Books for 14 year old dd

[posey]

She is really finding it hard to find stuff to get her teeth into. When she was younger she read all the Harry Potters and has since reread several times.
All the Twilight books also been read more than once.
At the moment she is doing a bit of light reading (Malory Towers!!!)
At school she is top set for English and reads some pretty wordy stuff, so wants something a bit more relaxing and gripping. She loves to go and read on her bed and chill a bit but needs some inspiration please

Sarah Dessen is fabulous - but a little bit 'worthy' kind of like Jacqueline Wilson for older girls, involving issues like divorce, pregnancy etc. I have cried at every single one of them. You might want to pre-read.

I can also, without hesitation, reccomend the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Wonderful post-apocolyptic style stories similar to the film 'running man' (showing my age emoticon) - wonderful feisty female lead as well!

If she likes Hunger Games, then also try Michael Grant 'Gone' - however it is not for the faint-hearted, some distressing things happen. Also a trilogy - if she wants a good long read!

Thanks TastesLikePanda. I had not heard of any of those, though dd may have, but will suggest she looks them out.

I loved the Flambards books at that age.

ooh Gone was good...

Kelley Armstrong - Darkest powers is a good series and it's aimed at young adults (she does adult stuff as well if she likes that series)

Rachel Caine - Morganville vampires (series)

P.C. Cast - House of night (again a series)

Maggie Stiefvater - Shiver, and there's another one after that called Linger and possibly a third, but I don't know if it's out yet, she's also done a seperate one called Lament which was quite good

they're all based on her liking harry potter and twilight though... so randomly

Maria Snyder - Inside out is really good, nice dystopian novel for her, lol

Mallorie Blackman - noughts and crosses

My DH was telling me that there was a slot about fiction for girls on R4's Open Book yesterday and there was a list of recommended titles. The list of books should be here although haven't had a chance to look at it myself yet.

Black Beauty? Little Women? Pride & Prejudice? I second JeffVadar's Flambards suggestion, loved that at that age. Don't think you have to stick to specifically 'teen' novels, lots of general adult fiction is very accessible to teenage girls. I remember being very struck by 'The L Shaped Room' then. If she's in the top set for English, would imagine Malory Towers is not very satisfying.

The Bell Jar was good, I'd recommend Margaret Attwood, all the latest ones (I haven't enjoyed/managed to finish the last couple, sound more like her husband had written them). For light reading, which she might need if in top set English, Anne McCaffrey (start with the Harper ones as they have less sex, none of its bad though). Science Fiction is good in general to try, especially collections of short stories.

If she likes Fantasy I would recommend the Recluse books of LE Modesett.

My DD, 12 has just bought Gone, do you think it will be a bit adult for her? (She is also reading the twilight ones.)

Gone's not adult particularly, it's just a bit disturbing in a lord of the flies type way - I'd let a 12 year old read it

the whole adult/young adult thing... no reason at all to steer away from adult fiction, I recommended young adult ones because they're good, lol, if she likes the whole vampire/fantasy thing the more recent adult ones are fairly sexually explicit, where the young adult ones tend to have teenage characters behaving a bit more how you'd want a teenager to behave - it depends on the book though

but the ones I listed, I've read because I like them (isn't put off at all by reading books from the teenager's section of the bookshop, lol)

Loads of help there, thank you so much.
We have a lot of books in the house, which she browses a bit, and I noticed he has just started reading A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon.
A lot of he ones you recommend I haven't heard of, so that's a great help (I'm not big on fantasy/scifi/vampires etc)

I'm certainly not averse to her reading adult books, I certainly did at her age! Think I was reading things like Lace and Jilly Cooper!!!Not her cuppa at all!

Oh, just thought of To Kill A Mockingbird too. And Girl, Interrupted (she may have seen the film)

Cynthia Voigt
Ray Bradbury - Short Stories Vol 1 & 2
Roald Dahl - Tales of the Unexpected
Lord of the Rings
Jane Austen
John Steinbeck (The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men)
Anne Tyler - A Slipping Down Life
Alexander McCall Smith - Ladies No 1 Detective Agency series

Ooh I love these sort of listss. My 14 year old has loved
The Book Thief
Jane Eyre
Wuthering Heights
Girl with a Pearl Earring and Falen Angels by Tracey Chevalier
Chocolat by Joanne Harris
Never Let Me Go
James Herriot books
The Time travellers wife
Frankie and Stankie by Barbara Trapido
The 'Luxe' series (teenage historical romance
The Carbon Diaries
She also loves books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid or The Allie's World Series for a comfort read!

The Reader by Bernard Schlink

No1 Ladies' Detective Agency series (fantastic books).

Don Camillo books by Giovanni Guareschi- dated and funny

The Reappearance of Sam Webber by Jonathon Scott Fuqua

A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt

The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns

She'd probably love About a Boy by Nick Hornby. Open it at any page and laugh (or chuckle discreetly), and I don't say that about many books!

At her age, she can read the classics. Try suggesting books by DH Lawrence or W. Somerset Maugham, Wilkie Collins, Chekhov, Colette perhaps if she's interested in that kind of thing.

The best thing is to give them £10 and send them down to Oxfam. Some of the best books I've read were random 50p charity shop finds.

My top set Year 8 girls (a bit younger I know, but you said she wanted something a bit more relaxing!) are currently raving about 'Before I Fall' by Lauren Oliver. One of them said it's changed the way she looks at her life!

HTH

Yes to About A Boy - dd1 loved that aged about 14. She also loved the following at around that age -
The Shopaholic books
Jane Eyre
All of the Austen books except Mansfield Park
The Road
Purple Hibiscus
The Handmaid's Tale
The Book Thief

DD2 is now almost 14 and claims that she doesn't like reading. She did, however, devour Lord Of The Flies last year.

The Handmaid's Tale? Blimey, it frightened the life out of me as an adult!

:) I suspect that dd1 didn't think about it as much as an adult might! Ditto The Road!