Twins Cath and Wren both share a love for Fanfiction: their Simon Snow stories are a global hit. Growing up without a mother, they find themselves relying on each other as they go through their teenage years. When they both head to university, Wren reveals that she doesn’t want to share a room with Cath. Without the support of her sister, Cath is forced to deal with her anxiety and adapt to life as a freshman at college.
When Violet and Finch meet up on the ledge of the school bell tower, it is unclear who talked down whom. Violet is a popular girl, still trying to come to terms with her sisters’ death, while Finch is the opposite, called a freak by his peers and still trying to find out who he really is. As they wander Indiana as part of their school project, they find they can be themselves together and that there is much more to Finch than Violet originally thought…
Two teenagers, both with very different stories to tell, meet unexpectedly in an unlikely corner of Chicago. Although they have very different personalities, they have one very important thing in common: they share the same name. The first we meet is a funny, nerdy boy whose best friend is the thoroughly fabulous Tiny Cooper, who seems like he’s dating a new boy every day. The other is a depressed but moody teen who spends all of his spare time on his laptop chatting to his online friend, Isaac. They are both brought together when they are portrayed by their school mates in possibly one of the best musicals to hit the high-school stage.
Quentin Jacobsen (or ‘Q’ as he is known to his friends) has always been a secret admirer of Margo Roth Spiegelman, his next door neighbour, since he was a child. When Margo arrives at Q’s window asking to borrow his car in the middle of the night, they embark on a night of revenge as they target her unsuspecting disloyal friends and cheating boyfriend. The net day, Margo doesn’t turn up to school. Like the last time she ran away, Q believes that she has left a trail of clues, specifically for him to follow. He has to act quickly, because he may never see Margo again…
Being incredibly intelligent isn’t the only thing that makes Colin Singleton unique – there’s also the fact that he has been dumped by nineteen girls named Katherine. After leaving high school and having no idea about what career he wants to pursue, he and his best friend Hassan embark on a road trip. At the outset, they have no idea that they will end up in Tennessee and meet Lindsey Lee Wells and her mother, Hollis, who help him to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which will help him determine the outcome of any relationship and hopefully end the trend of Colin always being the dumpee and get him a girlfriend.
Miles “Pudge” Halter is obsessed with last words. He leaves home to attend a boarding school in Alabama hoping to find the “Great Perhaps,” mentioned in the last words of the poet Francois Rabelais. On arrival at Culver Creek, he meets the clever, witty and mysterious Alaska Young, who together search for the “Great Perhaps” and puzzle over the last words of Simon Bolivar, “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?” As he learns more about Alaska, he delves deeper into her past and what it really means to her to find the way out of the labyrinth. Continue reading
If I stay is the inspiring story of the musically talented Mia. One day, everything changes. After school is cancelled, the family decide to visit her Grandparents, but in a second the winter journey goes terribly wrong as they collide with a truck. As one of Mia’s favourite cello pieces plays in the untouched car radio, a horrendous scene unfolds as her ambulance arrives. When she is unconscious she has an out-of-body experience which means that she is fully aware of what is going on, but soon Mia is faced with a decision that will change everything. Will she stay, or will she go?
After a year of grieving from the death of her boyfriend, Jam is sent off to The Wooden Barn, a specialist school for emotionally fragile, highly intelligent teenagers. Depressed, she is reluctant to join the school, but everything changes when she is mysteriously invited to join the elite English group, Special topics in English. Along with four other students, all with very different situations and problems, Mrs Quenell reveals that they will be reading The Bell jar, by Sylvia Plath, for the entire semester.
When the students are given a journal to complete by the end of the semester, Jam and her fellow classmates find out why everyone wants to be in the class. When Jam writes in the diary she gets transported to another world called Belzhar, where she can be with her boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. Does Mrs Quenell know what happens when students write in the journals? Will Jam finally get over the tragic death of her boyfriend?
Hazel Grace Lancaster, 16, has lived with cancer for three years. She constantly feels as if she is missing out on her life, and hanging out with friends is somewhat of a rarity. In an effort to make Hazel make friends, her mother sends Hazel to a support group, held in a church basement and referred to the ‘literal heart of Jesus’. After reluctantly attending the second meeting, she meets Augustus Waters, the love of her life. In an exchange for reading one of his books, she lends him An Imperial Affliction, a book that she relates to very often. When given the opportunity to travel to Amsterdam to meet the author, she jumps at the chance. Will the author be all that he seems? Will it be a fairy-tale ending for the pair?
This book is very sad, because both of the main protagonists are witty and funny at times. Obviously this is a romance novel, so if you like a bit more action, then you might want to go for something else. Nevertheless, I liked the book even though it was not one that I would usually pick up. This book is very thoughtful and has a lot of meaning. The ending is unusual, and it makes you think. The book showed what it was really like for a teenager to be living with cancer.
Overall, I thought that I would definitely recommend this book to a friend, although all of my friends have read it!
Fiction for Teens 