A childhood (early teen era) book that made a big impression: anybody else ever read House of Stairs?

Yes! I actually came here for help figuring out what it was -- I had read it and loved it in seventh grade.

That was my first encounter with principles of operant conditioning/behavior modification (though I can't remember how they labeled it in the book). I think I still have a copy of that in my shelves.

Makes note to self to check when I get home tonight.

anybody else ever read House of Stairs?

I haven't, but I have the movie Cube waiting for me to watch at some point.

I don't know what I read first, but in nursery school I know we had the Dick and Jane books. I have few memories before age 3-4, so I'll go with that.

A childhood (early teen era) book that made a big impression: anybody else ever read House of Stairs?

The Books on the Nightstand podcast discussed it at one point and it sounded so good I put in on my TBR list.

Speaking of which, my college roommate (who has a blog on writing that focuses on the YA market) wants me to guestblog for her as she gets closer to her pub date. While, I've been reading more YA of late (including 13 Reasons Why, The Hunger Games, Tomorrow When the War Began, When You Reach Me, The Giver), I'm looking for recommendations. It doesn't have to have been published recently.

Oh, I remember House of Stairs! Creeped me way the hell out as a seventh grader, and thus I read it about ninety times in less than a year. That's definitely on my need-to-reread-someday list.

And I just remembered another favorite from that time, Richard Peck's Ghosts I Have Been (book discussion here, image of the one true right and proper cover art here).

My first book: [link]

I have on clue what my first book was. Possibly a Dick and Jane thing.

Ooh, who is she, megan? I'd like to check out her blog.

You've read a lot of the YA I would recommend, but I'd also say anything by Laurie Halse Anderson, Libba Bray's Going Bovine or the spectacular Great and Terrible Beauty trilogy. Also How We Live Now by Meg Rosoff, which blew me away.

And I just remembered another favorite from that time, Richard Peck's Ghosts I Have Been

I adored that book. There was a sequel, too, I believe. Anything by Peck I gobbled up.

the spectacular Great and Terrible Beauty trilogy.

With the caveat that she engages in some significant India!fail. (I am ashamedly ignorant of Indian culture during that time period, so it did not ping me at all. However, I've read a fair amount of criticism that the parts in India are stereotypes verging on caricatures.)

All that said, I love those books. (Possibly because my embarrassing ignorance allows me to overlook the faily parts.) I recently re-read them, and I have to learn to not read to the end of book 3.

Ooh, who is she, megan? I'd like to check out her blog.

She is actually the friend I stayed with outside of Seattle during the F2F there. Here is her blog, Writer on the Side. She has worked in publishing since forever (as a full-time freelancer since the first of her four [!!] boys was born) and gives lots of good practical advice on writing reading guides, author appearances, etc.