Teen Book Reviews
The library invites Chatham teens and tweens to write honest book reviews in exchange for credit for volunteer hours! Find the guidelines below:
- All reviews must be of books selected from the library’s YA or Adult sections. Books must be read in their entirety.
- Books must be age and reading-level appropriate for the teen/tween submitting the review.
- Plagiarism is strictly prohibited and will result in loss of review privileges.
- Reviews that are inappropriate or incomplete will not be accepted.
- By submitting a review, you understand that your review may be posted along with your name and age on the website and/or social media pages of Library of the Chathams.
- Each reviewer is limited to two book reviews per month.
- Reviewers will receive 1 volunteer hour per 100 pages read (e.g., a 350-page book will receive 3.5 hours of credit).
- Reviews should be between 200 and 400 words and include a rating using the following 5-star system:
One Star ⭐ – I hated it.
Two Stars ⭐⭐ – It was just okay.
Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐ – I liked it.
Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐ – It was really good.
Five Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – It was amazing!
Please use the form below to submit your review. We appreciate your contribution!
Recent Reviews
Ukraine: Remember Also Me: Testimonies from the War by George Butler
5 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – It was amazing!
Ukraine: Remember Also Me: Testimonies from the War written by George Butler is a book composed of interviews with victims of the Russo-Ukraine war. The narratives vary from soldiers to teachers, to civilians, all telling their own personal, yet terrible stories about their connections to the war. In this book, Butler highlights the terrifying reality of war and the ultimate sacrifices that it forces people to make. This book is different from other war books because it covers lesser-known aspects and consequences of war that the media doesn’t always cover such as a woman hiding in a basement, trying to find food for her distressed family.
In this book, I like how George Butler showcases the raw interviews. He, of course, adds comments for context and footnotes but, he lets the interviewee tell their story and keeps it just as he heard it. He also provides the reader with lots of illustrations either depicting various events or portraying the people he interviews, which are helpful in giving you a deeper understanding of the circumstances of the story. I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars and would recommend it to anybody who is interested in learning about the devastating effects of war, particularly the war happening in Ukraine.
The Institute by Stephen King
4 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐ – It was really good.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
5 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – It was amazing!
Have you ever wondered how society would function without rules? In Lord of the Flies, a novel by William Golding, a plane full of kids crashes onto an island with no humans. They start by helping each other out, with the hope of being rescued, but as that hope diminishes, they fight each other for power and influence. They try to keep any peace that they have but, when sightings of a beast start to occur, the leaders turn against each other. As the measures and rivalries become more and more extreme alongside rules broken, the chaos on the island only grows, and you wonder if it will ever end.
I like that this book reflects the reality of politics by showcasing manipulation, fear, and mudslinging. The island’s leaders demonstrate varied priorities and ideals to appeal to different kids. Another thing I like about the book is that everything happens for a reason. The author uses symbolism and irony to create multiple brilliant sublevels in the story. There isn’t much not to like about this classic book and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in politics, adventure, and survival.
-John, 15 — March 2025
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Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
5 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – It was amazing!
“The tide runs out but never runs in. The stones roll downhill but do not roll back up.”
This quote and the book in general have a few paradoxes that their characters struggle to escape. Of course the tide runs back in, that’s why there’s high tide and low tide, duh, but this paradox stems from the conflicting beliefs of many of the main characters–they are afraid of life, because it only leads to death, and they are afraid of the uncertainty of death. Yet they also have such a deep love for the preciousness of life. They’re only scared because of how hard it is to hold on to.
The novel takes place in a cemetery over the course of a night, and almost every character is a kind of ghost. Their loosely-defined existence exists in “the Bardo”, which is also loosely defined. It’s related to Buddhism but also many other religions and mythologies. The Bardo is a place in Buddhism where the dead wait for their next life to begin, but in this novel it’s also very similar to Christian ideas of purgatory. There’s not just the uncertainty of death but the uncertainty of whether the characters are actually dead–if maybe there’s a way for them to come back.
What’s so great about the book is the way it’s told, through both the voices of the dead, kind of like a movie script, and quotes from historical accounts. The quotes contradict each other a lot, and the order they’re put in makes them seem to argue with each other, mirroring the petty fights of the ghost characters. Standing at the center of the book and the center of the cemetery is Abraham Lincoln, whose son Willie has just died. He tries to sort out the conflicting accounts in his head and the duelling desires in his heart, as we see if he can manage to free himself from grief and free the ghost of his son from the Bardo.
-Natalie, 16 — March 2025
Gone by Michael Grant
5 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – It was amazing!
Imagine a giant impenetrable bubble covers your entire town and everyone above the age of 15 disappears and kids start getting superpowers. This is basically the plot of Gone by Michael Grant. The book incorporates many themes and tropes from other books such as survival of the fittest, and utter despair. This book gets especially gory and horrifying as it goes on as the kids realize with no adults around, they can do whatever they want. It doesn’t help that the school for troubled kids is also in the bubble and some of them are murderous and manipulative. Heroes rise and fall, and there are multiple superpowered battles. I like how this book conveys concepts of utter despair and unimaginable pain and how it affects these kids. This book explains how this community of mostly children is able to organize and help each other but also the negatives that come with a society run by teenagers. It’s a lot similar to Lord of the Flies with the kids forming their own cliques and murdering each other with many horrors in nature that attack the kids. I rate this book a 5 because it is such a unique idea and Grant amazingly conveys these very heavy topics onto kids.
-Ethan, 16 — February 2025
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
5 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – It was amazing!
Terry Pratchett was the bestselling author of the UK during the 1990s, even beating out JK Rowling for that number one spot. Night Watch, which came out just on the outside of the decade, in 2002, makes his books from the 90s look like the kind of drafts that get crumpled up one by one and tossed in the can. Although almost all of his novels are part of the Discworld fantasy series, what makes them so accessible is that they all can stand alone too, and each can be read and enjoyed on its own.
Night Watch is more serious and also still more funny than anything else Terry Pratchett had ever written. Even though the main character, Commander of the Watch Sam Vimes, had already appeared in many Discworld novels before, he gets a full two character arcs in this story, as he travels into the past and ends up mentoring a younger version of himself. Pratchett doesn’t bog you down in the details of how this time travel works. He instead just asks us to believe that it does, just like Sam Vimes must simply believe that he’ll be able to guide young Sam onto the right path. This belief is difficult for Sam at first, but being removed from all of the comfort of his future life grounds him in his duty.
The satire is what really makes the book great, and with this story of a familiar world told through the perspective of the city’s head of law enforcement, we see how little law or enforcement there is to go around. Vimes’ anger at this past, with its chaos, its failed revolutions and its unlimited supply of apathy, reaches a boiling point, and he has to learn to restrain himself if he’s ever going to make it home. He feels the need to bring back justice to this place, but he has to learn that punishment isn’t always justice.
-Natalie, 16 — January 2025
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Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
4 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐ – It was really good.
What would you do if you accidentally started a nationwide rebellion? In Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, Katniss faces the consequences of her reckless actions in the previous Hunger Games. The government sees her behavior as an act of defiance and soon enough, so do the rest of the districts. Can she get out of this situation without causing any more chaos and death? Read Catching Fire to find out.
I liked that this book covered some unanswered questions from the last Hunger Games book because while the last book had a happy ending, it was inevitable that something would come of Katniss’ and Peeta’s rebellion. I also like how action-packed this book is. The stakes are high and you’re always wondering what will happen next.
However, I don’t like how this book feels the same as the last one. While the plot is different, many things that happen are similar to the last book and it gives me the feeling of rereading it. Katniss also seems like a completely new person in this book and even if that was intentional, it threw me off a little bit. Overall, I would give this book a rating of 4 stars and recommend it to anyone who has read Hunger Games or anyone who likes a high-stakes action book.
-John, 14 — June 2024
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Insurgent by Veronica Roth
4 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐ – It was really good.
The novel Insurgent by Veronica Roth is the thrilling sequel to the dystopian Divergent. This novel follows the main character, Tris, and her life on the run from the Erudite leader, Jeanine Matthews, along with her allies. Throughout the entire novel, Tris encounters and learns to cope with the grief of losing loved ones. The winding plot of Tris trying to find out what her parents died trying to protect and why Erudite is so focused on making sure she doesn’t find out what they are hiding keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time. As the factions crumble, reading about Tris and how she navigates both her feelings and becoming an emerging secessionist I find myself realizing how well this novel encapsulates our own dystopian and technological fears for our society.
As someone who loved Divergent, I can confidently say that Insurgent is a wonderful and exciting sequel to the former. I love the unique concept of different factions separating groups of people in a dystopian world, and I find the aspects of technology explained throughout the novel to be innovative and fascinating. For anyone who loves a dystopian thriller that keeps them on their toes until the very end, this series is definitely the one for you!
-Grace, 18 — April 2024
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Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide by Isabel Quintero
3 stars⭐⭐⭐ – I liked it.
How long does it take for you to take a photo? A couple seconds, right? Well for Graciela Iturbide, it sometimes took days. Graciela became obsessed with photography as a child, when she kept stealing her dad’s photos. One day, her dad had enough and bought her a small, cheap, old camera. Even with a dusty, old camera, Graciela made masterpieces. It wasn’t long before she was flying around the world to take photos.
I like how this book was able to provide a background or explanation of many of her photos. The reader understands what is happening in the photo and how she took it. Sometimes, you even find that the story behind the photo is more interesting than the photo itself. However, some parts were unclear, such as how she had enough money to pursue photography. At times, it felt like the book was making 10-year jumps in her life with no context. While exciting at first, the story quickly became repetitive with some of the main aspects being left out. I rate this book 3 stars because while it taught me a lot about her life and rules around photography, some parts seemed to be left out.
-John, 14 — January 2024
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The Hive by Barry Lyga
4 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐ – It was really good.
Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if the Internet had rules about what you say? The Hive, by Barry Lyga, is a dystopian novel set in the future where a girl named Cassie moves to a new school after her father – who was a coder – dies. At this new school, some bad friends pressure her to make a rude comment about the president’s baby, and the hive ( an online app made by the government where everyone can decide if they like her comment or condemn it) goes crazy about it. Cassie blows up on the Internet as people disapprove of her comment. Before she knows it, she has a target on her back and is running for her life. I liked this book because it’s exciting and fast-paced. The writing is so immersive that you feel like you’re running right alongside Cassie. The buildup is exciting and there is never a dull moment. While there is almost nothing not to like about this book, one exception would be the resolution. While the rising action and climax were exciting, I felt let down by the ending. The ending almost seemed like the author needed to wrap up the story. The ending also felt irrelevant to the other parts of the story. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the future or technology because the book is set in the future and about technology turning on you.
-John, 13 — October 2023
