Teenage fiction

Many ‘older teen’ books seem to be far from cheery, and this current batch is no exception. Thought-provoking, yes; cheery, no.

The World We Live In, the third in Pfeffer’s The Last Survivors series of global devastation, for example, continues the story life on earth after an asteroid collides with the moon, drastically altering the earth’s climate.

Specifically, it tells of 15-year-old Miranda and her reduced family, still struggling for air and food a year after the disaster, and of some surprise visitors, which both ameliorates and complicates matters. You don’t need to have read the first two books in the series (Life As We Knew It and The Dead and Gone), but it would help.

Tender Morsels Margo Lanagan (David Fickling, £7.99) A bleak picture of humanity is painted by Australian author Lanagan. This is most definitely not for younger readers, as it opens with a frank account of young Liga’s girlhood. With her mother dead, her father brutalises her most terribly. After his violent death, she is left with two daughters – one the result of incest, the other of gang rape. Suicide seems a welcome blessing, and she enters a personal, magical heaven in which she can raise her girls. But then a bear breaks through the membrane separating the two worlds, letting the real world intervene, with its mixture of corruption and gentleness, passion and love. The younger, fiery daughter is lured into the real world, across the dangerous divide. This is a magnificent and strikingly original retelling of the story of Snow White and Rose Red, reflecting the extremes of the two worlds it describes — horror and delight, kindness and cruelty, light and dark, danger and safety.

Boys Don’t Cry Malorie Blackman (Doubleday, £12.99) Immediately you see this author’s name, you know this is not going to be a ‘nice’ story. Her latest book, Boys Don’t Cry, tackles the subject of teenage fatherhood, with Dante, a 17-year-old, four A* student, literally left holding the baby he didn’t know he had. Another uncomfortable theme of the book is the homophobia aroused by Dante’s homosexual brother Adam. Strangely enough, this is ultimately a hopeful book, with the unexpected baby bringing Dante’s uptight widower father to recognise the priorities in life and love.

Shadow Wave Robert Muchamore (Hodder, £12.99) We are on safer ground with the Cherub adventure series by Robert Muchamore. The most recent book, Shadow Wave, is 12th in the series. The secret ingredient of the Cherub secret agents is that they are children — adults never suspect that these kids are spying on them. And so, in this last book, James Adams, at 17, is on his last mission. He’s offered what he considers a rather mundane task, considering it’s his swansong — guarding the family of a corrupt governor of a tropical island. But then he has an unofficial offer of another, dangerous mission, and here the fun begins. If you enjoy this book, then there are the preceding 11 to entertain you. Again, not suitable for younger readers, but hugely enjoyable for those who like gripping adventure stories.