Young Adult Book Reviews

Name: Rachael Cooper-Evans
01 May 2024;

Genre: LBGTQ+

Hollis Beckwith needs to find her people. As she begins her last year of school, Hollis isn't sure if she even likes her friends - but she wants to try to fit in better with them. Banned from her boyfriend's Secrets & Sorcery games due to the 'no-girlfriend rule', anxious Hollis bites the...

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Name: Clair Bossons
26 April 2024;

Genre: Funny Stories

Steady For This follows the main character, Shaun, aka MC Growls. He is an aspiring Rap artist and performs with his best friend Shanks. Shaun is desperate to impress Tanisha but when his livestream video goes viral for all the wrong reasons, she won't give him the time of day...

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Name: Clair Age 11
24 April 2024;

Genre: Funny Stories

This is a heart-warming, humorous coming-of-age story written by the Yoto Carnegie Medal-shortlisted author of Steady for This. Anton and his gang of friends strike fear into the hearts of the you...

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Name: Clare Wilkins
22 April 2024;

Genre: Friends and family

Identity, heritage and belonging are hot topics in YA fiction and Amanda Addison fulsomely addresses them in her new book, Looking for Lucie. Lucie sticks out like a sore thumb in her white family and white-washed town. She’s never met her father, has no information abo...

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Name: Emelia Helliwell
19 April 2024;

Genre: Horror

Bite Risk: Caught Dead is a thoroughly enjoyable, easy read. It's easy to pick up from where the last story left off and there are still great twists and turns to keep you guessing. The author has done another great job with this one and has left us with one question... Is the...

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Name: Clair Bossons
19 April 2024;

Genre: Supernatural

Mina and the Cult is the third in the Mina series, and is a YA murder mystery set in New Orleans. In this book we see Mina, her sister Libby, boyfriend Jared and Della take a road trip to Roswell, New Mexico to visit her parents. However, Mina soon rediscovers why she u...

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Name: Eileen Armstrong
16 April 2024;

Genre: Historical Fiction

"It is hard to tell a love story and also the story of a people being torn apart" but Crossan achieves this magnificently in her latest and best verse novel, Where the Heart Should Be. Set in 1840s Ireland at the time of the Great Hunger, it tells the story of 16-year-old Nell...

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Name: Ophelia McCluskey Gahan
12 April 2024;

Genre: Suspense & Thrillers

Lie or Die is such a page turner, it kept me on the edge of my seat as I read every word! This is an exhilarating read full of high stakes, tensions, interesting group dynamics and the challenges of reality TV and our expectations of it. A.J Clack is able to fully captivate yo...

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Name: Ruth Cornish
11 April 2024;

Genre: Suspense & Thrillers

Despite the clue in the title, the reappearance of the focus of this brilliant new YA novel from Holly Jackson still surprised me! I was so deeply immersed in the disappearance of the main character, Bel's mum Rachel, that her unexpected return to the Price family left me, the reader, as unset...

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Name: Stephen Leitch
11 April 2024;

Genre: Dystopian

From the author of The Loop series comes a shocking yet compulsive novel of survival, determination, social media and reality TV called 'The Kill Factor'.  "Retribution Island exists to reform criminals, and that is what you are." Teenager Emerson Ness has just b...

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