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!

Came on to say flowers in the attic but see a lot of others have already mentioned it!
I read it 2 or 3 times before I clocked what was actually going on!
read the whole series too.
also sweet valley high and point horror.

then there was a bit of a hiatus before I started reading adult thrillers at around 15/16

I was in a convent school and we had an assembly to tell us that Virginia Andrews' books were banned. Mad for the incest was auld Virginia.

Depending on mood I’d have gone for The Catcher in the Rye or Tess of the d’Urbervilles. I’d actually still agree with my 14yo self, Iove those both still.

I think that you might be me... I got lost in a book a while back and clearly found my way to your home. :)

The outsiders....that was back in the 80 s but I know 14 year old today who loves it..its a brilliant book

The twighlight saga … Team Edward 🤣

Lynn Reid Banks- My Darling Villain, The L Shaped Room
YA trilogy by Robert Leeson- It's My Life, Jan Alone, Coming Home
Other YA stuff- Sweet Valley High, Sweet Dreams etc

Pride and Prejudice
Anything by Agatha Christie, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Anne McCaffrey, Joyce Stranger, James Herriot, Diana Wynne Jones (still read her books now - much better than Harry Potter)
l loved David Eddings’ Belgariad series, but find them totally unreadable now

I think at that age I started reading a lot of my mum's books. I loved Daphne Du Maurier especially her short stories. I think I was 14/15 when I first read Bonjour Tristesse and it's still one of my favourite books, probably in my top 5.

Pride and Prejudice, obviously (still waiting for my Mr Darcy). Also loved P G Wodehouse (still do), Sherlock Holmes, Dickens, The Hobbit, Wuthering Heights (also still waiting for my Heathcliffe).

Best of luck meeting your Darcy, @Suetwo. But I hope you manage to dodge ever meeting a Heathcliff!

I love Ben Elton. He's an incredible author.

Lord of the Rings - remember reading that when I was 14. Still got the same copy!

Loved Stephen King at that age too.

I had forgotten the Outsiders. Read that so many times!

I was pretty much into adult fiction by then. Also pride and prejudice , smash hits, just 17

Diana Wynne Jones
Antonia Forest
Stephen King
Winston Graham
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Mazo de la Roche

I did love a doorstopper at that age. If it came in a series of 10 or more, I was quietly happy for weeks.

My school had a fiction library which was, oddly, a small box room which overlooked the main library through a viewing window, but had a completely separate entrance.

There were half a dozen comfy arm chairs & a slightly leaky gas fire. The school was utterly hopeless at noticing internal truancy, so most days there'd be girls from y7 to y13 reading/gently snoring in each chair.

None of us ever spoke to each other. It was understood that if you slid in there & settled into a chair, you wanted to be left alone.

I'd like to think it's still going - the school very much is! but I imagine someone has Put A Stop To It by now.

My aunt had a copy of The Valley of Horses which I stole and read in secret... my innocence was shattered, but I learned a lot

I was into John Wyndham books then.

As others have said, such a crossover age for reading, some very cutesy/innocent, some YA and adult.
My favourites at 14 were Sweet Dreams and Sweet Valley High (my English teacher called them "chewing gum for the eyeballs" 😂).
The Outsiders and others by different authors but on a similar YA vein: Dance on my Grave, That Was Then This is Now, Deenie.

Also the Amityville Horror and just getting into Stephen King.

And of course My Sweet Audrina which I would love to read again now.

I think I was well into Agatha Christie at that age.

Flowers in the Attic
Wilt
The Shellseekers

Oh yes! Flowers in the Attic - re-read many times.

I loved The Shell Seekers as a teen. Then I re-read it 25 or so years later and was very 'these are all awful people, she was a selfish mother, and the character we're supposed to be disdainful of was given a rough deal'.

I still like Coming Home though.

Pride and Prejudice

The Chrysalides by John Wyndham

@CatNamedEaster what's the twist in sweet audrina?