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Palagrin

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    Grasshopper Jungle

    in Children's / Young Adult

    Posted · Edited by Lilywhite
    Link removed as per forum rules

    I've just finished this book this week and it is AMAZING. Literally one of the best YA/crossover titles I have ever read, it is just. so. good.
     

     

    If you're a fan of John Green, Michael Grant, Stephen King or David Levithan, get your pincers stuck into this. In the small town of Ealing, Iowa, Austin and his best friend Robby have accidentally unleashed an unstoppable army. An army of horny, hungry, six-foot-tall praying mantises that only want to do two things. This is the truth. This is history. It’s the end of the world. And nobody knows anything about it. Funny, intense, complex and brave, Grasshopper Jungle is a groundbreaking, genre-bending, coming-of-age stunner.

     

    And if that hasn't convinced you, maybe my review can ;)

    YA - Dislikes and Wishes!

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    Well if authors are saying that, they're wrong. I enjoy a happy or hopeful ending, but I like books that end tragically as well. It makes reading less predictable. I'm only 17 years old, so I'm a "young adult" and I don't need a hopeful ending. And like I said, I don't read a lot of YA, but what I have read has been predictable. I find myself three or four chapters in and already correctly guessing the end of the story.

    Tragedies aren'tr eally covered that much, and I do agree with you that they should be, to a certain extent. Clearly reading the wrong books ;)

    Looking for good YA book

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    And my bff mentioned Divergent. It's all she talks about lately so I'm guessing it is good as well.

    Divergent is one of those books you read and think "this is pretty cool" and then 6 months later you think "actually, it wasn't that great". It's okay, but there are plenty of better books to spend your time with.

    YA - Dislikes and Wishes!

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    Maybe I'm not reading the right stuff, but what I read has a conflict, but it is always resolved and everyone lives happily ever after. Of course there is going to be a conflict and problems, it is a book, but I don't like happy endings all the time. All I've read is happy endings.

    Okay. Well, I think for a start (and I hear many authors say this) that young adult books need some sort of hopeful ending. Not necessarily a happy ending, but one that isn't completely bleak. I'm not sure if that's what you're referring to. If not, I can only assume you're reading the "wrong" stuff- have you tried TFIOS?

    YA - Dislikes and Wishes!

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    I think more realistic stories. YA often makes it seem like being a young adult is perfect and beautiful. In reality, people in that age group get their heart broken, have the pressure of drinking and drugs, and the ending isn't always happy.

    ...I don't know what YA you're reading but the YA I read is pretty tough sometimes...

    Romance, love triangles etc in YA

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    Romance is incredibly important during teenage years, so it's no surprise that it gets such coverage (though I'd argue it doesn't get any more coverage than romance in adult books).

     

    What IS problematic is the incessant overuse of the love triangle. I don't know why that's become such a big thing but I suspect that's a remnant of Twilight.

    Your YA Recommendations

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    For one Skulduggery Pleasant about a young girl and her friend the magician detective skeleton out on various adventures. It has fantasy, horror and detective story elements. I'd say it would be good for 10+, cause it has it's dark and dangerous moments.

    Skulduggery Pleasant is an AWESOME series, and the best thing about it is that each book is better than the last. The first books are quite tame but as you said, it does get very dark.

     

    Very dark.

    What exactly is YA?

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    Would anyone know the average age of the majority of  YA authors  ?  I'm wondering if they'd all be young ( to me, young would be anything under 40 )... If I were to write a book, it'd be a challenge for me to recall how it felt to be a teen . I'm thinking maybe the closer you ARE to that age, the easier it'd be to write about that age .

    Actually, YA authors are pretty much every generation of writers.

    I've been thinking about some different questions that would be directly linked to YA books ... and maybe I'm old fashioned ,but are there any YA books that don't accept pre-marital sex as just another daily event ?  I know I sound like a Crabby Old Geezer that needs to get out of the Caveman days , but these are big concerns in our area. Parents don't want their kids choosing books that make certain ideas seem the norm . Does anyone feel that if kids read about these things, the books have enough influence over them to encourage certain behaviors, even though it is drilled into them at home that it is NOT acceptable ?

    Not all YA deals with sex. This tends to be more the case with genre-fiction, where romance though sometimes still important isn't as important as, say, staying alive. As soon as you move into more contemporary romance you tend to get more explicit material.

    I'm also wondering if very many YA books address the issues of bullying . We had that ,even back in MY day, but the thought would have never crossed anyone's mind that someone would come and get revenge by bringing a weapon to school .

    ...I don't think that thought would cross most people's minds unless they were psychologically disturbed.

     

     

    Hi Julie,

     

    most of the books that my nephews have read don't have pre-marital sex in it.  I know because I've read them.

     

    I agree that the books do seem to have adolescent protagonists.  There have been a few that irked me because of the blurbs.  They described the protagonists as young boys, said boys were 16-18, old enough to leave home, marry and have a child.  Young boys to me is boys under the age of 12.  If you get to the age of 21 then you're a young man.

    I've never read a blurb where 16+ boys have been described as "young boys". Boys, certainly, but not "young" boys.

    For those who avoid YA

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    I avoid most YA books because they seem to be targeted at someone else.  I don't a different age, because I can read books that are targeted at a younger audience, I mean so much of the young adult category seems more targeted at young adult girls rather then young adult boys.  Nearly all the titles I see seem to be trying to ride the Twilight wave.

     

    When I take my son, who is a young adult himself at 12 years old to the book store, we look at the young adult section but he looks at all the new books there, reads the cover jacket / back cover blurb, sometimes flips through a few pages to see what it is like, and puts it back saying "this is a girls book".  Sure you have some titles like the stuff from Michael Scott about Nicholas Flamel or the Percy Jackson books, but going to a lot of book stores with a kid and seeing the YA section a lot, those are in the minority.

     

    Young Adult at some point became Young Adult Female.  So neither I nor my son are the audience for the category in general.

     

    But maybe that is just my impression and things aren't quite like that.

    The Twilight wave is now largely over, actually. The "new" wave is the Hunger Games, though that's been around for a couple of years now too.

     

    If you need recommendations for more boysy YA books, I'm more than happy to help. I read a whole ton of books which aren't Twilighty.

     

    Though you're right - a lot of books are marketed at girls because they tend to read more. Don't let that put you off though; some of them aren't really girls books. Some of the best YA I've read has female protagonists.

    Looking for YA books with humour

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted · Edited by Palagrin

    The funniest series I've ever read is Spud by John van de Ruit. It's effectively the South African equivalent of Adrian Mole, except it's set in an all-boys boarding school and it is seriously funny. It has 3 sequels which are just as good, if not better, too. (I've linked to my review, if you're intrigued by it)

     

    Have fun with those!

     

     

    Too much of YA is dark, serious, dangerous, sad . Is this just a trend in books ?

    I'd argue that's a reflection of the zeitgeist. We're living in a time where we don't know what our future is going to be like. Books are reflecting this existential crisis by painting a very dystopian picture of the world.

    Looking for good YA book

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    I've mainly copied and pasted this from another thread where people were looking for YA, but these should apply to you too as I've listed some of my favourite (and extremely well written) series/books. You should have fun with them if you pick any of them up.

     

    The Pure Trilogy by Julianna Baggott ~ Seriously amazing & beautifully written post-apocalyptic trilogy.
    Blood Red Road by Moira Young ~ cross between a Western, dystopian & post-apocalyptic. First 50 pages slow but after that really good.
    Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve ~ My favourite series of all time, light steampunk/sci-fi (not really though) about Cities eating Cities - the opening line: “It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.” And if that doesn't catch your imagination, nothing will ;)
    Chronicles of the Icemark by Stuart Hill ~ excellent high fantasy with very large, well written battles and lots of original ideas (no dragons/elves/dwarves etc etc) also wonderful female protag
    Airman by Eoin Colfer ~ author of Artemis Fowl, Airman is in my opinion his best book. Historical, about flying machines. v. exciting
    Here Lies Arthur ~ highy original take on Arthurian legend, by Mortal Engines author.
    I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells ~ horror with some supernatural elements about a sociopath. Bit like Dexter.

    BZRK by Michael Greant ~ Great, highly original series about nanotech and biotech wars on/in humans. They're really pacy and quite edgy thrillers.

     

    As for Divergent - it's good but a little derivative, in my opinion. And the sequel isn't great.

    What exactly is YA?

    in YA Month (Archived)

    Posted

    I'd argue that Harry Potter is children's.

     

    Why? There's very little about stuff that normally takes a forefront in YA - stuff like sex, romance etc etc All in all, HP is very family friendly and you could give them to an 8 year old without much trouble as it is very "safe" in terms of content (even if they do get darker).

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