Newest Teens Reviews
Teens
Drowning Instinct by Ilsa J Bick
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. Full review...
The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
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. Full review...
Geek Girl by Holly Smale
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... Full review...
Quantum Drop by Saci Lloyd
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... Full review...
Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian
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? Full review...
Infinite Sky by CJ Flood
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. Full review...
Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger
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.' Full review...
Butter by Erin Lange
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. Full review...
Bone Quill by John Barrowman and Carole E Barrowman
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. Full review...
Black Sheep by Naima B Robert
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? Full review...
Skylark by Meagan Spooner
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'. Full review...
The Disappearances by Gemma Malley
The Disappearances opens a year after Evie and Raffy escaped from the City. They have begun a new life in the Settlement - Raffy farms and Evie sews and this kibbutz-like living is like balm in comparison to the ultra-controlled, denunciation environment they left behind. But Raffy's jealousy won't leave him and it's threatening to ruin the couple's precious, new-found peace. Back in the City, Lucas is finding that switching off the System hasn't been the panacea he thought it would be. His people are lost without the rigid controls they had lived under for so long. And to make matters worse, the City's young people are disappearing. Full review...
By Any Other Name by Laura Jarratt
Everyone knows that Holly is a new girl at school, and that her family are newly arrived in the village. None of them realise just how much is new about Holly, though - even her name. Last year, she was a witness to a crime, and she and her family have gone into witness protection, forcing them to start life afresh. Can they find happiness in a strange place, or will the nightmares that haunt Holly never leave her? Worse, are they safe, or could the nightmares come true? Full review...
Abyss: A Siren Book by Tricia Rayburn
Vanessa is getting weaker and weaker, unwilling to use her powers of seduction to kill someone as she must do if she doesn't want to die herself. When there are more deaths, and Vanessa starts receiving anonymous messages from someone who seems to know her secret, she must work out whether she's ready to face her destiny. Full review...
Gilt by Katherine Longshore
Kitty Tylney has always followed her best friend Cat. Cat is larger than life, full of ridiculous plans and plots, the self-titled Queen of Misrule. Cat wants nothing more than to live life at the Court of Henry VIII - wearing amazing clothes and enjoying the attention of handsome lords - and Kitty is happy to play along. Full review...
Rat Runners by Oisin McGann
Nimmo lives in a London of the future. It's not a great place to be. Under constant surveillance by the WatchWorld network and its Robocop-style Safe-Guards, even the slightest transgression brings you into very unwelcome attention from the authorities. Life is particularly difficult for Nimmo. His parents are in prison and he must live below the radar of WatchWorld, amid the city's underground criminals. As you can imagine, Nimmo has skills. And this is why gang boss Move-Easy calls him in when a case containing valuable black market credit cards goes missing. Nimmo, together with sibling grifters Manikin and FX, and teen geek Scope, are to find the case or face Move-Easy's chief goons. Full review...
Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles, Book 2) by Marissa Meyer
The events of last time are but media chatter as we start book two, with a French farmgirl being worried. Her grandmother has been missing for over a fortnight, and the police think there's no case for them to solve. Our girl is even more worried when her dad, long missing presumed drunk, turns up to ransack the farm looking for something that must have been left behind – something that her kidnappers need. Things might look up with the arrival of a good-looking man, the epitome of calm power and strong senses, but while he seems concerned and claims his innocence, dad points him out as one of the gang behind the crime. How much can he be trusted? Either way, things must be investigated – and so our heroine, Scarlet, complete with her favourite riding-red hoodie, must go off into the unknown –alongside the man his fellow underground fighters call Wolf… Full review...
Arcadia Burns by Kai Meyer
If you haven't read the first book in this series, then STEP AWAY FROM THIS PARTICULAR COOKIE AISLE! There will be spoilers. Full review...
The Hanged Man Rises by Sarah Naughton
The Wigman is at large, murdering children. You'd think this would be the first concern for Titus Adams, as he's only fifteen, his parents are incorrigible drunks and he has a young sister, Hannah, to look out for. But in London in the late 1800s, there are more pressing concerns than serial killers on the loose. Like how to pay the rent. Like where the next meal is coming from. Like staying out of the workhouse. Like keeping your sister on the right side of the law. Thankfully, Titus has a friend in Inspector Pilsbury. He doesn't arrest Hannah when she's caught with pickpockets. He feeds her and keeps her safe at the station until Titus comes to collect her. Full review...
Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson
The celebration of Alcatraz's thirteenth birthday is quite a muted one – he gets a thirteen-year old parcel of sand in the post, claimed to be his inheritance from his birth parents, and he burns down the kitchen in his foster home – the latest in a long line of disasters that have followed him in his short accident-prone life. Expecting to just be farmed out to more foster parents, instead he is the subject of a battle between an armed man and a strange old fellow claiming to be Alcatraz's grandfather. What's more the guy says Al's abilities in breaking things are a Talent with a capital T, and the sands – that were stolen overnight – are a great threat to the world in the hands of Librarians (with a capital L). Against all his own instincts, our anti-hero goes with the latter man, finding his destiny in freeing the western world from the evil Librarians, and telling us about it later as an adult in a most sardonic fashion. Full review...
Smuggler's Kiss by Marie-Louise Jensen
Fifteen-year-old Isabelle has given up on life. Walking into the sea, she is ready to drown herself - until she changes her mind, too late. But instead of drowning, she's pulled from the waves by smugglers. While the crew aren't all happy that a couple of their men have jeopardized them by rescuing her, she quickly becomes useful to them and starts to get a thrill from helping to evade the Preventives. Can she be happy in her new life, or will her dark secret catch up with her? Full review...
Hysteria by Megan Miranda
Shunned by many of her former friends after killing her boyfriend in self-defence, and unable to remember the details of his death, Mallory feels haunted by his presence. When her parents send her to boarding school, will this be a chance for a fresh start, or will her past catch up with her even there? Full review...
How to Fall by Jane Casey
Freya dies after a fall from a cliff. But was it an accident, suicide, or - horror of horrors - murder?
Jess Tennant can't bear a mystery and so she sets out to solve the mystery of the death of the cousin she never met. She meets with nothing but obstruction and hostility, but perhaps it's little wonder. Not only is Jess a stranger in the parochial town of Port Sentinel, she is also the spitting image of Freya. She unsettles everyone for these reasons but, even despite them, Jess is an unsettling girl. She's blunt, direct, and she never takes no for an answer. Full review...
Everbound by Brodi Ashton
This is the second in the Everneath trilogy and picks up two months from where the first book finished. Two months ago the Tunnels of the Everneath came to claim Nikki Beckett, to take her back to the Underworld where she would be used as a human battery forever. That night, Nikki's boyfriend, Jack, made the ultimate sacrifice and took Nikki's place in the Everneath. Now, Nikki is haunted by Jack, who appears in her dreams every night, lost, confused and slowly having the life sucked out of him. On the Surface everybody is blaming Nikki for Jack's disappearance; Jack's Mum has hired a Private Detective who's following Nikki around, convinced that she will take him to Jack. Full review...
The Twyning by Terence Blacker
Efren is a nobody in the kingdom of rats till he witnesses the kidnapping of the king. His future changes in a moment as he's sent up to the human world to rescue him. Talking of humans, 11 year old Peter is abandoned by his parents and left to scrape a living from London's streets. His affinity with animals gives him the name 'Dogboy' and employment with rat catcher Bob and scientist Dr Ross-Gibbon. The Doctor's ambition is to encourage humanity to annihilate the rats by dragging them into a war. Efren and Dogboy, both insignificant in their own worlds, must make both man and rodent see sense; easier said than done. Full review...
The Dogs of Winter by Bobbie Pyron
Little Mishka finds his cosy world turned upside down after the death of his beloved Babushka Ina. Unable to cope, his desperate mother finds solace in the arms of an abusive, alcoholic boyfriend and things go from bad to worse. When his mother mysteriously disappears, five year old Mishka flees to the heart of the city, where he joins up with a gang of street children, begging and stealing to survive. Full review...
The Prey by Andrew Fukuda
Having escaped the vampires hunting them on the boat left by the Scientists, Gene, Sissy and the boys make their way down the river and arrive at the Mission. Food is abundant, the place is peaceful, and the Elders promise them a trip on the next train to Civilisation. Gene and Sissy can hardly believe it. But it's soon apparent that the Mission is not all it seems and Gene begins to wonder if they haven't simply exchanged one hellhole for another. Although they find out a great deal more about the Scientist - he developed the Origin, a cure for vampirism - understanding his plans is as frustrating as ever. And with the vampires coming ever closer, even to the Mission itself, and the Elders making moves of their own, time is running out and Gene and Sissy must decide what to do... Full review...
Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black
Vanessa is just one of many new students at the New York Ballet Academy - but while they're all trying to become the best dancer, she has her own reasons for being there. Three years ago her older sister disappeared from the school, and she's determined to find out what happened to Margaret. Can she find out? And will the two boys taking an interest in her, charismatic Zeppelin and incredibly intense Justin, help or hinder her search? Full review...
Rift by Andrea Cremer
After a mysterious healer saved the life of Ember, and her mother, when she was just a baby, Ember was promised to the mysterious order Conatus. It's a debt her father is not happy about paying - determined to see his younger daughter married to a suitable husband, he tries everything in his power to stop Ember joining the order of knights. Full review...
Irresistible by Liz Bankes
After finishing her GCSEs, Mia gets a job at Radleigh Castle, working as a waitress. She quickly meets fellow worker Dan, who she likes, but is he the boy for her - or would she be better off with Jamie, son of the owners and all-around arrogant idiot. Incredibly, it's a somewhat harder decision than that last sentence would suggest. Full review...
Hostage Three by Nick Lake
Amy's family have left on a round-the-world trip. The intention is to mend relationships after what has been a turbulent time. Amy has had a meltdown, messing up her A levels, partied too much and gone a bit too far with the piercings. She can't stand her stepmother and guards a catalogue of resentments against her workaholic, remote father. But the voyage turns into crisis when the family's yacht is kidnapped by Somali pirates. And the family is put under even more strain when a relationship develops between Amy and Farouz, the pirates' translator. As Amy learns more about Farouz and his background, she also discovers a great deal about herself, her family, and about life itself... Full review...
The Blog of Maisy Malone by Eve Ainsworth
Maisy Malone - not her real name, she's not an idiot, you know - has decided to write a blog. She's 17, has just dropped out of sixth form because her lessons all seemed so irrelevant, and is now waiting for her benefits to arrive while she's looking for a job. And jobs are hard to find in the current economic climate. This makes life even more difficult for Maisy than it is for Maisy's friends. Because Maisy's father hasn't had a job in years and is steadily drinking himself into oblivion and her dog, Dave, desperately needs an expensive visit to the vet to sort out his leaky bottom. Full review...
Undone by Cat Clarke
Jem has always been madly in love with the boy next door. Unfortunately, while Kai is his best friend, she’s not the girl for him. In fact, there is no girl for him – Kai is gay. Jem is one of the only people who knows this, though, until he’s cruelly outed online by someone anonymous. When Kai can’t live with people's reaction to his outing, and kills himself, Jem resolves to find out who was responsible, and bring them down. Full review...
Colin Fischer by Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz
Colin Fischer is just starting high school. It's a time that is both exciting and intimidating to the average student, but Colin is not your average fourteen year old. Colin has Asperger's Syndrome, a neurological condition linked to poor social skills and interpersonal interaction, often characterised by repetitive or obsessive patterns of behaviour. For Colin, a zealot of clear-headed logic and rational deductions (yes, he's a fan of Sherlock Holmes), every social interaction is a mystery that has to be solved. But when a real mystery arrives at school, in the form of a gun going off in the school cafeteria, Colin takes it upon himself to find the real culprit. This leads to a sequence of events which, as his father nicely puts it, involves Colin breaking more rules, starting more trouble and causing more chaos in forty-eight hours, than in all his fourteen years on the planet. Full review...
Zom-B Underground by Darren Shan
Ok. Before we begin. If you haven't read the first book in this series, DON'T read this review. It contains spoilers. Read my review of the first book, read the first book itself, then come back. If you don't, you'll be sorry. Full review...
Deceit by Deborah White
Thinking the immortal Doctor defeated, Claire has allowed her modern-day London life to return - almost - to normal. Her father has found a new girlfriend, Lindsay, and Claire quite likes her, despite a nagging guilt about disloyalty to her mother, who is depressed about the divorce and struggling to cope with Claire's new baby brother, Matthew. There's even a boyfriend, Joe, on the scene. Last year's adventure involving a girl from the past, an evil magician ancestor and an ancient prophecy, seem like old news. After all, Doctor Robert died, didn't he? Full review...
