What should you read the summer you’re 16?

[BumBumCream]

I’m going away with DD for a few days after her GCSEs to lie on a sun lounger & tan. This is a great opportunity to supply her with books that must be read the summer you’re 16!

She used to be a huge reader before the phone crept in, but now is more likely to read thrillers and crime fiction than anything more highbrow, and the holiday probably isn’t entirely time to get her to read Jane Eyre… but what shall I take?

thinking along the lines of Catcher in the Rye, I Capture the Castle (she’s read this though).

Great question

1. The Catcher in the Rye. The novel of teenage angst. Speaks to every sensitive kid who doesn't fit in.

2. Virginia Woolf: A Room of One's Own. Great blast of feminist outrage.

3. Douglas Adams: Hitchiker's Guide. Perfect blend of humour, fine prose, and exciting ideas. Also, Adams was a massive P. G. Wodehouse fan, and the sooner she gets into Wodehouse the better. He will be a comfort for the rest of her life.

4. Orwell: 1984. Every parent should encourage their child to read this book. We should all read it. Same goes for Huxley's Brave New World.

5. Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar. Plath is portrayed as the helpless, broken-hearted victim of Ted Hughes' infidelity. She wasn't. She was super gutsy and super smart, as this book shows.

6. Robert Graves: Goodbye to All That. She might not like it, but for me it's absolutely the book about war. WW1 was also a turning point in this country's history. It changed us more than WW2. The selected WW1 war poems would be good as well – Wilfred Owen, Sassoon, etc.

7. Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited and Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray. They really fired my mind when I was a teen. They also turned me into an obnoxious little show off (I bought a silk scarf and a cigarette holder, though I blush to admit it). I wanted to live in the world of Oxford aesthetes and talk like Lord Henry and Anthony Blanche.

8. Aldous Huxley: Crome Yellow. Huxley was the first serious writer I got into. I couldn't understand half of what he said, but he got me so interest in books and ideas. He's the perfect writer to put into the hands of an intelligent teenager.

9. Dickens: David Copperfield. If she likes it, she'll never look back.

10. Bill Bryson: A Short History of Nearly Everything. Wonderful, joyful guide to the history of science, but written by a non-scientist, so very accessible.

If she likes thrillers / and crime fiction and you are not worried about her reading somewhat violent stuff, how about either 'The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo' by Stieg Larsson (if she hasn't read it) or if you fancy something more literary 'Perfume' by Patrick Susskind.

The Great Gatsby is a great summer classic read imo, and not that long.

I also agree with the all the Secret History and Hunger Games recommendations.

My left field suggestion would be Wild Swans by Jung Chang. It's a non fiction following 3 women through the Chinese cultural revolution. I read it around 16 and it's stayed with me, but it would very much depend on if that interests her or not as its not a short book!

The Family Upstairs

I also loved Testament of Youth at that age and To Kill a Milockingbird. Really didn't like The Catcher in the Rye!

Adrian mole! Social history now, my ds is loving the books.
Catch 22
Caitlin Moran - how to build a girl / how to be famous

I would not have let my mum choose! I've a horrible feeling Virginia Andrews and the Dragonlance books featured when I was that age. Rather more respectably, someone mentioned The Outsiders , which I loved.

Françoise Sagan Bonjour Tristesse

Colette the Claudine books

Mary Webb Gone to Earth and Precious Bane

Antonia White autobiographical novels, I devoured them at that age. I think Frost in May is the first one

Diana Athill More Than A Letter

Second Daphne du Maurier and Rumer Godden and Vera Brittain

I think imposing your idea of a good book is a sure way to put your DD off reading. Sorry to be a negative nellie but I also hate all these prescribed lists of books/films/places to go, read watch before you are 10/16/40/die etc etc.

Surely the joy of literature is that there is something for everyone and part of the joy is finding those books that speak to you as an individual, not because of your age.

My DD is 16 and loathes dystopian fiction with a passion. It actually made her decide against A level literature as that was the syllabus at her college. She changed to A level lit/lang as the books were more appealing.

What you should read, and what she wants to read (such as Riders - Jilly Cooper as mentioned upthread) are two different genres!

However, this thread is giving me flashbacks to when I was a teenager, and the books call read.

Jonathan Livingston

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

Sophies Choice

Silent Spring

I agree with the book voucher idea, or maybe buy her a kindle.

Me too! I came on the thread to sugguest it!

Also 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale.

I came on to say Bonjour Tristesse, but @TonTonMacoute got there first. It’s perfect for that time and age!

It depends what you want her to get from these books. Ideally, I guess, you want to inspire a love of language and ideas. I sometimes think that the point of education should not be to instil information but to inspire a hunger for knowledge, so that the student goes away and reads and studies on their own.

The authors who first taught me to love language were Kipling (especially the Just So stories), P. G. Wodehouse, F Scott Fitzgerald, Anthony Burgess, Evelyn Waugh and Roald Dahl.

The authors who fired my mind were Primo Levi, Carl Sagan and Aldous Huxley. Huxley, I think, was the writer who most thrilled me. He was the first writer who made me feel like a grown up. I couldn’t understand half of what he said, but he made me feel cleverer than I am. Actually, Oscar Wilde had a similar effect. Dorian Gray really blew me away. I wanted to live in that world - you know, smoke opium cigarettes and talk like Lord Henry.

I really wish I’d discovered Douglas Adams when I was a teenager. I’m only just getting into him now, at the age of 47. God knows why it took me so long. He’s wonderful.

Dd(16) acquired a copy of The Communist Manifesto but I think it was more to pose with than read.

She loves Open Water and Sally Rooney and The Fault in our Stars.

I loved The Picture of Dorian Gray at that age.

Prince of Tides

I also love Sue Grafton (did you say she likes crime?)

The Women’s Room
Cider House Rules

To Kill a Mockingbird
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe
The Secret Life of Bees

All set in the American Deep South, all about racism and race relations, all centre female characters.

Yes, me too. Quite a lot of the dialogue went over my head, but I fell in love with Wilde’s world - you know, that world of late 19th-century aesthetes who’ve all been to Oxford and who spend their time smoking opium cigarettes and discussing art. I also read a lot of Aldous Huxley at that age. I was way too young (and an odious, pretentious little twerp, as you can imagine), but I still loved it. People associate Huxley with Brave New World and The Doors of Perception, but he wrote some wonderful early novels. Like Dorian Gray they’re full of brilliant, witty, urbane people saying brilliant, witty, urbane things. I wanted to talk like a character out of Huxley. In reality, I sounded like a twat. God, I must have been intolerable. I’m amazed that my family put up with me!🙄

That said, Huxley and Wilde are perfect for a young person who’s just getting interested in books and ideas.

@IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads i was going to suggest the same - 1984 and The handmaids tale definitely. I got given a list of must read books by my future A Level teacher the summer I turned 16, just after GCSEs. It included both of those, plus classics like Jude the Obscure and Mill on the Floss as well as things like Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. It was actually a really challenging list but incredibly formative. I went on to study English Literature at university and that list was what started me off on a love of all kinds of books.

Our local bookshop owner posted today about kids not only reading less but also the complexity of what they read is decreasing too.

My 15 year old enjoyed the following books recently:
They Both Die at the End -Adam Silvera
How to Kill your Family - Bella Mackie
Tender is the Flesh - Augustina Bazterrica (you may want to read a preview first as it's pretty horrific)
And is currently reading I Have Always Lived in the Castle. He also loves the Moomins books, his comfort read.

Can’t believe that I’m the first to mention My Brilliant Friend (and the rest of the quartet). Fantastic coming of age series.

Great Circle is also an excellent, really juicy, more recent novel with two female protagonists.

Some good ideas here - my DD was 16 last summer and read quite a few of these! She loved I capture the castle.
Dipped a toe into classics and adored Wuthering Heights and P&P.
She's going to check her Goodreads list and come back with some suggestions.

Temples of Delight by Barbara Trapido - i loved it Capture the Castle and this had a similar 'coming of age' vibe

Also

The Outsiders
The L Shaped room
the heart is a lonely hunter.

and

Vonnegut (Cats cradle and slaughter house 5 to
start )

Summer Sisters by Judy Blume.

I read it the summer I was 16, now 41 and have reread it many times. One of my all time favourites.