CHClaire Hennessy

1. Article · Sep 27, 2026 · Claire Hennessy

   Hope amid the dangers of tech, magic, and bad breakups: this month’s YA recommendations (opens the original)

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   “Didn’t I tell her often enough / that the internet is full of bad people and / danger?” Fiona, mother to a teenage girl, rages. “Wasn’t I sick tellin’ her?” In He Loves Me (Not) (Little Island, €11.99), Máire Zepf delves into the fraught world of online predators. There have been novels about this particular brand of stranger danger since the 1990s, and we are about to step into an era where it will no longer be plausible that the parents of teenagers did not themselves grow up

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2. Article · Sep 2, 2026 · Claire Hennessy

   Castles, conspiracies and communism: thought-provoking back-to-school YA reads (opens the original)

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   What if Andie MacDowell had figured out Bill Murray was caught in a time loop? For 16-year-old Harmony, a recent dropout working in her mam’s cafe, it’s the first time she’s lived this Thursday in May – but she’s observant, and notices the swaggering way Liam moves through the world, like he knows exactly what’s going to happen. The rugby lad has proclaimed himself “King of Dublin”, embracing “the wonders of the loop” – which Harmony quickly diagnoses as him “throwing mon

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3. Article · Aug 2, 2026 · Claire Hennessy

   A trivial comedy for serious YA readers, and more summer page-turners for teens (opens the original)

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   “My first poop was sponsored. My first hate comment came before my first tooth.” We first meet Effie Bright on her way to a support group for “kidfluencers”, whom she thinks of as “fellow tortured comrades”. Each of them has grown up online, with significant chunks of their lives monetised. Effie loves her family but frequently wishes she could start over without all this digital baggage. Her chance comes when public disgrace – her father’s shenanigans with a wellness influencer

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