The Hawkweed Prophecy is a perfect blend of fantasy and magic yet vivid, believable and beautifully flawed characters. This book had me enraptured from the first page with it’s delectable writing and words strung together amidst the classical fantasy theme running throughout the book. 
    Poppy is a troubled teenager, moving from place to place like a migrating bird. Constantly changing school and house means that she never makes any friends or long lasting connections. Poppy has an electric personality, her soul is filled with flames giving her strength and power so she can summon and cast spells. As she is left to her own devices, she stumbles across the Dell, a quaint and mystical place filled with abandoned junk, the perfect escape from Poppy’s otherwise mundane life. 
    Here she meets the kind and gentle Ember, a young witch living in the Coven, a sisterhood bound by their love of anything supernatural and paranormal. In this magical community, Ember feels like an outcast amid the talented witches of her age. 
    Soon there lives become intertwined in a friendship like no other as they share knowledge of their two worlds. Little do they know that a raven’s curse, the boy they both love, a life of betrayal and an ancient prophecy foretelling queen of the witches binds them together closer than they can ever imagine. 
    This story of friendship, heartbreak, courage and magic will break your heart and mend it. This lyrical debut novel examines what its like to have power and to be a women. Imaginative, poignant and breathtaking, this book is must-read if you are a lover of make-believe and friendship themes which I recommend for children aged from 11-13. 
    I personally have mixed feelings about this book as fantasy isn’t my cup of tea. Nevertheless, Irene’s original and elegant writing style gripped me from the very first line of this indisputably well written novel. ​

Meet Noa Blake, the protagonist of the first trilogy in the Territory series. As we follow her life on The Territory, a safe haven free from parasites and disease like the Wetlands, we meet believable, vivid and authentic characters. In this story of endurance, prejudice and discovery we learn to question the future of our world and begin to realise the importance of our environment and our overall impact on it. 
                                                         The year is 2059 and on 5th June, Noa's life as she knows it might change forever. 
After the catastrophic flood that took place due to global warming and the melting of the ice caps, most of our beautiful world is now uninhabitable. Vegetation, whole species of animals, cities - submerged and destroyed. The population in liveable areas is multiplying like bacteria and the government have no option but to control these numbers, as they like to say "Limited space requires limited numbers". They concluded that all children which are 15 years old must sit the TAA, pass this exam and you can continue to live on this island of bliss, but fail the exam and you're shipped off to the Wetlands, - a death sentence, a land ridden with disease, filth, grime, filled with starvation and malady.
   The richest can afford their children to "Upload", bypass and download all the information needed for the exam. These "freakoids", referred to as Childes, have the highest chance of success but how about all the others? The Norms have their work cut out as come exam day, June 5th, their life can be taken away from them in a blink. Under this law established by The Ministry, thousands of innocent children each year lose their lives to this system. 
   Sarah explores this sinister theme of Freakoids, a newly engineered elite race seeming robotic in their way of thinking and their day to day behaviour. Becoming The Ministry's models and discriminating against the Norm society, there is clear friction between these groups sparking arguments, fights and protests all over the Territory. 
   I love the different topics the author explored in this book: sci-fi, dystopia and even the extent of predicting the consequences of our actions and how our world is slowly and painfully deteriorating. This book is important in our modern society and I recommend reading this book as It raises issues in our political and environmental system which gave me a new perspective on how I live my own life. 

(Credit to my brother for some of the ideas)