Difference between revisions of "Newest Teens Reviews"

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[[Category:Teens|*]]
 
[[Category:Teens|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Teens]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Teens]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
==Teens==
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Max Boucherat
 
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
{{newreview
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|rating=4.5
|author=Gene Kemp
 
|title=No Way Out
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Alex and Adam are twins, and they're telepathic to boot. They're very close, but are also like chalk and cheese: Adam's looking forward to their holiday on Uncle Ben and Aunt Sadie's farm, but Alex can't think of anything worse. Adam is always happy to read to their little sister Emmy, but Alex resents the attention she gets (she's disabled, y'see). By and large, they're just ordinary kids, with ordinary grumbles. When the car they're in goes through thick fog and crashes, they find themselves in a town from times past, with inhabitants who don't want to let them leave, and who have an eye on Emmy.
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|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering.  When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571244556</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Delphine de Vigan
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|title=Compass and Blade
|title=No and Me
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|rating=3.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Lou is a clever, clever child with an IQ approaching 160. She's thirteen, but she's been moved up two years at school and she compares her flat chested, nervous self somewhat unfavourably with her fifteen-year-old peer group. Funnily enough, her only real friend at school is Lucas, who's seventeen and such a rebel that he's been moved down  two years. Things at home aren't great for Lou. Her baby sister died a few years ago and her mother has been severely depressed ever since. She barely talks, seldom gets dressed. Her father is worn down to the bone with worry and Lou doesn't get a great deal of attention from him either, so distracted is he.
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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>1408807513</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.
|author=Paul Magrs
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|isbn=0008664730
|title=The Diary of a Dr Who Addict
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Davey, in his first term at secondary school, is horrified. Not only is his best friend trying to grow up through the use of a home gym, and standing him up on the first morning of term, he also seems to be becoming dismissive of The Show. Still, he is trying to be esoteric - just like his sister, painting her face to look like Bowie album sleeves of all things - and Davey knows better.  He knows everyone should be enthralled with the spectacle of Tom Baker falling off a building and becoming Peter Davison.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384129</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Harry Allen
|author=James A Owen
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|title=Children of the Sun
|title=Shadow Dragons (Imaginarium Geographica)
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|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=If you want to know where Tolkein, C S Lewis and their ilk got their ideas from, you might consider their jobs.  No - not their work in Oxbridge universities.  In this book, at least, John, Charles and Jack are guardians of a very important book, the Imaginarium Geographica, within which lives a lot of secret, vital information, and almost the soul of the land. They might not get a surname so we know immediately who is whom.  They might be from a different world - there is certainly enough talk of those in these pages.  But we'll see them meet a vanishing Cheshire cat, a certain Spanish knight we might have thought fictional, and more, en route to a quest of Arthurian proportions.
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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>1847386512</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1805140493
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alexia Casale
|author=Jon Mayhew
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|title=Mortlock
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Abyssinia, 1820. Three Englishment search for the Amarant, a mythical flower with the power over life and death, in a strange desert oasis. On finding the flower surrounded by decaying faces, they realize that it is cursed, and take a blood oath never to remove it.
 
 
 
London, 1854. 13 year old knife thrower Josie performs with her guardian the Great Cardamom, an especially gifted magician who we quickly learn is Chrimes, the coward of the original three Englishmen. Their relatively peaceful existence is shattered when three macabre Aunts (note the capital letter, never a good sign…) descend on them, and Cardamom instructs Josie, with his dying breath, to find the twin brother he'd never told her about and destroy the Amarant.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408803925</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Julia Green
 
|title=Drawing with Light
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Emily doesn't remember her biological mother. She ran away with another man when Emily was just two. Now, her older sister Kat, her father, and her stepmother Cassy make up the family unit and Emily thinks it's just fine that way. She doesn't need a mother who didn't want her and has never even tried to get in touch. But then Kat goes off to university, her father buys a rundown house in the middle of nowhere and moves them into a caravan while it's being renovated, and Cassy gets pregnant.
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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>1408802732</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571373801
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sarah Dessen
 
|title=Along for the Ride
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Auden has always felt like the odd one out amongst her peers. Her parents - now divorced - are both academics and high achievers, and they, especially her mother, want the same for Auden. Auden's older brother is the rebel and so Auden feels as though she needs to be the one who satisfies her mother's ambition. So she works hard and never lets her diligence or conscientiousness slip for even a moment. But she's socially awkward and lacking in experience. She's never had a boyfriend, hates the colour pink and can't even ride a bike.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327480</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Rook Hastings
 
|title=Nearly Departed
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=At first sight, you'd think Weirdsville was Anytown - it has a slightly rundown feel; everything's just a little bit shabby. But it's pretty much like any other town. Parents go to work. Kids go to school and clump together in little peer groups of geeks and swots and jocks and bullies. But Weirdsville isn't like any other town. There's a strangely abundant wood right in the middle of it, and at night, everythings turns, well, a little bit weird. The darkness is so dark it almost sucks you in. And there are odd noises too...
 
 
 
... and Emily thinks she's seen a ghost.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007258100</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|author=Bonnie Hearn Hill
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|title=Deadlock
|title=Star Crossed: Aries Rising
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ordinary teen Logan McRae discovers an old book called 'Fearless Astrology'. Can the book help her and her friends get the boys they want, catch the vandals who are shocking their school with pranks, and win her the approval of cantankerous English teacher Mr 'Frankenstein' Franklin? This is a novel written for teens – of course it can.
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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>0762436700</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lex Croucher
|author=Gabrielle Lord
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
|title=January (Conspiracy 365)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Callum is wandering along home on New Year's Eve when crazed itinerant accosts him.
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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?
 
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|isbn=1526651793
''They killed your father! They'll kill you! You must survive the next 365 days!''
 
 
 
The man is carted off in an ambulance, and Cal tries to shrug off the incident but it's not easy. How did the man know his name? How did he know that Cal's father was dead? Who could possibly want to kill a run of the mill adolescent like him? What is the Ormond Singularity that the man kept shouting about? And the thing is, Cal's father had written to him shortly before returning home already in the throes of a fatal illness. His father was vague on detail, but is pretty sure he was on to something big. Could there be a connection?  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340996447</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nick Brooks
|author=Steve Feasey
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|title=Promise Boys
|title=Changeling: Blood Wolf
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Trey is the last living hereditary werewolf - or so he thinks. So when he discovers he has a long-lost uncle, he shrugs off all objections from his vampire guardian, Lucien and catches the first available plane to Canada. When he arrives, he finds that not all werewolves are fearsome, forbidding and courageous creatures. And they're certainly not all family-friendly. His uncle is old, half-blind and alcoholic. He lives in filth and he couldn't give a fig for Trey. But there is a pack out there, and it's vicious, bloodthirsty and rapidly spinning out of control.
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|summary=When the principal (headmaster) of Urban Promise Prep school is murdered, three boys find themselves called into the police station as suspects. Each, seemingly, has a grudge of some description against Principal Moore, and each could have been there at the time of his murder. But who killed him, and why, and if any of the boys are innocent, will they be able to clear their names?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330470493</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035003155
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1919635017
|author=Cliff McNish
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|title=Savannah Grey: A Horror Story
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|author=Kitt Townsend
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Savannah Grey is doing her best to settle into her latest foster placement - Annette is really nice; she's warm and kind and respects her adolescent charge's privacy. But Savannah has perenially itchy feet and she finds it difficult to make lasting relationships. She's never had a boyfriend and friendships are often fleeting. Nina is the only one that seems to stick around. Then her throat gets sore. Then Annette tells her that she's making odd noises at night. Savannah knows her body is changing and she's developing powers that she doesn't understand. Then the leaves start to swirl for no apparent reason and the birds to behave oddly.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842551124</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Glenn Dakin
 
|title=Candle Man: The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Birthdays for Theo are not exactly how we would recognise them.  One bland, forgettable present from each of the three people who live in his household.  Some pink cake at the best of times.  A trip to the cemetery, with the butler making sure nobody else is in sight.  But this one is different - some person unknown leaves something for him.  And by the time burglars break in, and force Theo to leave the confines of his bedroom and find some of the secrets of the house, it is too late - Theo is set on a nightmarish trail between two warring forces, as the truths of his destiny, his origins, and his hands, come to the fore.
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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>1405246766</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Celine Kiernan
 
|title=The Poison Throne (Moorehawke Trilogy)
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In ''The Poison Throne'' what had been a benevolent kingdom has become characterised by repression and torture (which the book graphically describes). The magical aspects of the kingdom, its talking cats and ghosts, have been suppressed, while Alberon, the heir to the throne, has vanished. Wynter, along with Alberon's half brother Razi and his friend Christopher are increasingly at risk as they attempt to deal with this situation.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498211</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|author=Philip Womack
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|title=Different for Boys
|title=The Liberators
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Teens  
|summary=Ivo's parents have gone off on a South American expedition. As it's the school holidays, Ivo is off to London to stay with some glamorous relatives. Aunt Lydia is a socialite and art expert who arranges exhibitions and parties for the great and the good. Uncle Jago is in finance and there isn't much about wheeling and dealing that he doesn't know. They're fond of Ivo and the kind of guardians who are likely to practise some benign neglect, so what Ivo is really looking forward to about his stay is freedom - he intends to explore London and enjoy everything it has to offer.  
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|summary=Ant is in Year Eleven at quite a standard school, and is surprised to find his geography class (within which it seems absolutely nothing about geography is ever learnt) has been restructured, so his desk is one of four with both his best buddy from the football team, and two other old muckers – in fact they all go back to primary school days together. As they're all fired up, straining at the leash only a single-sex school can form, the talk in class and out often turns to sex. Which is confusing for Ant, as he doesn't know what his score is, where his achievements in that regard lie.  He's had a casual relationship, a secret one, for several months now, and so has effectively progressed up the ladder headed by 'experienced', but whether that's set in stone, he can't be sure. And that's mostly because of who he's been having the relationship and the sex with.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747595526</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529509491
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1800901232
|author=Jaclyn Dolamore
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|title=Stitched Up
|title=Magic Under Glass
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|author=Steve Cole
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Namira is a trouser girl - a music hall performer. In Lorinar, she's regarded as a faintly risque curiosity but at home in Tiansher it wasn't like this. Performers like her mother were feted and respected and Namira grew up in a palace. In Lorianar, she lives in poverty, performing for drunken fools who don't understand her art. And then suddenly, she's freed from the seedy music hall by Hollin Parry, a wealthy man and a member of Lorinar's Sorcerer Council. Parry has an automaton, a curiosity that plays the piano, and he wants Namira's unique voice to accompany it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802120</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gaby Morgan (editor)
 
|title=In My Sky at Twilight
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Off the back of the success of Stephenie Meyer's [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]] series there has been a boom in vampire novels aimed at teenagers. In My Sky at Twilight is perhaps one of the most unusual books to come out of this craze as it is a collection of love poetry aimed at teenage fans of the series.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230745865</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=P J Reece
 
|title=Roxy
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Maddie was at Aunt Gretchen's funeral when she got the phone call to tell her that her father was in a coma and likely to die.  This might sound like a double whammy but Maddie's father had deserted her soon after her birth (during which her mother died) and she was brought up by Aunt Gretchen, who never missed an opportunity to point out that she was an unwanted burden.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1896580017</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Keith Mansfield
 
|title=Johnny Mackintosh: Star Blaze
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
|summary=Before I get into the review of this book, I'd like to suggest that if you haven't read Keith Mansfield's first Johnny Mackintosh book, [[Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London by Keith Mansfield|The Spirit of London]], you go off and read the review of that first and then go and read the book itself. It's a fantastic read. But because this is a sequel, there are obviously going to be some SPOILERS ahead.  
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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.
 
 
So, done that have you?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161267</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrice Lawrence
|author=Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie
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|title=Needle
|title=Legacy and Spellbound (Wicked)
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|rating=3
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Holly Cathers has returned, and this time, she's more powerful than ever. The war between the House of Cahors witches and House of Deveraux warlocks still rages on, and only one side will eventually triumph.
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|summary=Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers both.  Kicked out of multiple homes and schools, she's fostering with a pleasant yoga tutor, Annie, and has taken up residence in her son Blake's old room while he's at uni. Such a tempestuous personality may be in need of a comfort blanket, you might perhaps think, and the creation of one such item is part of the plot here, as Charlene is a wonder knitter, and is making something full of love for her younger sister – a younger sister she's allowed contact with no more. We see Charlene prove her belligerence with a store detective, and then force people to give her two days off school, when she shouts someone down as expletively ignorant. And then... well, what exactly happens is not for me to say, only to remark how sharp and pointy those knitting needles can be...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738689X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800901011
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Neal Shusterman
 
|title=Everwild
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Neal Shusterman continues his part zany adventure, part philosophical enquiry, and part coming-of-age story that began with Everlost in this follow-up that is perhaps even better than its predecessor.
 
 
 
Everlost is a kind of limbo and home to children - Afterlights - who have died, but somehow missed the tunnel and the light - wherever and whatever the light actually is. Adults never make it there, but significant or much-loved objects and buildings sometimes do. Mary Hightower, for instance, is so-called because she took up residence in New York in the Twin Towers. Mary thinks Everlost is a wonderful place and she "saves" the Afterlights she finds by giving them repetitive but addictive tasks to fill eternity.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387322</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Ann Sei Lin
|author=Gemma Malley
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|title= Rebel Skies
|title=The Returners
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|rating= 5
|rating=5
+
|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='Ducks are cool. Whatever happens, whatever gets thrown at them, they just carry on, their little legs paddling. Unfazed. They always look like they're smiling.'
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|isbn=1406399590
 
 
Will almost wishes he could be a duck. He has precious little to smile about. Sitting watching those ducks go about their business so blithely by the pond, he can't help but remember his mother who committed suicide there some years ago, when Will was just a tiny lad.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800918</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|author=Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
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|title=Wrath
|title=Beautiful Creatures
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Teenage boy meets mysterious new stranger in a small town. They fall in love, he finds out she's harbouring a dark secret, the pair of them try to find out if their relationship can work while she tries to keep him safe from her world. This kind of book appears to be released every few weeks since [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]] became so successful – but rarely in the past few years has it been done as well as it has in Beautiful Creatures.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141326085</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sam Mills
 
|title=Blackout
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary='I am a murderer.
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|summary=Meet Fitz, a young Scottish lad full of frustration at himself. Lockdown is only just over, and he should be free to do what he wants, to go where he wants and with whom he wants, but he cannot stop himself from putting his foot in it when he talks to his best friend, Cassie. They were half of a desultory school band, but Cassie was also one hundred per cent the enigmatic – saying she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earth. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying the end of the world is already a done deal? Is it some spooky new kind of music she's dreaming of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out the truth? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he can't...
 
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|isbn=1800900899
'I'm standing in a bookshop, a gun hot in my palm. The bullet that sat in my barrel thirty seconds ago has pierced flesh, blown into brain tissue, metal now fighting consciousness. The woman slumps ont the floor. Blood begins to trickle from her head. It drips onto a pile of signed copies stacked on the floor.'
 
 
 
Oh my word! What an explosive beginning to a book! But what made a boy do something like this?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571239412</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ebony McKenna
 
|title=Ondine: The Summer of Shambles
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Ondine de Groot wants out of psychic summercamp, so together with her pet ferret Shambles, she flees from the tea leaf readings and astral projection classes, back to her family's restaurant. Only, as soon as she leaves summercamp, she starts hearing voices. Specifically a broad Scottish voice – one that seems to be coming from her ferret. Shambles, it transpires, is in fact a man, turned into a ferret by a witch. Ondine starts to wonder what Shambles would look like as a man, but her imaginings are soon interrupted by the arrival of handsome Lord Vincent, son of the Duke, who sets Ondine's heart fluttering.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405249617</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=Laurie Halse Anderson
+
|title=The Devil Makes Three
|title=Chains
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Isabel and her sister Ruth are slaves. But they should be free - Miss Mary Finch left a will that said so. But Miss Mary Finch is dead and her greedy nephew and heir denies all knowledge of the will. So Isabel and Ruth are sold to the Locktons and taken to New York. The Revolutionary War is underway and New York is a dangerous place. The Locktons are loyalists, but the patriots are in control of the city.  
+
|summary= Working all summer in her boarding school's library is the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herself. What makes it worse is the man who requested the books: Mr Birch. The boarding school's headmaster, and a man Tess hates. As a petty act of revenge for making her find and deliver such a large request, Tess sticks post-it notes on each of the books, scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think of. They're never meant to reach him, of course. Her plan is to get her anger out like this, and then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would be, if someone hadn't delivered them for her.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747598061</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789098130
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|author=Michelle Harrison
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|title=The Thirteen Curses
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Red is back, but she's trapped in the fairy realm. Having swapped places with Tanya, she is bound there, but is still desperate to get both her and her brother back into the human world. She must seek an audience with the fairy court, but the realm is full of deception and cruelty – it will be a challenge just to get there. And guess what happens when she gets there? She is set another challenge, twisted with the cruelty of the Unseelie (Boo! Hiss!) court. Whilst the journey goes on, she reflects on her past: the car crash that killed her parents and her time at the children's home.  Meanwhile, Tanya has returned to Elvesden Manor for half term and let's just say that her ability to see fairies comes back into use when the new housekeeper and her pesky parrot land her and Fabian and the whole Manor crew into trouble with the little people.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384501</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nancy Farmer
 
|title=The Islands of the Blessed (Sea of Trolls Trilogy)
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In this third adventure, Jack, a fourteen year old Saxon apprentice bard, and Thorgil, a bad-tempered shield maiden, follow the Bard Dragon Tongue on a quest to quell the draugr - the malevolent spirit of a drowned mermaid mistakenly summoned  to Jack's village and who seeks revenge for her earlier ill treatment at human hands.
+
|summary=In a word, rich. There is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on it, and sea-witches, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it or not.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738630X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Sophie McKenzie
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|title=The Hostage (Medusa Project)
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Teenagers Nico, Kitty, Ed and Dylan were implanted with the Medusa gene when they were babies. Now they're adolescents, the intended psychic abilities are coming to the fore. Nico has the power of telekinesis - he can move objects with his mind. Ed can read other people's thoughts. Dylan has an invisible protective shield and no weapon can harm her. Kitty has visions that predict the future.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385265</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Diane Harker
 
|title=House of Secrets
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Jane has had to grow up fast. Constantly moving from place to place, never staying in the same school for long, and always reminded of her mother's money worries, Jane longs for the kind of life where she can just be a kid, and not have to deal with adult problems.
 
 
 
When she's sent to stay at her sister's student digs, the Laurels, things go from bad to worse. The Laurels is a decrepit Victorian Townhouse, freezing cold, with no food, and to make matters worse, Jane's sister, Billa, doesn't even want her there.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846243572</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Bruno Vincent
 
|title=Grisly Tales from Tumblewater
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Daniel Dorey comes to the vast and decaying city of Tumblewater with high hopes. He wants to study, become a surgeon, work hard and make a better life for himself. But when the school he enrolled in turns out to be a deserted building, his money is swindled from him, and he's framed for breaking into a shop, he's ready to turn round and go back to the country. His last hope is to collect a volume of local stories for a back-alley publisher. One by one, he hunts down the tellers of these grisly tales and records their words, but it soon becomes evident that he's hiding a dark secret of his own...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330479512</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Dickinson
 
|title=WE
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Paul Munro has been disconnected from the World Ear in readiness for a mission that will last a lifetime. Sent to man a tiny station built at enormous effort and expense on a desolate moon in the outer reaches of our solar system, he will never be able to return. Gravity is one-tenth that of Earth and his flesh has wasted, his bones enbrittled without the strength of calcium. 'If he stood on the Earth now... his skeleton would splinter under his weight.' It took eight years to get there and the rest of his life stretches before him fearfully.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385617895</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alan Skinner
 
|title=Furnaces of Forge
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In this [[Blue Fire and Ice (The Land) by Alan Skinner|sequel]], it's almost as you were, except here the mysterious powers of the blue flame are not being used by some outlander arsonist, but have been usurped by two inept young scientists from the Myrmidots, to fuel their industry.  We can predict this will prove a bad thing, but the breadth of the journey to capture the flame, and the efforts of all our returning characters to put things right might still be a surprise.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955726859</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Saci Lloyd
 
|title=The Carbon Diaries 2017
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=It's been a year since we read a diary entry from Laura Brown. We left her with a boyfriend and just about adjusted to a Britain in the full throes of carbon rationing. Her nu-punk band, ''dirty angels'', hadn't quite made it, but things were looking rather promising for its future.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340970162</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alyxandra Harvey
 
|title=My Love Lies Bleeding
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Solange Drake hates being the only born female vampire. Not only does she have to put up with her pheromones making her irresistible to male vampires, who all want to use her to start their own vampire families, she has a prophecy looming over her head, one that states a female Drake vampire will overthrow the current ruler to become Queen of the Vampires.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408803402</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Markus Zusak
 
|title=Fighting Ruben Wolfe
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=The Wolfe family are only just getting by. Times are hard for Cameron and his older brother Ruben. Their father has been injured at work and even though he's mostly recovered now, he's finding it hard to get jobs and the ultimate emasculation of the dole is looming ever nearer. Older brother Steve has ambitions and he can't wait to get out of the house. Sister Sarah is drinking too much and getting a tarty reputation at school. Their mother's fighting to hold things together, but it's taking a heavy toll. Cameron and Rube can't even manage to win a bet at the dog track - even when they get a policeman to put it on for them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862309574</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Ward
 
|title=The Comet's Child
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Teenage Fin is rescued from his remote forest home by Ragg, the first man he has ever encounteredHaving such a sheltered childhood has equipped Fin with the speech and education of a nobleman's son but little idea about the real worldOther than relying on his instincts and resourcefulness, Fin has no way of knowing who to trust, or where he is bound as he leaves home with Ragg.
+
|summary=Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a summer, in the far NE of the Scottish islandsHere be Vikings, that kind of Scottish islandDad is going to be automating the lantern, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark.  And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905537123</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1510107789
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|author=Malcolm Walker
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|title=The Stone Crown
+
|rating= 4
|rating=4
+
|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=Neither Emlyn nor Maxine feel completely at home in Yeaveburgh - yet they both have roots there. Emlyn's come back to the town in which he was born because his mother and sister, archaeologists, are working on a dig nearby. His father is in a care home, having suffered a nervous breakdown. Maxine returned to the town to live with her grandmother after her mother died of a heroin overdose. Emlyn is quiet and shy, a bit geeky, and lonely. Maxine is lonely too, but she'd never admit it. She's too spiky and defensive. They both feel like outsiders, and yet they both have a nagging sense that they are where they were meant to be.
+
|isbn=1406394815
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406321516</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Mercedes Helnwein
|author=Tonya Hurley
+
|title=Slingshot
|title=Ghostgirl
+
|rating=3
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Charlotte Usher is desperate to be popular.  She has spent the entire summer break transforming herself to try and fit in with the 'in' crowd all in an attempt to try and attract the attention of Damen, a popular and handsome jock. Yet even after all her hard work she still remains invisible at best, despised at worst.  Finally, in a moment of tragic bad luck, Charlotte chokes on a gummy bear, alone in a classroom, and dies.  This isn't the end of the story however, it's actually just the beginning, because Charlotte isn't going to let the little inconvenience of being dead get in her way...
+
|summary=Gracie Welles has resigned herself to being lonely. As a secret illegitimate daughter of a man with a "real" family, she is used to not being a priority in people's lives. But when she defends a random boy in her class with her slingshot, her simple existence is changed for good. No longer can she spend her time writing novels in solitude, for her life now has a boy in it that she never asked for: Wade Scholfield.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347714</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=152905818X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= T L Huchu
|author=Anthony Horowitz
+
|title= The Library of the Dead
|title=Crocodile Tears (Alex Rider)
+
|rating= 4.5
|rating=4
+
|genre= Teens
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|summary= Ropa Moyo is a ghostalker, using Zimbabwean magic (and a bit of Scottish pragmatism) to take messages from the dead of Edinburgh for their living relatives. Ever since she dropped out of school, she's been using it to support not only herself, but her younger sister and her aging grandmother. However, there's an evil stalking the ruined streets of Edinburgh, targeting the city's children. Soon, Ropa is pulled into the search for a missing boy at the request of his dead mother. She will end up discovering an occult library and realise that the world of magic is far bigger and more dangerous than she ever could've imagined. Will she find the missing children and bring an end to this evil, or will it claim her too?
|summary=Fans of Anthony Horowitz' Alex Rider series have had a two-year wait for this installment of our young hero's escapades and they are not going to be disappointed.  He's fourteen year old now and not only is he being targeted by a hitman, he's also being pursued by a journalist who wants to tell the nation all about the fact that MI6 are using one of his tender years to do their dirty work. The trouble is that he can't be positive that it was a sniper that caused the car he was in to skid off a Scottish road and land at the bottom of a Loch. And MI6 don't seem all that bothered about the journalist, unless, that is, Alex might be willing to find some simple information from a GM crop research centre, in which case they might be able to have a quiet word with the gentleman.
+
|isbn= 1529039452
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406310484</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kristen O'Neal
|author=P C and Kristin Cast
+
|title=Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses
|title=Tempted (House of Night)
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Last time we left Zoey, she'd just banished Kalona, an ancient fallen immortal, from the Tulsa House of Night, along with evil High Priestess Neferet. Stevie Rae's Red Fledglings were regaining their humanity, but Stark, second ever Red Vampire, was badly injured. Her official boyfriend was Erik, but she's re-Imprinted with Human, Heath, and Stark had pledged a Warrior's Oath to her.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905654804</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gary Blackwood
 
|title=Mysterious Messages - A History of Codes and Ciphers
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=There's something utterly cool about codes and ciphers. It's not just the spies with their secret world, it's the mystery of an ostensibly random set of letters or pictures. It's being able to unravel them and see what they're hiding. It's a combination of geeky riddle solving (and geeks are cool, so there) and uncovering the unknown meanings. Gary Blackwood treats us to a history of codes and ciphers, looking at their creation, the stories behind them, and how to crack them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0525479600</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Marie-Louise Jensen
 
|title=Daughter of Fire and Ice
 
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Welcome to Viking times. The land is ruled by a pitiless and greedy Chieftain, Bjorn Svanson, who always gets what he wants. And what he wants is Thora. She is a healer – very useful when you're going to set out on a voyage, and also very pretty. The Chieftain's destination is the land of fire and ice, also known as Iceland. Impatiently, the Chieftain kidnaps Thora, but what he doesn't know is that Thora has powers. Yes, a historical fantasy where the heroine has powers didn't see that coming did you? She can read auras and at times, see the future. And what she sees is her new master's murder. Before you know it, he has been stabbed and Thora and a mysterious male slave are free. What is their destination still? The land of fire and ice. Impersonating Bjorn Svanson, the male slave commandeers his ships and they sail away to Iceland, where a precarious future awaits. Will Svanson's men follow them across the oceans for revenge? Can they live with what they have done? Will they ever get a chance to be together?
+
|summary= Having recently been diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, Priya has to come to terms with the fact that she may be in constant pain for the rest of her life. She joins ''Oof Ouch My Bones'', an online support group where she talks to a bunch of other teens living with chronic illnesses. They talk about their troubles and help each other out, while also providing an escape to just joke and mess around. When Brigid—one of her closest friends—doesn't respond to the chat for a while, Priya becomes concerned. She decides to steal her parents' car and drive to Brigid's house to check up on her. But what she doesn't expect to find there is a werewolf in the basement and for that werewolf to be the girl she has been talking to online for the past few months.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192728814</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1683692349
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
|author=Lili St Crow
 
|title=Betrayals: A Strange Angels Novel
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=To start, I have to cover the ground of the mythology of this series.  Humans, vampires and werewolves all live in this world, and both species of 'the other' have people halfway turned.  Vampires and werewolves aren't exactly the sort to mix with each other - one liking to spill blood, the others going into feeding frenzies every time they smell it.  In a previous book, our heroine Dru, has realised her best friend can become semi-wolf in a shape-changing way, and she's tending to the vampire side of things.  She's also discovered a very strong threat against her life.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161283</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michael Grant
 
|title=Hunger
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=The kids of Perdido Beach are still within the FAYZ, a barrier erected by Little Pete - no-one knows how - when the nuclear plant went into meltdown. An uneasy truce between Sam's tribe of Perdido Beach kids and Caine's Coates Academy kids is beginning to waver. The food is running out and the Darkness has its claws in all those it's encountered. Caine himself is reduced to delirium by the voice of the Darkness in his head and Lana the healer knows it's inevitable that she too will answer its call. Sam is struggling to keep any form of order. As more and more kids begin to develop special powers and the hunger bites deeper into everyone's bellies, it's inevitable that conflict will break out. And it does, in some very unpleasant ways.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405251522</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Revision as of 09:13, 8 April 2024

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Compass and Blade by Rachel Greenlaw

3.5star.jpg Teens

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

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

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Review of

Children of the Sun by Harry Allen

5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Sing if you Can't Dance by Alexia Casale

5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

4star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Promise Boys by Nick Brooks

4star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

A Thief to Catch a Killer by Kitt Townsend

4.5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Different for Boys by Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix

4.5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Stitched Up by Steve Cole

5star.jpg Dyslexia Friendly

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

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Review of

Needle by Patrice Lawrence

3star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin

5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Wrath by Marcus Sedgwick

4.5star.jpg Teens

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

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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

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Review of

Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep by Philip Reeve

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne by Jonathan Stroud

4star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Slingshot by Mercedes Helnwein

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Gracie Welles has resigned herself to being lonely. As a secret illegitimate daughter of a man with a "real" family, she is used to not being a priority in people's lives. But when she defends a random boy in her class with her slingshot, her simple existence is changed for good. No longer can she spend her time writing novels in solitude, for her life now has a boy in it that she never asked for: Wade Scholfield. Full Review

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Review of

The Library of the Dead by T L Huchu

4.5star.jpg Teens

Ropa Moyo is a ghostalker, using Zimbabwean magic (and a bit of Scottish pragmatism) to take messages from the dead of Edinburgh for their living relatives. Ever since she dropped out of school, she's been using it to support not only herself, but her younger sister and her aging grandmother. However, there's an evil stalking the ruined streets of Edinburgh, targeting the city's children. Soon, Ropa is pulled into the search for a missing boy at the request of his dead mother. She will end up discovering an occult library and realise that the world of magic is far bigger and more dangerous than she ever could've imagined. Will she find the missing children and bring an end to this evil, or will it claim her too? Full Review

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Review of

Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O'Neal

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Having recently been diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, Priya has to come to terms with the fact that she may be in constant pain for the rest of her life. She joins Oof Ouch My Bones, an online support group where she talks to a bunch of other teens living with chronic illnesses. They talk about their troubles and help each other out, while also providing an escape to just joke and mess around. When Brigid—one of her closest friends—doesn't respond to the chat for a while, Priya becomes concerned. She decides to steal her parents' car and drive to Brigid's house to check up on her. But what she doesn't expect to find there is a werewolf in the basement – and for that werewolf to be the girl she has been talking to online for the past few months. Full Review

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