Age appropriate books for advanced reader 13yr old boy

[Frozentoo]

Son is (almost) 13 and an advanced reader. Struggling to find books that are interesting for him that are age appropriate and don't contain sex/go on about relationships/too graphic in violent scenes as lots of young adult books seem to.
He loves crime, spy, thriller types that are more realistic, though did really enjoy the northern lights series and power of 5.
As an idea has recently read all the Theodore Boone series by John Grisham and enjoyed it but read it so quickly - over Easter hols he read at least a book a day! Any ideas?

Alan gratz

Sword of Shannara series by Terry Brooks if he likes fantasy.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn still good reads if you'd like to encourage him to read widely ie different time period, different dialect etc.

Yeah this is what I don’t understand. They’re reading everything at 13 - there’s no other “level” to read. Do you mean he’s an avid reader? Then if that’s the case let him read anything he wants.

my 12 almost 13 year old is reading Hunger Games at the moment. And also recently read the maze runner.

Almost all fantasy / SF has no sex or relationships or is only touched on very lightly.

Lord of the rings
Mistborn
Stormlight Archive
Lies of Locke Lamora
Sabriel
Terry Prachett
Neverwhere
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
The Eyre Affair

Historical fiction too:
Sharpe books
Bernard Cornwall
The Three Musketeers

There is so so much. Go to the library and let him loose! At 13 there isnt really an “age inappropriate” book imo

What about all the Agatha Christies?

Would the Hardy Boys be too young/too retro?
Agatha Christie maybe?

I read a few of the original Hardy Boys a few years ago.
They were sooooooo dull 😂

George Orwell
Douglas Adams
Aidan Chambers

A Monster Calls
They Both Die In the End
We Are All Made of Molecules
The Catcher In The Rye

To Kill a Mockingbird

I doubt they’d be very interesting for an adult, but I read at least 40 of them the summer I was 11 once I had read all the Nancy Drews in the library. They were probably the only books we had at home that all my brothers read too.

My 11 year old reads whatever is in the bookshelves. I've told him that if he decides to pick up some Stephen King or some Brett Easton Ellis books ( it's ok, I did not keep American Psycho in the house, and the Shards is on my kindle), he will never be able to unthink them and that I found them too much at that age. He's quite terrified of his imagination, so he said he really didn't want to. He sometimes reads a Dick Francis at my mum's, innocuous horse racing thrillers.

My 12 year old loves the Eragon series.

Discworld is fantastic.

A Single Stone by Meg McKinley is one of the best YA dystopian novels we've both read.

@Zeitumschaltung as an adult I really love children's/teen books but the (original) Hardy Boys were just so dull.
I did read some modern graphic novel adaptions of the early Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and they weren't so bad.

Yeh I was going to suggest Agatha as well – absolutely no violence or sex, but just clever puzzles that are really hard to solve. Maybe a bit dated (well, a lot) but that's of interest in itself IMHO – a time when quite ordinary people had maids and everyone wrote letters.

How about going to your local library and asking? My DD works in a library and loves to advise ppl.

Or yy I agree with a PP – and advanced 13yo is basically at adult reader level. Has he read LOTR? Yes to Dickens or Thomas Hardy or Sherlock Holmes

<reads thread> yy to Orwell too and how about RLS and Picture of Dorian Grey?

My 12.5 yr old is reading The Eyes Of The Dragon which is a Stephen King book that’s ok for this age.
Alan Gratz books and The Dead series are highly recommended.

The Percy Jackson books are really good. Even as an adult I enjoy them. There are 2 sets of the books, 1 is the Greek mythology set and the other is roman mythology.
Obviously the Harry Potters, LOTR etc.
Sherlock holmes.
The maze runner set
Alex Cross
The bones books by Kathy Reichs. Amazing reads. Great for a curious intellect!

DS loved the Skulduggery Pleasant series at around that age - might be a good intro to horror.

Stephen King has some super graphic violence and weird sex scenes, I'd not want a 12 year old reading some of those.

My nearly 13 year old reads almost everything but I’m keeping him away from Sharpe. I remember lots of sexual violence in them. He did enjoy the Hornblower books though, similar genre and very little sex as they’re mostly set at sea.

The Dark Is Rising books are good for that age group. I remember enjoying them at around 13-14 and my nearly 13 year old enjoyed them. He still loves the Skulduggery Pleasant books too.

The Dominic Sandbrook Adventures in Time books are great historical fiction.

Edited because I got Dominic Sandbrook’s name wrong!

Tolkien

Older thrillers won't have too graphic scenes. Try Geoffrey Household, Rogue Male.

I would have been so upset if my mother had tried to police my reading matter at that age. I had absolutely no interest in books about sex, or even romance and from age eleven, having outgrown the junior section at my local library, was given free range of the adult library.
Just let him choose for himself.

You want adult books published before 1960. Not only are they very light on sex (many, of course, have sexually charged and complex relationships that will be a bit beyond him — but not descriptions of bonkings), but they are well written.

My kids are younger but it seems to me that YA books are unnecessarily graphic, as well as being, for the most part, not very good.

Dickens isn’t a bad shout. Has he read Just William? About a child but really written for adults. James Herriot. Graham Greene. Maybe Conrad if he has an appetite for nautical descriptions. John Le Carre, Eric Ambler etc. Isherwood’s earlier fiction — Mr Norris Changes Trains, Goodbye to Berlin. H G Wells and classic science fiction.

If he liked Eragon then Temeraire might also be a good call. It’s a dragon/ Hornblower mash up. My 12 year old loved it.

DS really enjoyed Animal Farm at that age.