Sinister experiments and girl-power cults feature in August's young adult titles

Irish Times

2 days ago

'Saving Asha. That's my religion. That's my science. It's based on love and hope and not giving up. Ever.' In Kathryn Clark's debut,
Things I Learned While I Was Dead
(Faber, £8.99), we witness sisterly love taken to the extreme when Calico volunteers to be cryogenically frozen along with the dying Asha, as part of an experiment that may sound a tad dodgy, but is the only option left.
Waking up decades later, after the 'Green War' has changed everything (there's a nice nod to 'Global Eco President Thunberg'), Calico discovers there's still no cure available, and that she's one of several teenagers in a former prison that feels like somewhere people 'go to rot'.
As the thriller unfolds, there are also chapters in verse from Asha's perspective – cryptic lines about life or death that contribute to the uneasy sense that all is not quite as it seems in this 'vast but empty' space.
The book closes with an epilogue that lapses into triteness a little too often, an unnecessary coda for this thought-provoking exploration of medical ethics and the nature of grief. This is sci-fi with a big heart, demonstrating the power of speculative fiction to tackle some of life's hardest challenges. I am excited to see what this writer does next.
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Lauren Wilson's
The Goldens
(Harper Fire, £8.99) tugs us into the web of a 'perplexing gossamer thread of a human, every inch of her glittering gold'. Chloe, an aspiring writer unsure how to fit in at university, finds herself 'bewitched' by wealthy, glamorous Clara from the instant they meet. Thrillingly, Clara seems to be drawn to her too, and that feeling of being chosen is a heady one.
'In my experience, by the age of eighteen, every girl knows another girl that she would follow to the very ends of the earth. For me, that girl was Clara Holland.'
Soon, they're living together, and it's all so lovely that Clara decides to invite others – reaching out to her vast army of online followers – into the circle. So begins the Goldens – 'the ultimate girl gang', a group of 'strong, beautiful, independent young women' who may or may not be a little cult-like.
But people are always critical of such feminist enterprises, aren't they – and what evidence is there, really, that Clara has anything to do with that girl who never made it home alive from one of her extravagant parties?
This appealingly glossy thriller is given depth by Chloe's scepticism – despite her attraction to Clara, she's also aware that the rhetoric is a little much. 'When all was laid bare,' she thinks, 'she was a pretty, privileged girl opening up her lovely home to girls just like her ... Surely, the only young woman she was empowering in this scenario was herself?'
What Chloe gets from this isn't just proximity to the golden girl – it's what seems like a real career opportunity in the form of ghostwriting a book. Her complicated motivations make her plausible and relatable; this is a compelling, fun summer read.
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Mary Watson is having a busy 2025, with an adult thriller out earlier this year; her latest YA novel is
Strange Nature
(Bloomsbury, £9.99), in which Jasmin distracts herself from her impending Leaving Cert by falling in with a charismatic crowd of college students, hanging around on the campus she still associates with her now-disgraced professor grandfather.
His career-destroying act of violence shattered her family, but his research, we discover, remains an active influence on some sinister experiments being carried out today. (We may note here that fiction tends to over-represent the percentage of highly-dubious medical experiments; the ones that follow the rules make for far less interesting tales.)
'The Wellness Formula,' we are told, 'is the blueprint for living an optimum life in the modern world. Guided by the very latest scientific advances, we take a holistic approach, one that challenges the usual assumptions around what we need to be in optimal health.'
It all sounds marvellous, but with a suspicious death on campus, it may be time to start asking some questions about research ethics. This is a delightful read for fans of dark academia and mad scientists, and it's pleasing to see these tropes play out on an Irish canvas.
'As far as Roscoe is concerned, the accident last year never happened. I can be free of it, as easy as surrendering to the sea. I can be Iggy again, who loves to swim, and hang out, and bump into cute strangers on their paddle-boards. It hadn't occurred to me before now, but it seems totally possible that this summer I could start again. Why didn't I think of this sooner?'
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The space between tagline and title evaporates with Daniel Tawse's
This Book Will Make You Cry
(Hodder, £9.99). I wondered initially if we were in for some metatextual fun, a tear-jerking book within a tear-jerking book, but quickly and glumly realised we are now in an era where sales and marketing teams are skipping straight to BookTok descriptions.
Despite shadowy references to an accident of the previous year, this is a fairly predictable queer summer romance – though what a joy to live in an era where there's a sufficient volume of titles for this sentiment to even be possible.
The twist here, though clever, is one many readers will spot in advance. The emotional intensity is skilfully conveyed but the love interest himself is remarkably bland (bonding over a shared love of pizza and Pixar movies echoes Phoebe Buffay being astonished she and her birth mother agree that puppies are cute rather than ugly; this may be a return to the dark days of 'insta-love'). While this book did not make me cry, it did have me rooting very much for Iggy and their emotional journey.
Finally, Becki Jayne Crossley tackles a lot in
Tart
(Bloomsbury, £8.99), which opens with a boy on a bike landing in a coma and then jumps to what his girlfriend, Libby, was getting up to: 'I stood in front of a group of poisonous teenage girls and kissed a boy that wasn't my boyfriend. They filmed it from at least three different angles, so I get to relive the memory I don't fully possess every time I open a social media app.'
Libby's ostracisation at school is brilliantly, hauntingly depicted; that very particular brand of girl-gang cruelty leaps from the page. Fortunately, there's new girl Neha, who's shocked no one realises Libby's the victim here; a few small acts of kindness between the two bring them together and the sparks begin to fly.
Neha's worried her crush on her new friend will make things weird – and anyway, isn't Libby grieving her comatose boyfriend? Meanwhile, Libby's never felt this way about a girl before ...
We can see where it's going, but this is sort of the point: it is a wholesome and optimistic hug of a book. Some of the more serious topics, like Neha's grief over her dead parents, feel sidelined in favour of the fuzzy (though worthy) joy of finding your tribe, and there's a twist that resolves the potential conflict a little too easily. One for Heartstopper fans; the gritty-realist aficionados should go elsewhere.