True.
Highly recommended.
My recommendations:
6 of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, by Leigh Bardugo
Written in Red and The Others series by Anne Bishop
Silver on the Road first book in The Devil’s West series by Laura Anne Gilman.
Discount Armageddon is book 1 in the Incryptid by Seanan McGuire
I just put that term into a google search and the only thing that came up is your post. Huh?
BTW, I also loved Failure is Not an Option. Not anything I would normally read, but I picked it up at the Kennedy Space Center as a souvenir and found it absolutely riveting. It is absolutely insane to me what a bunch of really smart humans can accomplish. I’ve never read The Right Stuff, or Tom Wolfe, even, and I feel kinda obligated now.
I am unashamed to admit I enjoy many books written for the youngsters. The Tillerman Cycle by Cynthia Voigt (Homecoming is the first one) is great. I also really liked the series about the aftermath of an asteroid hitting the moon (The Life as we Knew It series) by Susan Pfeffer was quite good (except the last one). And I’m an old lady.
Chelophagy. The eating of turtles.
A lot of the girls at my high school are big fans of John Green. He has a new book out called “Turtles All the Way Down.”
That was Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.
Which is a book by Judy Bloom. What’s your point?
I think Dung Beetle was misreading your post as referring to Margaret specifically, not to Blume’s entire oeuvre.
Ah, yes. Thanks for clearing that up, Chronos.
Let’s examine that a bit more. While that certainly should be true, there are books primarily written for one group or the other, or marketed to one group or the other. (This is demonstrated in the Princes Bride when the kid objects to “the kissing stuff” but later learns better.) I wrote what is below before I considered your post and the many, many times it has been quoted in this thread. I have been told blanket statements are always wrong (or at least are always, sort of … well not for EVERY situation… sometimes).
I realize the matter is closed for now, but I have two suggestions that I believe could possibly be perfect for bright teenage girls whom are readers, that I feel compelled to post them (although I never was a teenage girl, found them distant and exotic during my own teenage years, and now find how their collective minds work and what is important to them a complete mystery to me in middle age—of course the current batch of teenage boys are a bit of a mystery to me too). I have an additional suggestion that may be helpful, but it is a different type of book. I hate to put them in a particular order as they are all three quite good books, however…
**Sophie’s World **by Jostein Gaarder, translated by Paulette Moller is a great coming of age novel. There is a part about a third of the way through the book that does seem like a slog, but those who should know better than I tell me it is because Americans are used to breakneck pacing and Europeans take more time (and are more subtle) than we are used to. (I found Umberto Eco similar in this regard.) It starts off somewhat like a Nancy Drew mystery, with a survey of Western Philosophy as the setting. Eventually, the protagonist (a 14 or 15 year old girl) gets to ask not only “Who am I?”, but “What is reality?” The questions the book raises are just as personal and as powerful for the reader as they are for the characters in the book.
****Special Topics in Calamity Physics ****by Marisha Pessl is also a coming of age novel. A towering debut work that I read some time ago the author has yet to reach again. In this case the hero is more than ‘an everyman’ stand in, she is something of a hero. Very bright with a unique childhood behind her, she goes through a transformation (like every hero) and learns things about the world she was not ready to know before her senior year in high school. It turns out, many of the mysteries of the universe are closer to home than she ever imagined. Also very subtle with some childhood detective elements. The end of the book has some fun little exercises that poke a little fun at the author and characters in the book. An enjoyable read that is serious enough to make any person, young or old think and ponder life (the best things a book can accomplish).
**The Devil in the Details **by Jennifer Traig is not a novel, it is a memoir. But it is so well written and so funny it is a pleasure to read. Again, a teenage girl survives high school with moxie and self awareness. She does a remarkable job of relating how her parents and sister dealt with a kid who suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. But most remarkable is how she opens up and shows the reader how her mind works. It is deeply personal, and at the same time universal. Several times while reading the book I would pause and think: “If this girl is crazy, she is my kind of crazy! I would marry her in a minute”. Do you know how charming you have to be to make awkward ‘cute’? Jenny Traig is that charming. She also litters the end of her book with games and tests and other self revealing treats that I found fun and interesting and served to soften the disappointment of the book ending.
Now I have read and loved the Dumas tributes to manhood, and some Hemmingway. Later I read Tom Clancy and Tom Wolfe and Robert Parker. I have read plenty of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour over the years, and I find it all entertaining and I always identify with the situations and the motives. These books and characters all have one thing in common, what a former co-worker of mine called the pulp-western situation: The quickest gun, the fastest horse, the prettiest girl, the most crushing right cross, the most street smarts, the most threatening glint, the best cook, the best orchids, the most daring gambler, the most valuable secret possessor, the most loyal friend, the most uncompromising moral character, the best with a knife or a gun (who can compete with only himself), etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, oh- and best dancer too. All of these attributes are necessary to face life, to sleep at night, and to accomplish the everyday tasks a man faces - - well, everyday.
While I love the manly man lit I mentioned in the paragraph above, I do find more room for real life in the coming of age books for young women I listed above that. I think it is deeper and more complex. What passes for deep and complex in the adolescent male (in my experience at least), was really fear, and competitiveness, and some shame, a lot of desire, and winning or losing. Once you have spun your tires (literally), driven fast, fought for something and won, fought for something and lost, had some success, overcome failure; real life settles in and the themes in books about young women seem more important than the books about young men.