Teen Fiction What Did You Read As A Teen

44leto

I went to the cinema last night, the box office smash “The hunger games” which took a massive 190 million dollars at its opening weekend. I knew nothing about the film, but I was expecting it to be good on the back of its success.

It was horrendous an implausible plot, unintelligent dialogue and 2 dimensional characters. I actually left the cinema to have a smoke and when I got back I thought Jaysus is this still on. It was one of those films you wished you had a remote so you could fast forward it.

But I learned a bit about it now. It is from a set of books in a new genre called “teen fiction” other examples are Harry Potter, Twilight, Then there was one, its endless and they sell in boat loads. If an author gets it right they are multi multi millionaires. So the film wasn’t aimed at me.

The books I read as a teen seemed of higher quality or sophistication, Tolkien, AC Clarke, Douglas Adams or what my father was reading.

So what books did you read as a teen and why do you think this new literature genre is so successful.

prinz

Biggles. :pac:

mikemac1

Enid Blython

Famous Five, Secret Seven

I fancied Ann, such a girly girl That was from the TV show adaptation

......and lashings and lashings of ginger ale


Reading about gollywogs turned me into a flaming racist
It's a good thing they edit those books to comply with new PC standards nowadays :rolleyes:

Dravokivich

I was still only reading picture books when I was a teenager. :pac:

Turtyturd

Battle Royale: It's about this group of kids who are forced to fight each other to the death until only one is left....much better than the rubbish today.

dilallio

mikemac1 wrote: »

Enid Blython

Famous Five, Secret Seven

I fancied Ann, such a girly girl That was from the TV show adaptation

......and lashings and lashings of ginger ale


Reading about gollywogs turned into a flaming racist
It's a good thing these edit those books to comply with new PC standards nowadays :rolleyes:

and tongue (from a tin of course)

phasers

This thread will break down into one of two things:

1. Kids these days suck yada yada yada

b. Look how smart I am I can read long boring books


Personally I read a load of awful ****e and I still do.

The King of Moo

Point Horror Books!

They were quite trashy and formulaic, but great fun, especially during the summer.
Generally they were just like slasher films, with pretty high-school teens being killed off by a (sometimes seemingly supernatural) killer.
There was always a nice good-looking guy the lead girl liked who'd get accused of the murders, and there'd always be an obnoxious jock who seemed like the obvious candidate, but then it'd turn out to be that character who was only mentioned a few times and didn't appear much.

There was also a Point Sci-Fi offshoot. I read a few but they were a mixed bag. I do remember one that struck me though: it was a funny and surprisingly philosophical and scientifically-literate book about a group heading off in a spaceship to find Eternity, with Schrodinger's Cat and a camel among the group.

There were also some great Irish fantasy/adventure novels based on Irish mythology.
Michael Scott wrote quite a few good ones. His De Danann Tales series stood out in particular: Windlord, Earthlord and Firelord, though he never got round to finishing the series with Sealord :mad:.

There was another series of a few books that were similar, written by a guy called Cormac MacRaois, which included Battle Below Giltspur, Dance of the Midnight Fire and, I think, another book.
Like The De Danann Tales, it was about modern kids getting transported to the land of na Tuatha De Danann and getting wrapped up in adventures with the ancient Celtic gods and Formorians and other monsters.


Oh, I just remembered the series of books about foxes by Tom McCaughren, former RTÉ News security correspondent.
They were like a more mature, gritty Animals of Farthing Wood, though I think I read most of them before I hit puberty.
You could probably say that about all the above books actually. I was a quite precocious reader and by the age of 15 I was probably exclusively getting books from the adult section of the library.

44leto

phasers wrote: »

This thread will break down into one of two things:

1. Kids these days suck yada yada yada

b. Look how smart I am I can read long boring books


Personally I read a load of awful ****e and I still do.

I did state that the film or the book was not aimed at me. Its just my teen fiction seemed less teenage mills and boons. That is what I think the new teen genre has in common.

But I am a sophisticated reader and I love long boring books

Professey Chin

Point Horror and Goosebumps for me o/
Then I found out the library had loads of the novels based around Alien, Red Dwarf and stuff like that. Gave me happehs!

Shryke

Tolkien, Douglas Adams, Phillip K. Dick, George R. R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, Iain Banks and a load of other fantasy and sci-fi authors. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller about 10 times, most of the classics from Dumas to Orwell, and a pile of others.
I never read "teen" fiction, as in crap marketed to 14 year olds, not as far as I can remember. Those dedicated teen sections they have in book shops now look terrible.I can't tell one title from the next and the covers are all identical anyway.

Blikes

Darren shan books as a teen.

Might dig them out and read again

Seachmall

The only books "read for enjoyment" I remember reading were Artemis Fowl, Darren Shan, Alex Rider and the like. As well as books on magic and gambling.

Really just read computer books and marketing/sales books now (and occasionally a basic philosophy book which I barely understand, which probably comes through in my pretentious posts ). That's not to say I don't enjoy them, but I don't think they're what the topic is about.

I haven't finished a book, any book, in years. I actually started a short one last night just to get back into reading after reading a blog post about enjoying reading.


Edit - Actually, I finished 2 books last Summer. Yay for me!

ElleEm

I read a lot of chick lit, Marion Keyes, Virginia Andrews, etc. I also read a LOT of John Grisham books.
I wouldn't read anything like that now, but they definitely got me into reading in a big way.

prinz

I read everything and anything I could lay my hands on from The Hardy Boys to Jeffrey Archer.

Rhyme

Ani-fucking-morphs baby.


Tolkien, Adams, Feist, Eddings etc.

ElleEm

The King of Moo wrote: »

Point Horror Books!

They were quite trashy and formulaic, but great fun, especially during the summer.
Generally they were just like slasher films, with pretty high-school teens being killed off by a (sometimes seemingly supernatural) killer.
There was always a nice good-looking guy the lead girl liked who'd get accused of the murders, and there always be an obnoxious jock who seemed like the obvious candidate, but then it'd turn out to be that character who was only mentioned a few times and didn't appear much.

There was also a Point Sci-Fi offshoot. I read a few but they were a mixed bag. I do remember one that struck me though: it was a funny and surprisingly philosophical and scientifically-literate book about a group heading off in a spaceship to find Eternity, with Schrodinger's Cat and a camel among the group.

There were also some great Irish fantasy/adventure novels based on Irish mythology.
Michael Scott wrote quite a few good ones. His De Danann Tales series stood out in particular: Windlord, Earthlord and Firelord, though he never got round to finishing the series with Sealord :mad:.

There was another series of a few books that were similar, written by a guy called Cormac MacRaois, which included Battle Below Giltspur, Dance of the Midnight Fire and, I think, another book.
Like The De Danann Tales, it was about modern kids getting transported to the land of na Tuatha De Danann and getting wrapped up in adventures with the ancient Celtic gods and Formorians and other monsters.


Oh, I just remembered the series of books about foxes by Tom McCaughren, former RTÉ News security correspondent.
They were like a more mature, gritty Animals of Farthing Wood, though I think I read most of them before I hit puberty.

I LOVED these books, White Fang and Run with the Wind and all. Aw, memories!

Immaculate Pasta

You're all a bunch of bookworms.

Nuts/Zoo magazine :cool:

Pighead

Publicly: The Hardy Boys and Roald Dahl books.
Privately: The twins at St Clares and the Malory Towers series.

The King of Moo

ElleEm wrote: »

I LOVED these books, White Fang and Run with the Wind and all. Aw, memories!

They were great, especially as I was big into nature, especially wild animals, as a kid, and had foxes living nearby.
The books were also quite dark at times: lots of death and starvation, but introduced in such a way that kids could deal with it without it being too sugarcoated.

mikemac1

Marita Conlon McKenna

Under the Hawthorn Tree was about children in the famine trying to get across Ireland in desperate circumstances
RTÉ made a TV adaptation, it was awful. Book is brilliant though

The Blue Horse was about an itinerant girl who was gifted at art

She's a great Irish writer

Also the TinTin books. They were cartoon format and the stories were great
Snowy, such a legend of a dog

westendgirlie

Jackie Collins

Jimoslimos

Lots of good books mentioned I had completely forgotten about.

Does anyone here remember some books about a scanger called Donny, bit cheesy but enjoyable nonetheless?

44leto

I read a lot of fantasy and SciFi, I grew out of the fantasy but not the SciFi but that seems a dead genre now, Ian M Banks eases my craving for that now, the only author that still writes good scifi.

The Dune series was my favourite teen read. I listen to talking books while walking and I am actually revisiting them in audio and loving them. As a teen I was fascinated by the concepts of those novels, but as an adult I realise the books are all about the intricacies of power.

Beruthiel

mikemac1 wrote: »

Enid Blython

Famous Five, Secret Seven

I fancied Ann, such a girly girl That was from the TV show adaptation

......and lashings and lashings of ginger ale

I wanted to be George, she was such a tomboy!

I read all of Enid Blyton.
I also read Alfred Hitchcocks, The Three Investigators.
The Hardy Boys.
Nancy Drew.
Stephen King came after that.

Jimoslimos

Just remembered, The Silver Sword - 2nd world war tale from a group of separated childrens perspective.

44leto

mikemac1 wrote: »

Marita Conlon McKenna

Under the Hawthorn Tree was about children in the famine trying to get across Ireland in desperate circumstances
RTÉ made a TV adaptation, it was awful. Book is brilliant though

The Blue Horse was about an itinerant girl who was gifted at art

She's a great Irish writer

Also the TinTin books. They were cartoon format and the stories were great
Snowy, such a legend of a dog

Snap, my 4 year old nephew is into them ATM. But I am going to buy him an Asterisk I always thought they were better.

candy-gal1

Point Horror, the step up from Goosebumps as a kid

Jacqueline wilson

Judy Blume - i think everyone has read that "famous" book Forever :D

Squeeonline

As a pre-teen I was reading a lot of goosebumps and crap like that.

I really like the "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pulman. Still my favourite books.

I also read the "Hot Zone" (about ebola virus) and "The Madness of Adam and Eve" which was about evolution and schizophrenia.

44leto

Just reading the different posts and in retrospect I did read rubbish teen fiction but they were called children's books.

Enid Blyton
The Hardy boys

Nancy Drew

but Shsshhh.

Buddinplant

I read everything, although Tolkien was a hard one to craic. Sisters read it and loved it, I couldnt get very far, so i was chuffed when the films came out.

The Babysitters Club (every book started with a chapter that explained the club, every time )
Harry Potter
His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman.
To kill a mocking bird
The Secret Diary of Adrien Mole 13 3/4
Every Meave Binchy book out there. Think i cleaned out alot of charity shops one summer ( i was an odd child )
All the crime and thriller books i cold grab, and one or two mills and boon books

senorwipesalot

Mainly **** mags.

uch

Hustler

cocoshovel

As a kid, goose bumps, enid blighton, harry potter etc.

As a teen, I didnt like reading fiction and I still dont. Factual books all the way.

ihsb

Jimoslimos wrote: »

Just remembered, The Silver Sword - 2nd world war tale from a group of separated childrens perspective.

I love that book... Might try to dig it out of storage actually!

I read all those school books and loved them but my guilty pleasure was Angus, thongs and full frontal snogging. A series of girlie books about teenagers growing up. LOVED them!

Conall Cernach

I read a lot of Fantasy like Tolkien but a lot of that is aimed at a teen market like Eddings and Feist etc. I also read (and still do read) Jack Vance, Julian May, Harry Harrison and a bunch of more adult orientated stuff. In my later teens I got into HP Lovecraft and was mad about a sci-fi series by Patrick Tilley called The Amtrak Wars. I tried re-reading them again a couple of years ago but found them unbearable. I still love Lovecraft btw.

2ndcoming

Used to read a fair few by Christopher Pike, they were a lot like the Point Horrors but in my head they were a little cooler.

Used to read the Lone Wolf and Fighting Fantasy game books as well.

Logical Fallacy

I don't think my reading habits have really changed all that much since i was a teen. I read all sorts of books and still do Fantasy, Science Fiction, fiction, non-fiction, crime, thriller, horror, political intrigue, biographies, books about physics, biology, music, classics.

I probably found most of the books and authors that i love when i was a teen. Pratchett, Clarke, Dick, Banks, Gemmell (simplistic fantasy but great characters), Gibson, Eddings, Greene etc...people whose stuff i still read today religiously.

Basically if it has words in a language i can understand i'll read it, I've always been that way.

foxyboxer

I loved Roald Dahl's work. Matilda, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Danny Champion of the World etc.

Then became interested in Movies big time so began reading more mature source novels of big movies such as Jaws, The Shining, The Godfather, Jurassic Park etc.

The King of Moo

2ndcoming wrote: »

Used to read a fair few by Christopher Pike, they were a lot like the Point Horrors but in my head they were a little cooler.

Used to read the Lone Wolf and Fighting Fantasy game books as well.

I read a few of his books as well. I presumed they'd be like Point Horror, but they were much more grisly and serious, and tended to have actual monsters and such.

I remember I got one of his books for my birthday and I read it all that day. It was about the teachers in a school, then a whole town, being taken over by these lizard-like creatures who'd live inside their bodies, very Invasion of the Bodysnatchersesque.

Of course, a few kids saw what was going on but no-one believed them. I think they never managed to properly stop the invasion and at the end of the book they were on the run in Mexico, still being chased by the monsters.

I was obsessed with Dickens and Terry Pratchett.

Logical Fallacy

Edz87 wrote: »

I was obsessed with Dickens and Terry Pratchett.

Quite a few thematic similarities between the two in fairness.

slippy wicket

Sven Hassel , James Herbert for sexy time and any available scifi or fantasy book

prinz

slippy wicket wrote: »

Sven Hassel..

Oh yeah. Good call.

Tonyandthewhale

As a kid a kid (as in <12 years old) I was big into Tolkien, Golding, Rider Haggard (King Solomon's mines) and also Stephen King so a lot of fantasy and escapism and the like. Hated Harry Potter though, and still do.

My teenage years were spent reading Stephen King, Terry Prachett, Philip K. Dick and lots of existentialist stuff like Sarte and Camus so I'd look all intellectual like and of course the beat poets such as Kerouac and Ginsberg and Burroughs because that was hip at the time (still a big fan of Burroughs actually).

DEFTLEFTHAND

My father's P.G Wodehouse collection springs to mind. I became obsessed with the English aristocracy as a result and came to see myself as a modern day Bertie Wooster.:o

[Rasta]

I haven't read a book in years, but I had to read a book in primary school, so for some reason I chose to read Moses in Egypt, dreadful read but I had to do it.
The only other book I ever read was Da Vinci Code, and it was interesting enough, but ultimately I just don't have the patience to sit down and read books.

Jacksquat

I tried to read and re read everything Enid Blyton ever wrote, from The Magic Faraway Tree and those fantasy type ones to The Famous Five which were my favourite. Such happy memories of rowing out to Kirrin Island and exploring Smuggler's cove and getting big baskets of food pushed into my hands by fat jolly farmer's wives:D The Adventure Series, The Mystery Series, The Five Find-Outers. The list goes on, when you look at how many stories she wrote it's mind blowing.

I also read the Hardy Boys and The Three Investigators which were brilliant at the time but are fading a bit from memory, as are most books I read back then unfortunately.

One of my real favourites was the Adventure series by Willard Price about two brothers Hal and Roger Hunt who were zoologists and traveled all over the world studying and collecting animals. Fiction based on fact. It was amazing and I learned so much from them.

Nostalgia overload...

Corruptedmorals

Ah no, St Clares and Malory Towers were the best books Enid Blyton wrote. I was always gutted that there were no books on the 3rd and 6th form for St Clares..someone did write one about the sixth form- not good.:(

As a teenager I was reading all of Enid Blyton, Harry Potter, Siobhán Parkinson books (they are brilliant!), Michael Morpurgo books, anything else published by O'Brien like the Rosie time travel books and my person favourite- the Anne of Green Gables books, of which there are about 8.

Hercule Poirot

Douglas Adam's Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy of 5 - Arthur Dent is a legend!

Jen Pigs Fly

Harry potter

Enid Blyton Books

Roald dahl