The Last Whale by Chris Vick
Review by Peter Reason The Last Whale is a fiction book for teens and young adults that covers serious themes in an engaging story. The narrative threads together tragedy and…
Review by Peter Reason The Last Whale is a fiction book for teens and young adults that covers serious themes in an engaging story. The narrative threads together tragedy and…
Review by Annabel Only the fact that I’d never read Mrs Dalloway blinded me to the power of the first sentence of Ness’s latest novel: Adam would have to get the flowers…
Selected by Jenny and Memory It’s summer, and the cups of your trusty YA correspondents runneth over. We know we led you to believe that we would curate a list…
I recently met up with a bunch of friends from university for the afternoon. ‘You’re very successful now, aren’t you?’ one guy boomed at me before even saying ‘hello’. I…
Selected by Jenny and Memory In each issue of Shiny New Books, Jenny and Memory highlight the most exciting young adult novels of the season. This spring, they’re perhaps a leetle bit…
By Memory and Jenny From music to murder, from a hospital ward to Haworth Parsonage, Jenny and Memory highlight the most exciting young adult novels of the season in the…
Reviewed by Annabel O’Neill’s first novel, Only Ever Yours, published in 2014, won a host of prizes in her native Ireland. Aimed at older teenagers upwards, it was a futuristic…
Reviewed by Annabel Tess’s mother died giving birth to her brother Axel. They live with their father in a cabin at the edge of a town in the middle of…
Reviewed by Bookgazing Scott Westerfeld is undeniably an imaginative author, even in the context of the SFF world where authors produce fun and wild new concepts every other day. His Uglies series…
Questions by Jenny Your fascination with Madame Tussaud is obvious. What led to your decision not to set the book from her perspective, but rather from the perspective of an invented street…
Reviewed by Jenny As Kathleen Benner Duble remarks in her author’s note (always my favorite part of any historical novel), Marie (‘Manon’) Tussaud had a fascinating life. Her mother was…
Reviewed by Bookgazing For a while now, there’s been some online discussion about whether “the coming out novel” has had its day, and whether modern readers need stories where characters…
As his second YA novel All Sorts of Possible is published (reviewed here), author Rupert Wallis stops off at Shiny New Books on his blog tour to tell us about his experience including…
Reviewed by Annabel I saw a repeat of a Horizon TV programme all about sinkholes the other month. Geology professor Ian Stewart was in Florida, which is the sinkhole capital of the…
Reviewed by Jodie When I reviewed The Girl at Midnight I mentioned how great it was to read a story with a female friendship at its heart. Lo and behold, Remix by Non Pratt –…
Reviewed by Bookgazing Every October, Cara’s family is beset by accidents big and small. The family all refer to this month as ‘the accident season’ and try to take extra…
Reviewed by Ana Grilo “Have you read Frances Hardinge?” I’ve made several false starts with this review because I don’t know what to write. How do I describe The Lie Tree?…
Reviewed by Jodie A pretty cover, a pickpocket heroine and a quest for a Firebird? ‘Sounds cute,’ I thought as I paid for The Girl at Midnight. I was sure it…
YA review by Annabel Once Sally Gardner gained enough confidence to start writing novels for older children and teens, already being a fabulous illustrator and author of some great stories…
Reviewed by Bookgazing Holly Black is one of the reigning queens of modern gothic. Her novel The Coldest Girl in Coldtown presented an original, nightmarish vampire world that mixed garish tourist stops,…
Reviewed by Annabel Subtitled ‘Wonderings and Reflections on Growing Up Gracefully’, All I Know Now is part memoir, part advice guide for teens, by one of the big stars of vlogging. Carrie…
Reviewed by Bookgazing. David is a social outcast; dubbed ‘Freakshow’ by the bullies at his posh school, Eden Park, and hopelessly in love with the most popular boy in school….
Review by Bookgazing. ‘This is a story about love,’ Jandy Nelson says in her preface to I’ll Give You the Sun ‘crazy complicated love of all kinds: between guys and girls, guys…
Reviewed by Annabel When I read Gayle Forman’s debut novel If I Stay back in 2009, the juggernaut that is today’s YA book industry was in its relative infancy. Being in my…