Young adult

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Reviewed by Julia Gorman

After witnessing the murder of their parents, Jude and her sisters have been raised as the only mortals in the world of Faerie by the very man who committed the murders.

Constantly made to feel weaker than the Faerie Folk…

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Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Reviewed by Alistair Mathieson Lynn

In Neal Shusterman’s latest dark, dystopian epic, Scythe, the age of mortality is over. All inhabitants of earth are now immune from disease, old age and even suicide in their stable, AI-governed utopia which ensures that famine and war…

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The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe

Reviewed by Natalie Platten

The Librarian of Auschwitz is based on the true story of Dita Kraus, a 14-year-old girl imprisoned, together with her mother and father, in the family camp at Auschwitz. The family camp was an experimental initiative of the Nazis, to…

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This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada

Reviewed by Kate O'Mara

You may at first think, on picking this book up, that you’ve already read a lot like this. From the post-apocalyptic wasteland blighted by plague to the preternaturally capable young hacker prodigy Catarina (child of a genius scientist, no less)…

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A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge

Reviewed by Dani Solomon

Set during the start of the English civil War, A Skinful of Shadows tells the story of Makepeace, a girl plagued by nightmares of ghosts tearing her apart, looking for the chance to possess her. Her mother, a cold, tight-lipped…

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Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu

Reviewed by Leanne Hall

Vivian is one of the ‘nice girls’ at East Rockport High. She has a small group of friends, and her main mission is to fly under the radar and not draw too much attention to herself. Her grandparents describe her…

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Thornhill by Pam Smy

Reviewed by Dani Solomon

Thornhill is a beautiful book, from its striking greyscale silhouetted cover to the pages in-between. The book contains two stories set in two different times. Mary’s story is set in 1982, in a children’s home called Thornhill. It’s told through…

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Take Three Girls by Cath Crowley, Simmone Howell & Fiona Wood

Reviewed by Bronte Coates

This raw and funny novel is the much-anticipated collaboration between three beloved Australian YA authors: Cath Crowley, Fiona Wood and Simmone Howell. The story follows three girls as they struggle to claim their own identities amid high school politics, romantic…

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Genuine Fraud by E.Lockhart

Reviewed by Angela Crocombe

It is very exciting to have a new fast-paced psychological thriller from the author of We Were Liars – and this story does not disappoint. Told in reverse chronology by Jule, who we quickly realise is a very unreliable narrator…

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Beautiful Mess by Claire Christian

Reviewed by Natalie Platten

Claire Christian’s Beautiful Mess won the 2016 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing, an unpublished manuscript award that regularly discovers new talent. This is an engrossing read that brings together Ava and Gideon, two emotionally flawed and troubled…

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