Book suggestions for teenager

[catsarebetter]

Hi, I'm looking for suggestions for books to get for my teenage son. He's 14, loves sci-fi, fantasy, adventure type stuff and reads so much we can't keep up with him. He's done all the usual sets, alex rider, twilight, dan brown, cassandra clare, skullduggery, time riders and rick riordan books. We tried giving him James Patterson but he didn't like them, said they were boring adult books.
Just looking for some suggestions as what to buy/ borrow next.

I'd suggest he subscribes (free) to something like Five Books

fivebooks.com/best-books/the-best-science-fiction-of-2020-tom-hunter/

which has endless expert recommendations to help him make his own choices. (I've just picked that page as an example.) Newspapers - Times /Guardian / New York Times, etc are also excellent sources of info on what's worth reading. There's surely no reason why you need to be deciding on and finding fiction for a 14 year old? Does he receive pocket money? If not, just set him a budget and let him get on with it. Proper literature is about the safest thing he could be indulging in - you must be delighted that he's so enthusiastic!

(Unless, of course, it is for any reason difficult for him to actively choose his own books.)

My ds has just turned 15 and has read everything by Raymond E Feist, Terry Pratchett, Terry Brooks, Ursula Le Guin, David Eddings, Ben Aaranovitch, Jasper Ffordde, Douglas Adams, Robin Hobb - basically every sci fi and fantasy book we own and a lot more. I have now paid for Kindle Unlimited for him on his own Amazon account (he has a child account to mine on an old Kindle so I can share books belonging to me and DH) so he can just pick for himself. I then have a wishlist of books he wants which need to be bought and pick them up when they are on Kindle discount

John Wyndham, Douglas Adams, Paolini, Ready Player 1/2?

Facing Up: A Remarkable Journey to the Summit of Mount Everest
Boy in a White Room
Eight Pieces of Silva
Summoner series
The Darkest Minds series
The Gone series

Robert Harris?

@CMOTDibbler and @Fivemoreminutes1 Thanks, some great suggestions for me to look up. Just found the Gone series, sounds just like his sort of thing.

Robin Hobb Assassin's Apprentice one of my all time favourite books (re read it a million times in the last 20 years). If he likes it, it is book 1 of a trilogy. Then there are more trilogies to read that follow on from it.

Also Kelley Armstrong but she writes both young adult and adult books so start with the YA books, The Summoning, first book of a trilogy.

Trudi Canavan The Magicians’ Guild again the first book of a trilogy.

All the books recommended contain either magic or supernatural powers and coming into power/discovering your power. My favourite is definitely The Assassins Apprentice. Set in a time with castles and swords but really rich in life lessons through a boy learning how to navigate his way through a life he didn't choose.

@JennyBoardEraser

Thanks, will look that up now, sounds fab.

Mine enjoyed Chris Ryan's three teen series - Special Forces Cadets, Alpha Force and Agent 21.

He also loved Boy 87 - it's a tough read in places but a real eye-opener.

catsarebetter - you may tell me to mind my own business, but as a former child bookworm, who's brought up other keen child / teen readers, I'm really curious as to why you need to look up books for your son first. Do you feel he isn't old enough to choose his own books? I may have completely misunderstood, of course.

I make endless book suggestions to teens now - but I'd expect them to be pretty much entirely independent in their choices at 14. Whatever they're reading in published literature can't be anywhere near as bad as what they see on their friends's phones every day at school.

friends' ...

@MayIDestroyYou
Think you may have got the wrong end of the stick, I don't feel the need to choose his books for him, he chooses plenty on his own, but at the moment his school library is shut so he can't search there for himself.
We are quite close and he discusses things with me and he asked me the other day what else he could read, what suggestions did I have, because he'd finished everything he had. I also read quite a varied selection, I knew he wouldn't be interested in period drama type stuff that I read, but I also like Stephen King and the girl with the dragon tattoo books and I think these would be too adult for him.

He only asked me in much the same way any other person would ask someone that knows them what suggestions would they make. It's not that I'm picking his books for him - not in the slightest, but I'm not going to advise him to read something like Stephen King when I know it would scare the living daylights out of him. I just wanted suggestions of books that were suitable for his age range that's all.

Fair enough!

Last Survivors trilogy, Life as we knew it is the first book, by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Hunger games series are brilliant, neither are sci fi but I've read all of both sets to my teen. Going to look up some of the suggestions on here as already reading him The Atlantis Grail books on a recommendation from a thread like this.