Please suggest something other than Colleen Hoover

[doolaley12]

Hi my just turned 14 year old dd has never really been one for reading on her own. She has recently started reading lots of Colleen Hoover books. On the Colleen Hoover website she states age ranges for some of them as they have quite grown up material. I don’t want to dull my dd’s new found reading enthusiasm but can anyone suggest any other authors that might not be quite as adult.

My DDs (14 & 13) suggest the following:

Alice Oseman (very sweet YA books)
Good Girl's Guide to Murder
Leigh Bardugo (Fantasy)
Song of Achilles (gay retelling of the Illiad, has a couple of sex scenes but very YA romantic)
Holly Black (The Cruel Prince)

They agree Colleen Hoover has 'loads' of sex, DD1 has read It Ends With Us (which is about domestic abuse) but nothing else. Worth making use of your local bookshop, e.g. Waterstones have 'Booktok' selections which are all YA orientated as far as I can tell and our local staff are pretty good at knowing the latest teen friendly hit.

How about checking out Holly Bourne's YA books? If your DD liked the CoHo books, these ones might hit the mark and be a bit more age appropriate! Eg The Places I've cried in public, It only happens in movies

Thank you everyone some great suggestions. 😊

Doesn't you local library have lists for just this kind of question?

I'm not thinking so much about problems of adult material, but more in terms of the problem of shunting her off into romances.

Sarah J Maas. Glass throne series. Then the sexier ones A Court of Thorns and Roses.

I just read my first (and last) Colleen Hoover book. It was extremely readable and absolute dogshit. I assumed all the bizarre plotting, characterisation and other nonsense would make sense with the inevitable twist. In fact the twist just made it 200 times stupider.

It also had a lot of extremely graphic and tiresome sex. I will say it was healthy sex. Eagerly consenting partners, no dangerous sex acts etc. Indeed there was part of it were the protagonist (who we are meant to like) discusses choking during sex and how bad it is. Quite honestly with the Internet mainstreaming anal and "kink" for teenage girls I think it's probably a good influence.

Thinking about it from a 14 year old pov it was probably much better than some of the YA suggested here in terms of themes about relationships and sex.

When I was 14 (and indeed younger) I was allowed to read/ watch anything. I read a lot of Dean Koontz... which.. yikes. I'm a prolific reader now and much more picky. I'd leave her to it.

When I was 14 (and indeed younger) I was allowed to read/ watch anything.

Yes, me too. My Mum went to a girl's school with a list of banned books (with the inevitable consequences) and so she never banned any reading and I read all the 1980s bonkbusters and the dreadful Flowers in the Attic series along with good adult books (The Color Purple, To Kill a Mockingbird, Oranges are not the Only Fruit) and rereading childhood favourites. I think at this age it's important to just let them explore their way into adult books.

DD1 is reading some absolute trash but is also starting to read some decent adult novels, although she won't listen to my recommendations unless it agrees with her friends.