YA Fiction: A Vast Teenage Wasteland

Is it just me being cynical, or does this indicate they actually want some of the things that we're tired of?

Cor, that is just a teen magazine for the Internet, isn't it? We're lucky they didn't use the abbreviation "sitch".

Patricia Wrede's Frontier Magic books are good YA fiction. I like that they're set in a fantasy American frontier setting. She writes nice engaging characters and has entertaining plots. She has a cheerful view of the world that I like. Reminds me a bit of Tamora Pierce, who I saw mentioned earlier.

Katherine Eliska Kimbriel's Night Calls and Kindred Rites are also excellent; set in Appalachia during its settlement, with a strong young teen girl protaganist and not particularly focussed on any love interest. There's some grit. Not precisely today's work, written in the mid 1990's. Fun description in one of building a cozy winter shelter, safe from people throwing buckets of water on it.

In terms of good YA, I've always had a lot of respect for Neal Shusterman as an author, even if he does seem to have a bit of a weakness for the Deus Ex Machina. Not that that's a bad thing, at least not in this case. Even his earlier books, where the writing was a bit weaker, didn't conform to convention: What Daddy Did skips over the romance in favor of exploring the main character's relationship to his father after his father kills his mother, and The Eyes of Kid Midas presents a pretty realistic picture of what would happen if a kid was able to have anything he wanted. His best work is Unwind, and his worst is Downsiders (the most horrendously cliched book he's written).

A large thumbs-up to Unwind!

Have you read Bruiser yet?

Yeah, really enjoyed it, one of my favorite things by him. Got really intense at the end. You've read The Schwa Was Here and Antsy Does Time?

I remember reading some of his stuff, but I don't remember it very well. I remember that Full Tilt was pretty good.

Teenage Wasteland sounds like a good name for a YA anthology of some kind...]

or a song by the Who

edited 20th Jul '12 2:06:32 PM by Wicked223

But there already is. . . *shot*.

edited 20th Jul '12 9:22:45 PM by Benluke

No there isn't. Now, I'm going to go listen to Baby O'Rielly.

I was never really much inclined to read YA fiction, mostly because there was really awesome stuff like The Illiad, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Beowulf, Catch 22, and Dune around. I tried reading The Hunger Games recently but the second book just bored me. I did read (and enjoy) Harry Potter though.

edited 23rd Jul '12 2:54:58 PM by sargecadet

I've read The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl (If that counts, read it, it's good).

Percy Jackson may seem like a ripoff, but it's quite good.

Skulduggery Pleasant is a brilliant series which reads like it's written for Tropers. One of the books is named after a Monty Python quote. They even parody the Supernatural Teen Romance, and the brooding mysterious bad boy is VERY bad news.

I always wonder about Titanic2020. The story was nce, the world was interesting, cool characters...

I've seen a lot of uproar on tumblr regarding a book called Save The Pearls. Morbid curiosity is a bad thing.

The basic premise is that due to radiation, white people or "pearls" are made into an underclass of society where they have to paint their skin black to fit in or with the "coals"... or something. And their society is obsessed with mating before you turn 18. Have any of you heard of it? What are your opinions? It looks like a whole can of worms have been opened, though...

edited 27th Jul '12 8:37:31 AM by Pattyunknown

Skimming the reviews by critics and reviews by regular people, it seems to be an okay book that has a really offensive premise. It sounds like someone who's afraid about minorities taking over wrote a book about it, or they're trying to teach about racism in a really heavy handed way.

Persecution Flip can be a... volatile trope to work with.

If you want a YA title that's really off the beaten track, I highly recommend China Miéville's Un Lun Dun. While it's a lot less weird than his adult stuff, the man's not capable of writing something that doesn't peg the weirdness meter.

Eh. Un Lun Dun was a bit like Neverwhere lite for me. Still enjoyable by any count, but it didn't seem very real, it felt like there was some mystery or something missing from it. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what.

Sure, but Neverwhere isn't exactly YA. It's also like Miéville-lite—in fact, if anything, I think it's more like his King Rat than like Neverwhere. But -lite sort of comes with the YA territory.

Hey, how's Alex Rider? (She asks, because somehow she keeps forgetting to read House of Silk...)

Not that bad, really.

Not nearly as good as CHERUB.

Added a page for Inside Out.

Hello everyone. Happens that I own a bookstore, and I want to greatly strengthen my selection of YA titles. I am requesting recommendations, esp for less than well-known titles that I would never have heard of. Right now, in addition to the "top Three" (Potter, Twilight, and Hunger- come on I know that much), I have some Pattersons, some Riordan, some Horowitz, The Flamel stuff, the Snicket stuff, the Wimpy Kid stuff, and misc other titles. Thanks in advance!

Are you just looking for recent stuff, or is stuff from the 90s and earlier fine? If so, can't go wrong with Diana Wynne Jones (for the younger side of YA) and Meredith Anne Pierce. Alan Garner is pretty good too. Oh, and Terry Pratchett's books for teens (The Bromeliad, the Johnny trilogy, and the YA Discworld books).

Besides from the dystopians and paranormal romances (which are worth getting), I would get The Book Thief, Thirteen Reasons Why, The Maze Runner, and books from authors like Heather Brewer and Neil Shusterman.

Oh! And see if there are any indie publishers in your area!

edited 31st Jul '12 1:12:16 PM by chihuahua0