Category: Young Adult

‘Little White Lies’ – Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Jennifer Lynn Barnes did not disappoint here, in a surprisingly tense mystery rolled up in a beautifully packaged family drama.

Sawyer doesn’t come from the best of backgrounds. She’s used to fending for herself as her mother tends to flit from one thing to another, and their circumstances are tight. So when Sawyer is greeted by a rather glamorous woman who says she’s her grandmother and who offers her half a million dollars if she’ll live with her for nine months, we just know there’s a catch to this opportunity.

Having arrived to a home that is the height of luxury, Sawyer has to prepare for a season as a Deb. She also has the opportunity to find out who her father is, but there’s also a rather odd situation going on concerning some of the girls she’s now expected to ally herself with. Secrets aplenty, and it’s down to Sawyer to work out the extent to which she gets involved.

The story is beyond our wildest dreams, and we switch from this narrative to the group of girls being kept in a jail cell hours before their final ball. Clever plotting keeps the story engaging, and switching between these timelines kept me highly entertained.

 

‘Contagious’ – Emily Goodwin

At first, I thought this was pretty standard zombie stuff and as the book progressed I found myself getting bored. Nothing really seemed to happen and our characters were stuck in a repetitive cycle (true to form perhaps for life in a pandemic).

Part two shifted our focus and hinted at a bigger picture – though the potential romance love triangle was not appealing – and as we shifted to the end I was starting to get a little more invested in the story/where this might go. Sadly this came right at the end when we had the most frustrating ending ever…I guess it’s meant to make us desperate to read part two but it left me feeling cheated.

The whole zombie thing is not really my interest anyway, and yet there have been great books exploring the idea. This felt, at times, unnecessarily repetitive – there’s only so many zombie attacks you can describe without it getting a bit dull. I wanted to get a little more background to some of the characters, and I’m probably more interested in the bigger picture than their day-to-day survival.

I think this book and your reaction to it will come down to personal taste, and I’d certainly suggest people tried it…though I wouldn’t be shocked if they didn’t bother with the rest of the series.

 

‘Fame, Fate and the First Kiss’ – Kasie West

This time round we’re focusing on Lacey, who was a minor part of book one, and her role in a major movie. It’s a zombie horror movie, full of gore, and Lacey’s co-star is Hollywood heart-throb Grant who’s determined to reconnect with fans after some big budget movies haven’t gone as well as hoped.

Initially, Lacey came across as a little ruder and more insensitive than she did in book one. She was rude to her dad and doubted everything she was doing. Thankfully it was clear this was nerves about making a success of something important to her, so she never reached the stage of being too irritating.

Alongside the filming and mystery of who’s sabotaging her work, and why, we have a relationship with the cute boy who’s asked to tutor her.

It’s Kasie West so there’s few surprises. We get some tension, the characters have their ups and downs but it all gets resolved by the end and it’s a light-hearted read.

 

‘Faking Normal’ – Courtney C. Stevens

To a certain extent we all fake normal, but for those living with extreme situations it can become ingrained. From the moment we meet Lexi we know she’s struggling with something, something she can’t yet put a name to, but the signs are there and from the things she reveals it’s clear it’s serious. But nobody around her sees it…or, if they are picking up on the clues, they’re not pushing to learn the truth.

As Lexi manoeuvres her way through school she’s maintaining good grades and things seem, superficially, fine. But nobody knows that she can’t sleep at night, hides in her closet and self-harms as a way of trying to get through the pain of her experience.

This could have been a book like countless others, but alongside Lexi’s story we have Bodee. He starts as a rather nondescript character, given the nickname the Kool Aid kid, and all we know is he’s coming to live with Lexi after an incident involving his parents. Over time we learn more, and he quickly becomes the more interesting of the two – though because it’s Lexi’s story we never go quite as deep into the character as we could have.

What was at the heart of this book though was the developing friendship between these two, and the way they supported each other to begin to take the steps needed to begin their healing process.

Little clues were dropped initially about the identity of Lexi’s attacker. I had my suspicions, and once this was confirmed then it does make a lot more sense of some of the stuff we’ve seen. As in reality, we don’t see the full resolution but it was nice to know she was on her way.

‘The Voting Booth’ – Brandy Colbert

For anyone who has an interest in politics, social injustice and who also can’t help but get invested in a good old-fashioned romance. Voting Booth offers some serious messages, while also delivering a love story in the making.

Our main characters are two first-time voters, Marva and Duke. They’ve never met, but both come from families with a healthy interest in politics. When they turn up at the polling station for their first time voting everything could have gone smoothly and they’d have left never having exchanged words. But where would the fun be in that?

Marva’s voting experience goes without a hitch, but Duke isn’t registered to vote. Realising he pre-registered at his dad’s address he thinks it’s a straightforward matter of getting to the new polling station and turning in his vote. At that moment we know the gods are conspiring against him as his car won’t start. Marva, desperate to ensure he votes and does his bit, offers to drive him.

What follows has to go down as the weirdest of days. Marva and Duke end up searching for a missing cat, organising transport for other voters who can’t access their right, one gets dumped, they both sort out some of the issues they’ve been hanging onto and one plays a gig. Both succeed in voting (eventually) and there’s even the strong hints of them starting a relationship.

I found the interaction between these two very natural. Their passion for politics and their ability to make a difference was infectious, and though I was carried along with their relationship it was impossible to ignore the focus on pressing social issues and attitudes to race.

I really hope people find their way to this book and enjoy it as much as I did.

 

‘Love, Life and the List’ – Kasie West

Love, Life and the List is a YA contemporary that delivers exactly what it says it will.

The story is pretty straightforward. Abby wants to paint. She thinks she has talent, and wants to get a place on an art workshop. She also has a huge crush on her best friend, Cooper. She told him about it and was rebuffed, so has spent the last year pretending she was joking. They pretty much do everything together and it sounds like the kind of situation that could have drifted on and on.
Naturally, they need a bit of a kick in the right direction.

This comes when Abby’s boss tells her he won’t let her show her artwork because it lacks heart. Determined to work out what she should be doing differently, Abby starts off a summer of challenges. Each of these challenges is meant to show her the way forward, and help her to find something to inject some heart into her artwork.

From the outset we assume this will only go one way. There’s a few proverbial spanners in the work, but it’s all done in a very light-hearted way so you never feel like anyone is going to have their life destroyed.

Abby needs to learn a few things about herself in order to get to the right place for things to move forward. Those around her also have to change a few things…

 

‘Cinderella is Dead’ – Kalynn Bayron

 

The story of Cinderella is one that everyone knows. But what would you do if the story was a lie? That is the premise of this story, and it was one I was really excited about reading so I was thrilled to get an ARC from NetGalley to read in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Our story focuses on Sophia, a young girl who lives in Lille where everyone abides by the rules set. Every year girls have to attend the Annual Ball – if they are chosen they must be subservient to their husband, and if they are not chosen nobody hears from them again. Though some recognise the problems with such a regime, none seem prepared to stand up to fight it.

Sophia would like nothing more than to live with her childhood friend, Erin. When the time comes for them to attend the Ball, things don’t quite go to plan. Sophia escapes, and takes refuge in Cinderella’s mausoleum where she is found by Cinderella’s only living descendant, Constance. Buoyed by their sense of belief, and hope for a different future, the girls take on the challenge of confronting the King. They take on a journey fraught with danger, where nobody is quite what they claim to be, in a desperate attempt to change the lives of girls in the future for the better.

While the story follows a rather predictable path, there were attempts to offer something new. We got strong female characters who weren’t afraid to stand up for their beliefs. There was the odd twist to illustrate the idea that sometimes people can hide their true desires from others, and there were hints that people can change things if they are true to their convictions. Perhaps the Cinderella retelling offers less than it might, but it was certainly an interesting read.

‘The Inheritance Games’ – Jennifer Lynn Barnes

If you love puzzles, and putting your wits against seemingly random clues, then you will love The Inheritance Games.

Our story has as its main character a young girl called Avery Grambs. Smart but living in poverty, Avery has not had things easy. When we first meet her she’s been accused of cheating on a school test. Determined to prove herself she retakes the test so when she’s called out of class we assume the events are linked.
We, like Avery, are stunned when we are met with a very strange occurrence. She is asked to attend the reading of the will of Tobias Hawthorne, a man she says she’s never met. Very quickly we learn that Tobias was the head of one of the richest families in the country – wealthy beyond most people’s imaginings – and that she has been made heiress to the majority of his wealth. The only stipulation is that she must live in Hawthorne House for a year, and if any of the family contest the will they get nothing.

Naturally, everyone is curious about Avery. She, like any of us would be in her situation, is quite taken aback by her new-found wealth. While this is a life-changing event you have to love Avery for not being satisfied with this. She wants to know why she’s been put in this situation, so when it seems the letter each of the four grandsons was left holds a clue she is determined to play the game and solve the riddle.

I got completely absorbed in the mission to solve these clues and trying to work out which of this huge cast of characters could be trusted, and which was responsible for the attempts to kill Avery. We get everything here, including hints of romance, but at the fore is the puzzle set by this elderly gentleman who wants to teach a lesson to his family.

As things draw to a close and the puzzle gets solved, it felt (and I feel awful for saying this) a little disappointing. Thank goodness Barnes kept a little something up her sleeve, because the moments when Avery finds her final puzzle pieces suggest things are far from over. They get even more interesting when we see this is simply another part of the bigger picture.

A huge thank you to NetGalley for letting me read this in advance of the scheduled September 2020 publication, and I can’t wait to get my hands on part two…

 

‘The Damned’ – Renée Ahdieh

In this second instalment of the series, we start to get answers to some of the questions that so niggled me in the opening.

This time round we begin with the aftermath of what took place with Celine and Bastien. Celine has asked for her memories to be removed in exchange for letting Bastien live. He has been turned into a vampire, thus breaking an old agreement that looks as if it’ll cause trouble. She seems to be settling into her new life, even looking forward to a future with Michael Grimaldi, but we soon learn she is not fully unaware of her past experiences.

The answers behind Celine’s immunity to the mind-altering came as something of a surprise (I wondered if there were details I’d missed from earlier). I enjoyed her determination to be true to herself, in spite of what those around her say, though it didn’t really seem that we were in a particularly different time.

It won’t come as any surprise to see Bastien and Celine are more closely linked than people might like them to be. We get hints of a much bigger picture, and the references to the past and the other worlds suggest that there could be exciting times ahead.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this prior to publication.

 

‘The Dead Girl Under the Bleachers’ – Donna M. Zadunajsky

The Dead Girl Under the Bleachers opens with the murder of an unnamed girl. We know this event is taking place late at night, before the weekend, and that whoever kills the girl blames her for something. Then we cut back in time to allow the author to build up to the why and where, and dropping little clues about the who.

I think the first thing to say about this story is it’s ridiculously over the top in content and style. The characters walking round in this book are, to put it mildly, deranged and if you were to experience just one hint of the craziness going on here you’d walk away. By the time we get to the end I was almost laughing at how preposterous this story had become.

Our story focuses on a trio of girls. There’s bitchy Mayor’s daughter, Scarlet, who is a bully used to everyone jumping to do her bidding just because. We have her best friend, Rachel, who doesn’t like her all that much but who recognises that small-town popularity has its advantages. Lastly, there’s loner Laura who used to be friends withRachel but who has kept herself to herself since her brother and father were killed in a crash and her mother has become an abusive drunk.

For reasons that make little sense – like much of this – Scarlet decides that she wants to humiliate Laura and tries to befriend her in an attempt to cause maximum hurt. In the process, Rachel and Laura become friendly again and start to unearth some awful secrets about those around them.

There are so many skeletons tumbling out of closets here that it’s hard to know which way to turn. The casual misogyny and use of traumatic experiences for entertainment seems callous – perhaps it’s meant to mean something, but it comes across as cheap. I find it hard to believe such things would take place without anyone being suspicious, but we do build to some answers and some of the worst things are dealt with.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this prior to publication. If you like Pretty Little Liars then this could be up your street, but it really would be a stretch to say I’d enjoyed it or would recommend it to others.