If you are fan of young adult literature, be it quirky-cute romance, gripping historical fiction, paranormal menace or angsty growing-up tale, you will no doubt want to saddle up and ride with us today. I have four enticing YA titles for you, each with its own niche audience, so scroll on down and see what you can round up!
Hotel for the Lost (Suzanne Young)
*We received a copy of Hotel for the Lost from Simon & Schuster Australia for review*
Two Sentence Synopsis: 
Audrey and her brother Daniel are being driven to their grandmother’s house, to take a break after their mother’s untimely death three months earlier. After stopping for the night at a hotel, the family dynamic seems more functional…but that’s only the first of a lot of strange things that are going on at the Hotel Ruby.
Muster up the motivation because…
…There’s a lot of ghosty goodness going on in this one that will have you guessing ahead to try and figure out the mystery before the big reveal. I happened to be reading this one around Halloween time and it was charmingly atmospheric, what with its big gothic hotel in a lonely setting, odd nightly parties and collection of delightfully (and in some cases, creepily) bizarre guests. Audrey is stuck down a well of grief and guilt since her mother’s death, while her brother Daniel is surly and their father seems to have mentally checked out. On arrival at the Ruby, things start looking up, but it isn’t long before Audrey starts to notice cracks in the hotel’s posh facade, not least of which being the overlord-like attitude of the concierge. As Audrey meets more guests and her father becomes more and more plugged in to the family, Audrey decides that things might be looking up and it won’t be so hard to hang out for a few days until the family checks out, despite a few hard-to-explain incidents. As ghostly, paranormal stories go, this one has plenty of threads to both entice and confuse the reader, with clues about the mystery dropped left, right and centre: there’s the mystery of the invitation-only nightly party, the tragic history of the building, the gossip about some of the guests and the strange flashes of vision that Audrey is experiencing. I know I was hurriedly trying to piece together the tidbits of information in order to figure out what was going on before the reveal. I suspect that experienced readers of paranormal stories will pick the obvious signs early on, but there were definitely a few aspects of the reveal that I did not see coming. I was quite impressed with the ending that Young chose to go with here, because it is a bit more ambiguous and dark than I would have expected. Overall, this was a fun read, albeit a tad predictable in places, that will satisfy those looking for an atmospheric story that will give a whole new meaning to the term “life of the party”.
Brand it with:
Complimentary late check-out; all in the family; what goes on below stairs
The Graces (Laure Eve)
*We received a copy of The Graces from Allen & Unwin for review*
The Graces by Laure Eve. Published by Allen & Unwin, 26th October, 2016. RRP: $19.99
Two Sentence Synopsis:
River is starting afresh at a new school and like everyone else, is drawn to the Grace siblings like a moth to a flame. When River manages to form a friendship with Summer Grace, her life becomes all that she wants it to be…but are the rumours of a Grace curse true?
Muster up the motivation because…
…this is a deep exploration of identity, loyalty, belonging and exerting one’s power in the fraught social world of the teenage years. I didn’t think that I would be pulled in to The Graces as much as I was, but I was quickly won over by the focus on character development and the ways in which people will lie, keep secrets and remake themselves in order to fit in. Everyone in River’s town believe that the Grace family are witches. The three Grace siblings – twins, Fenrin and Tahlia, and younger sister Summer – float through school untouched by the problems of the common people, despite rumours of revenge and trouble that may have been dished out to those who defied the Graces in the past. River, desperate to remake herself in this new environment, is somehow able to find her way into Summer’s good graces, and from there into the Grace family itself. What she discovers is a tight-knit, exclusionary, possibly paranoid vision of their place in the world – a place she wants to share. For the most part, this story is one firmly grounded in human relationships – parents exerting their will (and fears) on children, sibling loyalty, friendship defined by secrecy – but towards the end, a more obvious element of fantasy emerges. I was slightly disappointed by this, because I thought that the character development and psychological twisting and turning between the Grace siblings and River was compelling enough that the story didn’t need any fantastical trappings. Also, the fantasy element shows the story up as a series-opener, which heightened my disappointment. I felt that this story had everything it needed to pack a memorable and thought-provoking punch contained within its pages, without having to add anything other-wordly to the story, and I don’t want to see that watered down by a focus in the next book on fantasy, rather than human nature. Despite that little niggle at the end, I can heartily recommend this to readers of YA who are looking for an examination of human relationships and the price one might be willing to pay in order to be included.
Brand it with:
One of us; On the outer; Believing the rumours
The Lie Tree: Illustrated Edition (Frances Hardinge & Chris Riddell)
*We received a copy of The Lie Tree from PanMacmillan Australia for review*
Two Sentence Synopsis: 
Faith yearns to take a place alongside her famous scientist father, but is constrained by the social restrictions imposed on women of her time. When the family moves to an island to escape a scandal, Faith takes her chance to assume the mantle of natural scientist over a very strange plant indeed – and finds herself embroiled in a mystery that challenges all the assumptions that her father held dear.
Muster up the motivation because…
…Frances Hardinge is a class apart when it comes to writing for young people. In fact, I will go so far as to say that her books aren’t really young people’s books at all, but adult-reader-worthy books that happen to feature young protagonists. Having read plenty of Hardinge’s work before, I knew pretty well what I was in for with The Lie Tree, and that was exactly what I got: absorbing, evocative prose, strong female characters with obvious, yet useful flaws, plot twists, and an atmosphere that perfectly reflected the oppressive situation in which the protagonist finds herself. Faith is the eldest daughter of an (until-recently) esteemed natural scientist, who finds herself and her family spirited away to a remote island to avoid a scandal related to her father’s work. After uncovering some of her father’s secrets through slyness and stealth, Faith is presented with an opportunity to observe a mythical plant whose discovery could change the world. The story, like much of Hardinge’s work, unfolds slowly, with important information drip-fed to the reader. The historical setting of this particular tale added a great deal to the atmosphere, as did the focus on gender-based restrictions that require Faith to undertake much of her investigation covertly. This book really is absorbing, playing on ideas about the power of suggestion to create fear and generate a social environment which, already enmeshed in class-based strata and strict observance of propriety, is ripe for the dissemination of falsehood as truth, and opinion as fact. I received the illustrated edition of the book to review, with illustrations completed by (who other than) Chris Riddell, yet I found that the illustrations didn’t add a great deal to my experience of the book. Obviously, the illustrations are gorgeous and I enjoyed flicking across a full page line drawing every now and then in such a long book, but the narrative carries itself here, with Hardinge’s narrative imagery working its own magic. Riddell’s illustrative style is particularly suited to the dour, historical atmosphere of the story however and admittedly, it was fun to see the portrayals of characters whose physical features are as unflattering as their personalities. I would definitely recommend The Lie Tree to those who are already fans of Hardinge’s work, featuring as it does a similar dark and foreboding atmosphere as her recent publications, Cuckoo Song and A Face Like Glass. If you are a fan of historical fiction that carries a touch of the subversive, and are looking for a good mystery with a slightly magical twist, then you will find plenty to entice you with The Lie Tree.
Brand it with:
Keeping one’s enemies close; the stealth-inducing properties of crepe; born to be wild
The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily (Rachel Cohn & David Levithan)
* We received a copy of The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily from Allen & Unwin for review*
Two Sentence Synopsis:
The Twelve Days of Dash and Llily by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. Published by Allen & Unwin, 26th October, 2016. RRP: $19.99
Dash is concerned about his relationship with Lily, while Lily is depressed about her grandfather, Christmas and her relationship with Dash. Dash decides to break with tradition and surprise Lily with twelve days of happiness before Christmas to try and get their mutual groove back.
Muster up the motivation because…
…if you were a fan of the first book in this series (which I have not read), you will no doubt go ga-ga for this charming, festive offering. I really wanted to like this one, not least because of the delightful, quirky cover design, but I ended up DNFing at 68 pages. Romance and romantic relationships are just not my thing in fiction, but I can see why there was so much buzz about the first book in the series. The story is told from the alternating viewpoints of Dash and Lily. Dash opened this book, and I quickly found his self-deprecating dry humour quite disarming. I thought that I might actually find myself falling for a romance book! Then Lily took the helm and I just found her a bit too sheltered for my liking. When you are nearly 18 and can’t get over the fact that you don’t feel all that Christmassy at Christmas, I think you need to step out of your #firstworldproblems for a moment and appreciate what you’ve got. I did make the decision to put the book down during one of Lily’s sections, mostly because I didn’t think I could handle reading about such a young-seeming character as an adult reader. I can certainly see the appeal of the book and the series however and should warn you not to let my curmudgeonly attitude toward unspoiled, innocent souls put you off reading it if you are in the mood for a Christmassy, feelgood story.
Brand it with:
Christmas knits; holiday romance; Dash-ing through the not-snow
Surely there is something amongst these offerings to ignite the YA gleam in your eye and have you rushing out to muster up one of these titles!
Until next time,
Bruce
The Bookshelf Gargoyle 