Category: Junior Fiction

pho?

Posted on by Greig

Me, Earl & The Dying Girl

Jesse Andrews

me, earl and the dying girlI read this after watching the film adaptation. I really enjoyed the film and I started to wonder how much of the weirdness of the characters actually came from the source material.
It turns out that it’s a pretty straightforward adaptation of a wonderfully quirky novel.
Unlike the last book I read about a teenager with cancer this is significantly less manipulative of the reader’s emotions.
I recommend both the book and the film if you like heightened reality in your contemporary YA entertainment

Rating: A-

beetroot?

Posted on by Greig

Johnny and the Bomb

Terry Pratchett

johnny-and-the-bomb-largeThe final Johnny Maxwell book finds Johnny and his friends find themselves travelling to 1941 thanks to the contents of bag lady Mrs Tachyon’s shopping trolley and caught up in events as German planes bomb their home town.
Pratchett has a lot of fun playing with time travel paradoxes and the trappings of war time provincial Britain.
I first reviewed this back in 2003 and as then I think it’s just a very good book.
Very much recommended.

Rating: A-

alderman?

Posted on by Greig

Johnny and the Dead

Terry Pratchett

johnny and the deadThe second Johnny Maxwell book finds him living with his grandfather. His new short cut home takes him through the local cemetery.
This is a sweet tale of community activism and as least as much about how the living need the memory of their dead as about the fate those who have died.
Everything that makes Pratchett a great writer is in this book – his humanity, empathy, wit and intelligence.
I will repeat myself once again – everybody should read Pratchett.

Rating: A-

screewee?

Posted on by Greig

Only You Can Save Mankind

Terry Pratchett

Only You Can Save MankindThis is the first of the Johnny Maxwell young adult series and the first of Terry Pratchett’s books I’ve been able to read since his death.
I stayed over at my parents on Christmas Eve and I woke up early on Christmas morning before dawn. As I sat, slightly cold, watching the sun rise over the Forth I borrowed this ebook from Edinburgh Overdrive.
I first read it a long time ago before this blog existed and never again since I started keeping a record of my reading.
This short book retains all of Pratchett’s humour, insight, and empathy while squarely viewing the world from a the perspective of a twelve year old boy.
I don’t want to spend a lot of time on the plot of this one – I just want to recommend it.
Everyone should read Terry Pratchett. If the fantasy trappings of Discworld are putting you off this is as good a place to start as any.

Rating: A-

sterling?

Posted on by Greig

First & Then

Emma Mills

First & ThenThe first novel by Emma Mills is a high school set tale of families, friendships, loves and finding yourself.
Ms Mills is better known to me as the vlogger elmify. Her videos are usually sweet, goofy but always underpinned by her enormous smarts.
The book also matches that pattern.
The book feels like it takes place in a recognizably real world filled with real people. Lead characters Devon and Foster are particularly well drawn.
However, there’s just something about this book that never quite sparks into life. For all their reality I never felt invested in the character’s lives.
It’s still worth reading and I expect better books to come from her over the years.

Rating: B

humdrum?

Posted on by Greig

Carry On

Rainbow Rowell

carry onThis is a super enjoyable piece of YA fantasy taking the fictional fantasy found in Rowell’s Fangirl and turning it into a real story.
Simon Snow is the chosen one. Destined to save the World of Mages he cannot control his massive magical power.
As the stakes are raised in both the magical civil war and the battle against the magic destroying Insidious Humdrum he starts his final year at magical school with his room mate and nemesis Basilton Pitch missing.
I really enjoyed this book. The only issue I have is the state of ignorance the heroes are left in at the end. The reader knows more than Simon at the end and I felt sad that he didn’t get to know some things revealed in other character’s perspectives.

Rating: A-

cyberbully?

Posted on by Greig

A Midsummer’s Nightmare

Kody Keplinger

midsummers nightmareAfter reading The DUFF I discovered that Keplinger had other novels set in the same town and as I was interested to see if anything about the DUFF characters cropped up I picked up this one to read.
The lead character of this book is a teenage girl called Whitley.
She’s looking forward to escaping her embittered mother for a summer of booze and beach side lounging with her semi-famous anchorman father. When he picks her up at the airport she discovers that he’s getting remarried and she’s staying with his fiancee and his two kids. One of whom is a guy she had a one night stand with at the end of the school year.
Whitley is an unhappy, lonely, screwed up kid. She takes her frustrations and pain out on everyone around her and it gets her in a lot of trouble.
This book is easily as well written as The DUFF and it was nice to see some of those characters again if only for a few paragraphs but I found Whitley a hard character to relate to or sympathize with. That’s probably because I’m a long way past my personal teenage angst (all my angst is middle-aged thank you very much).
It’s worth reading but there’s nothing outstanding or especially memorable about it.

Rating: B

hester?

Posted on by Greig

The DUFF

Kody Keplinger

the duffThis is an entertaining YA novel about a smart and cynical teenager called Bianca who is told one day that she’s the DUFF of her friend group – the designated ugly fat friend.
The book follows her as she internalizes that idea and as she falls off from the beaten path of her regular life into chaos before finding a new kind of equilibrium.
I read this because I’m very intrigued by the film they’ve made of it. I’m going to go see it at some point.
As for the book it’s enjoyable but it’s also slightly uneven. The main characters are strongly written but the plot isn’t hugely compelling. The biggest point in it’s favour – I find myself wanting to see what the characters are up to after the story ends.

Rating: B

crack?

Posted on by Greig

The Madness Underneath

Maureen Johnson

the madness underneathThe second book in the Shades of London series is just as charming and as much fun as The Name of the Star.
Following on shortly after the events of the first book we find Rory coming to terms with the trauma of those events and the consequences of her new abilities.
It’s all really hard to talk about without spoiling, but I’ll tell you one thing – this book has a doozy of an ending.

Rating: B+

vikes?

Posted on by Greig

Search For Senna

K.A. Applegate

search for sennaThe first of 12 Everworld books this an extremely slight YA alternate world fantasy.
It’s doing a lot of expositional heavy lifting as the first book in a series but it’s still a speedy read. It consists of a bunch of teenagers scraping through one adventure after another but there’s no emotional heft to explain why these kids are putting themselves in the way of all this danger beyond misguided heroic notions.
I’m probably going to read at least one more of this series to give it a chance but it will have to be a serious improvement to keep me reading beyond that.

Rating: B-