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Review: You Must Be Layla by Yassmin Abdel-Magied
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You Must Be Layla by Yassmin Abdel-Magied
Genre: Middle Grade | Contemporary
Published by: Puffin
Pages: 288
Release date: 05/03/2019
Rating: ★★★★☆
Where to find: Goodreads | Waterstones
Summary: Layla believes she was right to stand up for herself against a bully, but it’s landed her a suspension – not the way she (or her parents) would have wished to begin her time at her fancy new school! This is just a setback though, and she’s determined to prove that she does deserve her scholarship by making new friends and setting her sights on inventing something that could win the big robotics competition.
But where to begin? -
Review: Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon (Blog Tour)
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Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon
Genre: Young Adult | Contemporary
Published by: Penguin
Pages: 285
Release date: 01/06/2021
Rating: ★★★★☆
Where to find: Goodreads | Waterstones
Summary: Evie is disillusioned about love ever since her dad left her mum for another woman – she’s even throwing out her beloved romance novel collection.When she’s given a copy of a book called Instructions for Dancing, and follows a note inside to a dilapidated dance studio, she discovers she has a strange and unwelcome gift. When a couple kisses in front of her, she can see their whole relationship play out – from the moment they first catch each other’s eye to the last bitter moments of their break-up.
For Evie, it confirms everything she thinks she knows about love – that it doesn’t last.
But at the dance studio she meets X – tall, dreadlocked, fascinating – and they start to learn to dance, together. Can X help break the spell that Evie is under? Can he change Evie’s mind about love?
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Review: I Was Born for This by Alice Oseman
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I Was Born for This by Alice Oseman
Genre: Contemporary
Published by: Harper Collins
Pages: 393
Release date: 03/05/2018
Rating: ★★★★★
Where to find: Goodreads | Waterstones
Summary: For Angel, life is only about one thing: The Ark – a pop-rock trio of teenage boys who are currently taking the world by storm. Being part of The Ark’s fandom has given her everything – her friend Juliet, her dreams, her place in the world.
Jimmy owes everything to The Ark. He’s their frontman – and playing in a band with his mates is all he ever dreamed of doing.
But dreams don’t always turn out the way you think, and when Jimmy and Angel are unexpectedly thrust together they find out just how strange and surprising facing up to reality can be. -
Review: Boy Queen by George Lester
Boy Queen by George Lester
Genre: Contemporary
Published by: Macmillan
Pages: 400
Release date: 06/08/2020
Rating: ★★★★★
Where to find: Goodreads | Waterstones
Summary: Life’s a drag until you try . . .Robin Cooper’s life is falling apart.
While his friends prepare to head off to university, Robin is looking at a pile of rejection letters from drama schools up and down the country, and facing a future without the people he loves the most. Everything seems like it’s ending, and Robin is scrabbling to find his feet.
Unsure about what to do next and whether he has the talent to follow his dreams, he and his best friends go and drown their sorrows at a local drag show, where Robin realises there might be a different, more sequinned path for him . . .
With a mother who won’t stop talking, a boyfriend who won’t acknowledge him and a best friend who is dying to cover him in glitter make up, there’s only one thing for Robin to do: bring it to the runway.
Boy Queen by George Lester is a sparkling debut full of big hair, big heels and even bigger hearts.
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Review: Loveless by Alice Oseman
Loveless by Alice Oseman
Genre: Contemporary
Published by: Harper Collins
Pages: 435
Release date: 09/07/2020
Rating: ★★★★☆
Where to find: Goodreads | Waterstones
Summary: It was all sinking in. I’d never had a crush on anyone. No boys, no girls, not a single person I had ever met. What did that mean?Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush – but as a fanfic-obsessed romantic she’s sure she’ll find her person one day.
As she starts university with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a whole new town far from home, Georgia’s ready to find romance, and with her outgoing roommate on her side and a place in the Shakespeare Society, her ‘teenage dream’ is in sight.
But when her romance plan wreaks havoc amongst her friends, Georgia ends up in her own comedy of errors, and she starts to question why love seems so easy for other people but not for her. With new terms thrown at her – asexual, aromantic – Georgia is more uncertain about her feelings than ever.
Is she destined to remain loveless? Or has she been looking for the wrong thing all along?
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Review: Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann
Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann
Genre: Contemporary
Published by: Swoon Reads
Pages: 277
Release date: 28/05/2020
Rating: ★★★★★
Trigger warnings:
Summary: Alice had her whole summer planned. Nonstop all-you-can-eat buffets while marathoning her favorite TV shows (best friends totally included) with the smallest dash of adulting—working at the library to pay her share of the rent. The only thing missing from her perfect plan? Her girlfriend (who ended things when Alice confessed she’s asexual). Alice is done with dating—no thank you, do not pass go, stick a fork in her, done.But then Alice meets Takumi and she can’t stop thinking about him or the rom com-grade romance feels she did not ask for (uncertainty, butterflies, and swoons, oh my!).
When her blissful summer takes an unexpected turn and Takumi becomes her knight with a shiny library-employee badge (close enough), Alice has to decide if she’s willing to risk their friendship for a love that might not be reciprocated—or understood.
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Review: Wonderland by Juno Dawson
Wonderland by Juno Dawson
Genre: Contemporary
Published by: Quercus
Pages: 286
Release date: 28/05/2020
Rating: ★★★★☆
Trigger warnings: Mental health, self harm, suicide, sexual assault, drug use, murder
Summary: Alice lives in a world of stifling privilege and luxury – but none of it means anything when your own head plays tricks on your reality. When her troubled friend Bunny goes missing, Alice becomes obsessed with finding her. On the trail of her last movements, Alice discovers a mysterious invitation to ‘Wonderland’: the party to end all parties – three days of hedonistic excess to which only the elite are welcome.Will she find Bunny there? Or is this really a case of finding herself? Because Alice has secrets of her own, and ruthless socialite queen Paisley Hart is determined to uncover them, whatever it takes.
Alice is all alone, miles from home and without her essential medication. She can trust no-one, least of all herself, and now she has a new enemy who wants her head…
A searing exploration of mental health, gender and privilege, from the most addictive YA novelist in the UK today.
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Review: Margot & Me by Juno Dawson
Margot & Me by Juno Dawson
Genre: Contemporary
Published by: Hot Key Books
Pages: 401
Release date: 26/01/2017
Rating: ★★★★☆
Summary: How can you hate someone in the present and love them in the past?Fliss’s mum needs peace and quiet to recuperate from a long illness, so they both move to the countryside to live with Margot, Fliss’s stern and bullying grandmother. Life on the farm is tough and life at school is even tougher, so when Fliss unearths Margot’s wartime diary she sees an opportunity to get her own back.
But Fliss soon discovers Margot’s life during the evacuation was full of adventure, mystery … and even passion. What’s more, she learns a terrible secret that could tear her whole family apart…
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Top Ten Tuesday – Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2014
Hey guys! Its time for another Top Ten Tuesday! Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, so if you want more information about it go check them out. This week the theme is Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2014. Lets get started!
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Review: Unspeakable by Abbie Rushton
*I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley*
Summary:
Megan doesn’t speak. She hasn’t spoken in months.
Pushing away the people she cares about is just a small price to pay. Because there are things locked inside Megan’s head – things that are screaming to be heard – that she cannot, must not, let out.
Then Jasmine starts at school: bubbly, beautiful, talkative Jasmine. And for reasons Megan can’t quite understand, life starts to look a bit brighter.
Megan would love to speak again, and it seems like Jasmine might be the answer. But if she finds her voice, will she lose everything else?
