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Teen SRC 2022 – Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Written by Amelia Tang
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Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

The book I recommend is called “Ace of Spades,” a splendid suspense novel. The main characters were a girl, Chiamaka and a boy named Devon. Two of them were the only two black students in this white-washed private school, Niveus, and became the elite school’s senior class “perfects” in their final year of high school. To become a “perfect,” you will need to achieve outstanding performance in your grades, extracurricular and contribution to the school. It was no surprise that Chiamaka was chosen, but it was strange for Devon to become ‘perfect’ since he is the “invisible” person in the school and doesn’t do much at school. Nevertheless, the beginning of the school year seemed excellent for them, and everything was under control until they were constantly being targeted and coincidently getting into trouble. Thus, together, they try to find out the truth about who is messing up with their senior academy life and who was the backstabbers. 

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Teen SRC 2022 – Shooter by Caroline Pignat

Written by Ethan L
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Shooter by Caroline Pignat

Shooter by Caroline Pignat

A lockdown surprises 5 grade 12 students, and they all end up in the same washroom. Alice, is an introvert who is really good at writing, she also has the responsibility to take care of her autistic brother Noah. Isabelle is the popular girl that everyone wants to be friends with, who has a big ego and sometimes only cares about herself. Then there’s Hogan, who used to be a football player, but is now someone feared by many because of the rumors going around that he killed his brother, he may seem scary but in the inside, he just needs someone to understand. There’s also the last guy named Xander, he’s socially awkward and sometimes says things that shouldn’t be said out loud. He’s always snapping pictures of random moments with his camera he calls “The Tank”. After a while, Isabelle gets a text from her best friend Brianna that this lockdown is not a drill, and there’s an actual shooter roaming around in the school, and it also turns out that one of the people know more about this shooter than they realized, and together they try to figure out what the shooter is trying to do, and how to stop them.

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Teen SRC 2021 – Things I Should Have Known by Claire Lazebnik

Written by Rahma Kabeer
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Things I Should Have Known - LaZebnik, Claire Scovell


I absolutely LOVED Things I Should have Known by Claire Lazebnik!

Chloe Mitchell is a wonderfully thought out character, who has excellent development!
Her older sister, Ivy is on the autism spectrum and is reliant on Chloe for a lot of things. Chloe decides that Ivy needs to become independent and get a boyfriend because she’s going to college. Ethan, a boy from Ivy’s special needs class would be a perfect candidate! She arranges the dates between Ivy and Ethan with the help of Ethan’s older brother David, a boy from school who is hated by the “cool kids”. She is worried about her life at school where she is popular but begins to feel like a fake with her boyfriend and amongst her friends. David and Chloe meet every time Ethan and Ivy do and that starts to create problems when rumours begin to fly.

They all bond with each other, but some bonds get stronger than others. 😉

This book has great representations and shocking twists that I didn’t see coming! I rate this book a 10/10!!

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Teen SRC 2021 – The Beauty That Remains by Ashley Woodfolk

Written by Rahma Kabeer
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The Beauty That Remains - Woodfolk, Ashley

The Beauty That Remains by Ashley Woodfolk is a heartbreaking story about loss. The story is told in the perspective of three characters, Shay, who lost her twin sister, Logan who lost his ex (a boy he still loved) and Autumn, who lost her best friend. The characters each use music to deal with grief.

What I loved about this book was how flawed the characters were. Logan using alcohol as a coping mechanism and Shay pushing her friends away made their emotions honest and real. It also made the book impossible to read without crying… Another great thing about this book was that the characters, although grieving, were still relatable.

I’d rate this book a 9/10. It got a lot of points for diversity and representation, though I’d argue that there was some underlying biphobia that should’ve been challenged as the characters developed.

Even though this book is sad, I would definitely recommend it! Happy reading!

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Teen SRC 2021 – Instant Karma by Marissa Meyer

Written by Casey
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Though I’d like to admit otherwise, what first drew me in to this book was the cute cover design. I was expecting a standard cheesy YA romance, but the story surprised me with it’s realistic characters and layered story.

Instant Karma by Marissa Meyer stars Prudence, “Pru” to her friends, over the course of her summer before junior year of high school. After a freak karaoke accident, Pru finds the universe has gifted her the ability to control karma. People she finds doing good are rewarded, and those who are mean or disrespectful are punished accordingly. Now she has the perfect opportunity to seek justice with her lazy, uncaring lab partner Quint, who’s responsible for her terrible biology grade.

What she can’t figure out is why he never seems to be brought to justice, no matter how many times she tries using her power. Forced together again as a last attempt to bring up her grade, Pru finds the more time she spends with Quint outside of class, the less unbearable he becomes. Even worse, his work and devotion to the local Sea Animal Rescue might even make him…cute.

Personally I was pleasantly surprised with Pru’s growth as a person over the months we follow her. I loved how the author managed to capture Pru’s thoughts and opinions. The reader may be able to see through her assumptions at times, but it’s easy to see why Pru herself thinks that way. Above all, her “karmatic insights” serve as a great way to illustrate the blurred line between justice and revenge, and the downfalls of quick judgments.

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Teen SRC 2021 – Tweet Cute by Emma Lord

Written by Rosie
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Tweet Cute: A Novel: Lord, Emma: 9781250237323: Books - Amazon.ca

I feel like I know what you’re thinking: Rosie writing another review on a YA romance?? ?

And yes, you are correct. I did indeed read yet another realistic fiction, teen romance novel this year :0

BUT — it’s because I was trying to get into the summer mindset and this just happened to scream teen spirit to me!!

And guess what? I liked it a lot more than Anna and the French Kiss! I know, crazy. Just read on to find out why <3

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord is the story of Pepper Evans and Jack Campbell. An enemies to friends to enemies to lovers. Yep. That’s basically it. But if you really want to get into it, let me tell you about these two, because I loved, loved, LOVED them. Remember how I commended Stephanie Perkins on making Anna and St. Clair relatively realistic and likable? Well Emma Lord blew this aspect out of the heckin’ park.

Pepper is an all-round amazing student. A perfect GPA, countless stellar extracurriculars and awards, and a naturally competitive spirit to top it all off. She’s smart, she’s driven, and she’s… lost? She isn’t quite sure what she wants to do in the future, so she’s just trying to do everything she can to make it into a top university for the time being. To add to her workload, her mother (the CEO of a huge fast-food chain, Big League Burger) is constantly asking Pepper to manage the business social media, posting snarky replies and funny tweets.

Jack, on the other hand, is the class clown, always just one step behind his incredibly popular twin, Ethan. His family runs a local deli (Girl Cheesing), and Jack’s been working there his entire life, and many of their loyal customers have watched him grow up. He knows that when he graduates, Ethan will be off changing the world, and he’ll be charged with staying and taking on the family business. Secretly though, Jack harbours dreams of going into app development and coding, and has already created several fun and unique apps.

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Teen SRC 2021 – A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

Written by Olivia X
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Book rating: 5
Book summary: This book is about seventeen-year-old Pip, a senior in high school. Five years ago in Fairview, the small town Pip lives in, there was a murder. Andie Bell, the popular, pretty girl, was dead. Just a few days after, her boyfriend’s body is found lifeless in the woods. Police investigate the case, and proclaim that Sal Singh murdered Andie Bell, and had killed himself afterwards. But because Sal is dead, no one knows for sure. Five years later, and still everyone thinks of Andie’s boyfriend as a monster. Until Pip comes along and decides to investigate further into the case for her capstone project. Little did she know how much of the alleged “murder” had been kept a secret for all those years.
Book review: I like this book so much because it’s fast-paced and straight to the point. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder has endless plot twists, all of which you never would have imagined. Just when you think you’ve got everything figured out, the author hurls another suspect, clue, or piece of evidence at you and suddenly everything changes. It’s such a fun read and so thrilling that you won’t be able to put it down.

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Teen SRC 2020 – Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Written by Angela Y
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Stargirl Book Spoilers | POPSUGAR Entertainment

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli is a renowned and critically acclaimed young adult novel which was published in August 2000. Like many of Spinelli’s other young adult novels, Stargirl deals with issues of conformity versus individuality, leaving the novel to resonate with various demographics from young adults to adult educators alike.

    Leo Borlock is an eleventh grader who would like nothing more than to conform within his stereotypical high school environment. However, Leo and the rest of Mica high school become torn away from their conventional existence by the arrival of Stargirl Caraway, a defiant and eccentric student who has been homeschooled her entire life and is now attending high school for the first time.  In the first half of the school year, Leo observes Stargirl’s abnormal actions and how his classmates react to her strange lifestyle.  At first, the students are suspicious of Stargirl’s eccentric nature and are hesitant to socialize with her. As the story progresses, some of the students are influenced by Stargirl’s individuality and become more open-minded themselves.

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Teen SRC 2020- Most Likely by Sarah Watson

Written by Inshal
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Most Likely

Most Likely by Sarah Watson can be described as a most interestingly structured coming-of-age story about four girls and their friendship. So, you ask, what’s so interesting about the book’s structure?

Well, the story begins with a scene, as follows: A newly-elected (female!) American president is about to be sworn in to office. Her husband (who’s last name is Diffendefer or something like that) is there by her side. It is also revealed that her husband and her are deeply in love and have been for a long time. The catch? We don’t know her name. Since there are four protagonists in the story, she could be any one of them. Throughout the book, we are given clues to help us guess which of our female leads becomes the future president of America (and ends up marrying Diffendefer).

And of course, while the reader plays with the idea of guessing/choosing a president, the four girls -Ava, CJ, Jordan, and Martha- are each going through their own battle in the war more commonly known as senior year in high school.

So. What did I think of the book?

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Teen SRC 2019 – Take a Bow by Elizabeth Eulberg

Written by Joy Qian
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Okay. So, because I trust you guys (mostly), I have decided that you guys should know what’s been up with me. Here goes nothing: I got an AVM.

Image result for take a bow book

And, FYI, I’m not gonna spend my precious time explaining what that is. You have Google. Use it.

Now. Enough about me. Let’s talk books. Take a Bow is truly a book I’ll read again and again, and never get tired of it. This book has 4 main characters: Emme, Sophie, Carter, and Ethan. All 4 of them are students at this fancy performing arts school, where being famous is the overall goal. But for Emme, Carter, and Ethan, that’s not who they aspire to be. Ethan starts falling for Emme, while Carter seems to have vicious difficulties of his own, including his controlling girlfriend Sophie. While Ethan, Carter, and Emme prefer to stay in the shadows, Sophie would stop at nothing to become a star. Even if it means betraying her best friend, Emme.

Honestly, when I finished the book, I wanted to crawl inside and hug all the characters a trillion times! This book was so adorably funny, I definitely recommend you read it!

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