Favourite Aussie YA books

Author	Melina Marchetta
ISBN	0375829830

MOST OF MY friends now go to Pius Senior College, but my mother wouldn't allow it because she says the girls there leave with limited options and she didn't bring me up to have limitations placed upon me. If you know my mother, you'll sense there's an irony there, based on the fact that she is the Queen of the...

Author	Cath Crowley
ISBN	0330425781

Lucy is in love with Shadow, a mysterious graffiti artist.

Ed thought he was in love with Lucy, until she broke his nose.

Dylan loves Daisy, but throwing eggs at her probably wasn't the best way to show it.

Jazz and Leo are slowly encircling each other.

An intense and...

Author	Jaclyn Moriarty
ISBN	0312287364

A funny, touching, revealing story written entirely in the form of letters, messages, postcards - and bizarre missives. Hilariously candid, shows that the roller coaster ride of being a teenager is every bit as fun as we remember--and every bit as harrowing.

Life is pretty complicated for...

Author	Kirsty Eagar
ISBN	0143011456

Carly has dropped out of uni to spend her days surfing and her nights working as a cook in a Manly cafe. Surfing is the one thing she loves doing... and the only thing that helps her stop thinking about what happened two years ago at schoolies week.

And then Carly meets Ryan, a local at the break, fresh...

Author	Cath Crowley
ISBN	0375860967

A summer of friendship, romance, and songs in major chords. . .

CHARLIE DUSKIN loves music, and she knows she's good at it. But she only sings when she's alone, on the moonlit porch or in the back room at Old Gus's Secondhand Record and CD Store. Charlie's mom and grandmother have both died, and...

Author	Jaclyn Moriarty
ISBN	0439740517

Bindy Mackenzie believes herself to be the smartest, kindest girl at Ashbury High. Unfortunately, she is alone in that belief.

To prove her likeability, Bindy decides to document her life in transcripts, essays, and e-mails. What this reveals is a girl who's funny, passionate, hilariously...

Author	Melina Marchetta
ISBN	0670076244

There's a babe in my belly that whispers the valley, Froi. I follow the whispers and come to the road . . .

Separated from the girl he loves and has sworn to protect, Froi must travel through Charyn to search for Quintana, the mother of Charyn's unborn king, and protect her against those who will...

Author	Jaclyn Moriarty
ISBN	0545069726

This is the story of Amelia and Riley, bad kids from bad Brookfield High who have transferred to Ashbury High for their final year. They've been in love since they were fourteen, they go out dancing every night, and sleep through school all day. And Ashbury can't get enough of them.

Everyone's...

Author

John Marsden

Scarred, literally, by her past, Marina has withdrawn into silence. Then, at her new boarding school, she is set the task of writing a diary by her English teacher, and finds a way of expressing her thoughts and feelings and of exploring the traumatic events that have caused her distress. Through Marina's...

Author	Kathy Charles
ISBN	1439187592

IN THE END WE ALL FADE TO BLACK. Pink-haired Hilda and oddball loner Benji are not your typical teenagers. Instead of going to parties or hanging out at the mall, they comb the city streets and suburban culs-de-sac of Los Angeles for sites of celebrity murder and suicide. Bound by their interest in the...

Author	Marianne Curley
ISBN	0743437691

Jarrod Thornton is mesmerizing, but Kate Warren doesn't know why.

The moment the new guy walks into the room, Kate senses something strange and intense about him. Something supernatural. Her instincts are proven correct a few minutes later when, bullied by his classmates, Jarrod unknowingly...

Author	Simmone Howell
ISBN	1599900424

Riley Rose, atheist and bad girl, has been tricked into attending Spirit Ranch, a Christian camp. There she meets Dylan Kier, alumni camper and recent paraplegic, who arrives with a chip on his shoulder and a determination to perfect all of his bad habits. United in their personal suffering and in their...

Author	Brigid Lowry
ISBN	0312342969

My name is Rosie Moon. I am nearly sixteen. I'm hungry for a juicy life. I lean out the window at night and I can taste it out there, waiting for me.

Popular and smart, fifteen-year-old Rosie Moon is the quintessential good girl. She also wishes she could be someone else for a while, someone more...

Author

Gabrielle Williams

I literally feel more disappointment with myself for not liking this than I do with this book for letting me down. I never begin reading a book thinking that I'll dislike it; I read for enjoyment, not self-torture. And since this is realistic fiction, a genre which has quickly risen to top position on my...

Author

Randa Abdel-Fattah

Randa Abdel-Fattah's new novel about finding your place in life . . . and learning to accept yourself and your culture.

At school I'm Aussie-blonde Jamie -- one of the crowd. At home I'm Muslim Jamilah -- driven mad by my Stone Age dad. I should win an Oscar for my acting skills. But I can't keep it...

Author

Nick Earls

Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight is two weeks in the life of Joel Hedges and Cat Davis. Joel would prefer to get through his final year of high school without Cat Davis or his mother's faux Spanish boyfriend and just hang-out with his best-friend Luke. Cat Davis has an annoying best-friend, and even more...

Author	Garth Nix
ISBN	0060278250

The Ninth was strong and fought with might
But lone Orannis was put out of the light
Broken in two and buried under hill
Forever to lie there, wishing us ill.

So says the song. But Orannis, the Destroyer, is no longer buried under hill. It has been freed from its subterranean prison...

Author

Vikki Wakefield

Mim knows what she wants, and where she wants to go — anywhere but home, stuck in the suburbs with her mother who won't get off the couch, and two brothers in prison. She's set herself rules to live by, but she's starting to break them.

Now Mim has to retrieve a lost package for her mother.

Does...

Author	Kate McCaffrey
ISBN	1921064579

When Avalon moves to the city her life is turned upside down. Starting at a new high school, she finds herself at the centre of a brutal cyber-bullying campaign. She is inundated with obscene text messages, and subject to increasingly vicious web site postings, as things spiral out of control.

Miserable...

Author	Phillip Gwynne
ISBN	0141300493

'Deadly, unna?' He was always saying that. All the Nungas did, but Dumby more than any of them. Dumby Red and Blacky don't have a lot in common. Dumby's the star of the footy team, he's got a killer smile and the knack with girls, and he's a Nunga. Blacky's a gutless wonder, needs braces, never knows what to...

Author	Marianne de Pierres
ISBN	1864719885

Retra braves the intense pain of her obedience strip, and stows away to seek her brother Joel, gone two years for Ixion - island of ever-night, ever-youth and never-sleep. Retra is a Seal – sealed minds, sealed community - no craving for parties or pleasure.

What are the Night Creatures Retra...

Author	Justine Larbalestier
ISBN	1599903016

Welcome to New Avalon, where everyone has a personal fairy. Though invisible to the naked eye, a personal fairy - like a specialized good luck charm - is vital to a person's success. It might determine whether you make a sports team, pass a class, or find that perfect outfit. But for fourteen-year-old...

Author	Kirsten Murphy
ISBN	0141007435

Lucy has her life all planned out -

* perfect job at 21
* engaged to ideal man at 26
* married at 27 and a half
* building ideal home at 28 (fully equipped with a stereo surround-sound wide screen TV and a comfortable, yet stylish couch)
* birth of perfect daughter at 30

What...

Author	Kirsty Eagar
ISBN	0143011464

He looked to the sky, praying for rain, a downpour, some sign from the heavens that he should refuse the abomination contained in that flask. But all he saw was the bloated white face of the moon smiling down on him …

And the sky around it was cold and clear and black …

They made their...

Author	Phillip Gwynne
ISBN	0141309431

I have read Deadly Unna so many times - to many classes who have all enjoyed. For some reason I never thought about reading this, the sequel until this now. It was a great read. Blacky is a really likeable character. But I think what is best is that all the relationships shown here are complicated - there isn't...

Author	Em Bailey
ISBN	1921564393

Olive Corbett is not crazy. Not anymore.

She obediently takes her meds and stays under the radar at school. After “the incident,” Olive just wants to avoid any more trouble, so she knows the smartest thing is to stay clear of the new girl who is rumored to have quite the creepy past.

But...

Author	Steven Herrick
ISBN	1864719648

A funny, refreshing look at the most awkward time in any young boy’s life from school, girls, and parties to parents, friends, and the dreaded “sex talk”.

Darcy Walker is a normal 16-year-old boy but he can handle that. He can even cope with parents, deal with parties, and soldier through...

Author	Alyssa Brugman
ISBN	0440238323

There are those who are popular.
There are those who are outcasts.
And there are those who must choose between the two.

Megan Tuw has always been popular. As a leader of her high school’s most cliquish group, she’s among the anointed girls who think nothing of ridiculing those who...

Author

Steph Bowe

The first time we met, Jewel Valentine saved my life.

Isn’t it enough having your very own terminal disease, without your mother dying? Or your father dating your Art teacher?

No wonder Sacha Thomas ends up in the lake that Saturday evening…

But the real question is: how...

Author	Barry Jonsberg
ISBN	1741144841

Calma Harrison is in love.
Not just with herself, but also with the handsome checkout guy at Crazi-Cheep.
But when Calma gets a job at Crazi-Cheep, her cynical approach to customer service makes headlines.
And then there's the small matter of the rest of her life, which is fast falling apart:...

Author	Rebecca Sparrow
ISBN	0375845704

Seventeen-year-old Rachel Hill is the girl most likely to succeed. And the girl most likely to have everything under control . . . that is, until her dad invites Nick McGowan, the cutest boy at school, to live with them. Rachel worries that this could only be a recipe for disaster, but her best friend Zoe...

Author	John Marsden
ISBN	0440228603

A very interesting fly through read.. well done, John Marsden!!! Checkers is a book that explores teens with prominent and real social/family/health issues.. It's told in the perspective of a nameless girl, who is a voluntary patient in a Psychiatric Ward who refuses to talk about why she's there.....

Author	Laura Buzo
ISBN	1741759986

'What do you want, Hol?' Abby looks into my eyes.

'I ... I want to know that I'm using my powers for good and -'

'You want to make a dead man proud.'

'Whoa!'

'You want to put bandages over severed arteries that really need to be sewn shut. You want the moral high ground.'

Holly...

Author	Justine Larbalestier
ISBN	1595141243

Fifteen-year-old Reason Cansino has learned the painful truth that she?like her mother, grandmother, and new friends Tom and Jay-Tee?must face a choice between using the magic that lives in her blood and dying young, or refusing to use the magic and losing her mind. Now a new threat leaves Reason stranded...

Author	Maureen McCarthy
ISBN	0143000314

So how did you meet him? I hear you asking.
Was it love at first sight? Was he a fellow teacher? Did you meet in a pub?

This might be hard to believe, but the first time I looked into your father's eyes, he was holding a gun to my head.

But first, let me explain . . .

Everything is...

Author	Steven Herrick
ISBN	0689868677

I'm not proud.
I'm sixteen, and soon
to be homeless.
Weary of his life with his alcoholic, abusive father, sixteen-year-old Billy packs a few belongings and hits the road, hoping for something better than what he left behind. He finds a home in an abandoned freight train outside a small...

Author	Bill Condon
ISBN	1742377300

A funny, poignant, realistic story of Tiffany's first love and first job, and the inevitability of change in the first summer out of school School is over, not just for the year, but forever. Tiff and Kayla are free, which is what they've always wanted, but now summer is nearly at an end and that...

Author	John Marsden
ISBN	0732907659

Lisa is the hard one. At least that’s what her friends/dorm mates believe. She doesn’t dig deep or spill the important stuff. The intimate details.

She isn’t silent like Marina—the girl with the scars who lingers on the fringes, without ever really joining in.

No, Lisa is...

Author	Judith Clarke
ISBN	1932425950

In this Michael L. Printz Honor Book, Lily wishes she could be like the other girls in her class. But how can she? As the only sensible person in her family, she never has time to hang out with friends. Someone has to stay home to look after her brother. Maybe she should fall in love! What could be less sensible...

Author

Maureen McCarthy

I first read this when I was 14 or 15. I loved it then, but I feel like I love it even more now - now I can connect with the characters, because I've been there. I remember the anxiety of growing up and starting the next stage of life. It was weird, brilliant, stressful, fun... so many contradictions.

McCarthy...

Author	J.C. Burke
ISBN	0759320292

Evie sees things that other people don't. She's wary of the other kids at school, of what they might see in her drawings, or of what they would say if they knew she was different. Most of the time she blocks it all out and pretends she's just like everyone else.

But a missing girl is trying to tell Evie...

Author	Joanne Horniman
ISBN	0375823255

MATT LOVED EVERYTHING about Emmy. He loved her freckled, luminous, magical body. He loved her free spirit. He loved the future he saw when he found out Emmy was pregnant. And he loved her answer when her parents protested their decision to keep the baby: " We'll just love it, okay?"
Full of emotion...

Author

Georgia Blain

Amanda Clarke is dead.

Her body was found floating facedown by the riverbank, and no one knows what happened. As rumours fly and fear grows, it seems that everyone suspects Lyndon, one of Amanda's friends. He's known for his temper, his cruelty and his criminal family - and now the police want...

Author

Aimee Said

Freia Lockhart just wants to fit in at school but her best friend Kate is determined to get in with the popular Bs: Belinda, Bethanee and Brianna. Even Freia knows when she hangs out with the Bs she fits in like a turkey in a flock of flamingos. Kate convinces Freia to audition for the school play so they can...

Author

Anna Fienberg

Sixteen-year-old Callisto May feels a deep connection to astronomy, but feels completely alone on planet Earth. Now that she's pregnant, her loneliness is acute. She can't turn to her mother, her father, or even her surfer boyfriend. Only Callisto's little brother loves her unfailingly, but she...

Author	Jackie French
ISBN	0805038892

This was one of my favourite novels when I was in primary school. I read it so many times. I loved Barbara. I loved the time travel theme and reading about what things were like during the depression. Interesting stuff. The characters felt so real to me. I've probably read this book more than any other book....