Books to halfway through the year: YA

[several_bees]

Every six months or so, I realise that hey, reading is great!, and I decide to keep track of books as I finish them. Last time it happened was January this year, which of course means I posted one entry about it and am now seven months behind

Comments

[ashfae]

Moving cities that eat other cities?? If you remember the name of this, let me know!

And then find Bloody Jack by A.L. Meyer. Oh YA, you are such an awesome genre.

[several_bees]

It must have been one of Reeve's Mortal Engines series, but I'm not sure which - I think they all involve moving cities that eat other cities, though, so probably any of them would do!

Thanks for the recommendation - I'll look it up. It does sound pretty rollicking, from a look at a plot summary.

[huskyteer]

I don't read many YA novels but I read a lot of children's books. This is mostly because you're more likely to have talking animals in kidlit and the plots are more interesting, also there's (usually) less sex and violence and swearing. God, I'm such a prude.

Have you read 'Unwind' by Neal Shusterman? Not the sort of thing I usuall go for, but I was utterly riveted.

[several_bees]

Yes, I do have trouble reading some sorts of violence, and am bored or embarrassed by a lot of sex scenes even in books I'm otherwise enjoying (perhaps especially in books I'm otherwise enjoying: I know these people! They're like friends! They should stop doing that in front of me!). So that's probably part of it.

I haven't read "Unwind", but it sounds like fun - I'll keep an eye out for it, once my current unread-books box shelf gets down below forty.

[reverancepavane]

...why are YA books better than books for adults?
Some of Dianna Wynne Jones anecdotes about the problems she faced with her new editor when she started writing "adult" fiction are quite instructive. Anyway, one of her comments was that when writing for the Young Adult market you couldn't make assumptions or skip parts of the plot, because children don't have sufficient life experience to fill in the gaps. On the other hand, adults will habitually read their life experiences and thoughts into a book and even add subtext that isn't there. [Sometimes they need the gaps to enjoy the book.]
This results in a considerable qualitative difference between the books.

[several_bees]

Oh, interesting. With adult fiction I think I do prefer gaps, and get a bit irritated by over-explanation - maybe it feels less out-of-place in YA fiction and so I don't mind it there?

[bateleur]

I think a lot of it is just genre and related issues.

By the time people becomes adults, a great many of them are too tedious to read books about fun things like talking elephants and magical zeppelins and secret doorways to other worlds. So publishers won't publish books like this for adults, which means if you want to read them you typically have to turn to YA or children's fiction.

I find I read increasingly few books because I have to choose between well written books about tedious things or speculative fiction written with great enthusiasm but not much skill. I generally end up choosing to play games instead.

[several_bees]

I find books cheer me up if I'm grumpy in a way that games don't necessarily - I rarely end up feeling a bit tetchy because I've "lost" a book, for example. And games do sometimes feel a bit like, well, work. I like 'em, but I don't want to be thinking about them all my work time and all my leisure time.

Do you really think good writing is underrepresented in books about interesting things, as compared to books about boring things? It would be a bit depressing if we were forced to conclude that liking interesting things correlates with being a bad writer.

[bateleur]

Do you really think good writing is underrepresented in books about interesting things

Yes, or at least I think the quality of text is lower in speculative fiction based on the small fraction of the world of books I've so far encountered.

It would be a bit depressing if we were forced to conclude that liking interesting things correlates with being a bad writer.

Oh, I don't conclude anything of the sort. I'm pretty sure the main reason for it is that speculative fiction isn't respectable enough for a lot of writers, so they avoid it even though they could write it if they chose.

Another way to look at it is that a similar proportion of non-speculative fiction is of a similar standard, but because so much less of it gets written in general that doesn't leave more than a handful of novels.

[a_llusive]

I would assume you have also read the excellent 'Dogsbody', 'Eight Days of Luke', 'Archers Goon' and 'Howl's Moving Castle'.

The Merlin Conspiracy certainly seemed the best of DWJ's recent efforts.

In case through some horrifying omission you haven't encountered the following, I'd recommend secretrebel's 'Bad Blood' and another friend's 'Verdigris Deep'. Both 'taste' DWJ-ish. If you haven't seen these before I must try advertising them harder.

[several_bees]

Mm, have read most of her stuff except a couple of the most recent ones, I think.

I haven't read Bad Blood or Verdigris Deep, but I am aware of them. I always feel a bit embarrassed about reading books because they're by someone I know or know of On The Internet, but I should probably get over that, as (a) it's clearly ridiculous, and (b) they definitely sound like the sort of thing I'd enjoy.