in which I'm feeling somewhat certain that I'm going to pass this class with flying colors.

[enamoured]

Got the syllabus for the Young Adult Literature class I'm taking this semester. Here's the books we have to buy/read for the class:

• Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak
• Anonymous. Go Ask Alice
• Blume, Judy. Forever.
• Cormier, The Chocolate War
• Hinton, S. E. That Was Then, This is Now
• Knowles, John. A Separate Peace
• Brashares, Ann. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
• Lowry, Lois. The Giver
• Meyers, Walter Dean. Monster
• Rennison, Louise. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicholson
• Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
• Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye

Strike-throughs indicate books I own. Bold indicates books I've read.

Let's talk about this list a little. I'm going to skip around some, just because.

The Giver is (and always will be) one of my favorite books of all time. When I was in sixth grade, I was on my school's Battle of the Books team, and I remember methodically making my way through the list of twenty-four books. Of all the books we had to read before competition, I read about nineteen or twenty of them all. I'm a fairly fast reader, so I would usually blaze through one of the books in a week (that being fast because of other homework and the recreational, non-BotB reading I was doing) and then move on to the next. I think I picked up The Giver in October or November, when I was struggling to get through Little Women (FIVE HUNDRED PAGES! it was massive for eleven year old me), and it changed my life. I got introduced to the idea of dystopian fiction through The Giver. I didn't like to think of myself as nerdy or geeky at the time, but I had some tendencies, and that book (along with sci-fi lite shows like The Secret World of Alex Mack) may have been a gateway to me being interested in some of the shows and movies and fiction that I like now.

I read The Chocolate War for the first time last summer. I read three Cormier books in the span of about three months: Fade, The Chocolate War, and I Am the Cheese. I liked them, but I don't neccesarily think I'd want to read any of them again because what little bit of Robert Cormier's fiction I've read is bleak. It's well-written, but it makes you just want to shake your head and go, "Damn, society. Damn, teenage boys."

The only S.E. Hinton book I've read was The Outsiders in seventh grade. I've only read it once, but it was one of my favorite books that I've had to read for school.

I think I'm one of the few people who will admit to somewhat enjoying A Separate Peace. It's been years since I read it, but I liked it a lot when I was sixteen, because I could relate to Gene's weird, creepy jealousy about Finny. One of my friends in sophomore English and I would talk about how dreamy we thought Finny was, and she was absolutely like, "Do you think there's something else going on between them?"

As far as Judy Blume goes, I hate that I've never read Forever. When I was a kid, I was a big fan of all the Fudge books, but never got around to reading her "girl" books. I never read the one book about Sheila, and I didn't read Deenie until I was about... eighteen or nineteen? So I'm glad that I finally have a reason to read this book.

Never read Go Ask Alice because I'd heard about it being a fake years ago, and had no real desire to read about some girl go on a drug binge, whether fictional or not.

I read Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in... October of my junior year of high school or so. I'd wanted to read it for a while, and one day I was in the library  at school, and our librarian was tagging the new books. I saw Sisterhood on deck to be tagged along with Sarah Dessen's This Lullaby, and the librarian put them both on hold for me until the end of the day, when she would have them tagged and ready in the system.

I bought Monster during one of the last days that Borders was open. It was one of the books I read last year that wouldn't leave my head for weeks after I read it. It's that good.

I read the Georgia Nicholson books all through high school. Every time we got one of the new ones, I was usually one of the first to check the book out. I haven't read the latest two, though--might save that for summer.

I didn't read the first Harry Potter book until about 2005. YEAH, I KNOW. DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT.

I read Speak sometime around freshman year, and it kind of shook me up. It's still one of my favorite books, though.

Lastly, I read Catcher in the Rye senior year, because I wanted to figure out what the hype was about, and I think they saved that book for the honors English kids. That is one of the only times in which I am glad that I didn't take honors English, because I have no love for Catcher at all. I know it's not an uncommon opinion, and that it's considered a seminal work, as far as establishing young adult lit, but damn, Holden is insufferable and reminded me way too much of the wannabe punks I knew at school who would riff on the "preps" and talk about how fake they were, while walking around in a wardrobe provided by Hot Topic. I don't know if I'm going to make it through that book again without my brain collapsing on me.
 

 

Comments

*is Rainee/dixie_chicken*

[jezibelle]

That Was Then, This Is Now is based in the same universe as The Outsiders and very similar in theme, so you should enjoy it. The plots don't cross at all, you just hear side references to some of the same characters.

A Separate Peace... I didn't mind the plot or story or anything, it was just BADLY FREAKING WRITTEN. I could barely plod through it. I might give it another try someday but I'm pretty sure I put the copy I had through a paper shredder.

[poinsley.livejournal.com]

I really liked A Separate Peace, too. My dad had an old copy and I read it one summer for the heck of it.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

The Go Ask Alice fraud (which I probably read about at the same time you did, BEINGS as I've known you that long...) makes me SO ANGRY. Stupid conservatives lying to kids. I always turn that book around on the shelf in bookstores.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

I found Fade really disturbing with all the incest stuff and the thing with his aunt letting him fondle her boobs (TELL ME I DIDN'T IMAGINE THAT PART IN A YA BOOK). I think I didn't finish it.

I found Catcher to be as you said. I don't know how much longer it will be considered a classic after the boomers go.

[la-petite-singe.livejournal.com]

I did totally believe that Go Ask Alice was legit, but in my defense, I was pretty young. ;) Speak is excellent, though the movie's kinda not. My fifth-grade teacher read HP to us and I've been hooked ever since, but I'm way behind on a lot of the others--I've never read The Giver, somehow. O____o I hear it's gonna be a movie with Jeff Bridges, though, so I guess I'd better get on that. I didn't mind Catcher at the time, although it's hardly his best work, IMO, and I have no idea why it's everyone's ~fave.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

There are some young people (under 35, say) who love Catcher, but the impression I get from my friends and people younger than I am (I'm 33) is that opinion is running against. It's not a book that speaks to more recent generations' experiences growing up in the way it did for the 60s kids.

[chrryblssmninja.livejournal.com]

I think I'm one of the few people who will admit to somewhat enjoying A Separate Peace. It's been years since I read it, but I liked it a lot when I was sixteen, because I could relate to Gene's weird, creepy jealousy about Finny. One of my friends in sophomore English and I would talk about how dreamy we thought Finny was, and she was absolutely like, "Do you think there's something else going on between them?"

people in my general lit class more or less liked the book (me included) but, while the TV? movie version really amps up those overtones, it's a bit too scattered to hold together as a good movie.