An extraordinarily powerful story by Patrick Ness and one of the best novels so far by the Laureate na nÓg are among the latest new books for teenagers, writes Robert Dunbar

THE FACT that childhood is not necessarily an unbroken idyll for everyone is demonstrated yet again in Siobhán Parkinson’s Bruised (Hodder, £5.99), where at one point its 14-year-old hero, Jono, reflects, “Life is much better as you get older. The younger you are, the harder it is.”

Given an alcoholic mother, a father who has absconded with a new partner, a grandmother who has recently died and a younger sister, Julie, who needs his protection, such a viewpoint is hardly surprising. But the principal focus of the novel is on the boy’s handling of these circumstances, expressed in a first-person narrative that, from its opening line, seizes the reader’s attention in all its immediacy and richness of perky idiom. The complexities and ambiguities of family relationships are skilfully explored, the inadequacies of societal responses to the Jonos of this world tellingly exposed.

There are, of course, many ways in which a boy in Jono’s situation may end up “bruised” and, equally, many ways in which the effects of the bruising linger. In tracking these, Parkinson’s perspective is sympathetic without being sentimental. The underlying seriousness of the book’s central theme is cleverly balanced by its moments of wry wit and irony. And, making their presence felt at some well-judged moments, there are various passing allusions to The Merchant of Venice, with a pointed reminder of the significance of Portia’s words about the quality of mercy.

This is an extremely impressive novel, easily one of the best so far by Parkinson, who is Ireland’s first Laureate na nÓg.

"YOU'RE ONLY YOUNGonce, they say, but doesn't it go on for a long time? More years than you can bear." Using this quotation from Hilary Mantel's An Experiment in Love as his epigraph, Patrick Ness has written, in A Monster Calls (Walker Books, £12.99), a novel of extraordinary power and insight.

As its cover informs us, it is derived “from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd”, the widely acclaimed children’s writer who died sadly early, of cancer, in 2007, at the age of 47. She had, writes Ness in a prefatory note, “the characters, a premise and a beginning” for what might have been her fifth novel, but time and death intervened.

In essence A Monster Calls is the story of 13-year-old Conor as he faces up to the realisation of his mother’s terminal illness and tries to reach an acceptance of her eventual death. Ness’s writing, complemented by an arresting sequence of black, white and grey illustrations by Jim Kay, creates from the young teenager’s situation a narrative dominated by symbol and atmosphere. A yew tree in a churchyard adjoining Conor’s home becomes a frighteningly primal and monstrous night-time visitor to his bedroom, spinning its own stories, “the wildest things of all”, and demanding, in return, one from Conor.

The boy’s story, however, must embody the kind of truth that can come only from understanding the necessity of letting his dying mother go.

A journey from negative darkness to positive illumination is traced here with remarkable empathy and poignancy.

THE TEENAGER WHOmoves into a new environment and has to establish new friendships and relationships is a recurring figure in young adult fiction. In Laura Jane Cassidy's debut novel, Angel Kiss(Penguin Razorbill, £6.99), the teenager in question is 15-year-old Jacki King, who, with her widowed mother, has left Dublin behind in favour of rural Co Leitrim.

Ensuing events provide the reader with a plotline that shifts between past and present as local unsolved crimes of some years earlier come back into focus. Jacki, endowed with powers that give her access to the supernatural world, is allocated a central role in finding explanations for the crimes.

Simultaneously, she has all the complications of burgeoning teenage sexuality to cope with and, in particular, the highly fanciable Nick – “Basically, he was perfect” – to keep an eye on.

It all amounts to an intriguing mixture of genres, youthful romance being perhaps more convincingly treated than youthful crime-solving. Cassidy has a sharp understanding of today’s young, their alliances and their rivalries, and is not unaware of their unpredictabilities. She writes with considerable lightness of touch and, like her publisher, is a welcome new voice in the Irish literary world.

Robert Dunbar is a commentator on children’s books and reading