Newest Teens Reviews
The Phenomenals: A Game of Ghouls by F E Higgins
Once again, I’ve jumped right in here – going straight to the second book in a series. As it happens, A Game of Ghouls is not a bad one to do that with. You’re never left confused because you haven’t read the first one (A Tangle of Traitors) because they keep you up to date enough for it to be a fairly good stand alone. You want to find the first one though, because if it’s going to be anywhere near as good as this one it’s a book you want to read. Full review...
Up In Flames by Nicole Williams
Elle Montgomery has spent her whole life doing exactly what she's supposed to - what everyone else thinks is how she should live her life. Outside, Elle is smiling politely and perfectly happy with her perfect-fit boyfriend. Inside, Elle is screaming for the chance to do something a bit wild. Full review...
Heroes (Most Wanted) by Anne Perry
Trench warfare has widely been acknowledged as one of the most soul destroying forms of combat. It broke men physically and mentally. Death seemed inevitable for many, and life was so horrible that at times it must have come as release. So what is one more death among the multitudes? To Chaplain Joseph Reavely every death counts, but he can not let this one go. Morton was not killed by enemy fire - he was murdered and Joseph will not rest until justice is done. It sounds pretty straight forward, but there is far more to it than this and justice is truly poetic in this case. Full review...
Moose Baby by Meg Rosoff
Jess is a pretty average teenage mother - except for one thing. Instead of giving birth to a normal little girl as she was expecting, she ends up delivering a 23lb moose calf by C-Section. It seems there has been a cluster of non homo-sapien births to human mothers. For some unexplained reason, a number of women have given birth to animals - mostly moose. Jess feels confident she can cope with the trials and tribulations of teenage parenthood. She can handle the midwives' harsh looks, her mother's disappointment and her boyfriend's parents' disapproval. But giving birth to a moose instead of a human may be more than any mother can adjust to. Full review...
Memory: She's Dying to Remember by Christoph Marzi
Jude can see the dead. His life has changed immeasurably since he saw his first ghost about six months ago. He's lost interest at school and become even further distanced from his father, who works away a lot. Instead, he spends most of his time in Highgate Cemetery with the shapeshifting vixen Miss Rathbone and a circle of dead people headed by ex-rock star Gaskell. Jude feels more at home with ghosts than he does with the living. Full review...
Dead Brigade by James Lovegrove
Sergeant Jonah Hammond's career has been at a standstill in the years since he launched a complaint against a reckless commanding officer whose arrogance resulted in the massacre of British soldiers. Now that same officer is offering Hammond another chance. This time Hammond won't have to worry about some idiot getting his men all killed - because they are already dead. Hammond has been given the task of training a crack squad of reanimated soldiers, immune to pain, disease and capable of fighting with massive injuries. These living dead are reanimated by nanobots. They are capable of learning, following instructions, and meant to be incapable of independent thought. However, it soon becomes apparent that things don't always go the way they are meant to. These are not mindless killing machines; a part of them is still human, still the soldier they once were, trapped within a decaying corpse, kept refrigerated until ready for the next mission. They have no life, nor do they have the luxury of death. Full review...
The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson
This is the memoir of one of the youngest people on Oskar Schindler's famous list of Jews saved from the Nazis during World War II. It opens between the wars, with Leon's family living in the small Polish town of Narewka. There wasn't much money but everyone was happy. Leon's father moved to Krakow in the hopes of making a better life and when Leon and his siblings eventually join him, you can feel the wonder of a little boy new to the big city. Full review...
The Burning Shadow (Gods and Warriors Book 2) by Michelle Paver
A year after the first book in this series finished, we rejoin Hylas who has been captured, enslaved, and forced to work in the copper mines on Thalakrea, a volcanic island. The Crows still have the dagger of prophecy, so this evil clan is still in control. Hylas is determined to escape and find his missing sister, but the mines are dangerous and run by ruthless slavers. Full review...
Cruel Summer by James Dawson
Twelve months after Janey Bradshaw's suicide, her friends get together in a secluded Spanish villa. After a year apart, there's a lot to talk about - but the elephant in the room is Janey's death. Ryan Hayward isn't convinced she killed herself - and when someone else from their old school turns up, they seem to confirm his suspicions. Except very quickly, there's another dead body, and Ryan and his friends need to get rid of the corpse. Of course, where there's a murder victim, there's also a murderer - who can it be? Will anyone stay alive to find out? Full review...
Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo
On the run from the Darkling, Alina and Mal are together at last. But when he emerges from the Shadow Fold with a horrific new power, the Darkling could prove himself to be more dangerous than ever. Alina will be torn between her growing power, the man she loves, and her patriotism - can she survive the oncoming storm? Full review...
Hold Your Breath by Caroline Green
Tara can locate lost objects - keys, phones, and even people. But she knows that this strange ability can bring trouble, so when bully Melodie Stone goes missing, she wants to keep her visions to herself. The images she sees won't go away, though - should she risk humiliation, or worse, by trying to find her? Full review...
New England Rocks by Christina Courtenay
After being expelled from her boarding school, Rain Mackenzie gets sent abroad to New England, to live with her parents and attend the local high school. Not expecting to like anything about the place, she's surprised to find herself immediately falling for the school heartthrob Jesse Devlin. Will they end up together, or will Jesse's girlfriend Amber get in the way? Full review...
Phoenix by SF Said
Lucky thinks he is a normal Human boy. But one night, he dreams that the stars are singing to him and he can feel a mysterious power rising within him. When he wakes, his bedclothes are scorched. And when his mother finds out, Lucky's world is turned upside down and he finds himself on an alien spaceship, on the run, and in the middle of a warzone. Everything Lucky has been brought up to believe is being tested. The war between Human and Axxa is raging, so why does Lucky's mother trust alien renegades more than she does humans? Where is his father? What are the secrets his mother has kept from him all his life? Full review...
Spy Society by Robin Benway
Sixteen-year-old Maggie Silver is a spy, just like her parents. Well, not quite like her parents - she's far better than either at cracking safes. They've always worked as a team, though, so when the Collective - the mysterious organisation that give them assignments in righting wrongs - choose her for a solo run, she's not sure what to expect. Thrown into high school for the first time ever, she's got a clear mission - make friends with Jesse Olivier, stop a security leak, and get out. Making friends with Jesse is easy. It's the getting out witout anyone getting their heart broken which might be tough. Full review...
The Flappers: Diva by Jillian Larkin
Clara Knowles and Lorraine Dyer are both devastated by Marcus Eastman's upcoming wedding. Can either of them stop it? Meanwhile, Gloria Carmody is socialising with business mogul Forrest Hamilton, as befits an icon of flapperdom. But it's not just pleasure for Gloria - if she can get some information about Forrest for the FBI, her future with boyfriend Jerome could be a bright one. If not, she could be back in jail in the blink of an eye... Full review...
The Weight of Souls by Bryony Pearce
Taylor Oh has inherited a curse from her mother. Fated to help ghosts of murder victims get revenge, or be taken by the Darkness herself, she lives her life in fear of being consumed. It's bad enough trying not to alienate her only friend, and persuade her father that she's not insane - but when school bully Justin gets murdered, she's left trying to solve the crime and also cope with the realisation she's becoming attracted to him. Full review...
The Black Dragon (Mysterium) by Julian Sedgwick
Danny is a fish out of water at his public school. Half Chinese, he's still a newcomer after over a year, having grown up in a circus called The Mysterium. Those days behind him, he delights at the chance to go to Hong Kong with his guardian aunt Laura, even while she's there working as an undercover journalist, investigating nightmarish Triad gangs. Once in that exotic world it's a quandary to know just what side who is on, what with corrupt crops, people who are not as they appear and more – but what on earth is the connection between all this and the dark, disastrous ending the circus suffered? Full review...
All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill
Em and Finn are being held prisoner by the Doctor. They never see each other but are able to communicate through the cell wall. This is a blessing but also a curse: they can each hear the interrogations and torture meted out to the other. Neither talks but how much can they take? And then Em finds a note hidden in her cell. It's from her future self and it tells of fourteen escapes. And fourteen failed trips back to the past to try to put things right. There's only one way left. Em must kill someone she loves. Full review...
Love in Revolution by B R Collins
Everyone in her village - in an unnamed Basque country - loves pello and Esteya is no different. It's the national sport and its heroes are national heroes. That the holder of the Kings Cup hails from her village is a source of pride to Esteya, her twin brother Martin, and everyone else. Except older brother Leon. So when the Bull comes home for a visit, everyone is excited. And when a young peasant boy challenges him to a game, everyone laughs. And when the peasant boy wins, everyone is shocked and discomfited. Except Leon. Leon, a communist sympathiser, sees it as a symbolic victory of the peasant over the dissolute regime of the King. Full review...
Terra by Mitch Benn
Terra is different from everyone else on Fnrr and not only because she has vowels in her name. You see, Terra isn’t actually from Fnrr. Her adoptive father (Lbbp, a Fnrrn scientist) rescued her from her parents, the Bradshaws, on the planet Rrth in a moment of unthinking philanthropy. If only he'd done a little more thinking and little less philanthropy… Full review...
Them by L A Weatherly
Kylie and her family had a prosperous upper middle class life - until the day Kylie's stepfather nearly beat her to death. Forced to flee, they ended up in a shelter, and are now trying to start life over with a very different set of circumstances. Kylie's Mom is working and exhausted, they live in a run down flat, and the money barely stretches to covering groceries - and as Kylie's little sister keeps reminding her - this is all her fault. Pressures build up with strange phone calls. Could Kylie's stepfather have found them? And of course there are the usual difficulties of starting a new school and trying to make friends. Full review...
Winter Damage by Natasha Carthew
The moor and all it had got was out there waiting for her in the dark, a cold rock thing, hard as nails.
But Ennor doesn't see another choice. She has to go. The fourteen-year-old girl lives with her ailing father and autistic brother, Trip, in a trailer on the frozen Cornish moor. Ennor's mother has been gone for years - after they lost the farm and Ennor's father turned to drugs, she turned to religion. And left. But now the country is falling to pieces. There are riots. There's no money to be earned. School has closed. Father is getting iller. They're behind on the rent and eviction is looming. The social are threatening to take Trip away. There's nothing else for it. Full review...
The Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby: After Iris by Natasha Farrant
A few years after Iris's death, her twin sister Bluebell is still getting used to life without her. She's also having to cope with her parents' frequent absences, the new au pair, and the cute boy who's just moved in next door. Can she solve all her problems? And are the rest of her family coping with Iris being gone any better than she is? Full review...
Jon For Short by Malorie Blackman and Vladimir Stankovic
The book begins with a horrible dream of dark footsteps and the flash of knife blade plunging down again and again. Waking up brings no respite to the terror or pain for Jon, because his waking world is even more frightening than the nightmare. He wakes up in a darkened hospital room. There are now windows to the outside, only a small frosted glass window to the hall which lets in a tiny bit of light. The nurses seem cruel and angry. They insist on calling him Joe, No matter how often he tells them his name is Jonathan - Jon for short. The nightmare comes again and again. It starts out exactly the same, but each time it goes on just a little longer and Jon sees a bit more. The dream is not the only cause of his terror. Each time when he wakes up, another part of his body has been removed. Piece by piece he is being dismembered. Soon there will be nothing left of him - and no one will tell him why. Full review...
All The Truth That's In Me by Julie Berry
Four years ago, Judith and another girl disappeared. Two years ago, Judith came back alone, and unable to speak. Shunned by most of the people in her close-knit community, can she find her voice to save those around her, and herself? Full review...
The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
Rithmatists - those with special talents who defend ordinary people against wild chalklings - must study and train hard at school to create the defenses , lines, and chalklings they'll use when they get to Nebrask, the frontline. Joel, a pupil at one such school, Armedius, studies harder than anyone else. He has a superb grasp of the strategies involved and knows he would be an asset out at the front. But Joel isn't a Rithmatist at all. They're chosen in a special ceremony, and Joel was passed by. Now, as just an ordinary student at Armedius, he sneaks in to join the Rithmatics students whenever possible. That seems like all he can do - until Rithmatics students start disappearing. Could Joel's lack of ability keep him safe, and therefore allow him to help solve the mystery? Full review...
Heart-shaped by Siobhan Parkinson
Ok. Before I even start reviewing, I need to explain just how much I loved this book. It's the companion to an earlier story from Siobhan Parkinson, Bruised, over the same timeframe, and following a supporting character whose story is intimately connected. Before I'd read to the end of the first chapter of Heart-shaped, which is all of two-and-a-half pages long, I'd fallen in love with Annie. And I knew I couldn't bear to read her story without reading Jono's, in Bruised, first. So I rushed orff to Amazon and downloaded it to my Kindle. You might not find that particularly surprising, but it is. I review books. I hardly ever buy books because I have a pile of advance copies shouting My turn! My turn! whenever I look their way. Full review...
Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
Anna and her friends went to Aruba for the Spring Break of all Spring Breaks. These are privileged kids from an exclusive private school. They have plenty of money and they intend to party hard before college beckons. It's a tight group, but no-one is tighter than Anna and Elise. They have been inseparable since Elise rescued Anna from a high school bully. But now Anna also has Tate and this is a first love affair that consumes all, like a fire. Anna is beginning to find it difficult to balance these two intense relationships and she is hoping that this holiday will make everything great again. Full review...
The Mirror Chronicles: the Bell Between Worlds by Ian Johnstone
The hero of this long and engrossing book is a boy of twelve, orphaned, lonely and unloved. He spends the little free time he has in creating beautiful kites covered in complicated, colourful designs until the day he meets a strange old man who sets him on the path to his destiny as a saviour of not one but two worlds. But in line with the traditions of the genre, this path will be fraught with fear, danger and loss. Full review...
Brooklyn Girls by Gemma Burgess
22-year-old Pia Keller has screwed up again. She should be living the dream, sharing a Brooklyn townhouse with her four best friends - but one too many drunken escapades leads to her getting sacked from her new job. After hearing this, her parents are ready to summon her to live with them abroad. They clearly don't think she's mature enough to look after herself - can she prove them wrong? Full review...
Carnaby by Cate Sampson
Sarah's mother was murdered and Sarah found the body. Agonisingly, she didn't even realise she'd found the body at first - Sarah thought her mother was asleep on the sofa. But she wasn't. Borys - Sarah's sister Jude's boyfriend - has been accused of the murder and the trial is coming up, with Sarah as a key witness. A school counsellor, a lawyer and a police officer are all trying to prepare her, but Sarah can't think about that. It's too dangerous. And she has more than a court case on her plate Full review...
Ghost Stadium by Tom Palmer
I usually buy Barrington Stoke books for my son to read on his own. He loves the short but exciting stories, and the easy-to-read text. With this book though, the temptation to turn out the lights and read this out loud by torch light was simply too much to resist. It begins as a boy's own adventure. Three boys, Lucas, Irfan and Jack have come up with the perfect plan to start their summer holidays on a high note. Their local football club has been closed for years, but the boys have a scheme to get into the stadium one last time and spend a night camping on the pitch. My son immediately realised the football pitch would be the perfect place to camp out. It is difficult to get into, but once there, it would be like being in a wilderness. The high walls would block out everything, leaving the boys completely alone in the dark. There is only one problem. Places that are very difficult to get into can also be very difficult to get out of... Full review...
Brock by Anthony McGowan
The events of the badger bait are horrifying. Thankfully the author does not feel the need to give us all the gory detail, but in a sense, he has made it more terrifying but what is left unsaid. Everything about this book is extremely realistic. I am an adult, and this book had my stomach in knots. It isn't just what happens to the animals, but the psychological terror directed at the boys as well. This is made more intense by the level of character development in this book. McGowan has created characters with such depth I can't help wondering if he has based any of this on real children. Perhaps not the badger baiting part, but the inner turmoil created by poverty, shattered families, and the responsibility of being a caretaker at an early age as well many other personality traits which are so true to life it is difficult to believe you are reading fiction. The characters in this book are so genuine, I feel as if I know them. My son also commented on how much he liked certain characters, a sure sign that the author has succeeded in making the characters real to the reader. Full review...
Falling by Cat Clarke
Falling is a book that I liked for some reasons, and disliked for others. It is very short and terribly bleak romance. Anna seems to have it all. She is popular, pretty, and has an absolutely perfect and very wealthy boyfriend, Cam. I'm afraid I never warmed to Anna though. She comes across as one of those people who feel the world revolves around them. Self centred as she is, she does truly care for her best friend Tilly, perhaps more than she realises. It all comes together in tragic misunderstanding on the night of Cam's big party, a party he never wanted to have, but that Anna pushed him into. Full review...
