Teen Book Reviews

An English class at Staples High School, led by Sue O'Hara, was assigned to find a writing-based community service project. We are incredibly grateful that they thought of the Westport Library, because now we have almost a dozen book reviews for our website! Since I obviously can't read everything, book reviews are an incredibly useful tool for me. It's especially important to get an actual teen perspective on teen books, since it helps me recommend books to others and assists me with book selection in the future.

Check out these great reviews below. You might discover a new read (or learn to steer clear of others):

As I Wake
by Elizabeth Scott
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(reviewed by EG)

As I Wake, written by Elizabeth Scott, tells the story of a teenage girl named Ava who wakes up one day after a mysterious incident without any recollection of her life or who she is. As she goes through the motions of her life, such as going to school and reacquainting herself with the friends she has forgotten, she learns about who she is [or at least who people tell her she is], she starts having dream-like visions of her past life, ones entirely different from the everyday life she is leading.

A mixture of mystery and romance, As I Wake would be great for fans of the very popular Pretty Little Liars series, because it has some of the same suspenseful elements, as well as a romantic side-story that keeps teenagers turning pages. On the downside, this book starts out a little slow and is at times sort of confusing, because the narration flip-flops between the present and flashes of her memories. For the most part, though, the book has a very interesting premise. There are some mild references to drugs and sex, so I would recommend this book for ages thirteen and up.

Bewitching
by Alex Flinn
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(reviewed by DS)

Bewitching, by Alex Flinn, is a great book for lovers of the altered or “fractured” fairytale. It’s for about thirteen-year-olds and older since there is alcohol and mild sexual references. If you enjoyed other Alex Flinn books (such as Beastly), the amazing Broadway hit, Wicked, the dramatic Once Upon A Time on TV, or anything about fairytales, really, this is a good read.

Kendra is an immortal witch who tells her story through various fractured fairytales including herself as “Hansel and Gretel,” the French Prince who finds his “Princess and the Pea,” and when “The Little Mermaid” meets the Titanic. But the main story is of “Cinderella” where Emma is the quiet, bookworm step-sister while her conniving “sister,” Lisette, takes everything away from her until, with Kendra’s help, she is able to rise above it and is recognized for the beautiful girl she is.

The book itself is sweet, intriguing; it’s a good book to read when you don’t feel like committing to a series. It is nice to listen to Kendra, the witty, opinionated, and passionate narrator who happens to be an immortal witch and just spends her life traveling the world helping those in need. After reading Beastly, where Kendra was somewhat an antagonist to Kyle, it was really interesting to see the story from her perspective. In addition to Kendra, there are other fairytale narrators whose  voices tended to sound the same and a lot of the characters were not fully developed. But the baseline story of “Cinderella” with the ugly stepsister being the heroic protagonist is a really fascinating twist. Especially the ending was perfect and brings hope to the underdogs everywhere.

The Body Finder
by Kimberly Derting
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(reviewed by CMcC)

This novel is Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, written by Stephenie Meyer’s most rabid fan. A sixteen-year-old girl who can sense dead people must deal with a serial killer and boy problems simultaneously.

An easy read, Kimberly Derting’s first novel, The Body Finder, is meant for seventh to eighth grade readers, especially for Twilight fans desperately looking for another mixture of heavy teenage romance with supernatural elements.

The book is not a genre of reading I particularly enjoy—the melodramatic teenage romance/supernatural mash up. Derting’s writing is very generic, and the dialogue and internal thoughts of characters featured in the novel clearly showed that the author had not stepped inside a High School in quite some time. The protagonist Violet Ambrose acts more like a twelve year-old girl caught up in sixth grade melodrama, than like the mature sixteen-year-old Derting wants her to be.

Besides Derting’s own inability to write a compelling story, the only disturbing part about this novel is the descriptions of dead bodies, which may be a bit too much for some potential readers.

Forgotten
by Cat Patrick
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(reviewed CS)

Though it may seem as though London Lane is your average teenager, her brain is anything but ordinary – her memory is wiped clean every night while she sleeps, but in place of her past memories, she can see events that will happen in the future. London’s junior year seems to be smooth sailing until she begins to pay notice to the disturbing events that plague the years to come. Can London solve the mysteries of her own forgotten past while saving those she loves from their terrifying and painful futures?

Forgotten is geared towards middle school girls who enjoy typical teen romance novels with a hint of sci-fi mixed in. Though this book may please another girl, I will be frank in saying that Forgotten is not my kind of book. With a premise as interesting as a main character who only remembers the future, I wanted the author to do more than focus on London’s meeting her uninteresting boyfriend over and over. The characters are flat, the language is simple, and the action only picked up towards the end. That being said, it is a quick read that, in spite of myself, I found hard to put down.

Huntress
by Malinda Lo
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(reviewed by LM)

A great read for those who like paranormal romance and books similar to Twilight by Stephanie Meyer or Marked by P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast. It deals a lot with mythical creatures such as fairies, nymphs, and a magical God-like species called the Xi. This was a captivating story that had me racing to finish one page and move on to the next. Huntress tells the story of Taisin, an 18-year-old girl who can foretell the future. She struggles with her emotions for one of her fellow classmates, Kaede, as she departs on a journey to a whole different realm. As she fights for the wellbeing of her Kingdom, she realizes she must come to terms with her romantic feelings for this girl. Every night as I was reading I would tell myself, I’m only going to read fifty pages tonight, but once my 50 pages were up I would give in and read at least twenty more pages.

I am J
by Cris Beam
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(reviewed by AM)

In I am J by Cris Beam, J is a teenager, assigned female at birth, who has always felt that he is really a boy. He struggles with being treated as female when he feels exactly the opposite, and he develops a severely negative body image as his body changes during puberty. The novel explores J's physical and social transition to male, as well as his relationships with his parents and friends.

This book would most obviously appeal to teens interested in the concept of gender identity or LGBT+ topics. Yet, since transgender issues are not often discussed, especially not in young adult novels, I feel that anyone interested in learning about the subject would like the novel.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel because it gave me a look into the life of a transgender teen. J is a likable character, and the reader comes to sympathize with his plight. The conflicts in his life around, self-identity, school, parents, and more are universal and make him understandable. Additionally, reading I am J helped to introduce me to transgender topics, and I enjoyed looking into it more after reading to further my understanding.

One issue I found with the book was that a few transgender-related terms were not defined. The ones important to the plot were explained in detail, but if something is mentioned that the reader does not know about, I would recommend looking it up. I would also target the book towards older age groups, as there are mentions of drugs, sex, drinking, smoking, self-harm, and negative self-image.

Lockdown
by Alexander Gordon Smith
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(reviewed by SR)

Fan of novels by Stephen King and James Patterson would love this book Lockdown, which is part fantasy, part science fiction, and part horror. It’s an amazing book, as is the rest of the series.

Alex is a thief, who gets framed for murder of his best friend, so he is sent to life in Furnace Penitentiary, an underground prison essentially in a rock crevice, where the inmates are surrounded my two miles of solid rock. There are murderous gangs and vicious creatures that steal kids away at night, and Alex, desperate, tries to find a way to escape, along with his friends.

Even though it was a horror book, there were still funny parts, so it wasn’t too scary. I would say this book is for teenagers and up because of the horror aspect. I loved the main character and was rooting for him the whole time, and all the characters were realistic and interesting.

The Replacement
by Brenna Yovanoff
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(reviewed by BG)

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff is about the town of Gentry, where the Lady, a supernatural creature, steals one child every seven years, keeps him or her for a week, and then eats him or her on All Soul’s Day. The House of Mayhem, which is led by the Lady’s sister, the Morrigan, a supernatural creature who represents love, sends Replacements to replace the stolen children. One Replacement, high school student Mackie Doyle, must save Natalie Stewart from the Lady before she eats her because Natalie is the younger sister of Tate, the girl Mackie fancies. In so doing, he breaks a pact made between the Lady, the House of Mayhem, and the original inhabitants of Gentry, who agreed to turn a blind eye to the consumption of their children in return for prosperity.

I rate this book a two out of five stars, as it contains some fantasy, but it was underdeveloped. Much of the book is focused on Mackie’s love life and his feelings toward Tate and, before that, toward Alice. I would have preferred less romance and more fantasy, but girls who like both romance and fantasy might really like this. For example, fans of Twilight by Stephanie Meyer would likely enjoy this book. However, fans of Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling likely would not, as this does not have enough fantasy to truly satisfy them.

Shelter
by Harlan Coban
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(reviewed by JS)

Overall, this novel will get you intent in unraveling the story within the first 50 pages. Shelter, by Harlan Coban, is for anybody who likes mystery and action. Most of the time spent reading the book consists of trying to put pieces together, and the only way to get those pieces is through the main characters’ intense and dramatic encounters. A sophomore named Mickey, who has lost his father to a car crash and whose mom is a drug addict, struggles with feelings of abandonment when he finds that his new girlfriend, Ashley, seems to have vanished from existence. Mickey befriends random kids from his new high school, and together they make the dangerous choice of trying to find out what happened to Ashley. He, a goth girl named Emu, a dork called Spoon, and a prep named Rachel hunt down clues through stealthy operations and intense fights. The plot is very intriguing and almost every chapter ends on a cliffhanger, making the reader very excited to get to the next big plot point. However, the characters were relatively flat and not very easy to relate to given their dramatic personal lives. Some scenes can seem repetitive at first, but each quickly turns into a unique and adrenaline-charged situation.

Sleeping Angel
by Greg Herren
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(Reviewed by CM)

Riddled with crazy mysteries and suspense, Sleeping Angel is sure to be an interesting read for all different kinds of book lovers, especially teenagers who find themselves interested in a self-seeking and memory-jogging novel. Anyone who has seen the thriller Unknown with Liam Neeson will find himself enjoying the book.

Sleeping Angel starts with the murder of a gay high school student, and it just so happens that the only person who knows what happened to the victim both has amnesia and is a suspect. Eric, a former Prom King and football star, is the witness with memory problems. Panicked and confused after he finds out he is the only one with the information to influence someone’s life, Eric later find that his brain injury had given him the unusual ability to hear people’s thoughts when he touches them. This mystical power gives Eric the chance to learn more about himself before the “accident.” Eric needs to find out why his friend Sean was murdered and prove that he is innocent before it is too late. The dark secrets he gets into is just the beginning of the action.

As a teenager, I have found many of the characters and even the plot is relatable, even though some of the story is far fetched and clearly made up. The story does involve a murder, which is realistic even though it involves a couple super natural features. The book made me feel more interested in some of the topics such as gay marriage, bullying and suicide in teens. Due to this I found that the story may not be appropriate for some children and is more a read for teenagers and above.

A Traveller in Time
by Alison Uttley
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(reviewed by RW)

Great for historical fiction lovers. A Traveller in Time alternates between taking place in the rural Elizabethan era in England and the urban mid 1800’s. A Traveller in Time is a riveting book that tells the story of Penelope’s “second sense” and endless curiosity about the past and the future, and her journey into the 1500’s, with the past owners of her Aunt Tissie and Uncle Barnabas’ house in Thackers Farm. Readers who enjoy books with time travel and who like reading about life in industrialized England will love the authenticity of the book. The characters are likable, and even the antagonists had a clear visual image, making the book come to life. In order to achieve an authentic historical sense, Alison Uttley did take freedom in the spelling of words and the grammar of the sentences, which could potentially confuse a younger reader.

If you are interested in being a teen reviewer, please contact me at jlewis [at] westportlibrary [dot] org

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