Girls to the Front by Lucy Nichol - Review

I got this book from my Secret Santa at Christmas, but I know who that was! For the past couple of years, Lee's family has done a secret Santa where each adult just buys presents for one other adult, up to the value of £60. It makes things a lot cheaper, and it means each adult can choose things they'd really like. in 2025 Lee and I chose a new toaster and kettle that we wanted for our kitchen, but they were only £30 so we could choose other things we wanted too. I said I would  like champagne because I love champagne. My Santa was Libby, one of my sisters in law, who knows I love books. She got me the kettle, a bottle of champagne that I have not yet drunk, and this book. It's set in the north east where Lee's family is from, and where Libby lives, and I really appreciated that! 

The beginning of the book sees a woman called Roma in police custody. She is lying about what happened with the body she has been found with, but is obviously covering for someone. We then go back to a few weeks ago in Roma's story. She works at a place called Electric Dreams which sells old video games and DVDs and stuff. Roma had some kind of breakdown previously and had to leave her graduate job, so she works there instead of something more stressful. She enjoys the work and her colleagues though. She lives with her two best friends, Jonny and Leila, and they definitely care for each other and all of that. 

At work they often get given boxes of house clearance stuff. In one such box, Roma discovers a home video accompanied by a menacing note. She is intrigued and goes to some trouble to watch the video (which is like thirty years old by the time she finds it). On it, there is a video of a young woman passed out on a sofa in a hotel room, and some men talking about how they're going to assault her. The accompanying note identifies these men as members of the band The Razor Heads, who often played in a local venue. Roma is disturbed by what she has seen and is determined to take the video to the police. She begins to get a bit obsessed with discovering what happened to the woman on the video, and her flatmates are concerned about her. 

In a parallel narrative, Kat is a mature student in 1995. She is friends with a younger student called Alison. They go to see the Razor Heads and while there, Alison decides to crowd surf. As she is doing it, she is assaulted by random hands in the crowd, including sexually assaulted. She is obviously upset and shaken up. Kat realises that there is a problem with the band and with the venue. She starts to investigate, as she's a writer on the student newspaper, and discovers loads of girls with similar complaints. She is a bit of a loner and is a bit witchy and fierce too. 

I liked both narratives and loved how they came together. This book is described as feminist and thrilling with a 90s nostalgia thing, and it definitely did all that for me. I liked it a lot and am giving it four out of five. 

Boy Queen by George Lester - Review

I bought this book at Northern YA Lit Fest a few years ago. George was there talking about the book, so I bought it and got him to sign it. I was so glad to get to read it. George himself is a drag queen and from what I gather an editor or someone else in publishing suggested he wrote a book about it, and this is what he came up with. That's an interesting way for it to happen, but I don't think it's to the book's detriment!

Robin Cooper is in his last year of sixth form and he's really into performing arts. He really wants to go to a performing arts school in London, that he has auditioned for. The dream is that he will go there and his best friend, Natalie, will go to university nearby, and they will live together and have a fabulous time. Robin spends a lot of his time rehearsing and dancing. He has a secret boyfriend, Connor, who doesn't want anyone to know they're together, and who does not deserve Robin in any way. He and Natalie hang out with a lad called Greg who is their token straight friend; Greg is incredibly sweet and would do anything for his friends. Robin is also friends with a girl called Priya who goes to dancing with him. I love a set of supportive friends and these are fab! He also lives with just his mum and I loved her too - she's funny and sassy and loves him deeply. After Robin got beaten up and bullied for being gay the previous summer, his mum worries about him and doesn't want him to put himself out there too much. This is relevant later. 

Anyway, the future looks set - but then Robin doesn't get into the school of his dreams. He is crushed. His friends are of course crushed for him. He literally has no idea what he wants to do next. I loved the depiction of that - when you're eighteen and about to leave school or sixth form and you're all on that precipice and you're not going to be together anymore. It's scary! George put it across so well. 

To cheer Robin up his friends take him to a drag show in a queer pub in the next town over. They have a great time and little by little, Robin gets involved in drag. He has a drag mother whose name I forget but who is a great character. At college, there's a new boy called Seth who has a dangerous reputation, and he starts driving Robin back and forward to the queer pub. He and Robin get close - I liked Seth and I loved his back story when it came out. Robin's drag coming out is done in such a fantastic way, but I also really liked everything going on under that.

Robin and Natalie's relationship starts to fall apart, and there's just a lot of rubbish going through the friendship group which I thought was dealt with really well. I feel like I could read books and books of George writing about friendship groups and what being seventeen/eighteen is really like. I'm giving this four out of five, and I'll definitely read something else by George in the future. 

Tart by Becki Jayne Crossley - Review

I got this book on Netgalley because I liked the sound of it, so thank you very much to Bloomsbury Publishing for granting me access to it. I was provided with an electronic copy of this book for review purposes, but was not otherwised compensated for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

It felt like a really long time since I had read a good YA book, especially one set in the UK, so I was keen to get stuck into this. It is set in a small town in the UK and I could picture it perfectly. 

Libby is in her first year of sixth form when a video of her kissing another boy goes viral amongst her school friends. This would be bad enough, but it happens on the same night that her boyfriend Dan gets knocked down by a car  and is in a coma. He is yet to wake up weeks, months later, and no one knows what will happen to him. Libby is ostracised and left friendless. But there's a new girl in the area - Neha. She is from a bigger area and she's proudly out and queer; she has a gaggle of queer friends that she misses dreadfully now she's had to move. She and Libby get close and Libby begins to question her feelings for Neha - but of course there is the question of Dan still. But there are a lot of secrets and explanations rattling around this book, which I felt were revealed really well. 

I really liked the book and would definitely read something else by the same author. I liked the queer representations and the queer joy that was really gentle - like Libby and her new friends visiting a cafe that they liked. I'm giving this four out of five. 

This book is out now for purchase. 

Read Between the Li(n)es by Malcolm Duffy - Review

I can't remember where or when I picked this book up but I obviously did at some point, and I picked it up towards the end of September. I'm reviewing this like six weeks later as I've just been so busy and have been on holiday, so some of the details of the book are a bit lost to me now. However, I didn't like it much - I don't think it was as good as Me Mam, Me Dad, Me by Malcolm which I read years ago and liked. 

Anyway, there are two protagonists of this book. Firstly there is Ryan. His parents are divorced and he is living in the south of England with his dad, although he is from the north east. His mam isn't around much. Ryan and his dad are living with his dad's new girlfriend, whose name escapes me right now, and her son, Tommy.

Tommy has been in a young offenders institute for a year and now he's back home. He's got to start school again in Ryan's year, although he's older. Ryan's mam thinks he is a bad lad and doesn't want Ryan living with him, but what can she do? Ryan wants to get on with Tommy but the two clash to begin with. Tommy is well liked at school but he's also prickly and can be difficult. He finds school difficult, because he is dyslexic, and he has never got help for that. 

Ryan is dyslexic too, but he's been well supported in it so he is doing well in school. He has things that help and strategies, so he is a bit nerdy. He wants Tommy to like him as he doesn't have many friends in his new area.

The two get closer and Ryan shares how he learnt to read and all of that stuff. Secrets start to slide out, which as an adult I found a little bit predictable, but a teenager may not find it that way. So maybe I can't really judge on that score. 

I am giving this three out of five. It has positive things - it's UK based, it's a normal family situation, and I liked what Tommy went through as a teen that landed him in trouble. But the negatives just outweighed that a bit for me. 

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd - Review

 

If you haven't heard of this book before, I have mentioned it on this blog before. In 2020 I read The Guggenheim Mystery by Robin Stevens, which is kind of a sequel to this book. Siobhan Dowd made notes and a title for her sequel, but then she died before she wrote it, so Robin took the characters and wrote the sequel. I really liked the book so got this one and then forgot about it for five years. When we were unpacking all my books after the move I found this and picked it up, thinking it was about time. And I really enjoyed it, so that's good. I didn't really remember the characters so it was nice to get to know them again, from Siobhan herself. 

The protagonist of the book is Ted, who is about eleven or twelve, I think. He is autistic. He lives with his parents and sister, Kat, who's about fourteen. His special interest is the weather and he doesn't really like things outside of his routine. 

One day in the holidays, Ted's mum's sister Gloria turns up with her son, Salim. They are about to move to New York but stay with Ted's family for a bit. Salim doesn't want to move to New York but wants to do some tourist stuff in London first. Mum, Gloria, and all the kids go into London to go on the London Eye. But the queue is huge so the mums have a sit down and the kids join the queue. Then a man offers the kids one ticket to jump the queue; Ted and Kat decide to give it to Salim as he's never been on the Eye before. He goes up, but when the capsule he is in comes back round half an hour later he doesn't get off it. 

At first Ted and Kat think they've got it wrong, so they wait a bit longer. But no, Salim doesn't turn up. Later the family reports Salim missing to the police. He had a disposable camera so Ted and Kat have the film developed, hoping that they might get some clues about what has happened to him. They can see the man who gave them the ticket, and deduce where he was working. They follow a trail - while their parents are trying to keep them contained and keep Gloria feeling okay while Salim is missing - to try to get to the bottom of what has happened. 

It's a good mystery and I really liked how Ted and Kat's relationship developed through the book. It's a good middle grade book, I'm glad I finally got round to it. I'm giving it four out of five. 

The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King by Harry Trevaldwyn - Review

I saw this book on Netgalley and had to request it immediately because it seemed really up my street. Thank you very much to Macmillan for granting me access to it. I was provided with an electronic copy of the book for review purposes, but was not otherwise compensated for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

This book is very much in the vein of Simon James Green which I really liked. It reminded me of Noah Can't Even. I loved it, I loved Patch and found the storyline both funny and sweet. That's my favourite kind of YA fiction. 

So Patch is just going into the sixth form. He is called Patrick but he's trying Patch out now as a cool new thing. He lives with his mum and older sister, Kath, who he bickers with constantly. His best friend is Jean. They are kind of outcasts at school and are in the drama club. Patch is gay and Jean is a firm ally. Patch is determined to get a boyfriend by Prom, at the end of term. 

They go to drama club in preparation for the new play, and two very exciting things happen. Firstly, Tessa comes. She uses to be friends with Patch and Jean, but then she started hanging out with the popular crew and they haven't spoken since. So why is she back?! But more excitingly there are two new boys. Peter and Sam. Peter is American and living with Sam's family for a bit due to some family stuff going on. Patch is entirely certain one of them will be his new boyfriend. 

There are many shenanigans and so on, and it's fun and funny, but there are points of pathos too. I liked the growth that nearly everyone showed in the book. I would have liked a little bit more of Patch's mum and sister, but generally I just can't really complain. I'm giving this four out of five as I just really liked it. 

The Yearbook by Holly Bourne - Review

I can sometimes take or leave Holly Bourne, so I wouldn't rush to read stuff by her, but when I was browsing in the library recently for anything new in YA, I came across this and I was really intrigued by the premise. I actually really liked the book and think it's the best thing I've read by Holly. I feel like she's really dug into emotions here and it has really paid off. I hope all her future books are this deep and this good!

So Paige is in Year 11 at school and her life is pretty difficult. At home, she lives with her mum and dad. Her elder brother, Adam, her dad's favourite, has gone away to uni, so her dad is in an even worse mood than usual. The whole household revolves around him and his bad moods. Every time Paige walks into the house she has to gauge the temperature to see if her dad is angry or whether her parents are putting up a good front. Her dad is abusive. Paige sort of kids herself that it's not 'that bad' because he doesn't hit her or her mum, but honestly, it's pretty bad. He's a bad person. He doesn't love Paige or any of the rest of the family at all. Paige cries herself to sleep a lot of nights and she is lonely and sad. 

At school she is lonely too. She had a friend called Ruby who had to move away, and since then Paige has been by herself. She spends her lunchtimes in the library and she is also a journalist on the school newspaper, which she loves. She is friendly with the school librarian who also oversees the paper. But she isn't really registered by anyone in her year. She's just a nobody. She watches all the bullying that occurs in her year - for example when one of the popular boys does bunny ears on a boy called Charlie when they're having their year photo taken - and she records it in notebooks. She has done this for years and years but she has never done anything with her records. 

Two things happen. Firstly, Paige finds some writing in a book and begins a correspondence with someone. They end up meeting and he is Elijah, a boy in the sixth form. My one criticism is that he is perhaps a bit too perfect, but I couldn't even mind because honestly Paige deserves some happiness in her life. He brings her out of herself and they have a lot of fun together and eventually trust each other hugely. Elijah does have problems himself, which I liked. He is very cute. 

Secondly, The Awfuls get put together with the newspaper students to make the year's yearbook for when they leave school. The Awfuls are the top bullies, top dogs of the whole school. There's Grace, lead Awful, Amelia, and Laura. They want to put together pages with memories of each year of school, but the stories and photos they choose are firstly cented around themselves and secondly really mean to anyone else they mention. There are extracts throughout the book so the reader knows that Paige did stand up for herself and everyone else, so I liked knowing that and couldn't wait to find out how we got there. 

I want to describe this book as Carrie meets Mean Girls... it's great. Five out of five from me! 

Heartbreak Boys by Simon James Green - Review

I don't remember now where I picked this book up, but I think it might have been in one of the queer bookshops that I've been to fairly recently. It must be one of the only books by Simon James Green that I didn't own, so I was happy to buy it. I kept meaning to pick it up and I eventually did towards the end of October. Again I was trying to read something easy after The Book of Lost & Found and this fitted the bill and I was happy to enjoy one of Simon's books again. I love how he puts so much humour in his books, alongside a lot of touching parts and some pathos. 

This novel has a dual narrative. First of all there's Jack. Jack is out and proud, hugely camp, and going out with Dylan, who is captain of the football team. Jack was bullied when younger, but now, in Year 11, he isn't because he's going out with Dylan. It's their prom, and Jack wants to go all out, and he thinks they're in with a good chance of winning prom king and queen, too. But Dylan really wants Jack to tone it down somewhat. He's kind of embarrassed by Jack, and really clearly does not deserve him at all. 

Nate is quiet, a bit shy, he sort of fades into the background. He's giving a speech at prom, though, and he has decided that he will use the opportunity to come out. He has been seeing Tariq, but it's been a secret. Tariq has been trying to push Nate out, though, and Nate thinks he will appreciate this grand gesture of Nate coming out in front of the entire school. So he does it, and everyone is watching, but then Jack notices a look between Dylan and Tariq, and realises that he and Nate have both been cheated on... 

So everything blows up. Jack is upset, but he is determined to not show it. Dylan and Tariq immediately become the like hashtag couple goals and they head off on holiday and this amazing life together. Nate is really upset. Jack goes over to see him. The two of them used to be friends but when Jack came out Nate distanced himself and they haven't really spoken since. Clearly this was because Nate was struggling with his own sexuality, but it means they aren't really friends. 

Nate's parents want to take him and his sister, Rosie, who is hilarious, on a camping trip in their clapped out camper van. Nate's dad has had a bad year and has lost his job and a good friend, so he needs some headspace. I actually really loved these details because parents have difficult lives too! Jack gets himself an invite and he decides they will start an instagram called HeartbreakBoys and they will have the best summer ever!

But the best laid plans and so on... 

I really enjoyed this book, it's fun and funny. I'm giving it four out of five. 

The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean - Review

I can't remember where I heard of this book, but I did, and I bought it secondhand in May. Maybe I heard about it at the writing conference I went to in early May. I bought it from eBay for a few quid and I picked it up in September just after my holiday. 

It is a really grim and gruesome book and I'm left not really sure how I feel about it. I can see why it's really compelling and I just had to keep reading, but I'm sort of uncomfortable. It feels a lot like torture porn, and I'm not sure that this author was the right person to write this. The comparisons to Room and Misery are really apt... but I sort of feel like the world has moved on a bit since both those books. Even Room is fourteen years old now. 

The protagonist is Jane. Her name is not Jane, though. Her name is Thanh Dao and she is a Vietnamese national who was trafficked to England with promises of a good life and money to send back to her family. She was with her sister, Kim-Ly. Thanh ended up being imprisoned by Leonard on his desolate fenland farm in Norfolk or Linncolnshire, something like that. At the very beginning of the book she tries to escape by walking miles and miles to a road. However, he catches her, and as punishment he burns one of her final posessions. When she arrived, she had seventeen. She is now just down to four. One of them is the sheaf of letters from her sister. Kim-Ly is working in Manchester in a nail salon and Thanh knows that she isn't far off paying off her debt to the men who trafficked her; all that Thanh has to do is keep with Lenn for a couple more years and then Kim-Ly will be free, and then Thanh doesn't really care what happens to her then. She has already been a prisoner here for seven years. 

She has a disabled foot. After a previous escape attempt, Lenn broke her ankle with a pair of bolt cutters and it has healed badly. Thanh can't run and can only walk by dragging her foot behind her. She lives in constant pain and Lenn keeps her drugged with horse tranquilisers. He is a complete monster; I don't think that can be emphasised enough. Everything she does is observed, everything she does wrong is punished. He rapes her repeatedly. Near the beginning of the book she realises she is pregnant. Thanh has tried to escape and tried everything she can think of to escape, but hasn't ever been able to. 

A woman called Cynthia arrives one day, asking if she can rent one of Lenn's fields for her horse. Thanh is terrified, but is this the catalyst that she needs to escape? 

I liked the setting of the book - I could imagine the flat countryside with very little traffic and with nowhere for Thanh to run to. I liked Thanh and wanted her to succeed. I understood why she had come to England and felt sorry for her. I won't give any more details of the book because I think they would be spoilers, but a lot happens. 

However, as I said, I do think parts of the book were just sordid and gruesome for the sake of it. Room does this better, maybe because it is from the point of view of a child. I felt like the author was labouring the point a bit, and the end of the book too, even though the book is barely 250 pages so not long at all. I'm also not sure that a white man like Will Dean was the right person to write the story of a trafficked Vietnamese woman. It makes me feel uncomfortable. For those reasons, I can only give this three out of five. 

The Four by Ellie Keel - Review

So I hated this book. I wanted to finish it because I was already invested, but it was four hundred and forty pages of my life that I will never get back, and I am cross about it. 

I can't remember where I came across it, but I must have, somewhere, because I added it to my hold list at the library. However, this was a while ago so I had totally forgotten why I ordered it. It's touted as 'dark academia' which it really isn't, it fails at that completely in my opinion. It is also supposedly adult fiction but honestly it reads more like Young Adult and should have been marketed as such. 

I know a couple of people who really liked this book but I just really couldn't. It just kept going and it just didn't stop. I have barely any redeeming thoughts about it but let me tell you about it anyway.

The book is set at High Realms, an exclusive fee paying school in Devon. Four students from poorer backgrounds have been given scholarships, back in 1999. They are Rose, Marta, Lloyd, and Sami. Rose is the protagonist of the book and it's all from her point of view. She has left her dad in London. He drives a cab. Her mum died three years ago. She and Marta share a room in the top of the school, Room 1A. Marta's dad is a professor and she has been homeschooled until now. Lloyd was brought up in care and Sami is from Leeds, although his parents are both in the medical field I am pretty sure. 

Right from the beginning the rest of the school hates the four 'millennium scholars'. They are ostracised by their peers and by the teachers, except for the school counsellor, Dr Reza. They are picked on and bullied, especially by the "Senior Patrol" who are prefects, including Genevieve and Sylvia. Gin's boyfriend, Max, does somewhat take to the four of them and Rose has a huge crush on him. However, everyone else hates them. So for a start, do you really want me to buy that an entire sixth form is picking on four kids they don't know, without stopping, for weeks and weeks on end, and that not only do all the teachers know, that they are actually endorsing it? Come on. Private schools are bad but it's just so heavy handed. 

Something happens which means Marta needs to rely on the three others - her only friends - for her survival. And then terrible things keep happening and keep happening, and it just goes on and on and on. I was hoping there would be some kind of twist or redemption which would make the whole rest of it worth it, but unfortunately not. 

There is a sapphic love story which again comes out of nowhere and which also includes one of the bullies, which again makes no sense because why is Rose so forgiving? For a few kisses and some sex? Come on. 

None of the main four characters are sympathetic, or really fleshed out enough for the reader to care. The school is needlessly complicated, not only in terms of geography but in terms of everything else, too. The ending was not at all worth it. I'm giving this one star.  

The Fells by Cath Staincliffe - Review

Thank you so much to Joffe Books for giving me access to this book via Netgalley! I cam across it while browsing and was intrigued, so I was pleased to be able to read it. I was provided with an electronic copy of this book for review purposes but was not otherwise compensated for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

I love detective fiction but I hadn't come across Cath Staincliffe before. This is her first book in the series with these detectives, but she has other books with other officers and I would be interested in picking one of those up. I would also definitely read more in this series, I hope to see one soon! 

The detectives are Leo, who is fifty something, happily married, and good at his job. His son, though, is causing a bit of worry because he's quite right wing and racist and stuff like that. Leo and his wife don't know what to do with him. 

Shan is new to the department I think, she's definitely new to Leo. She's married to a woman and she's pregnant with their first child. She tells Leo this straight away but is keen to get stuck into her new job.

And the job is this: a potholer has found a skeleton in a cave and Leo thinks it must be the bones of a young woman called Vicky who went missing in the late 90s. She was in the area with friends, at a festival, when she went missing, and was never found. It was commonly thought that she was another victim of a serial killer in the area, although he always denied it. She left a note saying she was going to watch the sunrise, but was never seen again. Two of her friends have stayed in touch with her mother, who desperately wants to know what happened to Vicky and to bury her properly. 

Leo and Shan - who has Chinese heritage, although she's adopted - get to work going over the cold case. 

I was worried in case this book was a bit too close to something by J R Ellis - there's even one of his about a body found in a cave in the Yorkshire Dales - but I shouldn't have worried. This story felt fresh and new and I liked how the mystery was solved. I liked the parts set in the 90s, too, and I liked Leo and Shan and want to know what's in store for them in the future. As you can see from the photo I was reading this while on holiday and it was perfect holiday reading for me! I'm giving it four out of five. 

The Secret Sunshine Project by Benjamin Dean - Review

I got this book earlier in the year, having previously enjoyed three books by Benjamin Dean. I can't remember where, but it has been on the piles of new books in my bedroom for a few months at least. Yes, they are terrible piles of books. No, I will not stop adding to them any time soon. I'm trying to keep getting to them... and I have made a bit of headway on that! Hence why I picked this up!

I will say that while I think some of Benjamin's other books are firmly Young Adult, this skews a little bit younger. It's older middle grade or young YA, I think. The main character is twelve, I think, but her sister is sixteen. It's more like Me, My Dad, and the End of the Rainbow in that regard, which I also loved. 

So, prior to the events of the book, Bea's family has been happy. The year before, her sister Riley had come out, and her parents decided to take her and Bea to Pride in London. The family had a great day, celebrating Riley and all being happy themselves. Riley is eager to go again, but a year later everything is different. Their dad has died, meaning the girls and Mum are struggling financially in London. At the end of the school year, Mum announces that they are moving to live with Gran for the summer, until she gets something sorted. 

Riley is fuming. She doesn't want to miss Pride and she doesn't want to be away from her friends. Bea has plans too with her friends, but she's slightly less annoyed about it. Gran is a lovely person and they love her, but the small town she lives in is really boring. Isn't it?

Bea starts to make friends, and ends up being admitted to their den. Riley makes a couple of friends, too, including someone who is queer like her. But a woman called Rita basically runs the place. She makes everyone take part in her summer fete. Gran has come up against her a few times before, because she knows her own mind. But Bea has a crackers idea to hold her own Pride parade in the hope of cheering up her sister... but that means going up against Rita. Can she and her new friends do it?

This is a cute book and perfect for the age group I think. I felt like it lost something in the middle a bit, so I'm giving it three and a half out of five. 

Anticipation by Neil Taylor - Review

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for Anticipation by Neil Taylor! It's a pleasure to welcome you here and I am so glad I am on the tour for this book! I was also lucky enough to get a paper copy of this in the post, which was a lovely surprise. Thank you so much to The Write Reads and to Neem Tree Press for having me on board!

If you're new to my blog please do have a click around and read some of my other reviews. I love Young Adult literature which is why I signed up for  this tour. It is a really good example of dystopian YA literature and I would recommend it to anyone who likes that. 

So, Riya is seventeen and she lives with her dad. Her mum is already dead, and at the very beginning of the book her dad dies in a plane accident. She is left with her auntie Hannah and staff from the company that her dad owned. He was in tech and it turns out he had made a very sophisticated AI machine that these social media giants are nore after. The main guy here is like the Mark Zuckerberg of the book, but much more evil. He comes after Riya and she has to get away, aided by some of her dad's employees. 

She then has to decide whether she wants to become a Keyholder for the company. This will teach her about the AI machine but it will risk her life even more. But she feels like she has a moral responsibility to keep the creation out of the hands of ruthless people. 

She faces a lot of true peril and I really enjoyed watching her escape - it's like an action film. I did feel like there were maybe a couple of bits towards the end that weren't needed, but it is a really good, twisty and turny thriller that I think teens will love. 

I am sure there will be more in the series, too! 

I liked Riya and I liked a lot of the supporting characters. I would definitely read something else by Neil and I'm giving this four out of five. 

The Herd by Emily Edwards - Review

Lynn in my book club chose this book for this year, and by coincidence I had already bought it on Kindle when it was only 99p. So I was excited to get to it and read it at the beginning of July. I read it really quickly because it really captured me. I'm not surprised that it was a Richard and Judy book club book because it's just got that vibe to it. It'll be interesting to see what we make of it at book club!

The book is about two families, the Chamberlains and the Kholis. They live on the same street in a place called Farley, which appears to be fairly close to London and has a beach, so maybe like Brighton or something.  Elizabeth and Jack Chamberlain have three children - Max, who's nearly twelve, Charlie, who's about ten, and Clemmie, who is seven. Elizabeth and Bryony have been friends for like twenty years, since they met at uni, and they're extremely close. Bry is married to Ash, and they have a little girl, Alba, who is four. They have a lot of money because Ash sold his businesses. Elizabeth and Jack clearly do have money, but Jack is struggling to keep things going and also really clearly hates his job in the City. 

Clemmie had seizures when she was little so she has not been vaccinated. Elizabeth truly believes in vaccines, and to begin with would check who was hanging out with Clemmie, but she's sort of forgotten about that recently. But there's a bunch of stuff coming up at the end of the school term, so she sends out an email asking for the vaccination status of every child who is coming to Clemmie's party, and asks that if they're not vaccinated, they don't come. 

But Alba is not vaccinated. You see, Bry's older brother Matty is autistic and non verbal, and lives in a home. Their parents are convinced that he became autistic after some of his vaccinations, so they are truly against them. Sara has in front done some protesting and stuff like that. Bryony has spent her whole life with the 'burden' of Matty's existence on her. Her family life has clearly been hard, so she didn't want Alba to be vaccinated. Her younger sister Jessie has just had a baby, Coco, and Bry knows all her mum's arguments as to why Coco shouldn't be vaccinated either.

But she has to lie to her oldest friend. And she does. But then measles breaks out. 

Right from the beginning of the book the reader knows that there is a court case going on, but it's not immediately clear what has happened and who is involved. There are small points of view of a few people who are attending the court case, including reporters, online trolls, and more. 

I generally did like the book and found it very readable and an interesting story. It's easy to sympathise with both Bry and Elizabeth, for different reasons, over different parts of the book. I liked the supporting characters in the street, too. I liked the microcosm of life. I did find everyone insufferably middle class and this is something I would like to discuss in book club because I think it would be different if it wasn't set in such a well to do, affluent street. 

In all I'm giving it four out of five. It was written mostly before the Covid lockdowns, but it is interesting to read it in the light of what we've been through in the last four years, and through the scary rise of antivaxxers both here and in the rest of the world. 

Something To Be Proud Of by Anna Zoe Quirke - Review

I saw someone talking about this on Twitter so I pre ordered it. It arrived at the beginning of June and I picked it up as part of my queer reading for Pride month. I'm really glad I picked it up so quickly because it is so much fun and it really made me laugh. It's also got a lot of depth to it, a lot of heart. I would really recommend it for anyone in the LGBTQ+ community. 

The book starts with Imogen at a Pride festival. She's bisexual and autistic, and the noise of the festival and all the sensory stuff and everything else overwhelms her, and she ends up having a not great time there. She gets left behind by her 'friends' and starts thinking that she would love to create a more accessible Pride event (because nothing can be one hundred percent accessible). She starts sixth form (I think, there's not a lot at school but it seems like it's September and her year has just done GCSEs) and realises that her friends - whose names I don't even remember because they're not significant - aren't real friends so she ditches them. She wants to start an LGBTQ+ pressure group at school so she asks the headmistress if she can. She's fobbed off, being told that she'll need five members and one teacher involved. Imogen doesn't let that stop her, though, so she goes to ask Ollie if he will join.

Ollie is the gay captain of the football team. He's also part Japanese. He's out and proud. He love his mum and little sister, Maya, but things are difficult at home because his parents have just announced they're getting divorced. Ollie realises there's lots he's not being told about the situation, and his anger with his dad grows. I loved Ollie's family situation and what happened in it throughout the book. Ollie is totally bemused by Imogen's suggestion and refuses to join. But then Amelia hears about the group.

She is head girl and is going out with Josh. He's also on the football team so they're like the alpha couple. Amelia wants to join the group and makes Josh agree too. Imogen's favourite teacher, Mr Holland, agrees to host the group, and with Amelia's friend Maryam on board, they can form! So they do! Two other people turn up too. Imogen tells them her idea of making an accessible Pride event, and everyone is on board so they start fundraising. They also want to talk about the issue of gender neutral toilets because Clem is non binary and finds it hard to use any toilets. 

Imogen's family is more difficult and she has always felt alone, but in the book she makes genuine friends - people who accept her as she is. That leads to her coming out a little bit more! Plus Ollie finds exactly what kind of gay person he is and what that includes. There are so many surprises in this book and I loved all of them but don't want to spoil them. The book is funny and irreverent but also really poignant. I love how Ollie learnt that love comes in all forms. I love how Imogen accepted herself a lot more. I'm giving this four out of five and will definitely read something else by this same author! 

Just Like Everyone Else by Sarah Hagger-Holt - Review

As I said, I took this away on holiday with me because I wasn't sure how many books I would read, but wanted to make sure I had enough LGBTQ+ books to read as that's all I'm reading in June. I actually picked up a different book, but it turned out to be set at Christmas, which isn't something I wanted to read in the middle of June, so I picked this up instead. I read it really quickly and liked it more than The Fights That Make Us, weirdly! 

This book is set in Sheffield which I'm thrilled about because I think there needs to be more northern bassed books in both children's and teen literature. The main character is Aidan Taylor, who is twelve going on thirteen at the beginning of the book. He's in Year 8 and his best friend is Jack. Jack was one of the kids his mum used to childmind, and they have been close ever since. Jack is really into drama and gets bullied because other kids think he is gay. Aidan doesn't know if Jack is or isn't, but he thinks he himself might be. But he's really into running and he's just not sure about himself. 

He does fell running and is really good at it; he bonds with his Auntie Jo over running. She has just been accepted to run the London Marathon so she's really excited about that. She's at Aidan's for a family barbecue and she brings her friends Justin and Atif. 

Aidan is the eldest of five kids - all girls except for him. They are Bells, Chloe, and twins Daisy and Evie. Life is chaotic. Their parents are really involved in their lives and Aidan really has no reason to think that they won't accept that he's gay, but he still doesn't want anyone to find out. So when he realises Justin and Atif are a couple, he panics because he thinks that means people might realise about him. Then things get even worse because Aidan's Mum volunteers to be a surrogate for Justin and Atif. 

Aidan thinks his family is already crazy enough, and now there's another baby on the way. He can't bear to tell anyone at school. He's sick of Atif and Justin being around all the time, and the fact that everyone is just so positive about being a team about everything. I knew the book would have a happy ending but it takes a lot of twists and turns to get there. I loved Aidan and his sisters - they're so realistic. I liked the stuff with Jack and how that was resolved. A lot happens in the book. I love the fact that it's set in Year 8, which is a difficult year I think. I'm giving this five out of five because I just absolutely loved it. 

The Fights That Make Us by Sarah Hagger-Holt - Review

Still keeping on with my reading LGBTQ+ books for June, I took two books by Sarah Hagger-Holt on holiday with me because I've had them for a while and wanted to get to them. I've read and enjoyed two previous books by Sarah, so I knew I was in for some good stories. I genuinely think she's one of the best UK based middle grade authors out there at the moment. Plus all her books feature queer kids or families, which I love. I'm here for representation of all types of families in kids books, of course!

So, this book is about Jesse. They are twelve years old, and nonbinary. They're out to their parents and brother Tom, who is now off at university. Their best friend is Simran, who is pansexual. The two spend their weekends at queer bookshop and cafe Over the Rainbow. Jesse doesn't find it easy to get on at school due to some bullying, but they have this brilliant history called Ms Grant. She wants all the kids to choose a subject to do a special presentation on. Sim and Jesse aren't sure what to do theirs on.

But then Jesse's mum's cousin Lisa dies. Lisa lived with Jesse's mum's family for a bit when she was sixteen, but Jesse's mum isn't sure why exactly, as she was only five ish at the time. Lisa's brother Matthew now lives in Australia. Lisa has died and Jesse's mum takes them and Sim to the funeral. Lisa was a lesbian, and her friends have organised the funeral. They asks Jesse and Sim to find something in the loft, and as they're doing so, they find an old box full of Lisa's stuff. 

There's her diary, which starts in 1987 when she is getting friendly with a girl called Nicky. She thinks she's in love with Nicky but she knows her family will never accept it. Plus there's a new piece of legislation - Clause 28 (known as Section 28 when it was passed as law) - being considered. Nicky wants to protest it, and in 1988 she persuades Lisa and their friend Andy to go with her to London for the protest. The box is full of other relics of Lisa's teenage years too - her Dr Marten boots, a waistcoat, and a T shirt from the day of the protest. 

Jesse is intrigued to learn about their community, their history, and how this fits into their place in the world. I like Jesse and I liked getting to know Lisa through her diary. This is a very sweet book with very important messages. I'm giving it four out of five, 

The Society for Soulless Girls by Laura Steven - Review

I've read a couple of books by Laura Steven before and generally liked them, as she was writing contemporary YA, which I love. Then at Northern YA Lit Fest a couple of years ago she was talking about this book, where she's pivoted a bit because this is a fantasy novel although deeply rooted in realism. I liked the sound of it so I bought it that day and got it signed by Laura. I've been meaning to pick it up for ages but then it got buried underneath a load of other stuff, so it's taken me a while. But I'm so glad I finally got to it! It was a good start to Pride month, too!

So, the book is set in Northumberland in the United Kingdom. There's a university called Carvell, which has a long and dark history. It used to be a convent, and a nun called Sister Maria took her own life in the late 1800s; she was later made into a saint and a statue of her oversees the college, with a necklace of rubies around her neck. Then, ten years prior to the setting of the book, four people died in mysterious circumstances. One of them, Janie, was known to one of the protagonists of this book, Lottie. She has been obsessed with the case of the four murders ever since. Part of her wanting to go to Carvell is because of these murders, which her dad isn't happy about. 

She is from Kent and she is close to her parents. She plays hockey for the county and wants to do the same at Carvell. She's studying English Lit and is very interested in the gothic. She is a jock, and very sunny and happy - she rarely gets angry or similar. She meets her roommate - yes totally tropey, they share a room - Alice and originally the two of them don't get on.

Alice is a proper goth, she is studying philosophy and is quite pretentious. She has two brothers and her parents. Her mum is unwell. Alice is from Northumberland and she has a lot of anger. Anger at how women are treated differently by the world, anger at how she's been treated, anger just at the world in general. She finds a book in the library which details a ritual she could do to make herself calm. She prepares a tincture and takes it one night in the library. And then her soul splits in two. 

Meanwhile, Lottie is obsessed with getting inside the North Tower, where all the deaths happened. The Dean, Vanessa Mordue, catches her one night and makes it clear she needs to back off. Lottie starts to sleepwalk, though, uncertain about what is happening or where she's been. And then she wakes up with a ruby embedded in her neck. 

The two girls absolutely do not get on and hate that they have to share a room. They're really different, and Alice doesn't endear herself to Lottie right at the beginning of the book. They barely getting along, but Alice desperately needs help to stop her harming herself or anyone else. Lottie wants to make friends and get on the hockey team, but the ruby is stopping her doing that... And there's also something between them, definitely. 

I really liked the setting of the book - it's eerie and gothic and I could picture it so well. I really liked both Alice and Lottie and wanted them to get together and sort it all out. I thought a few of the side characters could have done with a little bit more fleshing out, and I thought it did drag in the middle for a bit. I liked the mystery and the overarching message, and think this is a good message for young women to learn. In all I'm giving this four out of five. 

Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin - Review

I picked this book up in February in Edinburgh. I was staying with a friend and she had to work, so one day I went to Portobello Bookshop in Portobello to spend a voucher that I had been given for my birthday. I picked up four books and this was one of them! It was actually the first book I picked up in the shop. Recently I've had a few books that I've 'had' to read and it's been a bit of a slog, so I picked this one up because I really wanted to read it. I wanted to treat myself, as it were. And I ended up loving it and sped through it, so it was the perfect thing I needed!

The book starts in 1978 in Vietnam. Anh, Minh, and Thanh are packing to leave. They are the eldest children in a family with seven children - Mai, Van, Hoang, and Dao - and their parents. The war has ended and many Vietnamese are leaving the country. Anh's dad's brother is already in the United States, in New Haven, so the family is planning to emmigrate, via Hong Kong. Anh and her brothers will go first, and the other six will follow soon behind. 

Anh, Minh, and Thanh arrive in Hong Kong and are taken to a camp. There they will stay, waiting for their parents. They make friends with a young boy in their hut, Duc, and his grandmother, Ba (I apologise for not being able to put the correct accents over the letters in some of these names). Then they are told that their family has died. Anh identifies the bodies of her parents and siblings; they are buried in Hong Kong. Workers from the camp ask Anh if she has any relatives in America but Anh says no because she blames her uncle for her dad wanting to leave Vietnam. She's angry with him, so says no. Because of that, the children's application for refugee status in the US is denied, and instead, they are sent to England.

They arrive into freezing cold weather and have to stay at first in a similar camp in the south. There they are taught English and experience snow for the first time. By this time Anh is about eighteen and the boys are at school. She is a seamstress. The family is moved to London, to a council flat in Peckham, not too far from Duc and Ba. They have to share the bed in the one bedroom there is. Minh kind of falls apart. Thanh is a clever student, but Anh isn't sure that she can get him to university. Anh works in a clothing factory. It's Thatcher's Britain, the mid 80s, and being an immigrant isn't easy. 

The book is quite a saga - it moves on vastly in time and we see Anh as a much older woman. I really liked her - she was trying to do the right thing by everyone all the time, while being extremely young and having lived through a ton of trauma herself. I liked her brothers too; I felt for both of them. It's not just a story about this family but it's about a lot of families who have lived through similar trauma and who have come to the UK for a safe haven. 

Part of the book is also sort of free verse from Dao's point of view - from the point of view of a small child who is now a ghost and who is watching his surviving siblings from the afterlife. I liked this - it points towards the family's religious beliefs and the ceremony that they perform to remember their dead ancestors. I love this stuff.

This is a brilliant book and I would urge you all to read it. I'm giving itr five out of five. 

Looking for Lucie by Amanda Addison - Review and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for Looking For Lucie by Amanda Addison. It is a pleasure to welcome you here today. Please do have a click around and read some of my other reviews. I haven't read a lot of Young Adult literature recently but I do love it. I was really intrigued by this story of a young girl, on the cusp of adulthood, looking for answers about her heritage and past. 

Lucie is eighteen and on the first day we meet her it's her birthday. Her dad has baked her a cake and she's having a lovely family time, but she's constantly reminded that she is different to the rest of her family. Her dad, Steve, is actually her stepdad. He is white, as are her mother Tori and her sister Maisie. But Lucie is mixed race - but she doesn't know where her dad was from. Her mother has never told her much about her dad, and she's never known him. Lucie got desperate so she has spent some of her savings and gifts from her beloved grandma Nana Pat, Steve's mum, on a DNA test. She's waiting for results on her birthday, in the middle of August. 

She's also waiting for her A level results. She wants to go to art college in London. She is particularly interested in textile design and things like that and she wants to be among people who look like her. She's got darker skin than all her family, and is clearly mixed race, but doesn't know her exact heritage.

She goes to college on A level results day and gets fantastic results - she is in at art school! She also bumps into Nav, literally. He's one of the cleverest kids in school and is really into science and maths. He's headed to Cambridge with five A*s at A level. Lucie's phone is damaged by him and he promises to mend it for her at the shop where he sometimes works. They set off to get a drink together and Lucie ends up telling Nav about the DNA test. 

Nav's family is Muslim, from Pakistan originally, and he is also in the minority as a person of colour in Norfolk, which is skewed extremely white. His mum is a scientist too. He really likes Lucie and wants to get to know her more. 

Please do check out some more of the stops on the tour!