Staff Reviews: For Teens
Check out these reviews written by the staff of the Marathon County Public Library, featuring books and DVDs for teens! (For reviews of books for all ages, visit our main Staff Reviews webpage.) Staff book reviews also are published at Goodreads.com; follow us for the latest updates.
"The Faithful Spy"
This creative, colorful, biography tells the life story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor, a member of the German Resistance, and double agent working for the Abwehr during World War II. Bonhoeffer opposed Hitler’s ideology of Aryan supremacy early on in his rise to power, long before the outbreak of the second world war. He watched with...
Audience: Children, Teens, Tweens | Genre: Nonfiction
"Norroway"
Once upon a time, a mother with three daughters decided it was time for them to marry. "Look out the back door and the first thing you see is your destiny." The first daughter sees a wealthy farmer. The second daughters sees a fine prince. The third daughter sees a large black bull.
So begins the fairy tale, "The Black Bull of Norroway...
Audience: Teens | Genre: Teens, Graphic Novel, Fairy Tale
"Oh My Goth"
Ever since Jade Leighton's mother died in a car crash, she's been working hard on shutting down and blocking people out, convinced that making connections with people would only cause her more pain. Feeling like an outside, Jade dresses as a goth, with plenty of black, and has made "friends" with other outsider goth students at her school....
Audience: Teens | Genre: Fiction, Slice Of Life
"Pandemic"
I love a good book about pandemics. For whatever reason, they fascinate me. Learning the reasons behind the Black Death or Ebola can be an adventure story and "Pandemic" covers everything you need to know. This book was very readable, with great pictures of viruses, bacteria and insects, as well as interesting side notes that help clarify...
"The Price Guide to the Occult"
Rona Blackburn's daughters, granddaughters and great granddaughters have lived on Anathema Island for many years. Rona's powerful witchcraft has been passed down to each daughter, yet each one only inherits one of Rona's mysterious powers. Nor Blackburn wants to live a quiet unremarkable life, so when she's gifted with the ability to hear the plants,...
Audience: Teens | Genre: Teen, Urban Fantasy, Witchcraft
"The Ravenous"
To outsiders, the Cane girls are a lovely group of five sisters. Transferring from base to base, following their itinerant father, who is often gone, the girls stick together no matter what. So what if their home life is chaotic and dysfunctional. As long as everything looks ok, it will be. Juliet is the oldest, a pianist who gave up...
Audience: Adults, Teens | Genre: Realistic, Family Drama, Horror
"Sadie"
Sadie is alone in the world. Her sister was murdered and her mother has abandoned them. With nothing to lose, Sadie sets out to find the person she believes is responsible for her sister's death. Told from two perspectives, Sadie's own and from the perspective of a podcast producer/narrator, this novel is an intricate puzzle. The...
"All the Things That Could Go Wrong"
Seventh-grade student Alex worries about everything, including worrying about worrying, but mostly about everyone dying and all the germs on people and surfaces everywhere. He always wears gloves and washes his hands compulsively, so much so that his skin is cracked, raw, and painful. Because of his OCD he is picked on at school and bullied repeatedly,...
"I Am Still Alive"
Jess Cooper is still alive, for now. Suffering from injuries from an accident that claimed the life of her mother, Jess is shuffled off to her only surviving relative, her father, who she hardly remembers, and who, she discovers, is living much further off-the-grid than she ever could have imagined. She hates it in the middle of nowhere and desperately...
"Hearts Beat Loud"
Frank (Nick Offerman) is a middle-aged single father whose life is on the verge of change. He’s considering closing his small Brooklyn record store due to poor sales and his daughter, Sam (Kiersey Clemons), is just weeks away from going off to college in California to study medicine. Both lovers of music, Frank and Sam write and record a song one night in...
"Half-Witch"
Lizbet Lenz and her father Gerhard, a very unsuccessful magician, are always moving from town to town, usually quite speedily before being thrown out. Her father’s spells always seem to turn out wrong so they are forced to flee, but when they arrive in Abalia, Lizbeth, desperately tired of all the moving, really hopes they can stay. But after yet another...
"Fat Angie"
Angie has issues: her parents'' divorce, her annoying older brother, her missing presumed dead sister, the bullies at school, her weight. Angie''s life changes when KC arrives at school. KC is everything Angie''s not, but that doesn't stop them from becoming friends. As their friendship blossoms into a romance, Angie must...
"Prim Improper"
Meet Primrose “Prim” Leary, the quirky and charming 13-year-old star of Deirdre Sullivan’s Prim Improper. Prim is coping with the sudden loss of her mother, and you might expect a story like this to be dark and brooding, but Prim tells her tale (in diary form) with a precocious and wittily observant voice that delves into sensitive – and even...
"Leah on the Offbeat"
In this direct sequel to Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, the focus shifts from Simon to one of his best friends, Leah Burke. It’s about a year after the conclusion of Simon, and Leah and her friends are in the home stretch of their senior year. The gang experiences visiting colleges, getting ready for prom and figuring out how they’ll stay in each other’...
Audience: Teens | Genre: Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, LGBT
"And She Was"
18 year-old Dara Baker is a recent high school graduate with big dreams. Living in a small town in New York with her mother, Mellie, Dara has aspired to be a pro tennis star as long as she can remember. She’s on the verge of entering her first major tournament when she finds out a shocking secret: Mellie is transgender and is actually her biological father...
Audience: Teens | Genre: Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, YA Fiction With Adult Appeal, LGBT
"Mary's Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein"
Dark and beautiful watercolor illustrations bring Mary Shelley's biography to life in this captivating graphic novel. Told in verse, this was a quick read and peek into Mary Shelley's odd, dark, and intense life. Mary was barely sixteen when she left home to follow the man she loved, the married Percy Shelley. It was a daring move for a 19th century British...
"The Upside of Unrequited"
Molly and Cassie are 17 year-old fraternal twins who have always been extremely close. But ever since Cassie started dating her girlfriend, Mina, the two sisters have started drifting apart. Molly feels like she’s being left behind and longs for a boyfriend to share her life with and spend time with.
The thing is, Molly has had 25 crushes so far in her...
Audience: Teens | Genre: Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Romance
"Frogkisser!"
Anya is a princess in a tough situation but with quite a gift. She is the Frogkisser. When Rikard, her evil, power-hungry, sorcerer stepfather takes over the kingdom of Trallonia and begins transforming people that get in his way into frogs, lizards and other critters, Anya discovers she has a magic gift all her own. With some magic lip balm and the...
"NERVE"
Vee is used to living her life behind-the-scenes. As part of her high school’s drama department, she prefers to stick to doing costumes and makeup rather than stepping into the spotlight like her best friend, Sydney. But after Vee sees her crush flirting with Sydney, she decides to do something drastic to get the guy’s attention and to step outside her...
"Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda"
Simon is just a typical, well-adjusted teenager. He does well in school, has a stable and supportive family and has a great group of friends. There's just one thing the people in Simon's life don't know about him: he's gay.
After another young man at Simon's school comes out of the closet on a social media site, he and Simon begin emailing back and...
Audience: Teens | Genre: Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Romance, LGBT
"Moxie"
Sixteen-year-old Vivian plans to keep her head down and avoid making any waves as she rides out her last two years of high school in her small town Texas high school. However, after seeing the new girl face humiliation after a sexist incident in class, she finds inspiration in her mother’s “My Misspent Youth” box, which is filled with Riot Grrrl materials....
"Born at Midnight"
Follow Kylie Galen on her journey to discovering who/what she is. Kylie seems to be your everyday, normal teenage girl. Her parent's send her off to a summer camp for "troubled" teens. Once there, Kylie's world gets flipped upside down and she soon discovers that the supernatural things seen in movies and read in books are real and that she is in fact a...
Audience: Teens | Genre: YA Fiction With Adult Appeal
"Far From the Tree"
What exactly is a family? Are they your biological relatives? The people who raised you? Or are they the people you choose to surround yourself with every day?
Far From the Tree explores the idea of family in all its forms as it follows three siblings who reconnect as teenagers after being given up for adoption in infancy. There's 17 year-old...
Audience: Teens | Genre: Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Young Adult, YA Fiction With Adult Appeal, Award-Winning
"Renegades"
Sixteen-year-old Nova’s world is ruled by the Renegades, a group of Prodigies (humans that possess a special ability/superpower), who used their abilities to defeat Ace Anarchy and his Prodigy compatriots who were responsible for creating fear and destruction during the Age of Anarchy. Despite Renegade promises to protect them, Nova’s parents and sister...
"Spill Zone"
In the early 70’s the Soviet science fiction authors, Arkady and Boris Sturgatsky, wrote ”Roadside Picnic” about the changes in the environment in places around the world after what is assumed to be an alien visitation. They wrote about a changed world, where artifacts from these locations displayed unusual and bizarre properties and effects, and the ways...
Audience: Adults, Teens | Genre: Fiction, Graphic Novel, Science Fiction
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