If YOU, my older Reading Rants adolescent friend, are anything like the teenagers I know and work with, I would guess that you tend to troll both the teen AND adult section of your local library or bookstore when looking for new reading material. Some of you even stoop to poking through your parents’ stacks of paperbacks to see if Oprah’s recommendations are any good. You may not even know what YA (Young Adult) fiction is, because you’re too busy reading your favorite adult authors or devouring genre fiction by the thick paperback-ful. (If that’s the case, please take a look at some of the other lists here on RR–I’d be shocked if there wasn’t a teen-published book somewhere on this site that might tickle your fancy as much as those Neil Gaiman or Jean Auel tomes weighing down your backpack) Well, if you’re looking for recommendations of adult published books that you might enjoy too, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve always reviewed adult books on RR that I thought teens might like, but I thought I’d make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for by corralling them all in one place. Now, be forewarned, the only things these books share in common is that they were published for an adult audience (although some titles come from the same subject lists, so they may share some of the same topics). But why should your parents have all the fun? Check out these adult-published reads and soon you’ll be the one giving the grown-ups in your life some good book recommendations! Want more adult-published reads recommended for teens? Browse through the Alex Awards, “given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18,” awarded by the Young Adult Library Services Association of the American Library Association.
Why Should Your Parents Have All the Fun?
Under the Dome by Stephen King
12.05
Their first sign was the small-engine plane crash. By the time the huge Irish Airlines jet crashed a few days later, they were already beginning to understand that the situation was not good, and wasn’t likely to get better. They are the townspeople of Chester’s Mill, Maine. There are about two thousand of them, give or take. And their situation is this: On a perfectly normal fall day, a huge and impenetrable dome materializes over their little town that traps them all like ants under a magnifying glass. Electricity is cut off, air quality is compromised, and temperatures are rising. What is this dome? Where did it come from? (Yes, this does sound like the plot to The Simpson’s Movie, but King claims to have started writing this one years before Homer hit the big screen.) Immediately the outside world tries to come up with answers, while the suddenly made smaller world of Chester’s Mill begins to mobilize into two opposing teams: those who follow “Big Jim” Rennie, blowhard local bureaucrat and possible sociopath, and those who follow Dale Barbara, Iraq war vet and drifter. If you’ve read The Stand or It, then you know how this goes down: good vs. evil, a massive battle in the brewing, and loads of gory casualties, with only the pure of heart surviving. But it doesn’t matter if you think you know how this is going to end, because this is King, and he always makes getting there more than half the fun. Skillfully manipulating a cast of dozens that includes three plucky middle school skateboarders, a curious, hearty Corgi named Horace and a budding serial killer, King uses supernatural means to show how a small town responds to crisis when they have no one but themselves to depend on. And the results ain’t pretty! Gross, suspenseful, and chock full of meaty themes about love, family, politics and the environment, this book was a blast even though I nearly threw my back out toting it around. I know I have some serious teenage King fans out there (because I was one myself, grasshoppers) and trust me, this is THE book you want to ask the ‘rents to stash under the tree or menorah for you this holiday. Not just because it’s AWESOME and probably his best full-length novel since The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, but also because it weighs as much as small loaded suitcase and you’d probably rather finish it over break so you don’t have to lug it back and forth to school. While you count down ’til school’s out, take a peek at this pretty cool Under the Dome book trailer.
Columbine by Dave Cullen
06.15
Columbine. A word that has become synonymous with terror, pain and sadness. So what compelled me to read and review a book about the worst school shooting America has ever known? Well, for much the same reason that most adults who work with teens want to read it: to try and understand WHY. Author Dave Cullen, a journalist who covered the shooting for Slate.com, has been researching the horrific events at Columbine High School for the last ten years. His fascinating findings are detailed in this groundbreaking book, which debunks several of the myths surrounding the shooting and provides a chilling portrait of Eric Harris, who Cullen states was the ringleader in this deadly gang of two. In clear, accessible prose, Cullen takes readers through the terrifying time line of the shooting and the events leading up to it. He presents detailed descriptions of the killers Harris and Klebold, the tragically slain victims & their families, and most poignantly, the injured survivors, some of who persevered against incredibly debilitating injuries. Based on hundreds of interviews with eye-witnesses, families, police and health professionals, Cullen challenges the false media perception of the so-called “Trench Coat Mafia,” the martyrdom of victim Cassie Bernall, and the notion that the two boys who coldly planned this apocalyptic event were themselves loners and targets of bullies. He also suggests that all the evidence points to this incident being less a school shooting than a failed bombing attempt, and should be categorized as such. Particularly absorbing is Cullen’s psychological portrait of Eric Harris, who emerges as a “textbook psychopath” with the ability to lie so well he completely convinced both his parents and his therapist that he was on the road to responsible citizenship after committing a spate of petty crimes. I highly recommend this title for high school students AND their parents. Far from being a titillating tabloid text, this meticulously researched and sensitive tome works to further our understanding of a terrible event and underlines the fact that we are all responsible for each other and for monitoring the warning signs that can lead to such a fatal tragedy as Columbine.
The Walls of the Universe by Paul Melko
06.10
What would you do if your doppleganger suddenly walked up to you and offered to show you the parallel universes that existed right outside the thin fabric of your reality? One day when Ohio teenager John Rayburn heads to the barn to do chores, he is confronted by an identical man who claims he is actually JR himself, but from a parallel world. He calls himself John Prime, and offers JR a deal—a 24-hour vacation in a parallel universe, free of charge. What red-blooded adolescent wouldn’t take such a proposition? To travel to another time and place while your twin guards your life here? Except, that’s not exactly what happens. Turns out Prime’s device only works one way, and that’s forward. Once JR jumps ahead to another universe, he can no longer go back. And now Prime is living his stolen life and JR has no choice but to find a new place in the universe. At first JR stumbles around multiple universes (universi?), making newbie-universe-traveler mistakes like losing his money, accidentally bringing alien species into other universes, and referring to objects or technology that haven’t been invented yet in the universe he is currently visiting. But finally JR settles down in a universe not unlike his own and decides to study physics in order to learn how the device works—so he can throw the lever in reverse, kick Prime’s butt and take his life back. But first he’s going to finance his college education by inventing a little game called pinball…This mind-bending and thoroughly entertaining sci-fi will leave you pondering the possibilities of parallel worlds and appreciating the little things like reality TV, root beer and Rubik’s Cubes that make THIS universe so frickin’ awesome.
Dog On It by Spencer Quinn
05.15
Meet Bernie and Chet, the two hard-bitten P.I.’s of the Little Detective Agency. Though one has two legs and the other four, both are tough, not easily fooled dudes with hearts of gold. Bernie Little is a down-on-his-luck detective with a big debt and small checking account. Chet “the Jet” is his loyal-to-the-bone mongrel sidekick whose wandering nose and lack of impulse control often gets him into trouble. Chet is the star of this mystery-series opener, as he narrates Bernie’s life in an uber-realistic, easily distracted canine voice that often comes across as barkingly funny. In their first adventure together, Bernie and Chet are hired to find wealthy teen Madison Chambliss, whose divorced mother reports her missing. But there’s more to this apparent runaway case that meets the eye (or nose, in Chet’s case), and the dedicated partners soon dig up connections between Madison’s disappearance, a real estate development that’s gone bottoms up, and the Russian mafia. To make matters more complicated, both have recently become smitten: Bernie with local investigative reporter Suzie Sanchez and Chet with a mysterious furry female he only knows by her come-hither bark. Unlike some other best-selling doggerel, this book nails the dog’s-eye point of view perfectly and also serves as an excellent introduction to the detective genre if you haven’t had the pleasure of dipping into it before. A doggone good book that even a cat person can love. I can’t wait to go on a stake-out with Chet and Bernie again!
The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose
02.10
When Brown University student Kevin Roose told his parents he wanted to attend Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University for a semester, they were obviously shaken. After all, they had raised him to be a good liberal with solid Democratic values—where had they gone wrong?! Then Kevin explained that he wanted to enroll undercover in order to write a book about what it was really like inside the cloistered world of Christian college, and they relaxed…a little. The result of Roose’s anti-secular semester sojourn is this enlightening, balanced and highly entertaining book, where he shares his experiences with dating Liberty girls (“Hand holding and hugging are the only official displays of physical affection allowed at Liberty…and hugging only for a three-second maximum”), taking Liberty science classes (one professor provides physical dimensions for Noah’s ark and explains how the animals were in a state of hibernation so they didn’t need as much food), and checking out Every Man’s Battle meetings, “Liberty’s on-campus support group for pornography addicts and chronic masturbators.” But while some aspects of Christian collage were exactly what he expected, Roose was also surprised by how honest, kind, and funny his dorm mates were, and how much they struggled with the strict rules of Christianity that they professed to completely agree with. Although he was deeply troubled by the rampant homophobia that existed on campus and the anti-evolutionary stance taken by the faculty (some of whom are highly respected and published scientists) he was also deeply touched by the sincerity of these same students and faculty when it came to praying and helping one another through difficult times. Roose also really loved singing in the church choir, waking up on Sunday mornings without a hangover, and the surprisingly lack of pressure when it came to asking out Liberty girls. As someone who graduated from a (slightly) less strict Christian college than Liberty, and who no longer follows that spiritual path but still has friends who do, I really appreciated Roose’s tone, which was always open-minded and respectful and never condescending or patronizing. You can read more about Roose’s evangelical experience on his blog and website.
Dogface by Jeff Garigliano
10.25
Fourteen-year-old Loren’s first mistake was torching the golf course. His next was trusting his mom’s slimy golf pro boyfriend when he said they were going “camping.” Instead, Loren’s mom and her vindictive beau end up dropping him off at Camp Ascend!, a run-down boot camp for wayward teens. The golf course fire was the last straw in a long line of military “maneuvers” the Green Beret-obsessed Loren carried out that finally land him in the dubious care of the “Colonel,” a professional scammer who wouldn’t know a Green Beret from a Navy Seal. The Colonel, his uber-high maintenance wife Kitty and her Neanderthal brother Donovan are the camp’s only staff, and their methods of tamping down turbulent teen behavior are less than orthodox. But they’ve never dealt with a kid like Loren, who actually has some knowledge of espionage & guerilla warfare–even if it only comes from movies. Loren proceeds to turn the camp on its ear by kidnapping Kitty, smoke-bombing Donovan, and stealing the Colonel’s Swiss bank account numbers. But Donovan, whose brain really is the size of a bottle cap, finally gets wily Loren under his ape-like paw. And that’s when the fun REALLY starts. This raucous send-up of a Dr. Phil-type teen boot camp special is a clever indictment of the pop psychology media that touts “tough love” as the answer to all teen troubles. At times Donovan’s pea-brained violent behavior is truly terrifying, but Kitty’s vapid obsession with mail-order spa products and Loren’s dumb-luck escapes help lighten the sometimes dark story. This is the perfect book for those of you who always suspected that adults aren’t nearly as smart as they pretend to be!
Who Can Save Us Now?: Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories edited by Owen King and John McNally (Illustrations by Chris Burnham)
09.20
This generous helping of superhero soup will quickly sate the appetites of those of you who continue to crave tales of men (or women) in tights outside of comic books. Going way beyond Superman or Wonder Woman, these superheroes range from the bizarre to the merely banal, each one unique in his or her own quirky way. The opener, “Girl Reporter,” tells how one famous superhero’s initial rough edges were smoothed by his unsung journalist girlfriend, creating the classy crime fighter we know and love today. In “The Quick Stop 5,” several slacker convenience story employees discover they have been granted powers by a particularly aromatic batch of diesel fuel, and become a national brand faster than you can say “Hannah Montana.” I also quite enjoyed the stories of America’s most disgusting superhero, The Silverfish (“Remains of the Night”) and it’s most unusual (“The Meerkat”—I know, I’m still scratching my head over that one, too. But trust me, it works). And then there’s “The Pentecostal Home for Flying Children,” where one womanizing superhero has left behind all his red-headed airborne offspring to be raised by a forgiving woman of God. In the darker themed “Roe #5,” a woman discovers that her past has come back to haunt her in not-quite human form, and in “Man Oh Man, –It’s Manna Man,” one man uses his powers of persuasion to make crooked television evangelists donate to the needy instead of themselves. But my favorite stories may have been in the last section, “Super Ordinary.” There, David Yoo relates the tale of “The Somewhat Super,” those who have the dubious ability of not having to go to the bathroom (EVER), or the less than impressive power of…static electricity. Kelly Braffet explores what it feels like to have the power of bad luck in “Bad Karma Girl Wins at Bingo,” while Jennifer Weiner tells of the story of a down-and-out writer who suddenly discovers she can speak to dead people—and find missing children. Finally, David Haynes ends the collection with “The Lives of Ordinary Superheroes,” which explains what happens to old superheroes—do they retire, or just fade away? Awesomely illustrated by Chris Burnham, this super-sized collection (22 stories in all) should keep you busy at least until the sequel to Ironman comes out!
