10 Best Young Adult Books

Colorado teen Theodora, Theo for short, will do anything to find her mum, including travel to the hidden and mysterious Victorian subculture of Aether. Her mum claimed she was going away for a conference and would be back in time for Theo’s birthday a week later but she failed to turn up. When Theo decides to talk to one of her mother’s colleagues she discovers her mother had phoned in sick the week before and they had no knowledge of a conference. Whilst Theo is looking for her mum she has to deal with strange dreams and a stranger in a top-hat who seems to be stalking her. During the course of her investigation into her mums disappearance Theo ends up heading to the Aetherland.

The Aetherland is a mysterious and intriguing place full of little eccentricities. I found myself wishing I could visit It and I would recommend this book just for the chapters set there let alone the rest of this brilliant book.

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This book is a collection of tales from the peculiar world created by Random Riggs. Folklore passed on from generation to generation via word of mouth or written word. The tales tell of giants, cannibals and giant locusts, of serpent-tongued princes and girls who befriend ghosts. If you are not peculiar this book is not for you.

Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs is one of the most beautiful books I own. It has a distinctive green and gold cover and beautiful illustrations throughout.

The stories contained within are born out of the series by Ransom Riggs that began with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

 

 

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Fearless Mouse has looked after her younger brother, Sparrow since their Ma died when Sparrow was just a baby. Her destiny is to captain her family ship one day but until then she has to combat the dangerous Terrodyls and deal with worried over her missing father. In the mean time her whole Tribe is worrying about the ice encroaching on the seas and why the Terrodyl's are not nesting when they should be.

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Denizen Hardwick is an orphan living in Crosscaper Orphanage when he receives a note telling him his aunt will be arriving to take him away for a few days. Denizen has never believed in monsters but on the journey to his aunt's Denizen is plunged into a world where he is in no doubt that they exist.

 I love this kind of book and was really pleased when it lived up to expectations. It was similar in style to Peter. V. Brett’s books which I also enjoy.

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A fantastic retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's 'The Snow Queen'.

This is exactly the kind of book I love to read, any retelling of a fairy tale is bound to interest me in a book. As a child The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson was one of my favourite stories so when I learnt that this was a retelling of it I was very excited.

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Thirty years ago, in Brooklyn something terrible happened to Luna’s mother that changed her life forever. Something she is only willing to reveal to her daughter Luna and Pia after her death.

Still reeling from the unexpected death of their mother, the sisters decide to visit her mother’s birthplace in order to settle her affairs and discover more about the woman they loved so much.

Once they are there something impossible and magical happens to Luna and she meets her mother as a young woman in the Summer of 1977.

But when every action has a consequence, can Luna change her mother’s life without erasing her own?

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It has been sixty-five days since Juniper Lemon’s sister died in a car accident. Juniper has taken Camilla’s bag to school with her, a memento to help her through her first day back at school.

As far as she knows Camilla wasn’t dating anyone when she died so she is surprised to find an unsent breakup letter in the bag. The letter is addressed simply to ‘You’ and is dated 4th July – the date her sister died.

Juniper has been keeping index cards to rate the days since Camilla died. Whilst searching for this unknown ‘You’ Juniper loses one of them. Index card 65 has a shameful secret memory on it, one she is desperate to find before her secret gets out.

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The Tales of Beedle The Bard' will be familiar to anyone who has read and loved the Harry Potter books. For those who haven't 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard' are a collection of fairy tales for witches and wizards.

My edition of The Tales of Beedle the Bard contains the most beautiful illustrations and makes it a wonderful book to read to children.

As usual J.K Rowling weaves some extraordinary tales and pulls the reader deep into a world where magic exists, and not only that but it is common place.

I love that each tale within the collection is followed by an in- depth analysis from Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore has always been by far my favourite character from the Harry Potter books so I was pleased to see him make an appearance in these tales.

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When Clay receives some cassette tapes in the mail he is curious to see what they contain.

The message recorded on the tapes is from his crush, Hannah Baker. The only problem is Hannah committed suicide two weeks earlier.

On the tapes Hannah explains that anyone who has received these tapes is in some way to blame for her death.

Thirteen Reasons Why
By Jay Asher

[Thirteen Reasons Why]

Blurb

When Clay receives some cassette tapes in the mail he is curious to see what they contain.

The message recorded on the tapes is from his crush, Hannah Baker. The only problem is Hannah committed suicide two weeks earlier.

On the tapes Hannah explains that anyone who has received these tapes is in some way to blame for her death.

I first read Thirteen Reasons Why in January 2013 and to say I loved it would be an understatement. I thought it was clever and a fantastic story. At the time I was a volunteer grief counselling and was looking for a non-fiction book on suicide but stumbled across this instead.

The recent controversy surrounding the Tv adaption and it’s apparent glamorisation of suicide led me to want to reread it to see if I had missed something the first time around – I didn’t.

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Jink has spent the majority of his days sitting in his chair by the window in his Victorian home, peering out in solitude. After years of waiting for the return of Janie, he grows ever restless. The memories of her are bitter-sweet and painful, like honey and jagged glass. Jink can think of nothing else. One day while gazing out his window in his large empty house, it occurs to him that this window has become his own glass cage. Quickly growing resentful of this realization he decides that he has had enough. He packs his belongings into his suitcase and takes off across the country to fill the void of emptiness that has been there since the absence of Janie.

It only took me three hours to read and I can honestly say this is one of my favourite books of the year so far. In a word this book was amazing and a lot darker than it seems at first glance. I loved it.

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