What was the first adult novel/book you read, and how old were you?

I remember finding a copy of Jane Eyre at my Gran’s house when I was about 8 and reading it. I enjoyed the earlier part of the book where Jane is a child/teenager, admittedly though the majority of the book was over my head haha! To this day though Jane Eyre is one of my favourite books.

It would have been either Lace, The Thorne Birds or Flowers in the Attic. I would have been about 10 or 11 - upper end of junior school. It was a recommendation from my granny and aunties who were all reading it and thought I would love it too! I remember not being sure if my mum would agree, but taking it anyway and loving it!

I was going to say ‘Misery’ when I was 13 because I’d been on a bit of a reading hiatus and that was a really grown up book when I’d previously been enjoying the likes of Malory Towers.

But then I remembered that I read the Complete Works of Lewis Carroll when I was 9… really crazy and I didn’t understand it. I bought the chunker of a book in Woolies on holiday and couldn’t put it down even though it meant nothing to me (I obviously got the surface leveL gist of the Alice books.)

I then read abridged versions of Great Expectations and Mutiny on the Bounty that I found in Poundstretcher and liked both of those.

My grandmother bought me Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights when I was seven but I didn’t feel confident to read either until many years later. Jane Eyre became my favourite book.

I think it was Wuthering Heights and I was ten. Loved it and cried copiously when Heathcliffe begged Cathy to haunt him but not leave him.

Jane Eyre - I think I was about 9 or 10. It was the Sunday serial on TV and I bought it with a book token I was given. The Sunday serial at that time introduced me to quite a few classics.

Catherine cookson, Agatha Christie in primary 6

I read Frost in May aged about 14.

Also a lot of Agatha Christies from 12 or 13 onwards.

Anne! Not Ann...!!

It was probably an Agatha Christie but the one I can remember was lady chatterley’s lover. I was 12 and the librarian insisted on ringing my mum when I tried to take it out. My mum dismissed her concerns and the librarian - having noted our address - decided then that mum didn’t know what it was about. Big mistake. Couldn’t hear what was said but I know it was a lecture. This was early 90s. I watched the tv show after and decided I preferred the book.

Heidi and Little Women at around ten or eleven. I think they were on the bookshelf at home. I don't think we had many books though. Then Jean Plaidy and Agatha Christie from about twelve or thirteen from the library. And the 'Ann' books. I was a frequent visitor to the library :)

I read Pride and Prejudice in my early 20s. I'm not a fiction reader but thought I need to try something. I found school books uninteresting to me. Eg To kill a mockingbird, Kidnapped, Brave New World, the Pearl, The Inheritors.

P&P I picked cos I loved the TV series!

I really liked the book too. I was surprised how similar it was to the series.

I'd never re read it or any other Austen (despite owning them all!) But have researched the TV series many times.

Rebecca

I don't know what was the first, but remember reading The Go Between after seeing the film. I must have been about 14.

I read The Chrysalids by John Wyndham on the recommendation of my step father when I was 10. We had just watched a film version of Day of the Triffids also by Wyndham. When I read Chrysalids I was enchanted by the name Sophie and vowed to call any daughter I had by that name. My Sophie is now 36.

Another one for Jean Plaidy here! It was Boxing Day when I was 11 and my Aunt had given my Mum the Mary, Queen of Scots duo. I read the first book in a day and couldn't wait to get down to the library to find others. Absolutely loved them.
Started Agatha Christie around the same time and still have all my paperback copies from that era.

I was eight and holiday in Portugal having run out of books with at least a week to go, my mum agreed to buy The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie which is a collection of short stories. I absolutely loved them.

Not really adult more teen but if felt adult.
Judy Blume Forever

Also remember reading flower's in the Attic, Virginia Andrews.

And a lot of the classics - little women, what Katy dud etc.

I read* ffs wish there was an edit button!

I rad my mum's Georgette Heyer books when on a camping holiday when I was 10. Two weeks in the wilds of Scotland and I ran out of my books so started reading her's. Around the same sort of time I started reading the Reader's Digest hard back leather bound books at my Nana's house as I'd run out off anything to read and I was a voracious reader.

Pet Semetary 😱. I was 11 - an older friend lent it to me. I wrote a book review for school and the teacher phoned my mum!

Luckily I was too young to understand it properly. I remember her wanking him off in the bath and saying she learnt it at Girl Scouts more than any of the horror 😬.

Probably my mums library books. They were often by James Hadley Chase and had pictures of scantily clad women holding onto the leg of a man holding a pistol. Then Jaws, and some awful slave porn nonsense from the 70s. Then discovered Johns Wyndham and Steinbeck and got my own library card 😃

Wilbur Smith's Rage. It had sex and violence in it, I was morbidly fascinated. It was a hobby of mine when I was 8/9/10 to scour my parents bookshelves for unsuitable looking books and nick them and read them in secret hoping to find swearing or sex.

Thorn Birds - 13yrs
Around the same time but possibly younger (maybe 11) any Readers digest condensed (as per OP).
Also got Adrian Mole for 10th birthday and not sure that was 100% appropriate
Later I went through a wierd phase of reading Danielle steele/flowers in attic/those SAS books (can't remember who wrote them!), Neville Shute and a load of random stuff I could lay my hands on from horror to Jilly Cooper. Certainly nothing appropriate for a 13/14/15 year old! Our crappy impoverished 80s comp did not have a library. Hard to believe but true.
Despite having an Alevel in English I was in my 29s before I started reading anything considered literature by choice (as in it wasn't a 'core text')

I Robot by Iassac Asimov aged 11.
I loved it and got super into sci-fi for a bit.

Me too. I remember buying it at a jumble sale