Category Archives: Teenage Fiction

Review: Alison Evans – Euphoria Kids

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Euphoria Kids
Alison Evans

Iris has never had friends before, other than the faeries that live in their backyard. Babs has trouble staying visible thanks to the witch who cursed her. The boy hasn’t found a real name yet. Can magic and friendship keep them safe?

I’m not really sure how old these kids are. Teenagers? I thought that I read somewhere that they are in junior high, but they certainly seem to have a lot of freedom in school for that. I’m a great believer in the power of education, and they don’t seem to spend much time at school! The only class they seem to do is art, and while I think it’s really important for expression, it’s not the only way to express yourself.

The perspective swaps between Babs and Iris were made doubly confusing once the two humans became three humans, and the pronoun ‘they’ was used for both Iris and the three of them. I had trouble remembering which one was Iris (neutral gender plant sprout with witch potential) and which was Babs (trans-girl fire spirit that disappears with witch mother?). ‘The boy’ doesn’t even get a name until a powerful witch helps him find it! And what is up with his dad? I couldn’t decide if the dad was accepting or not, because the boy doesn’t always wear his binder (take with a grain of salt and always do your research before getting a binder).

Having three gender queer teens in a single year level, let alone school, is very rare. That alone would have been enough for the novel to process. Then make one of them a plant spirit that talks to faeries with two mothers (one of which took time off work to look after her while she was a plant/seed baby?), and the other a cursed fire spirit. Just for good measure, toss in a cafe owner/worker who is also trans and a trans-boy without a name.

What does it mean that Babs is made of fire? Can someone be more specific for me please? So much about this novel seemed unfinished, and I don’t think it was just because I had an ARC copy. I think too many themes and too much was crammed in.

I didn’t like the way Babs’ depression was treated. Ok, so they went to the special understanding GP, but then they just talked about it, and she was magically cured almost immediately? Talk about setting unrealistic expectations. Oh yes, also that the boy is able to just go to the GP to get a script to stop his periods. In my experience, it’s never that easy.

I wanted to love this novel, for the fact that it is a #ownvoices novel. But I couldn’t. I at least finished it but it was a struggle. It wont be coming home with me from vacation and I’m not giving it to any gender queer people I know.

Echo Publishing | 1st March 2020 | AU$19.99 | paperback

Review: Camryn Garrett – Full Disclosure

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Full Disclosure
Camryn Garrett

Simone is HIV-positive and she knows that celibacy is the best way to stay safe. She’s been outed for her status before, but she still wants what she wants. And she wants Miles – he’s sexy and maybe, just maybe, into her. But there’s someone at her school who knows she’s HIV-positive, and they are threatening to expose her if she gets with Miles. What can Simone do?

I laughed, I cried, and I suffered with Simone. Her character came leaping out of the pages at me and then I spent the rest of my time absorbed in her life. I couldn’t put the novel down. I couldn’t work out who the ‘baddie’ was either, and I was pleasantly surprised by the ending.

I devoured this novel the minute it came through my door. Although I don’t know anyone personally with HIV, I know something of what it is like to have a life-long condition that some consider highly contagious. It’s a potent novel that is relevant to the times (nothing like The Things We Promise).

So I personally couldn’t ever consider going to a doctor’s appointment and talking about sex with my parents present (awkward!). But it’s the strength of Simone’s character that she does just that – her family is open about sex and I think that’s really important. Of course the best way to prevent HIV transmission is through abstinence, but at least they are talking about safe sex – teenagers sometimes can’t help themselves – and that’s ok!

If the memoir by Ted Neill is too heavy for you (it was pretty heavy for me, remember), this relatively lighter fiction novel could be more suitable. This novel was one of the reasons that The Prom didn’t take my fancy. I read the two close together, and the level of depth and feeling in Simone’s personality was much more powerful and believable than Emma’s.

This novel could improve the life of a teenager living with HIV, perhaps by making that HIV+ teenager feel better about themselves, or reaffirming their self worth. It has the potential to be a fabulous library book in High School libraries.

It promotes healing and understanding and stamps on some of the misconceptions that still surround HIV and its transmission. HIV isn’t a death sentence anymore, even if it still carries significant stigma. Go out and buy this novel for yourself, for your teen, just leave it laying around as a coffee table book. 5 stars from me.

Penguin Random House | 5th November 2019 | AU$16.99 | paperback

Review: Lynette Noni – Weapon

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Weapon
Lynette Noni

Alyssa has escaped from Lengard and into the bowels of the Remnants’ hideout. Hurrying to rescue a new Speaker, Alyssa instead finds herself doubting everything that she’s been told, and wondering what she can do to stop Vanik, because if she can’t, no one can. But is Vanik still her primary enemy? Are there other memories she is missing that could solve the puzzle of why she was left behind?

I was blown away by Whisper and I felt desperate at the end of it to keep reading Alyssa’s next move. I jumped at the chance to receive an ARC of Weapon and read it almost the moment it arrived at my door. Sadly, I was super disappointed in it – particularly the ending.

As a reader, I wanted to be able to predict more of the twists and turns that happened in this novel. That opportunity was snatched from me. Lyss was kept in the dark, and even when it seemed like she might be getting a handle on what was happening the reader didn’t get enough details to fill things in for themselves.

There’s so many actions that happen all at once that I felt like the book didn’t stop moving long enough for me to really think about what was going on. Another source of frustration was that I didn’t understand where Alyssa and Cami’s relationship came from. I know that they were beginning to be close for the first novel, but the level of codependency is squirm inducing. Cami seems like a bundle of pathetic whispers and every time she and Lyss had a scene together it made me want to claw out my eyes.

In my comment from the first novel I said: “I guess now I fear that the second novel will suffer from a gooey protagonist.” And indeed, Weapon is undermined by the love interest shown by Alyssa at any boy who seems to look at her nicely. And if it’s not her romance derailing the action, it’s someone else’s!

Having reviewed this novel, I’ve decided I dislike it more than I like it. I was just so disappointed. Read it so that you finish the duology, but don’t expect the breathtaking wonder that you might have experienced with Whisper. 3 stars from me.

Allen & Unwin | 1st November 2019 | AU$19.99 | paperback

Review: Rainbow Rowell – Wayward Son

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Wayward Son
Rainbow Rowell

Simon’s defeated the enemy and found true love. So why can’t he make it off the couch? Bunce and Baz are going to college and experiencing life, but Simon just can’t face it. What’s the point when you’ve achieved your life aim? Bunce stages an intervention – a road trip across America is just what they need.

Rainbow Rowell’s novels are usually a 100% love from me (Fangirl and Eleanor and Park). In fact, I often feel urged to reread Fangirl (has it been 5 years since I reviewed it already? wow!). When I saw this one in the publicity catalog I even told the publisher that I’d possibly kill to get my hands on it. With hype like this, and the avid fan following Rowell has, I had high expectations.

Somehow the nature of this novel is that you don’t become too attached to any of them, and unfortunately that’s what made Rowell’s other novels speak to me so deeply in the past. At one point a character was introduced and I wondered how they could possibly be relevant if they get mindwiped! Overwhelmingly I felt like there were too many characters that I needed to care about, and so I felt myself caring less about them overall.

You wonder at first what the main plot point of this novel is going to be. Surely it can’t just be following two magicians, a werewolf and a demon across America in a convertible? Nope! It’s not! But Simon, Bunce and Baz unpacking their feelings around having overcome the enemy from Carry On could have had more air time. If child soldiers are a theme that Rowell wanted to address, and PTSD, I wanted more of it. Less ‘fluff’ somehow. There’s being lighthearted, and then there’s just blatantly brushing off problems.

I found myself underwhelmed by this novel. I don’t know whether it’s because I hadn’t read the first book (oops) or that there was something inherently lacking in it. I don’t really understand why Simon is so confused about his relationship with Baz all of a sudden. I do want to go back and read the first book to see what I missed, and maybe identify what I really needed to know to enjoy this novel to its fullest.

Personally, I’d keep the wings. There are some other issues that are left unaddressed, such as Baz’s inevitable non-aging compared to his friends and how he’ll deal with that in the future. And Bunce’s overwhelming nature of, well, being Bunce. The novel ends on a cliffhanger, but I’m just not that excited for the third. 3 stars from me.

Pan Macmillan | 24th September 2019 | AU$17.99 | paperback

Review: Claire Merle – The Glimpse

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The Glimpse
Claire Merle

A simple test can tell you whether you’re going to develop one of the BIG3 – Schizophrenia, Depression, or Anxiety. Ariana’s DNA test labelled her as a Pure – designed to marry a Pure boy and have Pure offspring. However it turns out that her DNA result was faked, and now she’s relying on Jasper to keep her safe in the Community. When he disappears, Ana has to find him before it’s too late for her as well.

I grabbed this from the library this school holidays and it was a light, quick read that was strangely compelling. I say strangely, because the plotting was really quite thin, and half the time Ana didn’t act in a sensible manner at all. Her being able to hold her breath under the water for a long period of time was somehow an important plot point that was used more than once.

I was drawn to this novel because I’m keen on both genetics and mental health. A future where we have identified some of the genes responsible for people developing mental illnesses is really likely, and is probably sooner than most people realise. And I fully expect that it could cause a divide between ‘crazy’ people and ‘normal’ people. But the fact that they just expect having a gene to cause a mental illness? That’s a total fraud – there’s lots of other factors that are important such as epigenetics, Barr bodies and environmental triggers. Depression and Anxiety are huge, but I wouldn’t consider Schizophrenia that common (although it is one of the most debilitating mental illnesses out there).

I didn’t get why Ana was so special. She’s way too excited about !boys! and not enough about, I don’t know, actually saving other people? She’s so shallow and irritating, and her thought processes totally don’t make sense. What put me off as well was a four year old being so suicidal that they would jump in a river. I guess that should come with a spoiler alert. And then the fact that someone claims to see the future? That took it from barely plausible to hopeless.

I didn’t understand why the Mental Clinics even existed. If people go into them, and don’t ever come out, why don’t they just kill those inside? Harsh of me, but honestly. If it’s all about the money, why bother even testing anything out on them, especially if really poor records are kept? Everyone knows science doesn’t work like that!

Ultimately it’s just another dystopian novel where people have been relatively arbitrarily sorted into the City and the Community to create an elite. If you’re looking for a weaker version of: The Wind Singer, Uglies, or Disruption, this is the right novel for you. I finished it, but I became less and less involved in it as I went along. 3 stars from me.

Review: David Yoon – Frankly in Love

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Frankly in Love
David Yoon

Frank Li needs to get date a nice Korean girl, bond with his father and get into The Harvard. What he doesn’t foresee is falling for a white girl and missing out on his father’s life. When Frank and Joy cook up the plan to fake date one another to be with the people they love, will more get broken than their hearts?

What I really liked about this novel was that it didn’t end at the predictable point of boy-loves-girl-loves-boy. The plot keeps going, and Frank finds himself still continuing on and considering issues he hadn’t thought about. To me it felt like quite a long novel, although I didn’t have a chance to sit down and read it in a single sitting.

Did the romance feel real to me? Sort of I suppose. I didn’t really get a proper picture of Brit and Joy, besides that Frank liked them. I liked how it wasn’t really insta-love as they had at least noticed one another before. I would have liked to see a little more characterisation of people other than Frank – but what can you do when it’s a first person narrative? Well, you can employ funny jokes and casual swearing in a way that makes you feel like you’re inside a teenage boy’s mind.

Apparently fake dating is a common trope? I’ve not seen it in my recent reading, so I can’t comment on it. For me, I found it very believable that Frank and Joy would set things up like this! Yes, I suppose the next step was inevitable but really? Couldn’t there be any other option? I’m also not sure I liked the ending with Q. I don’t think it was necessary, and it didn’t really make sense with the rest of the novel.

I can’t really say much about whether this is a typical depiction of American-Korean life and expectations. At my high school, everyone was European-Australian, and at university the number of people of Asian decent outnumbered ‘Australians’. Some reviewers have complained that this novel shows old-fashioned views of immigrants that speak poor English, but have high hopes for their children. However the people I personally know from similar backgrounds actually have similar expectations placed on them.

David Yoon is the husband of Nicola Yoon – Everything, Everything and The Sun is Also a Star. If you like fiction that has racial impact I’d recommend this novel, or the others. Just remember that it is written to a very American (USA) point of view. 4 stars from me.

Penguin Random House | 12th September 2019 | AU$12.99 | paperback

Review: Bill Bennett – Palace of Fires

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Palace of Fires
Bill Bennett

Lily and her mom have been on the run since Lily’s dad was killed in a hit-and-run four years ago. Lily has enjoyed living on the farm, and gentle gardening with her mom. But then a regular trip to the Farmer’s Market ends with tragedy – Lily’s mom is missing, and Lily thinks a scary biker is at fault.

I was initially sent the second book in this trilogy to review (Unholy) back in 2018. I hadn’t read the first book, so I put it on my shelf to be read when I could get it from the library. Then this month Penguin generously sent me all three books to read! Sadly, I couldn’t get past the first one.

The most promising part of this novel was the prologue! Lily’s ancestor is trying to keep her family alive, but the potato fields are blighted so she signs her name in blood with Satan. Then the book segues awkwardly into an elite hunter witch and her two familiars that feed on toe-nipples (no, you didn’t read that incorrectly!).

Details that should have simply been implied are spelled out and then spelled out again. The book jumps between perspectives of the witches, the hunter, the hag, Lily, Lily’s love interest etc etc. to the point that you don’t actually know which character you should care about. Of course we should care the most about Lily, but honestly I found her irritating and all too predictable. She really works hard to make herself different from everyone else, and she doesn’t even bother trying to do social niceties when they might benefit her.

I haven’t read a book that I detested as much as this one for quite a while! I mean, I hated I Always Find You, but I at least finished it. Bill Bennett’s Unholy wasn’t even tolerable for 100 pages. 1 star. I’d give 0 stars if I could.

Penguin Random House | 3rd September 2019 | AU$19.99 | paperback

Review: William Sutcliffe – The Gifted, the Talented and Me

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The Gifted, the Talented and Me
William Sutcliffe

Fifteen-year-old Sam is average. Apologetically average. Which is fine until he moves to London and finds himself attending the North London Academy for the Gifted and Talented. Football is banned, and creating poetry and beat-boxing in class is highly recommended. Will Sam ever find his feet, or is he doomed to wander the school grounds alone and average?

I picked up this novel, read the first chapter, and then put it down again. Last night I wanted something light to read so I picked it up again. I find it hard to come up with things to say about it, because it wasn’t anything special. I think that’s its allure though because not everyone can draw brilliantly or be a musical genius. Sam brings to life the average teenage guy (including his dick) and his humour.

I’d never really thought about or even considered the term ‘Queerbaiting’ until recently. Basically it seems to mean that there is a character who comes out as gay, or that seems gay, and then suddenly they turn out to be incredibly straight. For me, that’s what ruined Starworld, but I didn’t find it impacting me very much for this novel.

Something I did find upsetting was Sam’s mother’s blog. She uses her own name on it, and then just blanks out her children’s names with just the first initial. Imagine if the school bully had gotten their hands on that sort of information? It’s not ok for her to be writing that – and after Sam catches her out she should have given it up. I’m not going to make excuses for her behavior, even as I laughed about the Japanese stool.

It’s frankly an average book about an average guy. There’s nothing amazing in this novel that made me want to keep reading it desperately – but maybe that’s going to appeal to some readers. So many YA novels have ‘special’ protagonists with mental health issues, family issues, queer issues, etc etc. So it’ll be nice for normal people to have a humorous novel about them! 3 stars from me (since I can hit all three of those issue boxes!).

Bloomsbury | 17th June 2019 | AU$16.99 | paperback

Review: Taryn Bashford – The Astrid Notes

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The Astrid Notes
Taryn Bashford

Astrid secretly longs to be a popular song writer – but she’s an operatic soprano. Jacob is grieving for his friends and his band – but his parents won’t continue to bankroll his music career unless he starts singing again. Together, can Astrid and Jacob make compromises for their families and themselves? Or will they lose everything?

Ugh! I didn’t want them to be in love! What I wouldn’t give right now for a YA friendship novel. It sets up unrealistic expectations for young adults – they’re somehow supposed to have a love that makes them defy their parents and overcome their stage fright. It’s ok to be single, and it’s ok to just have friends.

Although this novel could be considered a sequel to The Harper Effect’, Harper doesn’t really play a role in it. She cameos maybe once? So there’s no need to have read Bashford’s other novel. But I feel like I’d consider borrowing it from the library to see if the same strong feelings raised in me by The Astrid Effect worked via sports stars too.

Once upon a time I thought that I wanted to go to music school – which in Melbourne would be the Victorian College of the Arts. I quickly realised that I wasn’t inherently talented enough to go! So here, where both Astrid and Jacob are good enough to go to music specialist schools I felt some envy of their talent. But also I felt deeply sad about the circumstances that brought them together. Their feelings of depression and suicidality (it should be a word!) brought me to tears.

I’ll give this four stars for the feels it gave me, but the story didn’t seem to be anything particularly new. I preferred another music-themed YA novel I read a couple of years ago. I’ll update the post if I remember it’s name! I can picture the cover, but not the title.

Pan Macmillan | 10th July 2019 | AU$16.99 | paperback

Review: Brendan Reichs – Genesis

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Genesis
Brendan Reichs

Noah knows what the stakes are now – and he’s determined to survive at any cost. He’ll flatten team-mates and set others alight to win. In contrast, Min knows that there has to be something more to life than killing. She wants to form a community and work out the long term goals. Why can’t they leave the area? And why does killing people not make them stay dead?

I hated Noah and Min’s relationship. Honestly, I was disgusted by Noah most of the time, and I couldn’t believe that Min would fall for him. What about Tack? He would give her anything! And I’d take that any day in a killing scenario like what these guys find themselves in.

There’s a couple of twists and turns here that I definitely didn’t see coming. It is ESSENTIAL that you read Nemesis first, because otherwise you will be completely confused. How could Sarah do that? Why would they keep the psychopaths in the population?

I found it interesting that the gay couples still felt the need to justify their relationships. Maybe it’s because they won’t be able to provide offspring to somehow keep the human race alive? That’s the thing that got to me. Even if there are 64 humans left, it’s really unlikely that that is enough genetic diversity to really restart a population. And were the ones and zeros really needed? Or could those clone bodies survive on their own? I wanted to know more about the science.

I actually read an eBook copy of this as I was on vacation and had just finished Nemesis – and I needed to read Genesis right away! I have a hard copy version though which I did like originally until I realized it was the second in a series. What devastated me again after finishing it is that there is a third book. I’ll give this one 4 stars, but I probably won’t reread it before reading Chrysalis.

Pan Macmillan | 24th April 2018 | AU$16.99 | paperback