Sara’s Face
By Melvyn Burgess
Penguin £6.99, 256 pages
Dark and sometimes gory tale of body dysmorphia, self-harm and the lust for fame, recasting The Phantom Of The Opera for the celebrity age. Burgess is never one to shy away from the grimmer aspects of modern teenhood and the titular Sara, mad yet self-aware, is a striking and vividly drawn character.

Message in a Bottle
By Valérie Zenatti
Bloomsbury £6.99, 157 pages
Tracing an epistolary correspondence between an Israeli girl and a Palestinian boy, this could have been a heavy-handed, politicised take on Romeo and Juliet. Instead, it’s a touching, beautifully observed character piece about love blooming like a rose from the rubble.