first love – Library Mice

Variations on Teen Love

I am not impartial to contemporary young adult romance, and I will happily admit I am a big fan of Sarah Dessen’s books. As a school librarian in a secondary school, I try to keep up with the huge amount of books published in this genre, and here are three that caught me eye in …

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The Weight of Water

Sarah Crossan(Bloomsbury Children’s Books) Kasienka’s father has left her mother and moved to England. The mother, persuaded that she can make him change his mind, uproots Kasienka’s whole life, fitting it into a suitcase and a laundry bag, and they arrive in Coventry. Forced to live in a bedsit, Kasienka and her mother must get …

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You Against Me

Jenny Downham(David Fickling Books) Mikey’s sister is stuck indoors terrified to go outside after she was allegedly assaulted. Ellie’s brother is on bail, charged of her assault. When Mikey decides to take revenge, he decides to turn up at the Parkers’ house looking for Tom. But it is Ellie he meets and everything changes. This …

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Artichoke Hearts

Sita Brahmachari(Macmillan Children’s Books) Mira Levenson has just turned twelve and feels like her life has been tipped upside down. It already felt quite chaotic, with her lively, loud and nosy family and her outspoken larger-than-life grandmother. Sometimes Mira just feels that she could do with a little more privacy of thoughts and actions. But …

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Linger

Maggie Stiefvater(Scholastic) Linger picks up right after the end of Shiver. Sam has been “cured” from turning into a wolf and now lives hidden in Grace’s bedroom, unbeknown to her mostly absentee parents. He is adjusting to the life as “just Sam” and is missing his family, who are still all out in the wilderness, …

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The Summer I Turned Pretty

Jenny Han(Puffin) Belly is about to turn sweet sixteen and for as long as she can remember, she has spent each summer at her mother’s best friend’s beach house with her mother, her brother, and Susannah and her two boys. Belly has always adulated the older boy, Conrad, but the feelings have never openly been …