Free Fall by Roderick Gordon & Brian Williams

I would recommend Free Fall to some teens, but only to the ones who enjoy a bit of adventure. This is the third book in the series, so it might help if you read the other two. The book series is about a group of teenagers (Will, Chester and Elliot) who are lost way below the surface of the earth. They meet other people and creatures underground, both good and evil. It’s a little like “Journey To The Center Of The Earth”.

In this book, they fall down the “Pore” (a hole in the earths crust), and are sent even farther underground. Most of the book takes place in dangerous labyrinth-like caves where the teens have to watch out for the diabolical Styx twins, giant spiders and deadly creatures called the Brights.

The beginning of the book isn’t very interesting because it takes too long to develop the plot. However, there is plenty of action, and lots of plot twists as you read further into the book. If you like the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson books, you will probably like these books also.

~Mathew, Teen Book Reviwer

Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

The book Hush, Hush is about a high school student named Nora Grey. She leads a normal life until Patch, her new biology partner, steps in. Everywhere she goes, Patch seems to be right behind her. And Patch knows things about Nora that she would never tell anyone; not even her best friend, Vee. Strangest of all, Nora is attracted to Patch in both a scary and comfortable way. When she meets Elliot, the transfer student from Kinghorn Prep, she stars to wonder what made him transfer from a private school to a public school. After doing some background research, Nora finds out things that scare her even more than Patch does. Now she has to choose between two guys, both of them frightening and probably dangerous. On top of that, Nora thinks that somebody is following her and trying to hurt her. When Nora uncovers more truth about the people she goes to school with, the stakes get higher, and in the end, Nora’s own life might be at risk.

~Catherine, Teen Book Reviewer

The Pretty One by Cheryl Klam

Cheryl Klam's The Pretty One told the story of two siblings' rivalries. Lucy Fletcher was always the prettiest girl at school who always won over all the guys and to top it off, always got the lead in their school plays. Her younger sister, Megan, always wanted to be like her older sister. Megan thought of herself as ugly and fat, which is why (in her mind) no one ever talked about her and no guys ever liked her. When a terrible accident leads Megan to get plastic surgery, her world just had a 180 flip. Now, boys are suddenly all over her and everyone knows her as much as they know her sister. After Megan gets her surgery, she gets the lead in her dream guy's play, taking her sister's spotlight. Megan feels as if now, nothing can ever bring her down because she's just as good as her sister. But, when a new face leads to jealousy between the two, their fight just begins.

The Pretty One was a very good book. I would recommend others to read this. It holds a very important message within that I feel should be shared with the world. At first, it didn't seem as if the book was actually going to be very good, but in the end, it really was worth it. I hope others enjoy this book as much as I did.

~Loudmila, Teen Book Reviewer

The Red Necklace: A Story of the French Revolution by Sally Gardner

The Red Necklace is about a gypsy boy named Yann who lives in Paris during the French Revolution. He was born with the gift of mind reading, throwing his voice, and sometimes seeing the future. On the night of a special performance with his companions, he meets Sido. She is the daughter of The Marquis de Villeduval, who doesn’t care about her. They only have a brief conversation, but they are tied together forever. Count Kalliovski wants to use her as a pawn in his game to expand his fortune. For Sido, Yann will take on Count Kalliovski head on.

The beginning of the book was rather rushed and slightly confusing. People seemed to die right and left in every single chapter. Things that happened were almost like they played no purpose at all. The characters seemed two-dimensional and undeveloped. Everything was explained blandly. As I got farther into the book, everything fell into place. The bigger meaning of things was thrown at me, and the characters got more personality. I thought it was extremely unrealistic how Sido and Yann fell in love in the first five minutes of seeing each other after about 5 years. Towards the middle-end of the book, it got a lot better. There was more suspense and you actually had to use your brain to understand it.

If you enjoy the slight fantasy, romance, adventure stories I recommend this book. Personally, I thought it was only about a 6.5 or 7 out of 10. The reading and vocabulary is pretty simple. The amount of French was bearable, but if you had no knowledge of French, you could still read it. I suggest giving this book a try, but it won’t really pull you in until page 200.

~Joanna, Teen Book Reviewer

The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg

The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg is a very interesting book about a teenage girl who’s sick of being heart broken by the “jerks” in her school, so she decides to form her own club that bans the dating of guys-at least till the members are no longer at their school. She names the club after a Beatles song called “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” due to the fact that her parents and herself are big Beatles fans(hence her name being Penny Lane-named after the Beatles song Penny Lane). Penny soon realizes that the club is more popular than she thought and more and more people join but with more members comes more problems…Now Penny has to deal with the club’s problems and her own(hint: It’s guy related). I definitely recommend this book to anyone, it was an enjoyable read.

~Cindy, Teen Book Reviewer

Things not Seen by Andrew Clements

Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements are one of those books that we keep you awake through the night reading it. From start to finish I could not put this book down. The story starts out when an average teenager, Bobby Phillips wakes up invisible. He eventually meets a blind girl named Alicia and they together try to fix Bobby’s problem before the government knows.

I highly recommend this book. The book is intresting, and not to complex as it is told in a familiar teenage voice. This story will captivate readers for time to come.

~Edward, Teen Book Reviewer

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

For about-to-turn-sweet-16-years-old, Belly (short for Isabel), summers at the beach is where her real life happens. The rest of the year is just a period of time that she has to endure until the months when she gets to go back to the large beach house, populated by two best-friend mothers and their two children (each) for the three months of summer. Belly is the youngest, and the only girl, and that's the way she likes it. This summer, however, everything changes. Belly lost her glasses, gained a few curves, and is suddenly not the just the little sister figure everyone can just ignore. Since she's older, that means the boys she has known all her life are changing too. Her brother Steven is off to college in the fall, Jeremiah and Conrad (the lifelong family friends), are different this summer too. She hears tension and even arguments between her mother and her best friend Susannah. Plus, Susannah’s husband, who normally shows up on the weekends, never makes a single appearance. Most importantly, Belly finally finds that she sees the world a little differently through the eyes of a changing teenage girl: Belly’s forever-crush on Conrad just might finally be fading away, especially when she meets Cam...

The Summer I Turned Pretty is Korean American, Jenny Han’s second novel. This book is very relatable, very well written and extremely captivating. Jenny Han captures Belly’s teenage emotions and attitude perfectly. She gives this novel both a lightness and an aching depth that almost makes it feel as if you were watching a drama on TV. I really enjoyed reading this book and almost finished it all in one sitting! I would recommend this book to teenage girls and young adults or all ages.

~ Kaitlyn, Teen Book Reviewer

Give A Boy A Gun by Todd Strasser

The book Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser was an excellent book. Although it contained graphic ideas, it discussed school shootings, an important issue faced by our society. This book puts you in the mind of a school shooter and it revealed what the two boys, Brendan and Gary had gone through and why they chose to to try to take the lives of their fellow classmates. I liked this book mainly because it deals with bullying a problem many kids face in school that can have serious negative effects on their behavior. I would recommend this book to pre-teens and teenagers. I would recommend it to those types of people because the theme of the book would be easily understood by this age group.
~Dominic, Teen Book Reviewer