fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2151 ]

[ SECRET POST #2151 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2151 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Scrubs/How I Met Your Mother]

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[Aladdin]

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[Russian politics]

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[World of Warcraft]

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[Hetalia]

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[Community]

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[50 Shades of Grey/Betty]

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[Wreck-It Ralph]

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[American Horror Story]

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[Tom Hiddleston]

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[Young Avengers]

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[Saint Seiya Omega]

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[The Mysterious Cities of Gold]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 022 secrets from Secret Submission Post #307.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Are there actually YA books out there worth reading? I'm an adult (mid-twenties, if it matters) but prefer YA fiction over "adult" fiction any day. The problem is, I'm having a big amount of trouble finding something worth reading and which won't get filed under my DNF (did not finish) tag. I have about a hundred or so books in my calibre library and actually "liked" 3 or 4. Some were remarkably bad (grammar, etc. I don't understand how they even got published and whatnot.) while others... blah.

Anyway, recs please? I enjoy pretty much anything. Romance and happy endings being a fav.

I've also already read, or tried to read most of the "popular" YA books already. The Hunger Games, Divergent, etc...

/apologizing in advance for not making any sense. Almost falling asleep here, just thought I'd ask for delicious recs. :)

Early Tamora Pierce, Patrica C. Wrede, and Terry Prachett all write excellent YA.

I'll second these, though I might recommend staying away from her Frontier Magic series.

SA

Er, I should mention that the Frontier Magic is by Patrica C. Wrede

Are those her Victorian Magician ones? Because I kind of liked them.

If not, details on why I should avoid?

No, it's a series based in frontier America...Sort of. The series set in Victorean England is actually one of my favorite series.

As for why...It's something that doesn't bug everyone, but it's more to do with the world building in that series than anything else. The plot, and characters are wonderful but...Well. She messes with history, doesn't explain why what changed did [for example, she moved the civil war up about 30 years, and has the Ottoman Empire ruling what, historically, are the Spanish colonies at least in the Americas]. It wouldn't really be an issue, except that she refers to some of these events through out the book regularly.

She also has a habit in the series of changing the name of just about everything. For example, France reverts to being Gaul, and the British Empire ends up with Albion [and both *are* names that have been used for the places...centuries before this takes place, and not really common use from what I've seen.] Some don't even get that lucky, there's a state running around called Franklin, which I assume is Pennsylvania, but it's never actually stated *where* it is. Again, wouldn't be an issue except that it keeps getting referenced, and there are just enough places that don't get renamed that it's obvious it's supposed to be the US, but nothing really beyond that.

tl;dr: She changed a lot of things for the setting that don't really make sense beyond her doing it for 'THIS IS AN AU' reenforcement, and just makes things more confusing and distracting from the story.

I actually like that -- although I'd really love a map. :-)

Nope, no maps given. You're just sort of expected to ~know~, and get what things are when they just say the name in the text, no explanation given. Drives me crazy, and the history stuff drives the history nerd in me crazy [and kind of comes off like she *really* doesn't understand why the historical events she changes happened the way they did.]

ayrt

I've read the books. Possibly things were a bit easier for me because two of the big ones -- Mill City and Mammoth River -- came very easily to me, since Mill City was a nickname for St Paul/Minneapolis and from that, Mammoth River is pretty obviously the Mississippi. And a very large proportion of Western Hemisphere names have to be different, because no humans crossed the land bridge. (I still would like to know whether my impression of "Helvan Shores" as Connecticut is correct or not.) Columbus may actually have realized he wasn't in the Indies, hence Amerigo Vespucci not getting two huge land masses named after him for very little reason.

The history changes don't bother me much, either, because -- what history changes would there be, in a world where magic is recognized, institutionalized, used in agriculture and warfare? I get the impression that among other things, the technological imbalance between Europe and Asia has been pretty much equalized, so colonialism is playing out in a completely different way. Westward expansion in North America is constrained by the Wild Magic Stuff, so tensions might have blown up earlier, etc., etc., etc.

I don't know what the reasoning behind "Avropa" is, though. That irks me.

AYRT

It's not the changes themselves that bother me so much as the fact that she never gave a reason for them, particularly since most of them could have remained the same and had no real impact on the story itself. So it's more the *reasoning* [or, rather, lack there of] that bothers me. When you change history you really need to explain why it changed, and not just refer to things and expect people to catch on - particularly if your changing to names people may not even realize are connected to a certain place. [For example, I got that Mammoth River was the Mississippi, but I had no clue Mill City was a nickname for St. Paul - and I am from the US, so I imagine it's even worse for people who aren't.]

I'll admit, it does bug me that she completely erased the existence of an entire group of people, for multiple reasons, and it does so to a pretty great degree.

Also, and this is part of what I mean by randomly renaming things to other things it's been called, Avropa is the Azerbaijani word for 'Europe'.

I'm a little twitchy about the humanless-Western-Hemisphere, also. I keep going back and forth on how much it should bother me. I can't argue with it bothering you.

The rest of the history--eh. We're seeing glimpses of it through a naive narrator, who doesn't know a lot of history, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot more framework explaining what happened when and why, but it's not in the book because it doesn't belong in the book. I'd like it in the book, because I'll read any kind of history, but it's irrelevant to the main plot and not something the main character would think much about. (I'm pretty sure if I were writing a similar book, I would put the entire history in, and then someone would make me take it out.)

Ashley's Lost Angel: Forever Angels
Ashley's boyfriend doesn't like her anymore, she's flunking math, her horse is sick, and her parents may get a divorce, so she turns to her guardian angel for help, but it turns out that she needs help from Ashley.

The Beginning Place by Ursula LeGuin
Fleeing from the monotony of his life, Hugh Rogers finds his way to "the beginning place"--a gateway to Tembreabrezi, an idyllic, unchanging world of eternal twilight. Irena Pannis was thirteen when she first found the beginning place. Now, seven years later, she has grown to know and love the gentle inhabitants of Tembreabrezi, or Mountaintown, and she sees Hugh as a trespasser. But then a monstrous shadow threatens to destroy Mountaintown, and Hugh and Irena join forces to seek it out. Along the way, they begin to fall in love. Are they on their way to a new beginning...or a fateful end?

The Mystery of 22 East

this is right up my alley because i love YA books. i tend to read a lot of fantasy with romance subplots so if you're not into fantasy i apologize.

i don't know if you've read her work before, but one of my favorite authors is tamora pierce, who writes the knights with magic kind of fantasy (...does this make any sense? i'm a little bit sleep deprived haha). bonus points are that all the main characters are female and fucking awesome. i would recommend starting with "the song of the lioness" quartet, which is about a girl named alanna who dresses up as her brother to become a knight. she's also written two other quartets, a duology and some short stories, all in the same universe.

graceling by kristen cashore is an amazing book about a girl named katsa who lives in a world where some people are born with specific magic powers called "graces". graces can be anything, but katsa has a deadly grace of killing people, which her uncle the king uses to his advantage. it's a well written, well paced and incredibly creative book which i pretty highly recommend. there's a sequel called bitterblue which i've started but didn't finish due to time constraints. there's also a companion book called fire, which i haven't read yet. YMMV on whether or not fire is worth reading because, although it takes place in the same universe as graceling and bitterblue, i hear it has none of the original characters from graceling.

i also ADORE francesca lia block's writing, and think her stuff is greatly underrated. her most well known book series is called weetzie bat, an eccentric book about a creative girl named weetzie who doesn't fit in but learns to accept herself, quirks and all. currently, there are five books in the series (which are a little hard to describe in great detail without spoiling the plot so i'll try to describe it to the best of my abilities). there's witch baby, which is about weetzie's daughter who struggles to fit in with her family due to the strangeness of her birth; cherokee bat and the goat guys is about weetzie's other daughter cherokee whose in a band with her friends; there's missing angel juan, which is about witch baby going on a journey to find her boyfriend angel juan who runs away and finally, there's baby be-bop which is about weetzie's gay friend dirk dealing with his sexuality. it takes place pre-weetzie and the other four books. there's also a sequel to this series (necklace of kisses, which i didn't read) and a prequel (pink smog). block mainly writes magical realism with a dash of odd about girls who want to find their place in the world, and i highly recommend all of her work, including her poetry.

i'm just gonna stop here for now because i probably won't stop talking if i keep going, haha. (if you want to keep hearing me talk just tell me and i'll go on!)

mercedes lackey
anne mccaffrey
lynn flewelling
Diana Wynne Jones
raymond e fiest

Treasure in an Oatmeal Box by Ken Gire
The Southern Vampire Mysteries
The Young Wizards by Diane Duane

sad ending but good: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Seconding Terry Pratchett. Also Meg Cabot, Philip Reeve (except for his Mortal Engines trilogy, because talk about downer endings...), Diane Duane and Libba Bray.

YA recs from a couple of months ago: http://fandomsecrets.dreamwidth.org/676125.html?thread=584119837#cmt584119837

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld and its sequels. From the covers and synopses, it looks like chick-lit. It's actually dystopian thriller. If you haven't already, give it a shot.

I'm tempted to also rec the Privilege series by Kate Brian, but you'd probably have to read the first few books of its trashier counterpart series first, which is mostly about rich girl drama.

Seconding Uglies and adding his Leviathan series: alternate universe WWI with biomechanical ships and such.

Also his wife, Justine Larbalestier, is an excellent writer.

I've rec'd it before but if you haven't already tried them, the Darkest Powers series is good (IMO)

Diane Duane hasn't been mentioned by the people here yet.

Yes, absolutely!

1. Everworld by K.A. Applegate & Michael Grant (uncredited to Michael Grant, but it's co-written).
2. Animorphs by the same authors. It's targeted towards a younger audience, and it's an extremely long series, so it's very patchy/fillery in places - but when it's good, it's amazing.
3. Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta
4. The Tomorrow Series by John Marsden
5. "So Much to Tell You" and "Take My Word for It" - John Marsden. These are a bit dated, but still good.
6. Chasing Charlie Duskin (do NOT read the republished US version, which is called "A Little Wanting Song") -by Cath Crowley.
7. The Gracie Faltrain books, also by Cath Crowley.
8. "Circle of Magic" and "Circle Opens" quartets by Tamora Pierce. Avoid "Melting Stones".
9. Tamora Pierce's Tortall books - basically all the rest of her books.
10. Dated as hell, but one of my old favourites: A Cage of Butterflies by Brian Caswell.
11. Taronga, Fire Dancer, Earthsong, Parkland, or The Makers by Victor Kelleher.
12. This should really be at the top of the list because it's so good, but the Pagan Chronicles by Catherine Jinks.
13. Eye to Eye - Catherine Jinks

^P.S. Seconding the hell out of Terry Pratchett, though I wouldn't really consider him YA.

Oh, and Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy. I didn't like Kingdom of the Keys ("Mister Monday" etc), but you could try that; it's been years since I read it, though. I got bored of it and didn't bother with it again.

By the way, YMMV on Tamora Pierce's most recent books. Trickster's grown on me, but I don't want to read Mastiff and I wasn't thrilled with Bloodhound. Will of the Empress was all right. Melting Stones? Just... yeah, it was forgettable.

The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci - Not usually on the rec lists because it isn't a fantasy book by any stretch of the imagination.

Miss Peregrine's School for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs - You'll want a hardcopy of this because the pictures are integral; ebooks just don't do it justice.

Anything by Terry Pratchett (he writes YA and general fiction), Eleanore Updale (the Montmorency series is her best), the House of Night series by PC Cast, and the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2151 ]

Recommend me some books?

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