YA Review: The Haunting of Tyrese Walker

Title: The Haunting of Tyrese Walker
Author: JP Rose
Edition:
Paperback (Paper Orange Book Box)
Rating:
4/5

YA Review: The Haunting of Tyrese Walker

Another excellent book from the Paper Orange UKYA Book Box! I’m not usually a horror fan, but this book drew me in – great characters, great setting, and just the right level of creepy.

Fourteen-year-old Tyrese has just lost his father, and his death is still too painful to think about. His mother takes him to Jamaica for the summer to stay with his paternal grandmother and his fourteen-year-old cousin, Marvin. Sleep deprived, grieving, hot, and homesick, Tyrese struggles to adapt. When his grandmother asks him to scatter rice around her house to keep away evil spirits, he can’t see the point. But when inexplicable things start to happen around him, he begins to doubt everything he believes in. Are the spirits real, or is he losing his mind?

With Ellie, a visiting American teenager, Tyrese and Marvin explore the mountains and forests around their grandmother’s house. What begins as an idyllic summer holiday quickly takes a dark turn, as Tyrese’s unsettling experiences start to affect the people around him. There is a growing sense of danger as the story progresses, and Tyrese is never sure whether the things he is seeing are real. Ellie and Marvin confirm some of his experiences, but the reader is left wondering whether his fear is justified, or whether he really is losing his grip on sanity.

The reveal and the finale are excellent, and the mounting dread pays off in the final scenes. My complaint with a lot of horror is that the fear is either an overreaction, or that the Big Bad is too big and too bad for the story. This ending is just right.

This is a book about fear of the unexplained, and the folly of meddling with forces beyond the characters’ understanding. It is also a story about friendship, family, and coming to terms with overwhelming grief. It’s a clever use of the setting and the plot, and the result is a gripping page-turner of a novel. An excellent read.

Have you read The Haunting of Tyrese Walker? What did you think of Tyrese’s story? Click through to the full blog to access the comments section, and share your thoughts! No spoilers, though – you can post those on GoodReads!

YA review: The Haunting of Tyrese Walker cross-posted to GoodReads.


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YA Review: Finding Folkshore

Title: Finding Folkshore
Author: Rachel Faturoti
Edition:
Paperback (Paper Orange Book Box)
Rating:
4/5

YA Review: Finding Folkshore

I do love a ‘secret London’ story (Neverwhere, Rivers of London), so it was great to find a YA take on the hidden city idea.

Fola is an A-grade scholarship student, studying subjects that will get her into medical school and please her Nigerian family. But Fola has a secret – she’d much rather study photography and film. Her GCSE Media Studies teacher invites her to enter a short film competition, but she knows her parents wouldn’t understand.

On her way home on the tube, Fola finds herself travelling beyond the end of the line. The Victoria Line train continues past Brixton, and she finds herself in Folkshore – a hidden part of London filled with fairytale characters, talking animals, and magic. But as an outsider, she’s not allowed in Folkshore, and she can’t access the train again to take her home. The police are looking for her, and she must rely on the kindness of strangers to survive.

Something is wrong in Folkshore. Residents are disappearing, shops and buildings are being mysteriously remodelled, and the magic is fading. Fola finds herself working with her new friends to find out what is happening to their home, and looking for a way to return to hers. Can her unique skills help save Folkshore? And can Fola return to her family?

Finding Folkshore is a fun read. There’s a large cast of colourful characters, from Fola’s exuberant Nigerian family to the magical residents of Folkshore. Following Fola into the hidden city means that we discover the existence of Folkshore as she does, and uncover the corruption alongside her and her new friends. She brings a sense of wonder to the story, and a need to understand where she is, and what is happening to the magic. Her adventure also gives her the chance to reassess what is important to her, what she really needs to worry about, and what she wants to do – if she can ever return home.

The book is a blend of ‘finding yourself’ YA, magical realism, and the excitement of the hidden city. I was cheering at the end!

Have you read Finding Folkshore? What did you think of the story? Click through to the full blog to access the comments section, and share your thoughts! No spoilers, though – you can post those on GoodReads!

YA review: Finding Folkshore cross-posted to GoodReads.


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YA Review: The Cats We Meet Along the Way

Title: The Cats We Meet Along the Way
Author: Nadia Mikail
Edition:
Paperback
Rating:
4/5

YA Review: The Cats We Meet Along the Way

What a lovely, gentle, moving book!

The world is ending. An asteroid will wipe out everyone and everything in a few months, but people are still living their lives. What else is there to do? In Malaysia, Aisha was planning a life – studying medicine in Edinburgh, getting married and settling down with her boyfriend Walter, having children and naming them for her late father and uncle. But her world is smaller now, and she has to accept that these things will never happen.

But there are unresolved pieces to her family’s story, and Aisha wants to understand what made her mother abandon their home when Aisha’s father died, and what happened to her older sister, June. Aisha’s mother hasn’t dealt with the grief of losing her husband, choosing instead to run away and start again without him. June left home three years ago, and no one has heard from her since.

In the days they have left, Aisha, her mother, Walter and his parents, and a stray cat named Fleabag head out on a road trip to come to terms with the past, and look for June.

Aisha and Walter are a lovely couple, and it is heartbreaking to realise – along with Aisha – that there will never be an ending to their story. They won’t get to live the life they imagined, and whatever hopes they had will end with the asteroid.

But this isn’t a depressing story. Instead of focusing on the tragedy, the author connects with the tiny details of her characters’ lives, showing us the grief that shaped Aisha and her family, as well as the simple pleasures of living one day at a time. Despite the apocalyptic setting, this manages to be a story about connection, breaking down barriers, and understanding what really matters. With all the grief, unspoken anger, and coming to terms with the end of the world, this ends up being a story about hope – the kind of book that you close at the end and with a happy sigh.

The Cats We Meet Along the Way won the 2023 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and it deserves the recognition.

Have you read The Cats We Meet Along the Way? What did you think of the story? Click through to the full blog to access the comments section, and share your thoughts! No spoilers, though – you can post those on GoodReads!

YA review: The Cats We Meet Along the Way cross-posted to GoodReads.


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YA Review: What If It’s Us?

Title: What If It’s Us?
Author: Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
Edition:
Kindle
Rating:
3.5/5

YA Review: What If It's Us?

This is a sweet YA LGBTQ+ romance with possibly the best meet-cute I’ve ever read! Arthur and Ben meet in a post office in New York. Ben is posting a box of belongings back to his ex-boyfriend, and Arthur can’t resist saying hi. Ben lives in New York, and Arthur is only in the city for the summer, as an intern at his mother’s high-powered law firm. When the meet-cute ends (spectacularly!) without an exchange of contact details, Arthur decides to track Ben down. In a city the size of New York, how is he going to make contact?

What follows is a wonderfully realistic story. Disastrous dates, romantic plans gone wrong, and touchingly clumsy attempts at intimacy as Ben tries to move on from heartbreak, and Arthur navigates a relationship with his first boyfriend. Both boys have best friends who involve themselves in their romantic planning, and bring relationship dramas of their own to the story.

There’s a maturity about the book that reminds me of Forever by Judy Blume. Despite the amazing meet-cute and all the attempts at a successful date, there is no sense of a pre-destined future for Arthur and Ben. Throughout the book they are aware that Arthur will leave New York at the end of the summer, and this is not presented as a tragedy or a cause for heartbreak.

This is a sex-positive story, while being refreshingly messy and rejecting the idea of a perfect relationship. It doesn’t push the idea of an ideal partner, or a forever love-match, but allows the characters to enjoy the time they have together.

And what if it is going to work longer term? At least the boys understand that romance isn’t all hearts and flowers, and relationships require effort from both sides. A refreshingly down-to-earth story, and a romance without exaggerated drama.

Have you read What If It’s Us? What did you think of Arthur and Ben? Did their story feel real to you? Click through to the full blog to access the comments section, and share your thoughts! No spoilers, though – you can post those on GoodReads!

YA review: What If It’s Us? cross-posted to GoodReads.


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YA Review: The Final Rising (Tomorrow’s Ancestors #4)

Title: The Final Rising (Tomorrow’s Ancestors #4)
Author: AE Warren
Edition:
Paperback
Rating:
4/5

YA Review: The Final Rising

The finale of the Tomorrow’s Ancestors series is here, and it’s time to turn turn the rigid society ruled by genetically enhanced humans upside down!

In the previous books, we learned about the genetic engineering used to produce superior versions of humans, as well as bringing back extinct species, including Neanderthals. Unenhanced humans are held responsible for the historic damage to the planet and forced to make reparations, while the elite use their genetic knowledge and upgrades to hold onto power. Elise, an unenhanced Sapien, works with the Neanderthals in the Museum of Evolution, where they live in zoo-like conditions with no knowledge of the contemporary world.

Elise and several Neanderthals have escaped from the Museums, and have been living in hiding with other Sapiens who are unhappy with their controlled society. After the disastrous events of The Fourth Species, book three in the series, her companions set about finding a space place to build their own society, outside the influence of the genetically enhanced ruling classes.

The key characters from the previous books are back, working together to protect their community, but there’s a spy in their settlement and nothing they are working for is safe. Elise and her friends must decide who to trust, and what to risk for their safety and eventual freedom.

It’s another exciting instalment in the series, and (without spoiling anything!) a satisfying ending to the story.

Have you read the Tomorrow’s Ancestors series? What did you think of the final book? Click through to the full blog to access the comments section, and share your thoughts! No spoilers, though – you can post those on GoodReads!

YA review: The Final Rising cross-posted to GoodReads.


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