Young Adult Books 2019

Our Librarian, Ms Kent-Sutton, has put together a list of ten of the best Young Adult books from recent months. It's below, but you can also download it (with images of covers) for printing out here. Included is the much-acclaimed first novel by Old Columban Sarah Davis-Goff.

1. Other Words For Smoke by Sarah Maria Griffin (Teen and Young Adult Book of the Year- An Post Book Awards)
The house at the end of the lane burned down, and Rita Frost and her teenage ward, Bevan, were never seen again. The townspeople never learned what happened. Only Mae and her brother Rossa know the truth; they spent two summers with Rita and Bevan, two of the strangest summers of their lives. Because nothing in that house was as it seemed: a cat who was more than a cat, and a dark power called Sweet James that lurked behind the wallpaper, enthralling Bevan with whispers of neon magic and escape. And in the summer heat, Mae became equally as enthralled with Bevan. Desperately in the grips of first love, she'd give the other girl anything. A dangerous offer when all that Sweet James desired was a taste of new flesh.

2. All The Invisible Things by Orlagh Collins
With Pez, the days felt endless - cycling, climbing trees, sucking sour sweets till our tongues burned. I'd give anything to be that girl again. For four years Vetty Lake has been keeping her heart in hiding. Since her mum died and her family moved out of London it's felt so much safer not to tell people how she really feels. She's never even told anyone she's attracted to girls as well as boys. But now Vetty's seventeen and coming back to London she's determined to start living out loud. She's convinced that reconnecting with her childhood best friend Pez is the key. She was always fearless around him. But when she sees Pez again, he's different. Guarded. It's like their special connection never existed. And suddenly Vetty's sure he's been hiding too.

3. The Places I’ve Cried in Public by Holly Bourne
Amelie loved Reese. And she thought he loved her. But she's starting to realise love isn't supposed to hurt like this. So now she's retracing their story and untangling what happened by revisiting all the places he made her cry. Because if she works out what went wrong, perhaps she can finally learn to get over him.

4. The M Word by Brian Conaghan
Moya. The M Word. Whisper it. Conceal it. But please, never mention it ... Maggie Yates talks to her best friend Moya every day. She tells her about Maggie's mum losing her job. She tells her that Mum's taken to not opening the curtains and crying in secret. And she tells her about how she plans to cheer Mum up - find her a fella with a bit of cash to splash. Moya is with her every step of the way. You're surfing a rainbow if you think someone like that exists round here , she smiles. But I'll help. But at the back of her mind Maggie knows that Mum's crying is more than sadness. That there are no easy fixes. And that Moya's not really there. Because though she talks to her every day, Moya died months ago...

5. Last Ones Left Alive by Sarah Davis-Goff
'You'll be terrified, fascinated and above all, uplifted by Orpen - a heroine to rival Philip Pullman's Lyra or The Passage's Amy'  (Stylist); 'Fiercely feminist, highly imaginative' (Observer). Raised by her mother and Maeve on Slanbeg, an island off the west coast of Ireland, Orpen has a childhood of love and stories by the fireside. But the stories grow darker, and the training begins. Ireland has been devoured by a ravening menace known as the skrake, and though Slanbeg is safe for now, the women must always be ready to run, or to fight. When Maeve is bitten, Orpen is faced with a dilemma: kill Maeve before her transformation is complete, or try to get help. So Orpen sets off, with Maeve in a wheelbarrow and her dog at her side, in the hope of finding other survivors, and a cure. It is a journey that will test Orpen to her limits, on which she will learn who she really is, who she really loves, and how to imagine a future in a world that ended before she was born.

6. All The Bad Apples by Moira Fowley-Doyle
The stunning new novel about silenced female voices, family secrets and dangerous truths from the author of The Accident Season.  On Deena's seventeenth birthday, the day she finally comes out to her family, her wild and mysterious sister Mandy is seen leaping from a cliff. The family is heartbroken, but not surprised. The women of the Rys family have always been troubled - 'bad apples', their father calls them - and Mandy is the baddest of them all. But then Deena starts to receive the letters. Letters from Mandy, claiming that their family's blighted history is not just bad luck or bad decisions, but a curse, handed down to the Rys women through the generations. Mandy has gone in search of the curse's roots, and now Deena must begin a desperate cross-country hunt for her sister, guided only by the letters that mysteriously appear in each new place. What Deena finds will heal their family's rotten past - or rip it apart forever.

7. Meat Market by Juno Dawson
Jana Novak's history sounds like a classic model cliché: tall and gangly, she's uncomfortable with her androgynous looks until she's unexpectedly scouted and catapulted to superstardom. But the fashion industry is as grimy as it is glamorous. And there are unexpected predators at every turn. Jana is an ordinary girl from a south London estate, lifted to unimaginable heights. But the further you rise, the more devastating your fall...

8. Perfectly Preventable Deaths by Deirdre Sullivan
 Sixteen-year-old twins Madeline and Catlin move to a new life in Ballyfrann, a strange isolated Irish town, a place where the earth is littered with small corpses and unspoken truths. A place where, for generations, teenage girls have gone missing in the surrounding mountains. As distance grows between the twins - as Catlin falls in love, and Madeline begins to understand her own nascent witchcraft - Madeline discovers that Ballyfrann is a place full of predators. And when Catlin falls into the gravest danger of all, Madeline must ask herself who she really is, and who she wants to be - or rather, who she might have to become to save her sister.

9. A Thousand Fires by Shannon PriceValerie Simons knows the Wars are dangerous--her little brother was killed by the Boars two years ago. But nothing will sway Valerie from joining the elite and beautiful Herons with her boyfriend Matthew to avenge her brother. But when Jax, the volatile and beyond charismatic leader of the Stags, promises her revenge, Valerie is torn between old love and new loyalty.

10.Toffee by Sarah Crossan (Laureate na nÓg)
I am not who I say I am. Marla isn't who she thinks she is. I am a girl trying to forget. Marla is a woman trying to remember. Allison has run away from home and with nowhere to live finds herself hiding out in the shed of what she thinks is an abandoned house. But the house isn't empty. An elderly woman named Marla, with dementia, lives there - and she mistakes Allison for an old friend from her past called Toffee. Allison is used to hiding who she really is, and trying to be what other people want her to be. And so, Toffee is who she becomes. After all, it means she has a place to stay. There are worse places she could be. But as their bond grows, and Allison discovers how much Marla needs a real friend, she begins to ask herself -where is home? What is a family? And most importantly, who am I, really?