Reading recommendations!!

[TabbyTigger]

12yo reads a lot and is quite a quick reader too so gets through an awful lot of material. She’ll be 13 in August (just finishing year 8) and is currently away on a 5 week summer school so I have a few weeks to stock up on plenty of books for over summer

To get a taste for what she’s reading right now - with her she’s taken:
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (a re read)
The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf
Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
L’Etranger by Camus (multilingual family)

I’d really appreciate any suitable books for 12-16 year olds!! She’s expressed interest in Les Rougon-Macquart series (Zola) after watching the BBC’s adaptation of the later books (The Paradise) but I don’t think they’re suitable just yet.

She’s not really into sci fi and she’s read a lot of the popular classics.

I always allowed my daughter to read whatever she wanted regardless of the book age group. She had english as a second language to start with and within a year her english teacher could not praise her enough for her capability of analysing a text and her vast vocabulary for her age. I always said there is no book that’s a bad book ( obviously not 50 shades type) but love , crime , psychology , even the gruesome ones etc if she wanted the book i would buy it for her .

From what I remember The Les Rougon-Macquart series (especially the early books) feature prostitution/sexual desire as well as murder/alcoholism (I’d be fine with murder/alcoholism as themes but not alongside the prostitution). I just want her to wait a year or two!

If she likes Phillips Gregory, would she be interested in more historical fiction?

I think I was about that age when I started on the Lindsey Davis “Falco” series. Readable, gripping and historically accurate.

Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, perhaps?
Cold Comfort Farm?
I never did get on with either Dickens or Austen, but some people’s kids seem to get into them about that age.

I was reading my way through James Herriot and Gerald Durrell around that age, too, being a bit zoologically-minded.

I don't know the books OP listed, probably too cerebral for us. But just in case...DD loved Jacq. Wilson at that age
I have no Secrets
Hunger Games trilogy
The CurseWorkers series
The Highest Tide
Pigtopia
Book Thief
One
The Sky is Everywhere
Holes
Panic might be a bit old for her

If she enjoyed L'Etranger, how about Mme Bovary or Le Rouge et le Noir? I read both at about that age (in translation) and found them both fascinating.

She’s read quite a bit of historical fiction yes! Mostly when she was a bit younger but she likes Katie Flynn’s books, Natasha’s Will, Sally Gardner’s books about the French Revolution, a book about an Italian alchemist, Joan Lingard, Michael Morpurgo’s retelling of Prince Arthur/Merlin etc... any other historical fiction suggestions?

I’ll have a look at Falco - a series would be good! She’s done Dickens/Austen/The Brontes, loves them all (especially Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Agnes Grey, Great Expectations and Sense and Sensibility if that helps trigger any other suggestions!).

She’s done a lot of your list already ragged - she’s outgrown Jacqueline Wilson now but aged 7-10 devoured them!

She just finished Madame Bovary before she went off! She read it in French but I have it in English too so she could do it in translation if she likes. I think our version’s not a great translation though which is why she did the French copy. Le Rouge et le Noir is a good call if she enjoys the Camus though. She’s read Camus essays both in French and in translation before so I think she’ll enjoy L’Etranger. Thank you so much!

Update she’s actually texted saying she did indeed love L’Etranger so i’m going to dig out Le Rouge et Le Noir. I’m worried she’s going to run out of books before the end of the trip now - she’s only a week in and already two books doen

If she's enjoyed some Virginia Wolf, how about Iris Murdoch or Muriel Spark? I remember reading The Bell (Murdoch) and The Abbess of Crewe (Spark) in my teens - The Abbess of Crewe was particularly good (the Watergate analogy went whooshing over my head at the time - must re-read it, particularly in the light of Trump). Also how about Umberto Ecco? The Name of the Rose would keep her going for a bit! Also Tolstoy - again, I read War and Peace (late teens) and found it fascinating. (Much harder read now I'm older and know how Tolstoy treated his wife - the bits with Prince Andre being horrible to his pregnant first wife are pretty horrid to re-read knowing what I now know about the author). Though I must confess I've never managed to get into Anna Karenina for some reason. I've tried a few times and never made it through.

Anna Karenina she’s done in both English and Russian, War and Peace just in English. Not sure any other Tolstoy would really grip her. She’s loving Woolf and Spark at the moment (one of the other books she’s taken is Loitering with Intent!!). Hasn’t tried Murdoch though and I’ve also got to confess I’ve not read anything by her. I’ll definitely have a look!

I reallg adore Anna Karenina but it’s much better in Russian - I can’t explain why I just love it so much more! DD agreed.

I enjoyed Balzac when I was 14 ish. Cousin Bette is (evil) fun.

Ooh yes we have plenty of Balzac - though she’s never shown an interest I think she’d like much of his stuff.