At 14, I was probably still in my mystery kick, reading Mary Higgins Clark and E.W. Hildick, with a dash of fantasy like Edward Eager and E. Nesbit.

14 is about 9th grade, right? That would put it right smack at the height of my Heinlein phase.

I couldn't tell you what I was reading at 14 -- I was still very indiscriminate. I suspect I would have like Twilight quite a bit, but at that age I had much more patience for reading along hoping something might happen. I brought home the second book from the library, but I never read it. may never read it.

At 14 I was still in mysteries - Christie, Marsh, Sayers. And slumming in Enid Blyton's boarding school novels. I think I read LOTR that year. And Sassy magazine.

At 14 I was also still in mysteries. Also Once and Future King and a lot of Richard Brautigan and Vonnegut.

not sure...there was a lot. maybe I would have liked Twilight, but I'd read enough of my mom's books that maybe all the hair and face touching might have seemed unsatisfying, even then. Nice paragraph, Hecubus. You're right. Very Barton Fink I think maybe my cops-and-robbers started at fourteen or fifteen.

At 14 I think I was still reading lots of Andre Norton from the library, but had outgrown all animal authors (Kjellgaard, Terhune, Payton et al.)

At the used bookstore I was buying lots and lots of old pulp fantasy, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Very Barton Fink

They should totally do a movie of West's life. His bio is very Coensesque.

I was very amused when I found out that "O Brother..." goes back to "Sullivan's Travels".

I remember how stoked I was when I realized Andre Norton was a girl (being as I was a remarkably naive child whose thinking was of a level of "Not male/boy/other type of human=girl/person like me"). I've been fond of Andre ever since, beyond liking the stories.

That's an interesting take, Kat, since a very big deal was made of the fact that The Host was Meyer's first foray into adult fiction.

bahahahahahaha. Really? I read it entirely with an eye to it as being YA. But I read most things and think, "Hmm... could I teach this to middle school? Or can I give it to a specific 8th grader and they can handle it without too much debrief?" I mean, I think for some kids Life of Pi would be a perfect book. If you can get past the religious navelgazing of the first half.

I was curious how she would handle the love story elements of it, since she's been so adamant about the chastity angle in the Twilight books, but I didn't know anyone who'd actually read it.

There's no chastity element that I remember. It was just creepy because it's hard to figure out who to root for, the soul or the being in which the soul is implanted. I liked it quite a lot in spite of the slow start.

Also, in all fairness, I LIKED Twilight and I like the series. Do I think it's Great Literature? Absolutely not. Would I teach the book? Again, absolutely not. Do I think it's escapist pulp? Absolutely. But in my world of reading there is absolutely a place for escapist fantasies.

I don't think the spinelessness (and, as an aside in Book 4 Bella's so spineless that her self sacrificial BS in light of being pregnant with the Half Vamp Baby actually has her having her spine broken.... it's so beautifully [and I wonder if it is subliminal or actually intentional] ironic) of Bella is actual a role model, but I do think she's accessible in that many of these girls (and as readers they are almost 100% girls) also feel like they lack agency and they lack the ability to control their world and destiny. Seen more as Bella as a stand in and not a goal or model of behavior, the appeal is much more understandable.

It makes me happy to see kids eager to read this because it makes me happy to see kids eager to read. It's the same reason that I don't knock the awful goosebumps series.

I have heard very good things about The Spooks Series/Wardstone Chronicles. Anyone with any knowledge?