The team at Leiston Library share some of their favourite teen books you just can’t put down! Browse our staff picks and pick up a copy from your local Suffolk library.
Want more suggested books? Take a look at our recommendations or explore more of the National Year of Reading campaign.
Away with Words
Sophie Cameron
Gala and her dad, Jordi, have just moved from home in Cataluña to a town in Scotland, to live with Jordi’s boyfriend Ryan. Gala doesn’t speak much English, and feels lost, lonely and unable to be her usual funny self.
Until she befriends Natalie, a girl with selective mutism. The two girls find their own ways to communicate, which includes collecting other people’s discarded words. They use the words to write anonymous supportive poems for their classmates, but then someone begins leaving nasty messages using the same method – and the girls are blamed.
Gala has finally started adapting to her new life in Scotland and is determined to find the culprit. Can she and Natalie show the school who they really are?
Gone
Michael Grant
Suddenly there were no adults, no answers. What would you do?
In the blink of an eye all the adults disappear in a small town in southern California and no one knows why. Cut off from the outside world, those that are left are trapped, and there’s no help on the way.
Sam Temple and his friends must do all they can to survive. Chaos rules the streets. Gangs begin to form. Sides are chosen – strong or weak. Cruel or humane. And then there are those who begin to develop powers…
Tsunami Girl
Julian Sedgwick
Yuki and her friend Taka must make sense of the terrible situation and come to terms with the loss of their life as they knew it – and see that through renewal and with resilience, they can emerge from this tragedy with optimism for the future.
Interwoven with Japanese folk tales, modern-day ghost stories, and the creation of her very own vibrant manga hero, Yuki finds the courage to overcome extraordinary odds, and take her first steps into the world that lies beyond catastrophe.
Told through both prose and manga, this story for young adults will touch the heart of any reader.
Bodyguard: Hostage
Chris Bradford
In a dangerous world, everyone needs protection. No one suspects that a teenager could protect someone – but Connor Reeves is no ordinary 14-year-old. He’s a bodyguard, a martial arts expert trained in surveillance, hostage survival and unarmed combat.
When he’s summoned to protect the President’s daughter, his skills face the ultimate test. Alicia doesn’t want to be guarded. She just wants to have fun. With no clue that Connor is her bodyguard, she tries to escape the Secret Service and lead him astray.
But unknown to her and Connor a terrorist sleeper cell has been activated. Its mission: to take the President’s daughter hostage.
The Sad Ghost Club
Lize Meddings
Ever felt anxious or alone? Like you don’t belong anywhere? Like you’re almost invisible? Find your kindred spirits at The Sad Ghost Club.
This is the story of one of those days – a day so bad you can barely get out of bed, when it’s a struggle to leave the house, and when you do, you wish you hadn’t. But even the worst of days can surprise you. When one sad ghost, alone at a crowded party, spies another sad ghost across the room, they decide to leave together.
What happens next changes everything. Because that night they start The Sad Ghost Club – a secret society for the anxious and alone, a club for people who think they don’t belong.
Finn Jones Was Here
সাইমন জেমস গ্রিন
Eric’s best friend, Finn Jones, was the world’s biggest prankster. Now Eric can’t believe Finn’s not here anymore.
…Or is he?
At Finn’s funeral, grieving best friend Eric receives a message from beyond the grave – and it must be because this is Finn’s biggest prank ever, faking his own death!
As Eric follows Finn’s cryptic instructions for various challenges, he goes down memory lane and through a scavenger hunt that will change him for ever.
Skulduggery Pleasant
Derek Landy
Stephanie’s uncle Gordon is a writer of horror fiction. But when he dies and leaves her his estate, Stephanie learns that while he may have written horror, it certainly wasn’t fiction.
Pursued by evil forces intent on recovering a mysterious key, Stephanie finds help from an unusual source – the wisecracking skeleton of a dead wizard.
When all hell breaks loose, it’s lucky for Skulduggery that he’s already dead. Though he’s about to discover that being a skeleton doesn’t stop you from being tortured, if the torturer is determined enough. And if there’s anything Skulduggery hates, it’s torture…
Will evil win the day? Will Stephanie and Skulduggery stop bickering long enough to stop it? One thing’s for sure: evil won’t know what’s hit it.
Young Sherlock: Death Cloud
Andrew Lane
The year is 1868, and Sherlock Holmes is fourteen. His life is that of a perfectly ordinary army officer’s son: boarding school, good manners, a classical education – the backbone of the British Empire.
But all that is about to change. With his father suddenly posted to India, and his mother mysteriously ‘unwell’, Sherlock is sent to stay with his eccentric uncle and aunt in their vast house in Hampshire.
So begins a summer that leads Sherlock to uncover his first murder, a kidnap, corruption and a brilliantly sinister villain of exquisitely malign intent…
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