Comments on: MIND MELD: Great Genre Reads For Teenage Girls

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:23:21 +0000

They also really enjoyed The Time Traveler’s Wife and Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother and For the Win.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:01:00 +0000

Thank you very much for such thoughtful recommendations! I’m pretty sure I suggested this topic for my 2 daughters and you’ve all nailed the criteria and issues and have come up with fantastic ideas for them. They’ve read a few of the books here and seemed to like them all very much. A few books in particular they’ve enjoyed recently included:

Ender’s Game
Speed of Dark
Flowers for Algernon
Harry Potter (especially the later ones)
Gail Carriger’s Changeless series
Among Others by Jo Walton
Life As We Knew It- The Last Survivors Series, Book 1 by Susan Beth Pfeffer
The Uglies Trilogy by Scott Westerfield
The Runaways graphic novels
The Handmaid’s Tale

By: Stina

Stina — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:35:14 +0000

I totally meant to mention Mary Robinette Kowal’s books and forgot! Thanks for bringing them up.

By: June

June — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:37:20 +0000

I am defintely a grown-up reader and I read the following books as an adult, but I really enjoyed them. I think they are good cross-over novels and/or suitable for the age group in question.

Wildwood Dancing, Cybele’s Secret by Juliet Marillier
Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey. I also liked “The Shattering” – her next novel.
Thornspell by Helen Lowe
Tamora Pierce’s Lioness Quartet

I read John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids at that reading age and thought it was a fantastic story.

David Brin does write for females from my reading experience, so I agree with that recommendation.

I thought “Sea Hearts” was adult, and the warning about its themes is warranted.

Very good topic. Thanks for posting to all the authors.

By: Helen Lowe

Helen Lowe — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:47:18 +0000

JaniceG: I haven’t yet read Mary Robinette Kowal’s book, but I have read and enjoyed “Rite Of Passage” and believe it would be fine for an advanced reader in the age group.:)

By: JaniceG

JaniceG — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 05:57:07 +0000

For slightly older material, I highly recommend _Rite of Passage_ by Alexei Panshin in this category. I also recommend the recent _Shades of Milk and Honey_ by Mary Robinette Kowal.

By: Helen Lowe

Helen Lowe — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:19:33 +0000

Um [chagrined], Samuel R *Delany*

By: Helen Lowe

Helen Lowe — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:17:18 +0000

Andy, You are quite right, Babel-17 is by Samuel R Delaney. It is both a classic story, imho, and a longtime favourite of mine and I am suitably embarrassed by my error: my apologies to SF Signal readers.

By: Amy Sisson

Amy Sisson — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:32:48 +0000

“Santa Olivia” is a terrific book. I would recommend it to young adults aged 16 or 17 if I knew them to be mature.

I’d probably hold off recommending Carey’s other work for a little longer, though.

By: Amy Sisson

Amy Sisson — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:30:54 +0000

I think for a lot of us in our early teen years, “Flowers in the Attic” was a guilty, possibly forbidden read that we liked to think made us sophisticated and wordly to have read. Yeah, it’s pretty trashy, but at the same time it did manage to create a new little niche market. I think Charles Brown at Locus said that it spawned a new-ish “children in peril” trend in mainstream fiction.

But back to the topic, I agree with Stina that we’re talking about mature readers who can probably handle some sex and violence. “The Hunger Games” has plenty of the latter (although none of the former), and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to any teen (boy or girl) of any age, if I thought the teen was mature enough to handle it.

By: Mari

Mari — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:46:25 +0000

* looks embarrassed *

I don’t think I should admit to when I read Flowers in the Attic. (or even that I did.) But I think many people would have felt it inappropriate for my age.

I also read Stephen King when I was 13 — I loved it. And I recall many of us in high school passing around Pet Semetary and Carrie happily. Probably inappropriate, but…well, if my memory is correct, reading books inappropriate for our age was about the least of it.

By: Ryk E. Spoor

Ryk E. Spoor — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:19:52 +0000

Many of the suggestions mentioned before are very good. Of older material, I would strongly recommend many of the works of James Schmitz, who almost always featured strong female lead characters (the Telzey Amberdon series, Trigger Argee, and especially _The Demon Breed_ AKA The Tuvela), or had very strong secondary females when the lead was male (The Witches of Karres).

By: Gef

Gef — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:11:57 +0000

I haven’t read it myself, but it’s on my wish list, and sounds like something young girls might turn to: Jacqueline Carey’s “Santa Olivia.”

Anyone read it? Agree or disagree?

By: Stina

Stina — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:11:00 +0000

I would’ve read it, but then I was reading Stephen King at age seventeen, and my understanding of ‘teenage’ and ‘advanced’ is clearly different than yours. Also, my sister was reading “Flowers in the Attic” at age fifteen. “Go Ask Alice” was practically recommended reading when I was fourteen. (It was used to scare kids away from drugs and still is, from what I understand.) Purhaps your memories of being a teenager are a bit foggy, or maybe mine are? [shrug] One thing is for sure, what is appropriate for a teen is an individual thing.

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:34:40 +0000

“Altered Carbon” for Teenage Girls? Come on, this is a book with strong violence and graphic sex.

A small correction: “Babel-17″ was written by Samuel R. Delany.