Mice

Reviewer rating: 

5

Pros: 

Gripping, suspenseful

Cons: 

Mildly implausible towards the end?

After some seriously nasty bullying at school, and her father having gone off with another woman, Shelley and her mum go and live in a remote countryside cottage. They describe themselves as ‘mice’ - nervous, timid creatures, always compliant, never speaking up. All they want is to get on quietly with their lives. Then one night, a drugged-up burglar breaks in. They are forced to confront him and, in doing so, confront themselves and their status as 'mice'.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Reviewer rating: 

5

Pros: 

Fluid prose, compelling characters, good plot, and an amazing new world

Cons: 

None

Featuring necklaces made of wishes; an underground shop dealing in teeth; magical tattoos; a wishbone on a cord, DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE is a thrilling story about Karou and her secret life as an apprentice to a wishmonger. Karou manages to keep her two lives in balance. On the one hand, she is a seventeen-year-old art student in Prague; on the other, errand-girl to an inhuman creature who deals in wishes and is the closest thing she has to family.

Six Weeks

Reviewer rating: 

5

Pros: 

A thoughtful well crafted book that looks at all sides of a complex issue with emotion and humanity.

Cons: 

Brief at only sixty-six pages, but this book fights well above its weight.

Six Weeks is an intimate novella, taking us through the emotional and intellectual struggle that its protagonist, Imogene, has to make in the frighteningly brief six week period available to her, in order to decide what to do about her suddenly discovered pregnancy.

Mortal Engines (Mortal Engines Quartet)

Reviewer rating: 

4

Pros: 

Gripping tale set in a brilliantly imagined dystopia.

Cons: 

None in particular.

I don’t know how other readers feel about fictional dystopias, but I find myself both hypnotically drawn to them and rather horrified by the premises underlying their vision. I read somewhere (if only I could recall where) the comment that science fiction is fundamentally pessimistic – that it always starts from the assumption that this world we live in is one we will shortly destroy. The novel I have just read, the award-winning Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve, certainly bears this proposition out.

Revolver

Reviewer rating: 

4

Pros: 

Brilliantly atmospheric, richly-drawn characters - particularly Sig, the boy who wants to be a man.

Cons: 

A feeling that Sedgwick perhaps held back a touch with Wolff, but that's a minor gripe

Fear. Whether you’re fifteen or fifty-five, fear is one of those constants in life that we all experience. The passing years may change that which causes you fear, but when in the grip of it, age is taken out of the equation.

Fear lies at the heart of Revolver. It may have ‘Orion Children’s Books’ on the cover, but Sedgwick’s novel will resonate as much with adults as it does teenagers.

Bunker 10

Reviewer rating: 

5

Pros: 

Plot twists like a serpent

Cons: 

Sometimes shallow

This is just one of those books that you know you’re going to love.

It begins at the end. So you’re prepared. And as you read, getting close to each character, living their lives, the excitement building, you have at the back of your mind this hope, wish, need, that it won’t end as it begun.

If I Stay (Definitions)

Reviewer rating: 

5

Pros: 

I read it in one sitting and I defy anyone not to have to do the same

Cons: 

I thought I needed medical treatment for dehydration when it was over

What would you do if you had to choose?  …so says the cover of this heart-wrenching novel.  Seventeen year old Mia has to do the choosing… and I really, really don’t want to spoil the plot of this amazing story, so I’m going to be as cagey as I possibly can.  Which is going to be difficult – so this will be a very short review.

What I Saw and How I Lied

Reviewer rating: 

5

This is not my usual fare at all being slightly allergic to anything remotely historical but I was drawn to the red lipstick on the cover and once I began reading I was a gonner.