Reading Matters Blog

Here are some books I hope you will like, based on your interest in Go Ask Alice.

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron.
Eighteen-year-old James living in New York City with his older sister and divorced mother struggles to find a direction for his life.

Here are some books I hope you will like, based on your interest in Go Ask Alice.

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron.
Eighteen-year-old James living in New York City with his older sister and divorced mother struggles to find a direction for his life.

If you like The Pale Assassin and historical fiction, you might like these:

The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner
In the late eighteenth-century, Sido, the twelve-year-old daughter of a self-indulgent marquis, and Yann, a fourteen-year-old Gypsy orphan raised to perform in a magic show, face a common enemy at the start of the French Revolution.

The Stolen One by Suzanne Crowley
After the death of her foster mother, sixteen-year-old Kat goes to London to seek the answers to her parentage, and surprisingly finds herself invited into Queen Elizabeth's court.

The Luxe by Anna Gobseren
In Manhattan in 1899, five teens of different social classes lead dangerously scandalous lives, despite the strict rules of society and the best-laid plans of parents and others.

Block was born in Los Angeles, sometimes known as "Shangri-L.A.", other times "Hell-A", depending on how the day is going. The daughter of a poet and painter, she attended the University of California at Berkeley. Francesca was a riot grrl before the term had even been invented. She read the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez while at college; his magical realism became a major influence. Block's work is grounded in urban realities, though she sees pixies and genies in that "jasmine-scented, jacaranda-purple, neon sparked city". She missed Los Angeles, and wrote her first novel to cure homesickness. That novel was Weetzie Bat, and it made a big wet splash in Young Adult literature.
 

Although it's a little more fantastical than Hunger Games, there's a wonderfully fraught romance in Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr, and the sequels Ink Exchange and Fragile Eternity. Seventeen-year-old Aislinn, who has the rare ability to see faeries, is drawn against her will into a centuries-old battle between the Summer King and the Winter Queen, and the survival of her life, her love, and summer all hang in the balance.

Walter Dean Myers started school, looking to conquer the world. He could read well; he had discovered the powers of the written word. Words failed him, though, when it came time to speak. He had a speech impediment, one that caused him immense frustration: some words he couldn't pronounce. His frustration soon turned to anger. Luckily, a teacher recognized his problem. She told him to write words he could pronounce, and he began to write. He created poems at first, then short stories, full of words that he did not fear reading aloud. He was soon being praised for his writing: it was just a preview of the praise he would receive when he embarked on his life of writing.

You were looking for books with a mix of fantasy, history, and faeries in a modern or realistic setting. I really enjoy these types of books, too, so several titles jumped right to mind. I wasn’t sure if you were still in high school or not, but these are all young adult books for older readers. I think you’ll find them as enjoyable as Wildwood Dancing!

Last month I blogged about Leviathan, an awesome new book by Scott Westerfeld in the steampunk tradition. The trailer below illustrates the Leviathan plot and setting. For fans of the first book - you'll be thrilled to hear that the second book in the series is called Behemoth and will be published in October 2010.

If you like fantasies like Eragon by Christopher Paolini, read these recommended titles full of action, adventure and heroics. Many of them are also available as audiobooks.

Experience a minute in the Forest of Hands and Teeth:

 Heart pounding yet? The Forest of Hands and Teeth, a novel by Carrie Ryan, is about a young woman named Mary and her life in her village. Sounds bucolic, doesn't it? Until you learn that the village is guarded by a high fence, which is surrounded by hordes of mindless, flesh-eating zombies called the Unconsecrated. Mary can hear their moaning all day and night, and she doesn't dare get too close to the fence, for the infection that turns you into an Unconsecrated is passed by a single bite.