What ya classics are actually worth reading?

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My dd (14), has started getting into classic books lately. She has read Anne of Green Gables, The Outsiders and a few others. Can anyone recommend anything please?

She’s the perfect age for Catcher in the Rye, and anything by Kurt Vonnegut - I’d start her off on Slaughterhouse 5 (but they’re all great and I loved them).

Oh, I forgot about Catcher in the Rye. I loved it when I was that age. I haven't heard of the other ones though. I will take a look at them. Thanks

All the Russians. And Quiet Flows the Don etc. Not War and Peace!

I enjoyed Jane Austen at that age.

Definitely Austen, the Brontes, but also my favourites from that age were Wilkie Collins The Moonstone and The Woman in White - proper, unputdownable thrillers - and The Mill on the Floss, which has a bloody terrible off-putting cover in all the editions I've ever found so she would need to get past that. The Count of Monte Cristo is also great stuff.

I love Elizabeth Gaskell - North and South and Mary Barton, but maybe need to be 17 or so for these, and probably also that little bit older for Tess of the Durbevilles etc.

I read EM Forster at that age. Loved A Room with a View.

Also read Mistrals Daughter, The Summer of the Barshinskys (so?), Flowers in the Attic and early Jilly Coopers avidly. More than once.

i Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Forever Amber is a good historical read (and there is no sex)

Not Flowers in the Attic! I still wish I never read that.

I probably wouldn’t jump from easy read modern classics like The Outsiders to Jane Austen and the Brontes, which (just my opinion) can be a lot slower/more boring/harder to get into. If she’s enjoying kids and teen classics she’d maybe like more S.E Hinton, although I don’t think her later work holds up against The Outsiders. Agree with I Capture the Castle, which seems to fit with her reading taste. Catcher in the Rye is also a good one that you really need to be a teen on first reading to appreciate fully. Maybe Lord of the Flies would fit? Or Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men are all books I remember reading in school around the same age I read The Outsiders. All a bit shorter/easier to comprehend than something like Wuthering Heights.

There’s also Little Women which to me is in a similar tone to Anne of Green Gables, but it would depend on your dd. I reread the first part with dd recently and was shocked at how preachy it was. Since my dd is so impressionable I didn’t necessarily want her to be absorbing this ‘women must be martyrs’ attitude. I really didn’t remember it as being like that from reading it myself as a teen. However, your dd is older and it is a lovely book to read as long as you can take it with a pinch of salt and remember it is if it’s time.

There are other Anne books too. Agatha Christie is a good shout for a different genre.
Dodie Smith as others have said and Jane Austen.
This is a good starting point

amp.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/mar/22/well-read-teenager-classic-books-for-teens-young-adults-twilight

we also devoured the school reading list and the school library is a gold mine!
very often the Book People, the works etc have classic novels as a pack, I brought some gothic novels etc
Mine devours books can often read one a day or every two days.
for humour she loves Cabin Pressure and Yes, Minister as audio etc but I’m very if the first 100 pages don’t grab you and you are reading for pleasure as opposed to ‘reading the classic’ for the sake of it be prepared to put it aside and read something else.
the woman in black is a good first darker book as is withering heights. Please excuse lack of capitals - stitches in my finger!

if you have a local library - ask! I must admit to going into Waterstones when she was much younger and saying ‘Help she’s a free reader- I think this was year 2’ and honestly they couldn’t of been more helpful.

There is a few books worth getting though one is the BBC 100 reads which is old now but useful to brush through to get ideas, we also have a teen book guide off Amazon and one I picked up years ago and well worth getting something like this as she often looks through and then gets ideas.
mine also loves the Week (adult one) as a magazine.

there is also a Facebook group called women who love reading great books which is a lovely nice calm group with loads of ideas - I like it as it pushes me out of my comfort read into other books.

just another thought - the song of Achilles and poetry can be a good shout and Mary beard etc
it nice to visit where the authors live etc as day trip out or cinema eg crawdads

sorry can you tell I’ve had similar over the years!

Rebecca is great.

Excuse withering heights 😂😂😂😂😂spelling and grammar - I have stitches in my writing hand 🤦‍♀️

At that age I read My Family and Other Animals over and over again.

Black Beauty
Little Women series ( 4 books)
Swallows and Amazons
What Katy Did series (4 books I think)
Agatha Christie books
Jane Eyre
Around the World in Eighty Days
Dickens novels

I had to become much wiser in order to appreciate it, but I've met a few women who loved Jane Eyre as teenagers. I personally was all about the Wuthering Heights drama.

If she likes adventure books, there's always Treasure Island and Jungle Book, The Neverending Story or Lord of the Rings for fantasy lovers, Frankenstein and Dracula if she enjoys a good scare. I've never been a genre reader, but those are all good options.

To be honest, I didn't start immersing myself in classics until I was in my 20s, for the most part.

Laura Ingalls Wilder books are my favourites. The ones later in the series (The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, Happy Golden Years) are about Laura's teenage years.

Vanity Fair, Georgette Heuer, agree with pp Laura Ingalls Wilder are perfect, Carrie's War, Tom's Midnight Garden, Mary Stewart.

Heyer, obviously

Susan Cooper, Joan Aiken.

Joan Lingard's series starting with The Twelfth Day of July. A snapshot of recent history with a warm narrative.

The book people has closed down.

I wouldn’t recommend flowers in the attic. I read them all aged 11-12 and they are real nonsense (although I devoured them at the time!)
some great suggestions here.

I’m an English teacher and agree with so many suggestions above. I have recently taught ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, ‘Of Mice and Men’ and ‘Rebecca’ to that age group and they have been really popular.
What about some other Du Maurier? ‘Frenchman’s Creek’ is a lighter, exciting read.
Agatha Christie?

I echo Joan Lingard.