I'm always interested to hear what people have to say about YA books. Here's a thread both to praise the ones you like and criticize the ones you don't like! Personally I feel it would not be in my best interests as somebody who wants to be a YA author to say negative things about the books I don't like. I'm more interested in your opinions than in sharing my own anyways. As far as positives go, I'm in love with The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan. Nick is such a unique character! And that plot twist, hoo boy that is probably the most well executed shocking plot twist I've ever seen. Really epitomizes that "surprising yet inevitable" advice you always hear in writing classes. I'm sure a bunch of you will appreciate that the main character goes nonverbal at times and seems to perseverate on swords and cars a bit. The author said autism was one of the things she researched when she was creating him, though he is not intended to be autistic (partially since [spoilery thing] would give that unfortunate implications if he was]. I also love Epic by Conor Kostick. Like, I guess this is a bit of a spoiler, but there's this brilliant scene where they defeat a dragon in the video game world that controls the economy in the book. Dragons are almost never defeated, and only then by top players who are usually government officials. They're one of the most powerful monsters in the game. The main character figures out that they attack the last person who attacked them and then has his group of friends win by spending eight hours shooting arrows at it and alternating who shot last so that it doesn't get the chance to attack before it gets hit the next time. I just love when characters find and exploit loopholes in fictional worlds, and Epic is full of that.
Diana Wynne Jones' books are considered YA, right? Because I don't have a lot of opinions other than "I love them," but Howl's Moving Castle and the Dalemark Quartet changed the way I think about/write fantasy. I think I started half a dozen YA fantasy novels in the couple of years after I discovered her books because I liked her approach so much and it made me want to write more fantasy of my own. ...Wait, expanding on that, I guess I do have opinions. I think what I liked so much about her books is that they felt like stories about real people. I mean, I love LOTR as much as the next guy, but ... I think you get an entirely different way of exploring a character when they're in a story that's not a Dangerous Quest to Destroy the Ultimate Evil. I like fantasy featuring people going on heroic journeys that test the limits of their endurance, but I love fantasy featuring people living normal lives, only with magic. (Now I'm off to check out the books you mentioned. Literally, if our library has them.)
Howl's Moving Castle is friggin awesome. Has anyone here read the Chrestomanci books? Those were fun. If kinda uncomfortable at points.
Y.A books omg i could talk so much about Y.A. (i regret taking that one ya. lit teaching course...) good recs for everybody include the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer (and a lot of his other stuff like Airman, oh god, Airman) the Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman um... trying to think of one w/ female protags (we need more of those in general...) The Wishlist by Eoin Colfer is good one (I love Eoin Colfer's works soo much...) Gathering Blue? uh... i'll come back to this...
@emythos I HAVE. Which one(s) are your favourite? As for me, @Key got a copy of Conrad's Fate a while after I'd read HMC, and I read that, and then sometime later got a volume which has Charmed Life, Witch Week, The Magicians of Caprona, and The Lives of Christopher Chant in it. The Lives of Christopher Chant remains my favourite because, well, Christopher, and also Spoiler: Spoilers ...I just really like dead people in my stories, apparently. The whole thing with Christopher dying while doing his dream-walking-astral-projection thing and then having to die again, for real, once he's awake, is just incredibly satisfying to me for some reason. I think it must be because I really like it when Actions Have Consequences and when things ... mimic each other? So if something happens to your soul in a dream then of course it has to happen to your body in the waking world, too. Also I just enjoy it when people die and don't stay dead. Also also, Millie. That is all. ...I may have to read the book again now, haha. But Charmed Life and Conrad's Fate are a close second and third. I don't like The Pinhoe Egg one little bit, but I've totally forgotten why, so. :I
I'd like some discussion as opposed to just recs/lists (though those are fine!) so I'll just mention some that are popular or controversial (about quality, not content) and you guys can talk what you like/dislike. Maybe argue a bit? If this is too pushy let me know. Divergent series, Veronica Roth The Selection series, Kiera Cass The Mortal Instruments series, Cassandra Clare The Maze Runner series, James Dashner Fallen series, Lauren Kate The Fault in Our Stars, John Green Looking for Alaska, John Green Shatter Me series, Tahereh Mafi I think that's enough to start things off.
@Elaienar Magicians of Caprona, and The Lives of Christopher Chant. I love all of them, though. MULTIPLE WORLDS AND CATS AND INTERESTING MAGIC AND MULTIPLE LIVES :D :D :D I've got the editions that are a bunch of the stories in one (well, two)
Overwritten to the point of gag-worthy, rather than 'poetic'. I only read the first one before giving up, though, so I don't know much about the apparent love triangle, except that everyone is involved is tedious? And I dunno what author shenanigans would lead to Spoiler: spoilers the main character being in love with the guy who had her torture a small child, if I remember right (Is that too mean?)
Nothing is too mean. Just looking for opinions, especially ones with justification. People usually write more justification for their mean opinions, so those are definitely welcomed. (In fact I have a problem with how many people write positive reviews without giving specific details as to why. People will write at length about what they don't like and then just say "it was AWESOME!" about what they like.)
Hmm, I've only read a few of those. I've read The Maze Runner but none of the others in the series. Yet. Spoiler: Because spoilers I found it ... a bit boring? I remember pushing myself to finish it and so when I got to the end and it wasn't really resolved and I realised I was going to have to read EVEN MORE books of this sort I ... wasn't very pleased. I don't remember being particularly annoyed by the writing, so it was probably mostly just that it wasn't my cup of tea. But ... I think the characters may not have been very well-written? Given that all I can remember about the entire cast is that there was a main character guy, a boss-leader guy, a character who was, uhhh, Korean maybe? some underlings, and a character who was a girl, I think the author may have failed to make them interesting. EDIT: Wait, I guess that's not much a spoiler. Eheh.
Oh fuck, I remember Epic, I think! Is that the one where there was one dude in the game who was a gay chick irl? Or something like that, and it was obvious from the start and I got so smugly pleased with my 16-year old self for gronking that. The plinking away at dragons thing sounds familiar at least.
Oh and I agree, Maze Runner was really uninteresting. I feel like it was trying too hard to hit all these YA checkpoints and be all mysterious and whatnot that it neglected to make its people or world 3D. And yeah, the lack of closure at the end was maddening. Even if you plan on making a sequel, the book should ideally stand on its own, I think. Divergent made me really mad. I kept telling myself to give it time to win me over, but that fucking caste system made no goddamned sense and the way the Dauntless folks conceptualized bravery as "wooo hardcore Xtreme jump out moving trains and kill/maim/alienate all our recruits cause that's the absolute best way to run a fucking army/police force" and overall complete lack of common fucking sense ruined me. I kept making weird scratchy growly noises and scrunching up the edges of my copy of the book.
I LOVE the Divergent series, but it's more to do with how much i love Birdemic and homemade horror movies than with any literary merit. the last book hardly made sense, but i sorta liked the ending, because im a bittersweet sucker.
I don't even know how the first book ended. I heard something about the Smart Peeps faction flipping the Dauntless's headswitches and using them to murder Grey Peeps, and also Zombies?
it's basically that. oh, i can make a summary of the series if you want. i read them once and in a weekend, but i think i still remember the major plotlines.
I didn't really like Divergent. Except for the part with the injection that made you see semi metaphorical versions of your worst fears, that hit all the 'this is awesome' buttons for me.
Ooh. I don't have time to do this properly right now, but later I can do Jacqueline Wilson in general (Kiss in particular) Junk by Melvin Burgess the California Diaries series by Ann M Martin the Twilight series (I refuse to use the word 'saga') (however, I did read them all, and can dig up the essays I wrote about how all the major plot points could have been resolved if the characters adopted sex-positive feminist attitudes; it may need some updating) various queer teenager books (may take some remembering first) the Georgia Nicolson series (sexist, racist, homophobic, haphazard plot, but fun) the Rachel Riley series (a slightly less sexist, racist, and homophobic version of the above, with slightly better writing, but the same issues still apply) various stories about mentally ill teens The Hunger Games trilogy (mmmmm, so many feels) Though I was totally fixated on fantasy as a child (and have regained that love now), my adolescent years were very much focused on non-fantasy fiction. I developed a special interest in fiction about mental illness, especially eating disorders, and can still do quite in-depth reviews on the classics (Best Little Girl In The World, etc) as well as the contemporary ones. So it's interesting to see how little of my list is sci fi/fantasy/dystopia... I guess that's very ~stereotypically female~ of me, but then again, my love of YA is largely focused on its ability as a genre to help young people understand themselves and their experiences. I think it's an incredibly important type of literature.
