It is tricky buying books for anyone so over the next two weeks we will be posting up book ideas most days for a bunch of different age groups.
Young teenage girls are not as hard to buy for as teenage boys so we took the easy option to discuss first. Though many boys will enjoy these stories too.
The choices here are all well written and all provide drama and an absorbing story to get stuck into and most of them will also quench the thirst that many young girls have these days for true crime.
It’s a mystery why they love it so much but they do!
We suggest 13 but 14 year olds and older will also enjoy these ; kids can be so different. For some thirteen year olds they might be too grown up, and for some of them (American Royals series for instance) they will be suitable for twelve year olds.
American Royals by Katarine McGee (2019)
The first book in this New York Times Bestselling series which imagines if America had a Royal Family and it is non-stop, entertaining drama with American princesses Beatrice and Samantha. This is the first book of five.
When America won the Revolutionary War, its people offered General George Washington a crown. Two and a half centuries later, the House of Washington still sits on the throne.
As Princess Beatrice gets closer to becoming America’s first queen regnant, the duty she has embraced her entire life suddenly feels stifling.
Nobody cares about the spare except when she’s breaking the rules, so Princess Samantha doesn’t care much about anything, either . . . except the one boy who is distinctly off-limits to her.
And then there’s Samantha’s twin, Prince Jefferson. If he’d been born a generation earlier, he would have stood first in line for the throne, but the new laws of succession make him third. Most of America adores their devastatingly handsome prince . . . but two very different girls are vying to capture his heart.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson (2019)
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is the first of three books that should be read in order.
Each book exposes more secrets – the second is “Good Girl Bad Blood” the second is “As Good as Dead” being the final novel in the thriller trilogy that young girls cannot get enough of.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, is also the name of a true-crime podcast that the main character Pip started doing in the first book.
Pip is a great main character – she is smart and likes figuring things out and in her true crime podcasts she tries to solve murders.
Pip is like a detective and has trauma from the previous murder cases that she solved. In the final book she ends up being the case. Exhilarating read this one and the other two are just as good. \
“It only Happens in the Movies” by Holly Bourne (2018)
Bourne is huge among young teens thanks to her popular “Spinster Club” series. The best books are funny and sad at the same time because that is what life is like and this book balances the poignant and heartbreakingly so well.
It is partly about falling in love and getting swept away when you feel the wool has been pulled under you. And it is about being strong and knowing when to put yourself first.
Audrey, upset after a nasty break-up and overwhelmed with anxiety about her parents divorce, is not shopping around for love – especially not with her zombie-obsessed coworker Harry. But sometimes it feels like you cannot control what is happening in your life.
“I have some questions for you” by Rebecca Makkai (2023)
A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past—the family tragedy that darkened her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the murder of her former roommate, Thalia Keith, in the spring of their senior year.
Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia’s death and the conviction of the school’s athletic trainer, Omar Evans, are hotly debated online, Bodie prefers—needs—to let sleeping dogs lie.
“Two can keep a secret” by Karen McManus (2019)
Echo Ridge is small-town America. Ellery’s never been there, but she’s heard all about it. Her aunt went missing there at age seventeen. And only five years ago, a homecoming queen put the town on the map when she was killed. Now Ellery has to move there to live with a grandmother she barely knows.
The town is picture-perfect, but it’s hiding secrets. And before school even begins for Ellery, someone’s declared open season on homecoming, promising to make it as dangerous as it was five years ago. Then, almost as if to prove it, another girl goes missing.
Ellery knows all about secrets. Her mother has them; her grandmother does too. And the longer she’s in Echo Ridge, the clearer it becomes that everyone there is hiding something. The thing is, secrets are dangerous–and most people aren’t good at keeping them. Which is why in Echo Ridge, it’s safest to keep your secrets to yourself.
