laurel & r.bean recommend two or three good YA novels i should read for contrast to 'hunger games', if i read 'hunger games'
― thomp, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:39 (twelve years ago) link
Haven't read 'em. Storyline seemed a little too pat, and then they got the commercial success to match so I just didn't make the effort. remy is saving me from having to try again.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:40 (twelve years ago) link
Remy already did!
Rick Yancey in his Will Henry series – 'The Monstrumologist' & 'Curse of the Wendigo'
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:42 (twelve years ago) link
@thomp, for the sci-fi/horror/gore/monster angle i'd recommend rick yancey's 'the monstrumologist.' it isn't really my cup of tea, but i think it is a well-written book and a good read for a certain type of kid. it introduces a lot of great elements, and ties well w/ frankenstein, lovecraft, etc.,
for total contrast w/in the genre i recommend peter cameron's 'someday this pain will be useful to you' for great, deceptively simple, characterization.
i've recently enjoyed green & levithan's 'will grayson, will grayson' and paolo bacigalupi's 'ship-breaker'
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:44 (twelve years ago) link
halfway through ellen klages 'the green glass sea' if historical fiction is your thing
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:45 (twelve years ago) link
Yay, Ship Breaker!!
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:45 (twelve years ago) link
so good, right?
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:47 (twelve years ago) link
thanking u
just out of curiosity, how would you rate the possibly-not-as-ubiquitous-as-i-think-they-are franchises:
i. artemis fowlii. diary of a wimpy kidiii. skulduggery pleasant
― thomp, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:47 (twelve years ago) link
Sorry, actually quite busy so reduced to being cheering section. Also in terms of new stuff, I get most of my reading from work these days and our YA is extremely "commercial" so apart from SB'er and some others, most of it isn't what you're asking for.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:48 (twelve years ago) link
you attacked me for reading 'the hunger games.' then you call me a jerk? sorry if i offended you somehow
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:48 (twelve years ago) link
(my vested interest here is that my nephew is being put off reading by being deluged with brightly coloured FOR THE KIDS type books that people get him which largely appear to be .. kind of awful, and it is a lot harder to go into the bookstore and buy YA books than it was to buy picture books)
― thomp, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:48 (twelve years ago) link
there's a general-purpose YA thread somewhere, isn't there? maybe i should revive that one
― thomp, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:49 (twelve years ago) link
you attacked me for reading 'the hunger games.'
You can keep thinking that's what I was "attacking" you for, or you can re-consider about how dismissive you were about the literary "merit" of books for kids/young people.
thomp, honestly I haven't read any of any of those three. They give me the lip-curl when I see them around...hadn't realized Skullduggery Pleasant had become a thing?
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:52 (twelve years ago) link
There is an excellent YA sf/f thread somewhere but it's probably like 700 posts.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:53 (twelve years ago) link
artemis fowl are kind of silly –- they've got some good ideas, but they seem a little too calibrated (?) cynical (?) for my taste. there's definitely an audience, but they're so commercial that they sometimes seem more like a product than a series of books in their own right. whenever i'm reading artemis fowl, i sort of wish i were reading diane wynn jones
diary of a wimpy kid is fluff, but its formatting is obv. very appealing for struggling readers (marginalia, text design, illustrations, limited words/page) and it's pretty funny, i think. they series isv. easy, and doesn't go to any depth or characterization so the books don't have a cross-generational appeal in the way they might the format was used to better, and more interesting effect in tom angleberger's 'the strange case of the origami yoda' which came out last year.
i haven't read skulduggery pleasant; it hardly made splash over here. i've got an ARC of it sitting on the sofa and i'm meaning to get to it.
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:54 (twelve years ago) link
sorry abt. poor editing above ^^^
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:55 (twelve years ago) link
@thomp: how old is your nephew? how is his reading?
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:58 (twelve years ago) link
I think the really good stuff ends up coming out in areas that aren't popular at the time, it just goes unnoticed a bit until things quiet down. I don't think the repetitive and increasingly sensational sf/f that's everywhere right now is going to be the stuff of this era that lasts -- not when we've got Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and some gender-bendy/LGBTQ "issue" books by Julie Peters and others that are also v good and will probably burrow into kids' thinking more deeply and, one hopes, lastingly, but aren't going to make headlines now.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:59 (twelve years ago) link
And I normally dislike like "issue" books, I'm just sayin'.
i sort of wish i were reading diane wynn jones is basically my motto in life.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:01 (twelve years ago) link
when was i ever dismissive about the literary merit of books for kids/young people? i haven't said a single negative thing on this thread . . . that i revived! how very district one tribute of you
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:04 (twelve years ago) link
i'm sorry. i said something negative about harold bloom
well, help yourself to that. he's kind of a turd.
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:05 (twelve years ago) link
i'm reading his new book alongside 'the hunger games.' definitely prefer 'the hunger games'
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:06 (twelve years ago) link
black jelly bean: cold oatmeal
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:10 (twelve years ago) link
why people get so defensive about their aesthetic tastes i'll never understand
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:12 (twelve years ago) link
i really enjoyed patrick ness's 'chaos walking' trilogy despite some incompetent and repetitive plotting. certainly i think its a little more sophisticated in how it approaches its dystopia & the way it presents moral questions to the reader than hunger games.
― my baby eats special k all day (Lamp), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:17 (twelve years ago) link
good call, lamp: I am actually thinking of reading the first novel in the series w/ my class in the fall. I think Knife of Never Letting Go raises some really interesting ontological questions.
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:19 (twelve years ago) link
qualmsley:i'd say that maybe for a lot of people 'aesthetic taste' represents a cultural investment or a hard-won knowledge and experience, and there's a lot of ego bound up in what is a kind of half- arbitrary judgement.
It wasn't even about my taste so I'm not sure what that was? It was about remy, are you serious that you expect literary erudition to shine throughout young adult novels? But let's agree that you're not going to understand what I was saying and I'm not going to keep trying.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:24 (twelve years ago) link
fwiw i liked the first hunger games book & read it in a single afternoon. its working w/in a structure that i really like tho & i thought the simple, direct language a point in its favor. i did sort of think it was interesting how it seemed to be geared at readers who needed to be able to visualize the action clearly, & think it suffers a little emotionally/psychologically for that.
but honestly idk for a reluctant reader i think theres also value just in 'reading what everyone else is reading', in being able to take part in the conversation surrounding the books. helps make it more social/interesting/compulsive? this is just an idea i have about ~culture~ tho idk
― my baby eats special k all day (Lamp), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:25 (twelve years ago) link
Definitely, there's always the argument for encouraging kids to read whatever they WILL read, and to get the habit of reading and talking about reading, which conveniently dovetails with publishers' desire to sell a great number of copies. My cynicism about the second part shouldn't negate the good stuff about the first part.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:28 (twelve years ago) link
remy my nephew is actually only like nine. but he's actually a moderately advanced reader for his age -- it's just that he seems to be rapidly losing enthusiasm & it seems kind of hard to find stuff that's suitable, neither overly-childish nor alien in its concerns. i'm not about to get him the hunger games, i gotta say
like okay when i was a kid i was hooked on dragonlance and shit by that age, that was easy enough; but i don't know what to do w/r/t the 'repetitive and increasingly sensational sf/f that's everywhere right now', as laurel puts it, which seems to be what kids want to actually read (how long until the first zombie series for kids) (brb, writing to a publisher) --
like what you say about a. fowl: they sometimes seem more like a product than a series of books in their own right: seems to apply to about 75% of what's in the kid's section of the bookstore at the moment
― thomp, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:31 (twelve years ago) link
Thread's already too long, but I thought the "Lemony Snicket" books were among the most subversive, post-modern, just plain smart and funny YA-ish books I've ever read.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:34 (twelve years ago) link
Lamp: Agreed. I'm approaching these books as a teacher, if that helps to qualify my bile. I'm all for kids reading what they'd like, when they'd like. I don't totally buy the 'as long as they're reading' line, but I do think that independent reading – especially in the case of reluctant readers / LD kids – should be self-directed for a start, and gradually channeled into a careful, but not oppressive, appreciation for good books.
thomp: there's a lot of great realistic fiction for boys that is not reductive or lame, or overly issues-driven (ugh), which has not always been the case. YA sci-fi/fantasy is a mixed bag at best, but I agree w/ Laurel that it is not mostly lasting and some of it is passing fun.
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:34 (twelve years ago) link
The Forest of Hands and Teeth beat you to it.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:35 (twelve years ago) link
I'm tired of marketable book series-to-film. I got over Harry Potter ages ago and Twilight was a pitiful joke. Hunger Games doesn't look much different. I miss when authors used to write individual novels rather than serials, I get tired of the sameness after the second book.
― Breezy Summer Jam (MintIce), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:36 (twelve years ago) link
xxxp lemony snicket was like thomas pynchon jr. plotwise but i could never quite handle the prose.
― my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:36 (twelve years ago) link
not cuz it was so bad just because it was Always On.
― my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:37 (twelve years ago) link
I think the Snicket prose is part of the joke. It'll suddenly digress into a discussion of King Lear or the water cycle with no warning, just to keep you on your toes. If anything, it reminded me a whole lot of Tristram Shandy, right down to the black page.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:38 (twelve years ago) link
Like, wheel-spinning as an art.
http://www.grimmstories.com/images/sprookjes/image055.jpg
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:40 (twelve years ago) link
― Breezy Summer Jam (MintIce), Monday, July 11, 2011 12:36 PM (54 seconds ago) Bookmark
the 'best' part about the hunger games adaptation is they're making 4 movies out of 3 books
― Ayatollah Colm Meaney (Princess TamTam), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:42 (twelve years ago) link
My daughters are both obsessed with what a spindle even is. Most antiquated fairy tale staple?
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:43 (twelve years ago) link
Now, see the L Snicket books are a good example of a successful book/series without too many predecessors that absolutely set off a mania for "wacky hijinx" stories involving groups of kids. That accounts for the Skullduggery Pleasant series, DEFINITELY, BIG-TIME for the "Secrets Series" (The Name of this Book Is Secret et al) by "Pseudonymous Bosch", and I'm sure for 17 other currently successful extended series, too.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:46 (twelve years ago) link
The original had merits, but most of the other ideas that it made possible/successful will just be variations without the deftness or depth.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:48 (twelve years ago) link
pseudonymous bosch is another pen name for daniel handler, aka lemony snicket. i think you're right about there being v. little precedent for series of unfortunate events, tbh
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:49 (twelve years ago) link
Oh bother, really? I read the first three and then was like, I don't know if I just lost the thread but I'm over this now.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:50 (twelve years ago) link
i actually read two of the skulduggery pleasant stories, i quite liked them, it was a little odd that he was doing 'cthulhu ... y'know, for kids' but i gather that's a thing, right
― thomp, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:51 (twelve years ago) link
i read daniel handler's grownup novel once, it wasn't very good
just standard operating procedure for these things - spin the last book into two films, the first one of which will always be fucked because it makes no structural sense. watched Part 1 when it came out and it's exactly as you describe, but exactly what i expected.
― Pat Condell tha funkee homosapien (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 26 April 2015 16:01 (eight years ago) link
sorry, shd've just said "it's the money"
― Pat Condell tha funkee homosapien (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 26 April 2015 16:02 (eight years ago) link
also tbh the second two books probably could have been one book and chopped out three or four story arcs and ten characters that didn't really add anything.
― Doctor Casino, Sunday, 26 April 2015 16:14 (eight years ago) link
i never read the books, it was my daughter that persuaded me to watch the movies but i liked the first two. even tho she won't believe me that all the handsome young men look the same to me and i can't tell who the hell is who.
― Pat Condell tha funkee homosapien (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 26 April 2015 16:35 (eight years ago) link
i have napped through all of these movies so far
― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 26 April 2015 16:45 (eight years ago) link
reading this for the first timedo they have to list every time katniss goes to sleep
― he sounds like a parrot eating a carrot (Crabbits), Sunday, 17 May 2015 20:52 (eight years ago) link
it's pretty good on the whole thoi decided kids probably like it so much because, developmentally, they feel like their actions & their crazy new feelings are the focus of worldwide scrutiny, so it's a good parable for adolescent feelings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_audience)
― he sounds like a parrot eating a carrot (Crabbits), Sunday, 17 May 2015 21:02 (eight years ago) link
there are a lot of 'refrigerator moments' in these books for me, like, why does everyone go along with the games in the first place? what kind of government does this society have? why are there cars & hovercrafts & omniscient sky cams but no guns or lazers, only oldschool weapons (except the night vision sunglasses)?
i do like that it all take place in the woods -- i am imagining really scrappy crummy woods like burnt down yellowstone circa the late '80s, or new mexico's white mountains, or flagstaff. ariz. i want more descriptions of the climate & biome but i think all my criticisms just mean i'm a nerd
also a plus, i think it is cool that katniss's feelings for her sister (& affection xfer to rue as a result) are way more fleshed out than the boycrush feelings.
― he sounds like a parrot eating a carrot (Crabbits), Sunday, 17 May 2015 21:15 (eight years ago) link
Tried to see Spectre tonight but the theater was a madhouse and everything was sold out so we did the opening weekend plunge on this one instead. I can see this ultimately resonating like a nu-school Star Wars for a younger generation. Except that they get a Star Wars that doesn't just peter out with a long wet fart full of teddy bears. I went very begrudgingly into the first movie but I've liked it and every installment since quite a bit. The ending was ultimately a little pat but satisfying nonetheless. The acting carries an awful lot of water, but it's a well-made package overall. Remains to be seen how it'll all hold up on a repeat viewing (although I'm looking forward to doing just that since I've spent too much time during every sequel trying to remember what had happened previously).
― The Squirrel Who Punched His Dad In The Neck (Old Lunch), Sunday, 29 November 2015 06:05 (eight years ago) link
i've never realised how hateable the name 'peeta' is before
― thwomp (thomp), Sunday, 29 November 2015 06:32 (eight years ago) link
The character/actor himself is kind of a limp noodle and easily the weakest part of the film series. Perhaps the books provide more clarity as to why he wasn't mercifully chucked into a canyon as early as possible.
― The Squirrel Who Punched His Dad In The Neck (Old Lunch), Sunday, 29 November 2015 07:19 (eight years ago) link
I've never read the books, but I have seen the movies multiple times, because of one of my teens, and they've grown on me, particularly the sequels. They're pretty well conceived and executed, especially the last one, which was iirc sort of dismissed at the time as being more conventionally action-y than the others but is actually full of long stretches of quiet or introspective bits. I assume it's from the source material, but some of the turns of the final installment are particularly dark and heavy, and ultimately subvert a lot of tropes in these sorts of dystopian films. I like that the surviving heroes all clearly end up damaged, and that there is no real sunrise over a new day conclusion.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 29 December 2021 15:39 (two years ago) link
This is all in the source material iirc! You might enjoy the books. I'll admit by the end I was getting a little weary of just how endless the conveyor belt of trauma and recovery seemed, but maybe I'd think about those themes differently today. And maybe I just read them in too quick a succession.
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 29 December 2021 15:54 (two years ago) link
Aren't the books told in first person or something? I can imagine that being less effective. Or maybe just effective differently.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 29 December 2021 18:23 (two years ago) link