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I've also within the past couple years started looking at YA fiction more seriously, and The Hunger Games were definitely a part of that. It's nice to have something a little lighter to enjoy between larger works. The nice thing about YA is that you're able to get a complete narrative in a relatively small amount of time, so even if it's bad it doesn't take long to get through. There is an awful lot of bad out there too, but maybe I'm just overly critical. I've read a few things that came highly recommended but I just didn't enjoy. I'm not going to give full write-ups for the stuff I didn't like, but here's a short list of some popular books/series and why I didn't care for them: The Alchemyst series: Couldn't even get through the first book, dumb kids making dumb decisions, and it reads like fan-fiction. I believe there was a part in the beginning where the girl is listening to Pink on her iPod, and it just seemed to set the theme for the rest of the book. It was like the author was an old dad trying to seem hip and relevant while cashing in on the Harry Potter craze. The Warrior Heir: I at least finished this. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't amazing either, it didn't grab me enough to want to read the other books in the series. Incarceron: My feelings here are similar to Warrior Heir. The premise of a "living prison" is neat but they didn't really do much with it, just ended up like a typical fantasy romp in a slightly different setting. Boneshaker: I'm not sure if this is technically YA or not but it's certainly appropriate for teens so I've included it. I read this and while some of the characters were interesting I kind of really didn't care for the protagonists, and didn't find myself interested in their plight. And towards the end of the book everything kind of just goes to hell (in the story) and it felt like the narrative did the same thing, just a lot of random stuff that magically fits together perfectly to make everything work out. I know a lot of people enjoyed this but, again, I wasn't excited enough to get the other books by the author. I'm also not a big fan of steampunk so that might have had something to do with it. With that out of the way, here are some books I did enjoy and highly recommend:    Graceling by Kristin Cashore Graceling - Fire - Bitterblue If there's one YA fantasy book I could get you to read, it would be Graceling. Graceling is the story of Katsa, who is a Graceling. Gracelings are people with extreme talents, it could be dancing or cooking or anything really, but Katsa's Grace is killing. So she works as an enforcer for the King, her uncle. She ends up meeting another graceling and they uncover a terrifying secret that could change the shape of the lands they live in. Seriously, the "villain" of this book is terrifying and it's a great story. Kristin Cashore is incredibly imaginative and her writing is very descriptive and vivid. Fire is actually a prequel to Graceling that takes place in another section of the world. Some people didn't like it (they wanted a sequel), but I thoroughly enjoyed it, again, Cashore is just so imaginative. Her world is unlike any other I've read. I just started Bitterblue so don't have much to comment on yet.  The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud The Amulet of Samarkand - The Golem's Eye - Ptolemy's Gate - The Ring of Solomon The Bartimaeus Trilogy books (+The Ring of Solomon) take place (mostly) in London in an alternate history. The premise is that there are magicians who are the ruling class who govern the non-magicians. It's not like Harry Potter though where only magicians know about magic, everyone knows about magic. However, almost all magic is actually performed by demons that are bound to requests by magicians that summon them. The books follow a particular demon, Bartimaeus, and the magicians who summon him. Bartimaeus himself is hilarious, he's a respectably powerful demon but his real strength is his cleverness. The books are told like a story from Bartimaeus's perspective most of the time, in a very conversational tone, which just makes you like the character more as he peppers in mentions of his greatness and ability (frequently with footnotes for further clarification on why he is so amazing). I've read all 4 books in the sequence and enjoyed them immensely.  Delirium by Lauren Oliver Delirium is another dystopian setting where Love is considered a disease. It takes the idea that love itself, desire for love, and lack of love are some of the biggest causes of suffering in the world and takes it to an extreme. The technology is pretty much our same level, except they have figured out a way to make people no longer feel love, in a procedure that is performed when people get to their late teens. Until that time, the genders are almost constantly segregated. Delirium is about a girl, Lena, who is almost at the age where she is going to have her procedure done. And of course, she ends up meeting a boy and has to struggle with her emotions. Because in this world, the children are actually raised to fear love because of how "dangerous" it is. So there's a lot of Lena being scared about meeting this guy because she doesn't want love to "get her", but she's also drawn to him because of feelings she doesn't understand. At its heart this is a love story with a Big Brother spin on it, and though the writing isn't incredible (though not bad for YA) and the climax is kind of a stretch, I liked the premise and how it was explored so I would say it is worth a read. Apparently this is planned as a trilogy and the 2nd book, Pandemonium, is out now, but I haven't read it yet. I will most likely be giving it a shot though.  The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly This is a little older I think but I really enjoyed it. It's about a boy, David, struggling with his father's marriage to another woman after his mother dies. The book takes place during WWII, and David escapes from the struggles of reality into another world that mirrors his fairy tale books, and gets trapped there. This is another take on the "fairy tales retold as darker versions" idea, the characters he meets are familiar to us but changed. And David has to figure out how to get home from this strange fantasy world while aspects of the real world start to meld into it. All the while, David starts to view his life back in the real world in a different light. Here are some books I haven't read yet but would be interested in people's opinions on. Basically these are on my radar but I haven't made up my mind on if I'm going to read them yet: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak The Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne sighnoceros fucked around with this message at 18:17 on May 7, 2012 |
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May 7, 2012 17:32
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GOONS ARE MEAN 
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I'd heard they were derivative but not to that extent. I will steer clear, thanks!
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May 7, 2012 18:18
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No problem, thanks for making the thread! I was looking at The Maze Runner at the same time as Incarceron and chose Incarceron, I may have to go back and pick that up. And Unwind sounds awesome too. The others I hadn't heard of so those are going on my list now. Another interesting series is Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins. Before Hunger Games she started a set of children's books and someone at B&N recommended them to me. They are about a boy named Gregor who goes underground to this world where bugs and bats and rats etc. are all larger than man-sized, and there are people down there as well as a prophecy about a coming war that seems to refer to him. The books are not incredibly complex or anything but I still enjoyed the story she was telling. In the same vein is The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. A children's series about a city of people living in a huge cave underground after some huge calamity on the surface generations ago. They have electricity powered by a huge generator, but the generator is starting to break down and nobody knows enough about it to fix it, and it's up to two kids to convince everyone else how real the danger is and hopefully find a way to survive. Both of the above series are about 300 pages a book, and while they are probably aimed at younger teens they're still good. They kind of reminded me of the His Dark Materials series in their level of maturity. So it's mostly tweens trying to deal with grown-up problems written in a way that is accessible to children of any age that can read it. sighnoceros fucked around with this message at 20:06 on May 7, 2012 |
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May 7, 2012 19:44
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