Excellent Teen Reads

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

“Benny Imura couldn’t hold a job, so he took to killing.” So begins what on the surface is yet another post-apocalyptic zombie book, but in reality is much more. Kids today only remember life after First Night, when the dead rose from their graves and the world became overrun with zombies. In the fortified town of Mountainside, California, Benny has just turned fifteen, the age where you either get a job or your rations are cut in half. He agrees to apprentice with Tom, his bounty hunter brother, and reluctantly follows him into the rot and ruin of the world outside of the fences. Maberry takes classic elements of the horror genre and bends them into a coming of age story about truth, honor, love, and the ethics of zombie hunting. The emotional revelations and Benny’s introspective examination of what truly makes a monster are balanced by heart pounding action sequences throughout the novel. The zombie trading card illustrations found on the endpapers will be a special treat for teens. Highly recommended for fans of Rick Yancey’s Monstromologist series and Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth. This book will transform how readers feel about the walking dead.

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

On the American Gulf Coast in a future that probably isn’t too far from now, the space between the haves and the have-nots has never been wider. The only way to bridge that gap and escape a life of backbreaking labor is a lucky strike, a stroke of extreme good luck. Nailer is a ship breaker, scavenging copper and other metals from the skeletons of former oil tankers washed up on shore. When a hurricane beaches a luxury yacht filled with valuables, Nailer knows this is his once in a lifetime opportunity to make a better life for himself. However, fate has other plans for Nailer and he is forced to choose between stripping the boat and saving its lone survivor. Bacigalupi vividly draws a world where the polar ice caps have melted and the seas have risen, where your crew is your family and the line between right and the power of might is razor thin. This will be a great addition to any young adult or science fiction collection. Recommended for readers who enjoyed Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy and James Dashner’s The Maze Runner. 

The Recruit by Robert Muchamore

James Choke and James Bond share a first name and a profession, but that is where all similarity ends. There are no unbelievable high tech gadgets or daring down to the last second bomb defusions to be found in this first installment of the Cherub series. James is a troubled kid set on a course that will probably end with him serving jail time. Cherub, a fictional division of the British government that trains kids to be spies, plucks James from social services and offers him the opportunity to change his destiny. Readers follow James through basic training (envision Navy Seal training for twelve-year-olds), and through the completion of his first mission. The villains are not criminal masterminds with plots to take over the world but eco-terrorists wanting to stop the destruction of oil corporations and James discovers that good people get hurt in the name of justice. While James is a deeply flawed protagonist and his character development is superficial, boys will connect with his desire to be tough and save face in front of peers. Those who enjoy Anthony Horowitz’s teen spy Alex Rider will find James to be his gritty and more abrasive cousin. 

Stop by the teen department to pick up any of these page turning reads!