Category: Young Adult

‘All Eyes on Us’ – Kit Frick

All Eyes On Us focuses on two girls – Amanda and Rosalie – who seem very different, but who have a lot more in common than they realise…Carter Shaw, son of a local businessman.

Amanda is part of his social circle and their families have been pushing for them to be a couple since they were little. Amanda’s life is mapped out for her. College with Carter, a long engagement and then children, turning a blind eye to Carter’s indiscretions because that’s what’s expected of her. For years, she’s gone along with this but when Amanda starts to receive anonymous text messages she begins to question the wisdom of her life choices.

Amanda knows Carter has not always been faithful to her. She knows he is currently seeing Rosalie on the side. But what neither she nor Carter knows is that Rosalie is actually using Carter as a cover for the fact that she is a lesbian and her fundamentalist Christian parents can’t accept her choices. Forced to hide who she is, Rosalie decides to use Carter as her cover, while seeing her girlfriend in secret.

The messages that both girls receive are meant to be vaguely threatening, but there’s a limit to what people can do if you don’t succumb to their threats. Unfortunately, in the vein of the Pretty Little Liars characters, the girls in this respond to the messages and threats and start to let them rule what decisions they make. This is frustrating and leads them into quite unrealistic scenarios.

The book is a bit slow to get going as we establish the characters of Amanda and Rosalie. There’s a lot of focus on the parents of Amanda and Carter which makes little sense at first, but we do realise its significance eventually. My biggest gripe was with the character of Carter who was, in essence, a serial cheater and not a particularly appealing character.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for my thoughts. This is a definite must-read for fans of the Pretty Little Liars books.

‘Fated’ – Teri Terry

In this chilling prequel to the Slated trilogy, we are shown an all-too-believable scenario.

Sam Gregory is the daughter of the Deputy Prime Minister. She loves her father but can’t help but feel some concern at his increasingly hard-line political standpoint. Without really knowing the details we watch as Sam’s world is plunged into chaos.

People protest at the changes made. Increasing violence and a climate of fear leads to increasingly draconian measures taken to preserve law and order. It is – scarily – not too far off some of the things happening around us now. Naturally the measures taken to control people may seem unlikely, but it is feasible, and that makes it all the more scary.

Sam is a rather blank character initially, but she does develop over the course of the story. Her friendship with Ava is an interesting side-story and I was absorbed in the details given about the changes to daily life and how people tried to challenge these.

‘Infinity Son’ – Adam Silver

Silvera’s evident love of the fantasy genre is laid out for us in his intro, and is splashed all over the pages of this foray into the genre.
The story itself has some interesting elements. Definitely loving the phoenixes and the details linked to the idea of rebirth. There’s hints of some intriguing developments between the characters of Emil and Mirabelle, and Brighton’s story looks as if it’ll pick up and get a whole lot more interesting in the future. This was a quick read but it was not, unfortunately for me, the hit I was expecting and there’s a few reasons for this.
The main reason I found this not wholly successful was the lack of time taken to establish the world in which it was set. We were plunged straight in, and little was explained in a way that would have made sense to me. Some of the answers were given later, but there was a lot assumed about the world of the narrative and I really wanted more detail so I could understand how this situation had come about.
The next difficulty I had was with the characterisation. It took a while to feel any sense of difference between the characters of Emil and Brighton, and simply hammering the point home that one is obsessed by social media isn’t enough to do this. To suddenly find myself with another viewpoint – which wasn’t really set-up – also made it wobble slightly as I tried to keep track of who was doing what (though this may say more about me).
For some readers, the love interest that develops partway through will definitely get them excited. The feelings Emil has for Ness are hard to ignore, but they are really superficial (guess we have to start somewhere). The initial scene where their feelings were apparent felt like some kind of wish-fulfilment exercise, and Silvera’s comments about his reaction to Cassandra Clare’s series does explain this a little. It seemed they might be able to get into a more nuanced relationship but the events in the narrative make this difficult. No matter how he dresses it up (and perhaps his explanations will make people swoon over his resolve to hurt the one he loves to prevent someone else doing worse) I can’t quite get my head around the way Ness treats Emil. When you look at it in a more detached way it seems horribly abusive and not the basis for a good relationship. Granted, it’s early stages so perhaps this will develop in a slightly different way.
So, all in all, this was a story where someone got to revel in their love for a genre but I can’t help but feel things would be better if the style was a little less exaggerated, world-building was established and we weren’t in some whirlwind attempt to cram excitement onto every page to guarantee people reading on. Sometimes, less is more.
Due for release in early 2020, so it’ll be interesting to see how/if it changes by then. However, I’m really grateful to NetGalley for letting me read this so early in exchange for my honest thoughts.

‘Nerve’ – Jeanne Ryan

Whatever your personal views of the characters, there’s no denying this is a tense read.

NERVE is a game that seems perfect for these media-obsessed times. People can pay to watch, or you can dare to play – taking part in challenges that test your resolve in the hope of winning big.

Vee is one of those characters used to hiding in the background. She does, however, have a steeliness to her character that stands her in good stead for what’s coming. Fed up with being on the sidelines she decides to try something different. Unfortunately, this gets her caught up in a very dangerous game.

I’m curious to see how this transferred to screen, but I’m uneasy about what it reveals of human nature. While Vee and Ian come out of this pretty well, others don’t.

‘Fragments of the Lost’ – Megan Miranda

Jessa is given the unenviable task of sorting through her boyfriend’s room when he dies. His mum doesn’t know that Caleb and Jessa were no longer an item, but when Jessa is asked to do this final thing, she feels she has to help out. Even though she feels Caleb’s mum holds her responsible.

Jessa was one of the last to see Caleb alive. He turned up to her cross-country meet then left. Rumours circulate as to why, but nobody could have predicted that Caleb would be caught in the floods that swept their town that night and that his car would be swept off the local bridge.

Jessa is everywhere in this room, and it is certainly not the kind of experience you’d wish on anyone. However, as Jessa packs up Caleb’s belongings there are clues that perhaps she didn’t know him as well as she thought.

In the opening stages of the novel it seems to focus very much on the relationship and grief element, which had limited appeal. However, very quickly we move into Jessa trying to uncover the mystery of Caleb’s last days and putting together the clues she’s been left as to exactly what happened. This soon became a tense mystery, and slowly trying to put the pieces together was great fun. Jessa was believable and though I was surprised by the ending it really was a great read.

‘All The Things We Never Said’ – Yasmin Rahman

All The Things We Never Said is a book that aims high in terms of topics being explored. Abuse, depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide, on-line bullying…all feature in some way, and at times I couldn’t help but feel anyone trying to deal with all these things would find life tough. For these reasons, this will be a book that some won’t like.

The story focuses on three characters – Mehreen, Olivia and Cara – who are paired together by an online suicide pact. They meet and are set a series of tasks to complete to help each other in their bid to end their lives. The unknown organisers of this site become increasingly manipulative and start to show their sadistic and damaging tendencies.

The concept behind the site and the way this panned out didn’t quite ring true. I can’t help but feel that if the police were aware of the existence of such a group that such vulnerable people would not be left to their own devices as they are here.

That gripe aside, the book was interesting for not shying away from some difficult topics. The friendship that developed between the three girls was well-depicted and it showed the importance of talking to those around you.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with access to this prior to publication.

‘The New Boy’ – Paula Rawsthorne

The cover gives us some clues as to what’s going on, but I had a niggling feeling throughout that something wasn’t quite right. Once the pieces slotted into place, it was rather worrying.

Preying on our concerns makes for scary stories, and this certainly had the potential to do just that.

When our main character starts college she is excited to be with her closest friends. On the very first day they notice the new boy, Jack Cartwright. Model looks, impeccable behaviour, interested in a range of activities…he sounds too good to be true. Having started the book with Jack and our narrator on top of a tower block we know that, yes, he is not quite what he seems. The question is, just what is going on?

Against her first thoughts, Zoe ends up in a relationship with Jack. He’s full-on, and I wondered if he was going to turn out to be an emotional abuser. The truth is far stranger. Nobody escapes the fall-out from this relationship.

There were, for me, some pacing issues and I can’t quite bring myself to totally believe the premise. That aside, an interesting read.

‘Wilder Girls’ – Rory Power

Raxter Island – deserted – and on it a boarding school for girls, with a small number of students. These students have, effectively, been cut off from the outside world after exposure to a virus.

We focus primarily on three girls: Hetty, Byatt and Reese. Like the other girls their exposure to the Tox has created some bizarre occurrences. Yet they’re surviving.

Without really knowing what happened, it was hard to get a handle on this scenario. I spent a large chunk of the book feeling as if I was blindly following someone down a dark alley. Aside from being discomfited as I read, I found the developing situation a compelling one.

I was desperate to know what was happening, while also having a very clear feeling that I wouldn’t like the truth.

There’s a grim darkness to this that might have been handled differently. While I enjoyed it, I always felt there was background info left out and that there were details I was keen to know that were glossed over.

‘The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World’ – Amy Reed

Billy Stoat and Lydia Lemon don’t have much in common. Yet when their schools combine, they find themselves becoming friends.

Both socially inept, the teenagers have family backgrounds that make you want to cry. Yet the two keep a sense of humour, and actually come across very positively.

The story as such is not that exciting. Billy’s uncle (a famous singer) has a breakdown and returns to his home town. He hides away from everyone, relying on Billy to keep him fed. Then the town is hit by a tsunami.

It’s rather rambling, and could have been made more succinct but the appeal of this story was the two key characters, their developing relationship and their growing self-belief.

Thanks to NetGalley for granting me access to this prior to publication.

‘Heartstream’ – Tom Pollock

I should have expected the bleakness after my previous encounter with a Tom Pollock novel, but this was a book to be recommended with caution.

We have what seems to be a fairly standard split narrative. We assume they’ll link in some way, but exactly how isn’t revealed until a lot later…and it really did turn some of my thoughts completely over. The less said about it the better, but my goodness did the revelation fill me with despair.

One of our narrators is Amy. She uses a seemingly innocuous app called Heartstream to try to make sense of her emotions, and to manage her feelings after the death of her mother. We first meet Amy on the day of the funeral, when she returns home to find a strange woman in her kitchen who threatens to blow her up. Why, we assume we’re about to learn.

Then there’s Cat. Sixteen, and one of a group of super-fans who follow their favourite boy band around, using social media to manipulate those around them. While she loves this part of her life, she has a secret. She also happens to be the girlfriend of the lead singer of the band. Naturally, it’s known to no- one. Naturally, it brings her great joy. Naturally (I hate how cynical this made me feel) it doesn’t work out as she’d hoped. In fact, it goes way beyond the worst things you could imagine.

As we slowly establish the story of each character and learn a little more about them, we are drip-fed hints of the link between their stories.

I was enjoying this immensely, reluctantly putting it down to go to work, but then the rug was pulled from under me and I was left with a sense of utter horror.

Bleak doesn’t begin to cover this, but it was a fascinating exploration of obsession and the role the media/internet can play in our lives.

This would have been a hands-down five star read, apart from the fact I felt those characters needed something hinting at a resolution…and there was one character who I was desperate to find out more about, but never got the insight I craved.