Thursday 10 October 2013

Young Adult New Books: September 2013

The museum of unnatural history presents Unnatural Creatures

Book Jacket for: The museum of unnatural history presents Unnatural creatures

Summary:

A griffin, a werewolf, a sunbird . . . These are just some of the fantastical creatures youll encounter within these pages. From the cockatoucan, whose laugh rearranges an entire kingdom, to the roving shapeless Beast that lurks in a forest, herein is a collection of rare and magnificent species. Each one will thrill, delight, and quite possibly unnerve you. Selected by master storyteller Neil Gaiman, the sixteen stories in this menagerie will introduce you to a host of strange, wondrous beings that have never existed anyplace but in the richness of the imagination.

Earth Bound by Aprilynne Pike

Book Jacket for: Earthbound

Summary:

Tavia Michaels is the sole survivor of the plane crash that killed her parents. When she starts to see strange visions of a boy she’s never spoken with in real life, she begins to suspect that there’s much about her past that she isn’t being told. Tavia will soon to discover that she’s an Earthbound#151;someone with the ability to create matter out of nothing#151;and that she alone holds the key to stopping the Reduciata, an evil society that manipulates global events for its own shadowy purposes. Tavia will ultimately have to make a choice: to come into her powers and save the world from the evil Reduciata or to choose free will and a love of her own.

In the Shadow of the Blackbirds by Cat Winters

Book Jacket for: In the shadow of blackbirds

Summary:

In 1918, the world seems on the verge of apocalypse. Americans roam the streets in gauze masks to ward off the deadly Spanish influenza, and the government ships young men to the front lines of a brutal war, creating an atmosphere of fear and confusion. Sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches as desperate mourners flock to séances and spirit photographers for comfort, but she herself has never believed in ghosts. During her bleakest moment, however, she's forced to rethink her entire way of looking at life and death, for her first love—a boy who died in battle—returns in spirit form. But what does he want from her?

Prodigy: A Legend Novel by Marie Lu

Book Jacket for: Prodigy : a Legend novel

Summary:

The highly anticipated second book in Marie Lu's New York Times bestseller, LEGEND perfect for fans of THE HUNGER GAMES and DIVERGENT!

June and Day arrive in Vegas just as the unthinkable happens: the Elector Primo dies, and his son Anden takes his place. With the Republic edging closer to chaos, the two join a group of Patriot rebels eager to help Day rescue his brother and offer passage to the Colonies. They have only one request;June and Day must assassinate the new Elector.

It’s their chance to change the nation, to give voice to a people silenced for too long.

But as June realizes this Elector is nothing like his father, she’s haunted by the choice ahead. What if Anden is a new beginning? What if revolution must be more than loss and vengeance, anger and blood;what if the Patriots are wrong?

This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith

Book Jacket for: This is what happy looks like

Summary:

If fate sent you an email, would you answer?
When teenage movie star Graham Larkin accidentally sends small town girl Ellie O'Neill an email about his pet pig, the two seventeen-year-olds strike up a witty and unforgettable correspondence, discussing everything under the sun, except for their names or backgrounds.
Then Graham finds out that Ellie's Maine hometown is the perfect location for his latest film, and he decides to take their relationship from online to in-person. But can a star as famous as Graham really start a relationship with an ordinary girl like Ellie? And why does Ellie want to avoid the media's spotlight at all costs?

Rookie: Yearbook One

Book Jacket for: Rookie : yearbook one

Summary:

Tavi Gevinson started the blog, Style Rookie, when she was 11 years old. From the confines of her bedroom in the suburbs, she wrote about personal style and chronicled the development of her own. Within two years, it averaged 50,000 hits per day and fashion designers from around the world invited Tavi to attend and write about fashion shows. Soon Tavi's interests grew beyond fashion, into culture and art and, especially, feminism. Last year when Tavi was 15, she launched ROOKIE, a website for girls like her: teenagers who are interested in fashion and beauty but also in dissecting the culture around them through a uniquely teen-girl lens. ROOKIE broke 1 million page views within its first six days. Lady Gaga called her "the future of journalism."Tavi's cool-headed intellect shines in ROOKIE, arguably the most intelligent magazine ever made for a teen-girl audience. She writes with a humble but keen authority on such serious topics as body image, self-esteem, and first encounters with street harassment. ROOKIE YEARBOOK ONE collects articles, interviews, photo editorials, and illustrations.

Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

Book Jacket for: Etiquette & espionage

Summary:

It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners--and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine's, young ladies learn to finish...everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but the also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage--in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year's education.

Far Far Away by Tom McNeal

Book Jacket for: Far far away
 
Summary:
 
It says quite a lot about Jeremy Johnson Johnson that the strangest thing about him isn't even the fact his mother and father both had the same last name. Jeremy once admitted he's able to hear voices, and the townspeople of Never Better have treated him like an outsider since. After his mother left, his father became a recluse, and it's been up to Jeremy to support the family. But it hasn't been up to Jeremy alone. The truth is, Jeremy can hear voices. Or, specifically, one voice: the voice of the ghost of Jacob Grimm, one half of the infamous writing duo, The Brothers Grimm. Jacob watches over Jeremy, protecting him from an unknown dark evil whispered about in the space between this world and the next. But when the provocative local girl Ginger Boultinghouse takes an interest in Jeremy (and his unique abilities), a grim chain of events is put into motion. And as anyone familiar with the Grimm Brothers know, not all fairy tales have happy endings. . .

Young adult veteran Tom McNeal (one half of the writing duo known as Laura & Tom McNeal) has crafted a novel at once warmhearted, compulsively readable, and altogether thrilling--and McNeal fans of their tautly told stories will not be disappointed.
 
Partials by Dan Wells
 
Book Jacket for: Partials
 
Summary:
 
The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials;engineered organic beings identical to humans;has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.

Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what's left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she's not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them;connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.

If he had been with me: a novel by Laura Nowlin

Book Jacket for: If he had been with me : a novel

Summary:

If he had been with me everything would have been different; I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says that they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know-the cause of the argument-is crucial. So let me tell you.

Rules of Summer by Joanna Philbin

Book Jacket for: Rules of summer : a novel

Summary:

There are two sides to every summer.

When seventeen-year-old Rory McShane steps off the bus in East Hampton, it's as if she's entered another universe--one populated by impossibly beautiful people wearing pressed khakis and driving expensive cars. She's signed on to be a summer errand girl for the Rules, a wealthy family with an enormous beachfront mansion, and maybe to sneak in some beach time. Upon arrival, she's warned by other staff members to keep her head down and to avoid socializing with the family, but Rory soon learns that may be easier said than done.

Feeling claustrophobic in her country-club world, the youngest and most impulsive Rule child, seventeen-year-old Isabel, embarks on a breathless summer romance that her family would never approve of. Isabel has decided that this is the summer for taking chances, and she's bringing Rory along for the ride. The girls forge a true friendship, but when long-hidden secrets start to surface and Rory reveals that she has feelings for someone, too--Connor Rule, Isabel's older brother--their relationship is put to the test.

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