Fred ,'Life of the Party'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Oh, and the adult Judy Blume books. I got WIFEY confiscated so many times...
And am I wrong in thinking that there's there's no way this book would've ever scored a USA Today feature story if it had been written by a woman?
Not that I'm bitter or anything...
At 14 I was vacillating between various Authurian books (Stewart's Merlin series and etc.) and working my way through my dad's collection of Analog Science Fiction magazines. I think I also got into Douglas Adams around then.
I've just started Twilight, and I'm finding it loads of fun. I disagree with the protagonist about everything so far, down to climate issues, but it's enjoyable in a bad-book-for-the-beach kinda way.
The trick is having it dubbed a "love story" rather than a "romance."
I am reminded that around 14-16 were the years of the Very Long Book, including LotR and Michener. I generally don't tackle books larger than my head these days, but back they it was "Oh, boy! It will last longer." I also read a lot of spy books, because of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and I had a terrible crush on Simon Templar.
Ginger--do you check your profile email on a regular basis, perchance?
I do, Scrappy.
At 14 I remember already being enamored with gothic fiction and 19th century literature in general, Sci-Fi, some historical romances, the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space trilogy as well as Young Miss or Tiger Beat magazines.
a copy of Meredith Pierce's Darkangel,
Oh! Yes, I read it obsessively!! And I quite agree; I read the sequel (I guess the 2nd book) and it was fine, but not as wonderful as #1. I don't think I ever read #3. Oh, I'm going to have to find that and re-read it, Fay. I haven't thought about it in YONKS.
I think at 14, I too was reading Auel...I think the first three books were out by 1986? and tons of Silhouette Desires, historical roms (I remember Bertrice Small and Constance O'Banyon and Johanna Linsdey were faves, although my sister and I can STILL crack each other up by injecting the phrases "Conn, Conn, stuff me till I burst!" and "Take me like the stallion takes my mare" from Small, which originated at roughly that time. Heh. "Conn..." Heh.
I have to leave a voice mail for my sister right now.
Also, I think I stole "Gone with the Wind" from the scholl lib at that age -- I still have it, along with Grimm's Fairy Tales, a ginormous unbowderlized version (I'ma go to hell.
Stephen King, esp. "It" which came out about then. Also, I remember I wrote a short horror story called "Harvest Moon" for frosh English which the teacher made me read aloud to the class.
I'ma go to hell.
If you are, I'll be next to you, clutching the unabridged Count of Monte Cristo, which I was the only one to read in a ten-year period, so the school library didn't even deserve to have it.
A boyfriend gave me a set of leather bound books when we ware in high school. My favorites of the set were the Grimm's Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales, complete Edgar Allan Poe and 5 Agatha Christie stories. The books were nicer than he turned out to be. I still have the books, too.
I'ma go to hell.
I'll be there, too, holding my copy of Lord of the Flies and All Quiet on the Western Front. The second one I read for a US History assignment and kept forgetting to return.