Last Seal by Richard Denning
In 1380 the warlock Stephen Blake released the demon Dantalion from the Abyss, only for his nemesis Cornelius Silver to banish him straight away. Dantalion has nursed his wounds for nearly 300 years – and in 1666, descendants of the original pair clash as he aims to return to the world, and burn down London by starting the Great Fire. While the fire rages around London, and Dantalion’s followers try to break the seals which hold him in the Abyss, four unlikely heroes join forces to stop them from being destroyed – and to save the world. Full review...
Wasted by Nicola Morgan
Jess wants to study music. She's a wonderful singer. And so a chance encounter with Jack, who needs a singer for his band, is exactly the happenstance she'd hoped for. Even better that Jack is so charming and handsome and charismatic. And still better that he feels the same attraction to her. How lucky can a girl get? Jack believes in luck. In fact, he lives his life by it. He doesn't do a thing unless his coin says he can. Newly in love, Jess is slowly drawn into his game of chance. Although it worries her a little, she can't know that a time will come when the toss of a coin is the difference between life and death. Full review...
Monsters of Men (Chaos Walking) by Patrick Ness
Noise - visible thought - dominates the lives of everyone on this settler planet. Noise is used as a tool of oppression and as a weapon. There's a cure, but the Machiavellian President Prentiss reserves it only for the most loyal. The Answer are fighting back against his authoritarian regime, but they've had to make some terrible choices. Between the President's torture and the Answer's terrorist bomb attacks stand Todd and Viola - trying to prevent civil war, trying to hold on long enough for the second wave of settlers to arrive. And then, in the wake of the President's genocide of slaves, the Spackle attack. A scout ship finally arrives, but it may be too late to prevent a catastrophic war... Full review...
