books for 14 year old boys?

[notagiraffe]

My DC used to be bookworms. Loved Alex Ryder, Cherub. Hunger Games, HIVE, all Louis Sachar etc. Just realised, after replying on the thread for 12 year old boys that they've stopped reading fiction.

I know they'll be doing adult novels soon for GCSE but I really want to try and get them reading for fun again over this summer. they stopped completely. they read a bit of Stephen King and a bit of classic sic-fi but very little.
They love modern day realistic stuff with a good plot and are very bored of dystopias and 'he had one day to save the world' style plots as they've read too many of them.
Any ideas?

Hah!

In my world there is not the remotest chance of a teenager accepting book recommendations from an adult relative. I just hope that a well stocked (and constantly growing) home library and the good example of past years of shared reading will see them through to a more receptive adulthood.

Not YA but how about Tom Clancy or Dan Brown? I seem to remember getting lost in Tom Clancy for a while at about that age.

Sherlock Holmes
Robert Graves "I, Claudius"
Gerald Durrell

Perhaps try Asterix or other comic strip or graphic novels - they may get the humour now and feel that the effort is less! DS (12) is required to carry a book to school every day - for which I'm very grateful as Instagram has taken over from reading... So when he's close to finishing something I slip a book into his bag that I think may be of interest (His Dark Materials was successful) so he at least has to read the first few pages, then becomes interested. What about trying Hitchhikers on CD in the car or lying around the house, or some sci-fi? I find the Guardian Children's book of the year is often a good one. DS would happily read anything from the teen plus section of the library just because I say I need to know what they're about first... So maybe try censorship. Has the opposite effect...

Try Keren David's When I Was Joe. There are a couple of sequels too and she's written others which my DS enjoyed. Hers are always contemporary, page turning, good plots, and not fantasy or dystopia - we found her when we were all fantasied-out!

I've got a 14 year old yr 9 girl. She'll often pick up things I'm reading - for example she just read Undercover by Rob Lewis, about the police who infiltrated activist groups. I know she also enjoyed Bad Science by Ben Goldacre and the Life Project by Helen Pearson (I know they're not fiction - but still, it's reading).

She also really liked The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (sci-fi, but set in China from the cultural revolution through to the present day) - might that appeal?

More sci-fi - but again not your standard-issue dystopia - Ready Player One by Earnest Cline seems to appeal to everyone who reads it (it's a quest/thriller set mainly within a massive online virtual world, although it's not a YA novel, the protagonist is a teenage boy).

The Martian by Andy Weir. It's sci-fi but realistic. Bit of swearing on the first page but nothing dodgy. Some fun stuff about having to use his own poo as fertiliser.

Totally seconding Ready Player One - I loved it, even though I've never played a video game in my life. Very funny, a real page-turner of a plot, and a rare exploration of male friendships. In fact, I'd recommend it to anyone, 14-year-old boy or not.

Also Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking trilogy (still the best YA I've ever read, well worth a try if he hasn't already read it, even if he's going off dystopia a bit) - a really extraordinary achievement, with a plot to rival Game of Thrones for moral dilemmas and suspense.

If he fancies something more light-hearted, Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant series is very dry, and gets darker (he may feel he's beyond it now, though). Neil Gaiman is always brilliant. Colin Cotterill's Dr Siri mysteries are a really good left-field choice if he's enjoyed detective stuff before - Laos's only pathologist in the early 70s, with a brilliantly random gang of helpers - very funny, humane and a really interesting historical setting. Again, I recommend them to anyone.

Okay, here's a recommended list from my son. He's actually 12 but thinks he's 16. He's an avid reader and very much likes realistic fiction with strong characters.

The Theodore Boone series by John Grisham
Butter by Erin Lange (and Dead Ends)
Every Day by David Levithan
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Feed by Matthew Tobin Anderson
Panther by David Owen
Liccle Bit by Alex Wheatle
Godless by Pete Hautman
Flip by Martyn Bedford
Secret Saturdays by Torrey Maldonado
Fake ID by Lamar Giles
33 Minutes by Todd Hasak- Lowy
Alias by Tracey Alexander

Also the 'Spud' series and Adrian Mole :-)

He's also just discovered the author Cory Doctorow and loves him but I think his novels are futuristic in themes.

Thanks for this. I've just bought 'Ready Player One' from Amazon for my son :-).

Skullduggery Pleasant? They are faatastic but not dystopian.
There's one called "Winterborn" that I got as a freebie on Kindle a while back that was good. It's a thriller (sort of Jason Bourne/SAS/Bond type thing) but without the sex.
Neil Gaiman or Tom Holt maybe? They are sci-fi/fantasy but without being dystopian, and have lots of laughs and food for thought in their work. TH tends more towards the absurd.
A friend of mine named Will McMillan Jones writes a series about the "Banned Underground" - again it is fantasy but is humorous and light hearted - no saving the world involved! and I think would appeal to teens.

My son is only 11, but he usually reads everything his sister (which is 14) gets outthe library. I'm grateful for having both genders because they can both read across genders. This is all to say, that I am not sure these are good boys books (they are not action oriented); but we all recently dicovered and enjoyed (me included) Frances Hardinge's books (Lie tree, Twilight robbery and Fly by night). Invible library, Watership down, Stardust were also recent hits. They both really liked (I did not read) the "Uglies" series (a bit dystopian), and "Every day" by David Levithan (which sounded really intriguing). I really liked "We are liars" by E.Lockheart but it might be a more girl oriented book, not sure. oh, we all really liked the first few skulduggery books. we gave up after got too dark.