What was your favourite book when you were 14?

[stillsleeptraining]

I've been asked to give this as a gift, but my reading habits took a really weird (and completely unmonitored) turn at this age and absolutely wouldn't be appropriate!

Hoping someone can suggest something that resonated and is appropriate. My kids are too little for me to be in this headspace!

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Agatha Christie
Camomile Lawn - Mary Wesley (after seeing the brilliant film adaptation)
Pride and Prejudice - as above
Heartstones - Ruth Rendall
Jane Eyre
Point Horror series

I was reading Erica Jong at 14.

I think that's why I loathe Wuthering Heights - I needed to read it as an impressionable 14 year old but I read it when I had no time for Bad Boys and abusers, and all the histrionics seemed ridiculous.

Lace
Flowers in the Attic
Emmileine

By 14 I was deeply into horror with either Stephen king (the stand was my favourite) and James Herbert (fluke was a favourite)😬🤷‍♀️
Also some fantasy fiction had started creeping in- David Eddings, or Raymond E Feist (magician).
I would read pretty much anything though, as I loved to escape into a good book. I like the idea of having a range of books that people had loved given as gifts, great way to be introduced to lots of differing styles.

I absolutely adored Brian Jaques, Redwall series and everything by Robin Jarvis.
And also Sweet Valley, Point Horror/Romance 🤣

This, although True Confessions of Adrian Mole had come out by the time I was 14.

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn - Betty Smith.

My aunt died when I was 14 and I inherited the contents of her bookcase. She had a thing for American books, TKAM, Steinbeck, Peyton Place, Jacqueline Susann as well as James Herriot, Agatha Christie and Dick Francis so I read my way through them all.
But A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was the first one of her books that I read and it’ll always be special.

Silas Marner and The Mill on the Floss
Both classics IMO

I absolutely loved Laurie Lee at that age . I'm re reading As I walked out one midsummer morning at the moment and still love it .

At 14 I was reading all sorts of weird and grown up stuff from the library most of which I've forgotten (except a book about an incestuous couple who I think then died together of old age and some very odd Kurt Vonnegut). I really didn't understand most of it but I always came back to Anne of Green Gables for some actual childhood escapism and magic!

forever amber and flowers in the attic.

Neither appropriate in any way!!!

Lorna Doone By RD Blackmore

To Kill A Mockingbird also.

Have you been asked to gift a book you liked when you were 14 or one a now 14 year old would like? If it's the latter, you probably need to be asking more 14 years old than mumsnet.

Another one for Adrian Mole - so, so good.

I read all sorts at that age. I think Subtle Knife came out when I was 14 so likely swallowed that in 1 sitting having been waiting for it for ages. I loved classics so was reading Austen, Bronte, Gaskell etc but also Tolstoy. Loved Tolkein. Also read lots of things for younger readers so probably also still happy reading things like The Whitby Witches. Total mix!

so many good quotes from Adrian Mole

'I've never seen a dead body or a woman's nipple. This is what comes from living in a cul de sac.

I'm actually going to pick a few of these and buy two copies so I can read them too!

Harry Potter. ⚡️

Stephen King - anything he’d written, and my dad’s gruesome spy novels from the bookcase at home. All highly inappropriate!

I moved schools at age 14 and didn't fit in a the new place which led to me reading round the whole of the school library's fiction section. My favourites were:

Romances:
All of the books written by Georgette Heyer (Especially Arabella)
Gone with the wind
Fair Stood the Wind for France (HE Bates)
Green Darkness by Anya Seton (A bit supernatural)/ and her Katherine
Carve her name with pride

Detectives
All by Agatha Christi
Josephine Tey books (especially The Daughter of Time)

Thrillers
All I could find by Hammond Innes or Alister McLean or Desmond Bagley or Dick Francis
The Golden Keel
The Satan Bug
For Kicks
Snow Tiger

Fantasy/ghostly
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit
The Owl Service
The Amazing Mr Blunden
Charlotte Sometimes
The weirdstone of Brisingamen (by Antonia Barber)

19C
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (and his 'The Woman in White')
Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights
Silas Marner (by George Elliot)
Barchester Towers (Trollop)

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was probably my favourite book.

Sorceress by Celia Rees. It’s the sequel to Witch Child.

Solzhenitsyn. Probably not what you're looking for 😅

Forever by Judy Blume

Flowers in the attic and the rest of the series by Virginia andrews