The First Move

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The First Move by Jenny Ireland

Book of the Week: 20 October 2024

Cover illustration by Janelle Barone

Seventeen year old Juliet thinks there should be a disclaimer at the start of all teenage movies, telling us that real life is not like this. Despite this, she still uses them as comfort viewing to help cope with the frequent pain she endures from her psoriatic arthritis, a condition which means she has aching swollen joints for which has to take painkillers, attend frequent medical appointments and use crutches to walk. Her friends Tara and Michael encourage her to socialise, but that is hard when just trying to attend a party results in days spent recovering in bed.

When new boy Ronan starts at her school everyone is initially transfixed by his good looks and air of detachment, but Juliet decides that, although he looks as if he’s just stepped out of an American rom-com, he has a bad attitude, wears earbuds in class, skips school and seems unwilling to socialise with anyone. She is unaware that Ronan finds himself drawn to her, despite her hostility.

So far, we have seen several tropes from rom-coms: the bad-boy central character, the girl who feels herself to be an outsider, the gay best friend (Michael) and the Queen Bee (Tara). There is a further one when Juliet starts to play chess and chat with someone called ‘Alonelypawn’ on a chess forum. Without either of them knowing the identity of the other, Ronan and Juliet have connected in the online world and find themselves on the same wavelength and developing a crush on one another. (This references the plots of rom-coms such as You’ve Got Mail or The Shop Around the Corner)

Reality begins to intervene when Ronan’s family life starts to complicate matters and when other characters are revealed to have less than straighforward home lives. Will there be a romantic and happy ending for Ronan and Juliet, or is sad drama going to be a more likely conclusion?

This book won the Young Adult prize in the 2024 Diverse Book Awards. The portrayal of Juliet’s disability always rings true; the author, Jenny Ireland, mentions her own experience of arthritis in the acknowledgments. The characters are interesting and flawed as well as likeable. I particularly enjoyed the sympathetic and exuberant Michael and Juliet’s overprotective but immensely kind parents. This warmly-told story gives the reader plenty to get their teeth into.

The book contains content relating to drug abuse, some sexual references and ocassional strong language.

If you like books that compare their plots to those of romantic movies, try Holly Bourne’s It Only Happens in the Movies.

Worst. Superhero. Ever.

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Worst. Superhero. Ever. by Charlie Higson

Book of the Week: 8 September 2024

Illustrated by Warwick Johnson-Cadwell. Puffin, 2024.

We first met loveably nerdy Stan in the very funny Worst Holiday Ever by Charlie Higson.

Although Stan now has a girlfriend called Jess, whom he met on his eventful holiday with Felix, they live a hundred miles away from one another and Stan is still doubting himself, making lists about superpowers and being a keen member of Library Club, along with his friends Archie, Grace and Maximal. There are persistent rumours that their school wants to close the school library, so they are planning a fund-raising film to try and save it.

Archie is invited by Felix to watch the filming of a TV series by an actor friend of his family. She offers the boys the opportunity to be extras in a few scenes. Stan does well and is offered an audition for a new show made by the same production company. Despite being unwilling to act, he is persuaded to go along by his parents and, against the odds, is cast as a major character. The company are having to re-film most of the series because one of the teenage actors posted an inappropriate film on social media and Stan is taking over his role.

Will the self-effacing Stan be able to deal with the complications of fame or will he embarrass himself and face even more bullying in school than he does already?

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to act in a film or TV series, there is a wealth of detail in the story about what is involved (spoiler: it is more complicated than you might imagine) and what it might be like to be famous. The author, Charlie Higson, has worked as an actor, producer and director of several successful television shows, so he writes from experience and it shows.

Almost Nothing Happened

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Almost Nothing Happened by Meg Rosoff

Book of the Week: 25 August 2024

Bloomsbury, 2024
Cover illustration by Amber Day

If this is an example of ‘nothing happening’ I’d hate to see an incidence of something more eventful. Everything happens.

Callum has experienced a dull and embarassing exchange trip to France. His French is rudimentary, he fell in unrequited love with his host’s daughter and spent most of his time taking the family dog for a walk. By the time he reaches Paris to catch the Eurostar home, he is glad it’s all over. Then, in a fit of spontaneity, just as his train is about to leave, he gathers up his rucksack, turns around and walks back into the city to see what life has to offer. He has very little money and no clear idea of what to do, but he knows one other person in Paris: his cousin Harrison who has been studying music there for several years. He sets off through the boiling hot streets (there’s an August heatwave) and pleads with Harrison, whom he hardly knows, to let him stay a couple of nights in his cramped flat. Harrison is hardly welcoming, but reluctantly agrees and invites him to attend his concert that evening where he is playing his oboe in the orchestra. During the concert’s interval he gets talking to Arnaud and Lilou who are sitting next to him. They are step-brother and sister and speak to him in English, which is a relief after all the struggles he has had with the language. Matters take an alarming turn when Harrison discovers that his oboe has been stolen at the end of the evening and Arnaud is the prime suspect. Callum then gets swept up in a whirlwind of events involving various stolen items and a motorbike chase through Paris, but more as terrified observer and unwilling sidekick.

This is such a fun romp and, at 231 pages, can be read in a single sitting. Seventeen year old Callum is wonderfully observant and dryly funny and if you would like to read an excerpt here is a link.

Under a Dancing Star (and 10 other summer reads)

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Under a Dancing Star by Laura Wood

Book of the Week: 18 August 2024

Under a Dancing Star by Laura Wood. Scholastic, 2019. Cover illustration by Yehrin Tong

To the despair of her parents, Beatrice is a keen amateur naturalist and not really interested in fashion or making polite chit-chat with stuffy neighbours.  However, being seventeen and an only child, she is expected to ‘keep the Langton bloodline alive’ and marry (in her words) ‘some wealthy, inbred aristocrat to prop the estate up.’ When she talks about some inappropriate subjects at a dinner party designed to introduce her to a prospective partner, whom she describes as having ‘the sort of blank gaze more typically found in grazing animals’, she is sent to stay with her Uncle Leo in Italy for the summer. This does not seem like much of a punishment to Beatrice, and indeed the Italian countryside drenched in sunshine and peopled with artistic young people at her uncle’s villa, seems to be far from a sanction. There is her younger cousin Hero, Klaus and his sister Ursula and Ben, an artist. Beatrice and Ben cannot seem to stop arguing, but are compelled to encounter one another at every turn. Will this annoying young man be the only person to spoil her idyllic summer, or will more sinister undercurrents in 1930s Europe intrude on her new-found freedom?

If you enjoy books by Eva Ibbotson, such as The Secret Countess, or I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, then this light-hearted summer read based on Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare is one to try.

Growing up in a long, hot summer – 10 other book choices

Click on each book cover for my review or more information

Older readers

Younger readers

 

Grow

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Grow by Luke Palmer

Book of the Week: 14 July 2024

Cover design by anneglenndesign.co.uk

A powerful and convincing story about grief, isolation, racism and being radicalised.

Josh’s father was killed two years ago by a terrorist bomb, leaving him and his mother coping with grief as best they can. A couple of racist students in his schoool draw him into the frightening world of white supremicism and for a while it seems like a way to channel his anger.

This would be a good companion read with The Wolf Road by Richard Lambert. Both writers have an authentic and poetic style and portray angry, grief-stricken young men and the bullies who prey on them, vividly and convincingly. The plots are different, but the books are both outstanding.

Luke Palmer’s website is here.

Little Bang

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Litle Bang by Kelly McCaughrain

Book of the Week: 2 June 2024

Cover illustration by Andrew Bannecker

It’s New Year’s Eve in Belfast and Sid is telling his mum, Lucille, that he is going to a house party to celebrate his sixteenth birthday. Sid comes across as the archetypal ‘bad boy’ with his half-shaved head, eybrow piercings and ‘attitude’ and his mother is convinced that he’s going to be brought home in a police car, and not for the first time. What Sid doesn’t tell her is that he will be ‘up Conclare Hill seeing the New Year in with the smartest, quietest girl in school…’

Mel (‘the smartest, quietest girl in school’) is a physics geek who lives with her strict parents, her sister Leah and Leah’s husband ‘Smug Nigel’ who spends his time moralising whilst being ‘between jobs’. Mel got to know Sid in History class when the teacher moved him to sit by her to prevent him being distruptive. Surprisingly, they sparked off one another and have secretly arranged to meet up with their friends to sit in a tent with a bonfire and beers on New Year’s Eve. The evening turns into a first date, one thing leads to another and, as a result, Mel finds she is pregnant.

We hear the rest of their story from their individual points of view, from their initial dread of telling their parents, to the response of their school and their friends and the situation in Northern Ireland at the time. The story is set in 2018, when the Irish abortion referendum was being held. However, abortion was still illegal in Northern Ireland until 2019 and Mel and Sid feel they have very little support and even less useful information. The examination of their plight never gets in the way of the enjoyment of getting to know them both, plus the various well-drawn people around them. Circumstances aside, this is an involving, thoughtful, and sometimes funny look at growing up and making extremely difficult choices.

Suitable for older readers. A note in the book on content reads: ‘Please be aware that the following pages contain discussions of – and references to – teenage pregnancy, abortion and miscarriage.’

Books with similar themes include Trouble by Non Pratt. When Hannah falls pregnant, new boy Aaron offers to claim he is the baby’s father to save her revealing who he really is.

Boys Don’t Cry by Malorie Blackman. Dante is waiting for his A-level results when his ex-girlfriend turns up with their baby daughter, leaves her with him and doesn’t come back.

Steady for This

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Steady for This by Nathanael Lessore

Book of the Week: 3 March 2024

Cover illustration by Arnaud Derepper

A warm-hearted story about family and friendship that stands out for its colourful use of language.

Shaun and his best mate Shanks pride themselves on their rapping skills so when Mr Rix, their English teacher, asks everyone in class to tell him an interesting fact about themselves, Shaun thinks he’ll impress Tanisha (his latest crush) with the boast that he ‘… can MC off the dome’. He has also been working out twice a week, hoping that Tanisha will notice. As he says, ‘… it’s important to exercise your triceratops, your lorax and your Lithuania.’ Shaun has a bottomless supply of malapropisms. Grudgingly, Tanisha agrees to go on a date to the cinema with him, but he not only brings Shanks along for moral support, but has a strange notion about what constitues a cinema snack. No spoilers, but this scene made me laugh out loud.

Worse things are to happen when he and Shanks go viral for something so embarassing that they think they’ll never live it down and he, his mum and his brother are threatened with eviction from their home. Can Shaun solve their problems by winning the cash prize in a rap contest and will he ever restore his reputation in school?

It took me a couple of chapters to get used to the vocabulary when I first started reading this book, but Shaun is a funny and endearing narrator whose eternal optimism and sense of humour keep you reading.

The Agency for Scandal

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The Agency for Scandal by Laura Wood

Book of the Week: 4 February 2024

Cover illustration by Mercedes Debellard

Eighteen year old Isobel Stanhope leads a double life. Most of the time she is a rather forgettable young woman, outshone by her friend Teresa Winter and Sylla Banaji, the socialite daughter of a baronet. It being 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, most of society is centred on celebratory parties, theatre trips and fancy dress balls, all of which Isobel attends, mainly in the hope of seeing the handsome Max Vane, the eighth Duke of Roxton. Not that he seems to care. She has been introduced to him several times and he never even remembers her name. Not even Isobel’s closest friends know that, when her father died, he left the family with hardly any money and consequently she is working hard to support her mother and pay her little brother’s boarding school fees. Her mother is an invalid who keeps to her room, rather like Miss Havisham, and is unaware that nearly everything in the rest of the house has been sold to raise money. Isobel’s darkest secret is that she works for an undercover detective agency called The Aviary, run by the formidable Mrs Finch. The agency exists to investigate infidelities, thefts and murders and is run by women for the benefit of women. Isobel is a valued member of staff because she has been taught to pick locks by her father and is able to pass as a young boy. She dresses as a street urchin called Kes and has contacts in the criminal underworld.

When she is recruited by a villain called Rook to steal a valuable ruby brooch at the Devonshire House fancy dress ball, she realises she is mixed up in a dangerous plot that may involve the powerful Lord Morland who is angling to be Britain’s next Prime Minister. She has mixed feelings when Max Vane gets involved as she is not sure whose side he is on.

The author Sarra Manning calles the book ‘A perfect mash up of Bridgerton and Enola Holmes‘. I would add the recent Apple TV series The Buccaneers to the comparison. The story romps along with plenty of action and subterfuge, as well as romance. I have read a couple of novels for adults with some similar themes and settings recently and found this one a lot more fun.

There is a sequel called The Season for Scandal which has just been published.

Northern Soul

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Northern Soul by Phil Earle

Book of the Week: 14 January 2024

Cover illustration: Shutterstock

If you are looking for a quick, funny read and want to feel better about behaving in the cringiest way in front of someone you’d like to impress, look no further.

Marv has never thought about girls – he’s too busy playing football and hanging out with his best mate Jimmy. Then, a new girl arrives in school and he is unexpectedly smitten. What’s more, she lives on his street.

‘You’re in my form, aren’t you?’ Carly said.

Her accent was northern too, but not from round here. Barnsley maybe. God, it sounded exotic.

Marv contemplates asking his dad for advice, but what’s the point of telling a man who wears Crocs and shorts everywhere and runs a failing record shop, that you are hoping to date someone you consider to be way out of your league?

Fortunately, or catastrophically, help arrives in an unexpected form from the past. Marv does his best to follow the advice, but to say things don’t always work out smoothly, would be an understatement.

A relatable and entertaining read.

If you would like to sample the first chapter, it is available here.

HappyHead

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HappyHead by Josh Silver

Book of the Week: 20 August 2023

Cover image by Shutterstock

The HappyHead Project offers young people the opportunity to find lasting happiness and success and Seb Seaton, who has been selected as one of its first intake of students, is on his way to the isolated campus to take part.

His parents are concerned about his failing grades and his mental health and although Seb is dreading having to mix with strangers and take part in possibly challenging activities, he wants to please his parents and perhaps experience a fresh start after some problems in school.

He and the other students are welcomed with a speech from the founder Dr Eileen Stone, who tells them that emotional problems amongst young people are at an all-time high and that loneliness and dysfunction are preventing them from achieving their potential. HappyHead is going to help them deal with these challenges and, at first, the disciplined routine and mindfulness sessions seem designed to achieve that. Seb is introduced to his team mates who range from the shy and reticent Ash to the ultra-competitive Eleanor. The most intriguing person he meets is the unsettling Finn with his piercing gaze, tattoos and uncooperative attitude. Seb doesn’t know what to make of him but can’t get him out of his mind.

As the days pass, Seb, who has been slightly sceptical to begin with, starts to feel more and more uneasy about many elements of the course. Finn tries to persuade him that there is a threatening purpose behind all the exercises and the almost fanatical emphasis on happiness. Should he be believed and who can Seb truly trust in this bewildering new environment?

HappyHead has been compared to The Hunger Games, and it does have the element of survival tests and ongoing tension, but includes more low-key and relatable dilemmas. Seb is a sympathetic and witty narrator who we can all root for.

A sequel called Dead Happy is due in 2024.

If you enjoy reading dystopian fiction that features sinister organisations, try The Disappeared by C.J. Harper and two books by William Sutcliffe – Concentra8 and We See Everything.

More dystopian fiction can be found on this list I created a few years ago.