Alex in Wonderland (Scholastic)

In the seaside town of Newsands, it's the long, hot summer after GCSEs when everyone's sorting their futures out. Painfully shy Alex is left alone; his two best friends have taken off for Spain. His passive-aggressive stepmother keeps dropping hints that he needs to pull his weight more, so he gets a part-time job at Wonderland - a run-down amusement arcade and cabaret bar. Alex finds belonging in the group of teenage misfits on Wonderland and the teens take it on themselves to fix its declining fortunes with a variety of dubious (hilarious) schemes. But like everything in the Wonderland, nothing is quite what it seems...