Reading List for desperately conservative teenager.

[TaggieCampbellBlack]

DD won't dye her hair pink, get pierced and thinks all cars shoud have speed limit sensors in.

I am compiing a educational reading list.so far

1984
Brave New World
A Clockwork Orange

What else?

sounds like she is a bit of a rebel against all her peers! :-)

what's the theme of the list? (apart from good science fiction)

Usually you get lists being compiled to persuade them of the dangers in life!

Not sure what age she is so hard to make suggestions but might be better to put in some more modern books as well. How about ones where the lead female character is not conservative or doesn't do conservative things?

Divergent by Veronica Roth www.booksteensandmagazines.com/view/divergent

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein www.booksteensandmagazines.com/view/code-name-verity

Red Blood Road by Moira Young
www.booksteensandmagazines.com/view/blood-red-road

If she's 16+ then some of the adult books are good - ones where it whows that life isn't black and white.

The Secret Lives of Bees/The Red Tent/The Time Travellers Wife/Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

On the same theme as you have put together so far there is Brighton Rock or The Outsider.

I've reviewed a few on my website - the link is www.booksteensandmagazines.com

Ally condie's matched?
Scott westerfield's uglies?

I'm assuming you're going for an on the surface all safe and wonderful and happy but deeply disturbing underneath theme here.

I don't think you need to worry about it, Taggie. If she goes to uni, she'll meet all kinds of people, and soon work out the most interesting ones are rarely the most conservative! If she's not going to uni, encourage her to go hitch-hiking travelling, where she'll also meet a wide variety of interesting folk. :)

She's nearly 17 and so flipping straight.

Deeply disturbing undercurrent is the way to go I think.

Curious Incident Of the Dog in the nIght
Anything by Steinbeck
Some Russian stuff .

Wasp Factory? Maybe not.

The 'L' Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks - shows you how harsh life was when society was more conservative (in the 1960s).

anything by margereat atwood

I was about to suggest the handmaid's tale.

Could also try Lauren Oliver's delerium.

'The Raw Shark Texts' by Steven Hall.
'Maps for Lost Lovers' by Nadeem Aslam.
Both brilliant first novels which deal with the theme of how trying to be normal messes with your head!

Anything by Robert Cormier.
Stephen King is also good for out-and-out weird. Buick 58 makes me eye my car with suspicion for days after.

It may be that she just hasn't found her own way of being non-conservative yet. University may well prove an eye opener.

I resented all attempts to turn me into a less straight person during my teens: not because I am naturally straight or uptight, just because the choice of "interesting behaviour" among my peers seemed so totally boring to me.

I came into my own at university and travelling around Europe.

I think as adults we often have a very preconceived (and, dare I say it, conservative) notion of what "interesting people" ought to look like.

She's had moments of letting go and puking in her bed but. .........

I'll do her a list and see what happens. If I'm moaning about her rebelling in 6 months please remind me it is my own fault

I agree with cory! ^^

I agree with copy too. But I'm not sure a list of dystopian literature is likely to do much harm. After all, the OP's DD could take all manner of things from the books suggested.

So she's the Saffy to your Edwina? Maybe if you accepted her for who she is you would realise that going against the grain by being "conservative" could be a strong reaction to pressure from you. And in that case she is a rebel of the highest order.

Pink hair and piercings are so passé.

Catcher in the rye, surely a must read for all teens, conservative or otherwise.

Bonjour tristesse.

Bell jar?

I loved fear of flying when I was 18, but it might be spoiled if it came from my mother!

She sounds like a lovely girl.

18 year old dd1 is having a bit of a Marakami moment lately.

She also likes Nabakov (esp Lolita and The Eye) and loved A Clockwork Orange. She likes Stephen King too.

yes to Plath as well.

Slaughterhouse Five?

I think she sounds lovely and knows her own mind. Remember, it's the meek that will inherit the earth

Maybe get her into some sort of ecologial/environmental protest type literature. She may go all 'Swampy' on you. Or animal rights, any kind of activist group, they are pretty non-conservative and not afraid of being arrested.

But beware of getting what you wish for...

The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists

How about Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique?
Or Stella Gibbons - Cold Comfort Farm - the straight character sorts all the weirdos out!