Discover the new books for young adult readers that our booksellers are excited about this month!
This Fatal Kiss
Alicia Jasinska
When Gisela drowned a year ago, she was transformed into a rusalka – a kind of water nymph notorious for drowning humans to avenge their own untimely deaths. And while Gisela hasn’t drowned anyone in her year as a spirit, she has become a chronic nuisance to the local exorcist, Kazik, who sees her attempts to befriend and flirt with the local humans as the opening gambit in a plan to drag them to a watery grave. But when Gisela reveals that she’s trying to get a kiss from a mortal in order to become human again, she and Kazik strike up a deal – he’ll play matchmaker for her, and she won’t let slip to the other spirits that his magic is waning. Despite their rocky relationship, Kazik is determined to do what he can to help Gisela, but unfortunately the mortal she has her eye on is the same boy Kazik has been harbouring a crush on for years.
Reading this book feels like looking at a gorgeous Art Nouveau painting of a water nymph, and then having the nymph come to life and start making jokes – it’s beautiful, surprising and will make you giggle. Alicia Jasinska manages to expertly bring together the lush, fairytale-esque setting with characters that are both funny and relatable – it’s a tough needle to thread in a historical fantasy, but Gisela’s wisecracking and Kazik’s dry humour make the world feel more vivid, rather than undermining it.
I love a book that embraces grey areas, rather than purely the black and white, and This Fatal Kiss brings satisfying nuance to everything, from the queer love triangle to the magical setting, to the ending itself. I’m sure teen and adult fantasy readers alike will be delighted by it! Recommended for ages 13+.
Reviewed by Bella Mackey.
Drift
Pip Harry
What would you do if a thousand bees settled in the walls of your house? What about if a video of the worst moment of your life went viral? You might have your own answers, but for Nate and Luna, the two teenage voices of Pip Harry’s new verse novel Drift, the key to solving their problems lies in each other. For Nate, recently uprooted from life in Singapore, Luna is the perfect first new friend and, more importantly, the perfect ally to help protect his bees from extermination. For Luna, new-kid Nate is the only person at school who hasn’t seen the video and doesn’t see her differently because of it. It also helps that they’re next-door neighbours – friendship was almost an inevitability.
Although these two central sources of conflict in Drift – bees and internet infamy – are certainly exceptional, they both speak to real challenges of adolescence: with his dad still working in Singapore and his mum disabled by a slipped disc in her spine, Nate has already been thrust towards independence, but the swarm of bees becomes a responsibility he embraces and grows from. Likewise, while not every teen gets turned into a social pariah overnight, everyone who’s been to high school knows the tensions and stresses of friendship have only been amplified by the speed and anonymity of the internet. Add in Pip Harry’s great use of verse to strike right at the heart of each scene and you get a thoroughly entertaining book that addresses a lot, without ever feeling overstuffed. For ages 12+.
Reviewed by Joe Murray.
Weaving Us Together
Lay Maloney
A coming-of-age novel about finding yourself in the face of adversity, Weaving Us Together is the debut book from Lay Maloney, a genderfluid author from the Gumbaynggirr and Gunggandji nations and South Sea Islander heritage. The story follows Jean, and the group of friends they make after moving back to their parents’ hometown. Through the eyes of these kids, Maloney explores ideas of queer identity, and learning how to live outside what society tells you to be. The story of Jean and their friends is also one deeply rooted in culture.
Jean’s father was stolen from his family as a child, and we follow Jean’s journey reconnecting with their family. Maloney doesn’t shy away from tragedies that many First Nations Peoples experience or are affected by, including forced adoptions and police brutality, instead challenging the reader to confront them head on. Despite this, the story doesn’t feel bleak. The suffering in this novel always sits against a backdrop of love, family and community.
Weaving Us Together is a reminder that even though life can knock you down again and again, there are people who love you and will fight for you, and that is such an important lesson for all young people to learn. I would recommend this book for young people aged 12+, particularly queer and First Nations youths, who are struggling to find their place in a world that often feels set against them. Content note: suicide, substance abuse, Black deaths in custody, homophobia and transphobia.
Reviewed by Alicia Guiney.
We Won’t All Survive
Kate Alice Marshall
Eight teens turn up at an abandoned location to compete in a reality TV show dreamt up by a male survivalist billionaire, with the promise of a $100,000 reward. The teens are all survivors of shootings, drownings, and other near-death experiences, with the PTSD to show for it. But Mercy Gray, the narrator, needs the prize money more than most. After she rescued her sister and others from a shooting, she had huge medical bills from treatment for the bullet she took, part of which remains lodged in her back. Her sister paid her bills but now can’t afford to go to college, and Mercy is determined to pay her back.
The teens thought they would have cameras in their faces and staff telling them how to behave, but the location is completely abandoned. They must work together to find food and water to survive. And when one of them turns up dead after the first night, they realise this is no ordinary reality TV show. Something much more sinister is going on, and there may be a traitor in their midst.
I loved the author’s other novels, I Am Still Alive, and Rules for Vanishing, which were both filled with a terrifying sense of impending doom. We Won’t All Survive has the same atmosphere, with plenty of twists and turns to keep you reading right up until the final page. Those aged 13+ who love the writing of Karen M. McManus or Holly Jackson will devour this action-packed, well-written story.
Reviewed by Angela Crocombe.
Also recommended this month
Immortal Consequences
I.V. Marie
Welcome to Blackwood Academy, a boarding school on the edge of the afterlife.
The only way out of Blackwood is to be chosen for the Decennial. Six students are nominated to face a series of magical trials where one is chosen to join Blackwood’s elite or cross to the Other Side. Wren, Augustine, Irene, Masika, Olivier and Emilio have their reasons to win.
Four trials. One victor.
They are about to learn that some fates are worse than death.
The Wildest Dreams Bookshop
Gracie Page
Seventeen-year-old Anna is not having a good summer. Her boyfriend has dumped her, and she thinks she’s flunked her exams.
When her aunt invites her to stay at her bookshop by the sea for the summer, she reluctantly says yes. Maybe that will get her life back on track.
But she wasn’t counting on the infuriating yet hot local surfer, or unwittingly agreeing to host a celebrity launch at the bookshop. One thing's for sure, this summer is going to be anything but boring.
The Last Tiger
Julia Riew & Brad Riew
Inspired by true stories from the authors' grandparents' lives during one of the darkest periods in Korean history, The Last Tiger is a debut young adult fantasy novel about the power of love to give voice to a broken people
In a colonised land where tigers are being hunted to extinction and ancient magic stirs, two star-crossed teens – Lee Seung, a servant yearning for freedom, and Choi Eunji, a noble girl defying tradition – join forces to reshape their fates.
But as the ties between them are complicated by their conflicting loyalties to their families, tensions rise – especially when a charming princeling of the empire begins to vie for Eunji’s affection.
The Cartographers
Amy Zhang
Struggling to balance the expectations of her immigrant mother with her own deep ambivalence about her place in the world, seventeen-year-old Ocean Sun takes her savings and goes off the grid.
Ocean has always felt pressure to succeed. She’s accepted into a prestigious university in New York City, but defers (without telling her mum) and instead moves into a New York apartment with Georgie and Tashya. And she meets a boy on the subway, Constantine Brave. He, Ocean, Georgie, and Tashya are all cartographers – mapping out their futures, their dreams, and their paths toward adulthood
But everything falls apart when Ocean goes home for Thanksgiving, Constant reveals his true character, Georgie and Tashya break up, and the police get involved. This is a stunning and heartbreaking novel about finding the strength to control your own destiny.
