Young adult books - then and now
I'm looking for new reading material for the summer. Specifically, I'm wondering what I'm missing in the young adult fantasy/sci-fi genre, a la series like Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. What other YA series or books would you recommend I check out?
I already have Scott Westerfeld's Uglies trilogy on my wishlist. I've read the amazon.com descriptions, and it sounds FASCINATING. I've heard great things about Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time as well, but also that it's probably better to wait until the series finishes (if it does get finished), as it's hard to remember everything if you don't read them all at once. And based on indilime's intense fangirling over Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, I think I might have to add that to my list of books to check out this summer, too.
As a teenager, I absolutely adored teen horror like R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike and absolutely anything in that genre. I bought it all and ate it all up. Going to second-hand bookstores now and looking around in the teen horror section makes me feel like I'm back in junior high with all my hundreds of books that I had then. *nostalgic sigh* I started getting tired of R.L. Stine as I got a bit older, as he just seemed to recycle the same old story. But Christopher Pike remained one of my favourites, and soon L.J. Smith joined him. I started with her Vampire Diaries series, heavily publicized in the teen mags at the time, and followed her entire career, which sadly ended in the late 90s. She got sick and never did finish the Night World series. The last book was supposed to be released in 1999 and was supposed to have a big apocalyptic millennial finish. Oops.
I'm re-reading Harry Potter right now (I just started book 3!), and having a list of interesting summer books to check out would be fabulous. So what YA fantasy/scifi-ish books (that loosely relate to or fit with the ones I name above) do I absolutely HAVE to check out? What cool awesome series am I missing out on, and why should I check it out? Thanks!
I already have Scott Westerfeld's Uglies trilogy on my wishlist. I've read the amazon.com descriptions, and it sounds FASCINATING. I've heard great things about Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time as well, but also that it's probably better to wait until the series finishes (if it does get finished), as it's hard to remember everything if you don't read them all at once. And based on indilime's intense fangirling over Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, I think I might have to add that to my list of books to check out this summer, too.
As a teenager, I absolutely adored teen horror like R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike and absolutely anything in that genre. I bought it all and ate it all up. Going to second-hand bookstores now and looking around in the teen horror section makes me feel like I'm back in junior high with all my hundreds of books that I had then. *nostalgic sigh* I started getting tired of R.L. Stine as I got a bit older, as he just seemed to recycle the same old story. But Christopher Pike remained one of my favourites, and soon L.J. Smith joined him. I started with her Vampire Diaries series, heavily publicized in the teen mags at the time, and followed her entire career, which sadly ended in the late 90s. She got sick and never did finish the Night World series. The last book was supposed to be released in 1999 and was supposed to have a big apocalyptic millennial finish. Oops.
I'm re-reading Harry Potter right now (I just started book 3!), and having a list of interesting summer books to check out would be fabulous. So what YA fantasy/scifi-ish books (that loosely relate to or fit with the ones I name above) do I absolutely HAVE to check out? What cool awesome series am I missing out on, and why should I check it out? Thanks!