From Wonderland to the underworld via YA fiction
Alex is trying his best to muddle through his teens; he has lost his two best friends to romance and is staring down the barrel of an entire summer on his own with nothing to do but avoid the passive aggressive swipes of his hideous stepmother. When he quite literally falls into a summer job at the dilapidated amusement arcade called Wonderland, he has no idea how much his life is about to change.
Alex in Wonderland (Scholastic, £7.99) by Simon James Green, captures the British seaside town in all its rundown glory. The prose is a breath of fresh air and the characters are perfection. This is a summer romance with huge dollops of heart and soul.
For people who love Making a Murderer and Serial but hate the ongoing injustice, A Good Girl’s
Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson (Electric Monkey, £7.99) is the perfect antidote. Five years ago, Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. Everyone in town knows it, the case is closed and life has moved on – for everyone but the families of Andie and Sal. However, Pippa Fitz-amobi is convinced there is more to the tragic tale than meets the eye and what starts as a school project soon escalates into a desperate need to uncover the truth at any cost.
This is a crime thriller that will grip the reader from page one and leave them guessing right up until the very end. The story is suspenseful and believable and provides what miscarriages of justice often lack – a satisfying ending.
Winner of the Stonewall Book Award, Birthday by Meredith Russo (Usborne, £7.99) is a beautiful love story told over 18 years. Eric and Morgan were born on the same day in the same hospital and have been best friends ever since. As the years go by, they begin to drift apart, both of them struggling to be the people they are perceived to be. Eric is under pressure to get a football scholarship and get away from his
abusive father while Morgan is struggling to live as the son her dad wants her to be while hiding her true self from everyone, including Eric.
This is a deeply moving story about love and identity told against a backdrop of tragic loss and teenage angst. You are drawn in to Morgan’s story, willing her to open up to someone, anyone as she folds inwards on herself and shuts out the world.
Voyages in the Underworld of
Orpheus Black by Marcus Sedgwick, Julian Sedgwick and illustrated by Alexis Deacon (Walker, £12.99) is a remarkable story told in prose, poetry and pictures. Based on the myth of Orpheus in the underworld, the story follows two brothers trying to survive the Blitz. Waking in hospital, Harry Black discovers that his brother Ellis has almost certainly died in a V2 bombing.
Devastated, he absconds from the hospital in a state of delirium, determined to dig his brother out of the bombsite. The deeper he digs, the more his condition worsens and the lines between real life and his unpublished sci-fi novels begin to blur dangerously.
This book is a stunning work of art both strange and haunting; the reader is as disorientated as Harry, unable to separate truth from fiction and struggling to find a way back up to the surface.
My So-called Bollywood Life (Stripes, £7.99) is a dazzling debut by Nisha Sharma set in an American High School and perfect for anyone who enjoys a love story with a bit of a song and dance.
Winnie has always believed in destiny. When she was little her family’s pandit prophesised that she would find the love of her life before she turned 18 and his name would begin with R, so when she breaks up with her boyfriend Raj just months before her 18th birthday, she is left completely lost: she has never seemed further away from her Bollywood ending. On top of that, her beloved film club is falling apart and suddenly there’s a new love interest on the scene who doesn’t seem to fit any of the pandit’s predictions. Should Winnie trust her instinct, or is the future already mapped out for her? n