Yay, I'm on the first page
I went to America for my hols, so lots of time for reading (and visiting your amazing, huge, bookshops).
First I read
THE LIST by Siobhan Vivian, which I've been looking forward to for ages. It didn't disappoint - excellent characterisation, with flawed MCs and no stereotypical bitchy cheerleader antags. The bittersweet ending was also extremely well-done.
Next was
UNQUIET SPIRITS by the maginificent
K.M. Peyton. One of her more recent ones (1997) but all of her books feel pretty timeless - it could have been set any time between 1970-2014. It was a ghost story and a love story at once - about a London girl who moves to the countryside and falls in love with the heir to a run-down, haunted manor house - their relationship (and names) mirroring a doomed love story 500 years before. Sounds cliche but it's done well, all beautiful, haunting prose and description, and just general creepiness (although it's not a horror). Definitely worth a read, even if the ending is a bit too neat.
Then I read
WE WERE LIARS by e lockhart. It cost me $17.99 for the US hardback which I wouldn't have paid if I'd known they were doing a UK paperback for £6.99, but I had been looking forward to it so much I blew some of my holiday money and got it.
Most of the book was boring, with the occasional bit of weird, trippy, try-hard prose that jolted me out of the story, and then the ending was desperately sad and depressing. That was not the twist I was hoping for. While WWL was well-written, mostly, and clever, thoughtful, with bits of lovely description, it just didn't come even close to the hype. So disappointed.
Next was
TROUBLE by Non Pratt. A good UKYA contemp about a 15-yr-old girl who gets pregnant and the new boy at school who offers to pretend to be the father. While not particularly new or groundbreaking, it was well written and made me want to read on to discover the two POVs' respective secrets (who the babydaddy was and why the boy, Aaron, had moved schools). I guessed both pretty early on, but by then I was into the book. Definitely worth a read, but one I'll probably forget pretty easily.