Tuesday, June 30, 2009

victory!

Achievement!

I have this co-worker. She’s young, just turned twenty-one a few months back. Very nice girl, but she doesn’t read much. It’s a character flaw, I know. She reads Harry Potter, Twilight, and the Eragon books. I’ve no beef with Harry Potter, and I wouldn’t have a beef with the other two if that wasn’t all she read. Over and over. And over.

My goal is to add to the series of books she will read and re-read.

My first recommendation: Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld. I figure if you’re gonna start somewhere, you might as well start with some of the best. She bought the first book, read it. Ran out to the store and bought Pretties and Specials. She didn’t pick up Extras because she wasn’t sure if she’d like it – see, it doesn’t feature Tally and she’s not sure how that’ll work for her.

But, victory! Successfully recommended a new series of books.

Now I just have to figure out what to recommend next. Problem is that I haven’t read much YA. I’ve read Magic or Madness from Justine Larbalestier, but didn’t love it enough to make it an easy recommendation.

I’m a little stuck as to where to go next with this. I can tell her what is considered good and popular, but not so much stuff that I know is worth recommending from personal reading. I may just tell her to read everything else Westerfeld has in the YA section, maybe starting with the Midnighters series. Haven’t read it, though.

Hmm!

9 comments:

Liina said...

I'd maybe recommend ... well, all of Westerfeld YA, indeed. and Cassandra Clare's City of Bones and the rest of the trilogy? OK, it's a bit silly but good fun.

for starters, anyway.

and Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is actually recommended by the Twilight author - and it is pretty good.

and Melissa Marr would probably also work, if she likes Twilight. (although I hate Twilight so what do I know?)

Adele said...

Judging from that she'd probably like Pc & Kristin Cast's House of night books and maybe Rachel Caine's Morganville Vamps.

Unknown said...

Mieville's Un Lun Dun, if you are sticking to YA.

Greyweather said...

How about Neil Gaiman's Coraline or Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant series?

Unknown said...

Start with Tamora Pierce, then move to Gaiman, then try De Lint.

Anonymous said...

I have heard some good things about Garth Nix's books particularly the Keys to the Kingdom series and especially the Sabriel/Lirael/Abhorsen books which according to wiki are referred to as the Old Kingdom series.

Joyce said...

I a really good choice would be the House of Night series. I read the first (I'm 44) and loved it and devoured the rest. I loaned it to a young coworker (22) and she loved it and really doesn't do much reading. She lent it to her sister and she loved it too. The same has happened with the Morganville Vampires series. I just started reading the Vampire diaries and enjoyed but not sure how much appeal it will have. I do know they are making a tv series of it in the fall.

Sharon E. Dreyer said...

This is a great review! I like that it gives us the good, the bad, and the ugly too! As a first time author it's educational for me to read reviews and other writers' books. Check out my first and recently released novel, Long Journey to Rneadal. This exciting tale is a romantic action adventure in space and is more about the characters than the technology.

Joe said...

All (except Sharon): Thanks for the suggestions. When she gets through the series I'll see if she's ready for more recommendations and figure out where to go from there. This is helpful.

Sharon: I can only hope / assume you meant to comment on a different post because there isn't anything here that remotely resembles a review.