Do you have any reading suggestions for a teen girl?

Question

I'm thirteen years old and I enjoy reading fantasy, chick lit, classic novels and more. I read on a college level, but I only read adult books if they're ok with my mum. I usually stick to young adult books. I would really appreciate any suggestions you might have. Thank you!

Answer 1

I'm 13, also, and here are my suggestions:
The Secret Life of Bees
The Kite Runner
A Wrinkle in Time
Dandelion Wine
The Bell Jar (There's a bit of mature content in this, just to let you know. It is an adult book, but the plot is... WOW!)
Tuesdays with Morrie
Flowers For Algernon (Again, there is some parts of this book that are more mature than children's books, but, then again, I've seen much more YA books that are wayyy more PG13 than this one.)
Pay it Forward
Animal Farm
The Giver
East of Eden
The Library Card
Stargirl
Chasing Redbird
The Book Thief
All the "Miss Julia" Books
The Outsiders
The Schwa was Here
Stotan!
Whale Talk
Chinese Handcuffs
Running Loose
Ironman
Walk Two Moons
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
1984

Answer 2

I will give you a list of authors:
Christopher Paolini
Stephenie Meyer
Tamora Pierce
Shannon Hale
Lois Lowry
Scott Westerfeld
Gabrielle Zevin
Judy Blume
Anne Brashares
Meg Cabot
Kate DiCamillo
Margaret Peterson Haddix
Stephen King
Dean Koontz
Garth Nix
James Patterson
Ridley Pearson
Louis Sachar
Sonya Sones
John Steinbeck
R.L. Stein
Toni Morrison
Kathryn Lasky
Cornelia Funke
Emily Rodda
Jenny Nimmo
J.K. Rowling
Patrick Carman
K.A. Applegate
Shakespeare
Langston Hughes
Lisa Klein

*Plus, all the Royal Diaries & Dear America series of books from Scholastic.
**Also try www.teenreads.com, as it will tell you all and only the teen books these authors have written.

*~*~*Beware: Some of these authors also have adult books written that may be unappropriate for a 13 year-old.

P.S. I am also 13.

Answer 3

I'm totally addicted to YA books. I tend to like books that come in a series so that I can continue with the character and plot in the next book without having to start the whole backstory over again. I also enjoy fantasy/science fiction books but some teen drama is good every once and awhile too! Most of my favorites have already been suggested but here they are anyway:

Harry Potter series (JK Rowling)- If you haven't read these books yet, I highly recommend them! The first and second books were a little slow at first but the action really picks up in the third. Also, Rowling does a great job weaving hints and clues throughout the book about things that will later happen.

Uglies Trilogy (Scott Westerfeld)- Uglies, Pretties, Specials, and Extras- it's definitely science fiction/fantasy. It's set in the future when at 16 you get an operation to make you Pretty. . . but there is a freaky twist that comes with it!

Speak (Laurie Halse Anderson)- This is a very emotional book about a girl who is raped the summer before starting high school. No one knows and she becomes an outcast in her school. It's a very emotional and complex book but a good read if you feel you are mature enough for it.

Mediator series (Meg Cabot)- Girl who can talk to ghosts and helps them deal. Seems weird at first but I really got into it!

Maximum Ride series (James Patterson)- There are a group of kids that have been experimented on. They have large wings and they escape from the science lab. Once I started these books I could not put them down till I finished!

1-800-Where-Are-You series (Meg Cabot)- A girl gets struck by lightning and is given the gift of finding people that are lost, kidnapped or have run away. There is also an angsty backplot that is going on.

Sarah Dessen books- She writes some great teen novels that are very realistic, dramatic and dark in places. I loved Just Listen, Keeping the Moon and Dreamland.

Twilight series- I haven't read these yet but I've heard they're unbelievably good and they are the next ones on my reading list!

Answer 4

Ha...I have the same problem as you...I think I've read just about every young adult book in my library that isn't about gay people (I was browsing and I can think of like 5)

Someone Like You, This Lullaby, and Just Listen-Sarah Dessen- Great books, has teenage pregnancy, some innuendo, some language, and underage drinking, but these books were some of the best ones I have read.
Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse- Stephenie Meyer
The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, and the Princess Academy- Shannon Hale
Ella Enchanted, The Two Princesses of Bamarre, The Wish, Fairest- Gail Carson Levine
Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie- David Lubar (This is about a guy, but it's one of my favorite books)
The Princess Bride-William Goldman- This wasn't actually written by Morgenstern, it was a pseudonym.
Emma-Jane Austen- I've read Sense and Sensibility, most of Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park, and Emma was the best by far.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Series- Ann Brashares
The Westing Game- Ellen Raskin
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler- E.L. Kongisburg
The Frog Princess Series- E. D. Baker
Little Women and An Old Fashioned Girl- Louisa May Alcott
To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee- YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!
The Witch of Blackbird Pond- Elizabeth George Speare

Answer 5

I was an avid reader at your age and read until late into the night when a book was so good I couldn't put it down... I still do.

I cut my teeth on the Gothic Romances... I read the Bronte's Jane Eyre & Wuthering Heights, then on to Pride & Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Ethan Frome and anything by Daphne Du Maurier ... that litany includes Rebecca, Jamaica Inn. The DuMauriers, Frenchman's Creek, Hungry Hill, My Cousin Rachel, Mary Anne, The Scapegoat, The Glassblowers and House on the Strand. Later I began the Jean Auel series beginning with Clan of the Cave Bear. It was facinating reading about a young girl coming into womanhood while living with a pack of Neanderthals.

To me, books were magical and facinated me in those younger years. I have since graduated to more sophisticated and adult reading (or so I'd like to think). But this is an excellent start.

I hope you enjoy going where books will take you.

Answer 6

Funny Yuu Shud Ask That I Got A New Book To-Day Called The Stuff Of Nightmares If Your Into Thrillers. I Wud Also Reccomend Jaquline Wilsons Range E.g. Kiss, Girls Out Late, Candyfloss etc And Anything By Malorie Blackman If Thats Your Sort Of Thing, But Yes Most Teenage Girls Including Myself Enjoy The Jaquline Wilson Books!!! And Don't Forget Harry Potter xD

<3 <3

Answer 7

Yea, I'm 15 and I genreally read on a higher level too.
My best suggestions for you would be:

Running with Scissors (mature, but if you're up to it it's extremely interesting)
Walk to Moons
The Devine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Emma and virtually anything by Jane Austin
Flowers for Algernon
Wicked
Short stories are the best! Try Carson McCullers
The Golden Compass
Frankenstein
The "Uglie's" Series
Any Sharon Creech book
try Mark Twain: Tom Sawyer, Huck Fin ect.
To Kill a Mocking Bird
Of Mice and Men
Lord of the Flies
Stephen King is alway's good if not Scary
The Giver
1984
Memoirs of a Geisha
have you read the Diary of Anne Frank?
Maus and Maus II [Graphic Novel, but very powerful]
The Joy Luck Club
Twilight (series)

Good Luck Finding Some Books.
Em. :D

Answer 8

Ok, so from what you say, it seems like I might just have the perfect series of books for you. The series is called the "Star Shards" trilogy, and although the cover may look childish (which it does), these books are actually fascinating novels. They deal with kids that are actually your age, but are in no way a childish fantasy with sugarpuffs and gumdrops. The kids are REAL, which is something that I can't say most authors do. They get angry like us, they love like us, they fight just like we do, they're simply real kids. And the best part is that they aren't just given powers and go around saving the world from a certain evil, no, they are given powers that are the evil, and boy what powers they have! If you find the chaos theory at all interesting, this book is like a superhero. It's not the normal type of kids do evil, fix evil type of plot either. They dont' know what they're doing, and are such dynamic characters that you feel right along with them. Also, you never can guess what is going to happen next, as every page is another shocker for you! There are three books, "Scorpion Shards", "Thief of Souls", and "Shattered Sky", all by Neal Shusterman. Yes, I will admit that they are quite adult books, and a bit sophisticated, but they aren't overtly explicit in the material, although it has its moments, and if you are a reader like you say you are, you will find this book to be everything you want and more!

Answer 9

Hmmm
what about the books by Tamora Pierce? They are lots of fun with strong female heros and a bit of fantasy thrown in too. I think they are aimed at your age group so your mum should be happy.

My favourite fantasy author from when I was 12 until now is Isobelle Carmody, but I don't know whether your mum would approve. If 'the Obernewtyn chronicles' were a tv show, i'm not sure how they would rate it.... no sex scenes, but there is the occasional bit of violence and the overall theme is gloomy and dark with a depressing view of humanity. I couldn't get enough of it as a 13yr old but I was always a bit of a strange one. They put them in the young adult section of my library so they are probably ok. (and OMG book 5 in the series is actually coming out in a few days after being out due for about 5 years!!)

Other than that, you can't go past classics like Romeo and Juliet or Pride and Predjudice. I'm sure your mum would approve of them. They are also good because they take ages to read so they are good value. :)

Answer 10

Wow, you are getting quite the list here!! Some of my all time favorites..

The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L'Engle
A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle
A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle
are all awesome - she has many good ones.

Also liked:
The Giver by Lois Lowry
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann D. Wyss
21 Balloons by William Pene du Bois
The Ghost Next Door by Wylly Folk St. John
There is a Bat in Bunk Five by by Paula Danziger
The Island Stallion by Walter Farley


At about 13 I too moved on into adult books. I started with the Dune series by Frank Herbert (main character is a 15 year old boy, not an adult like the crappy movie). Might give them a try if you're ready for more challenging material!
Good Luck and Bravo to you. Never stop reading.

Answer 11

You sound like an intelligent young woman and with all these suggestion, plus access to a local library (?) I would think that you would never run out of possibilities. However, as an avid reader myself I would still like to mention some authors and titles that I enjoyed as a teen - and recently enjoyed again as an adult.

Most notable among these is the DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN series by Anne McCaffrey. They enchanted me in junior high and I have begun reading them again now that I am in my thirties and am still enthralled - even though I can recall the plots from most of the books, it is the rediscovery of the world as an adult, and the rediscovery of details that I had long since forgotten that has drawn me back in.

The first book, even before that series, that caught my attention was DRAGONSINGER. It is about a girl, Menolly, with a musical talent that is overlooked because of her female status in an old-world-style village. Yet this is a fantasy novel set on a planet where Dragons and Dragonriders help protect citizens from a deadly menace.

DRAGONSINGER was followed by DRAGONSONG - a continuation of her story, and then DRAGONDRUMS, which I have not been able to locate a copy of recently and therefore cannot recall the story. But I know that she remains a principal player in it, if not the central character.

ANNE MCCAFFREY also has many other stories and series that have continued to enchant me as I discover, rediscover and, in some cases, pick up where I left off. Some of the best include:

The Crystal Singer / Killshandra / Crystal Line (my 2nd fav ser)
The Ship Who Sang (and the various "Ship Who (V-ed)" titles) as well as The City Who Fought
"Acorna" series
The Rowan series - takes you through generation of powerful telekinetics.
The Pegasis series (which eventually connects the dots of history to the Rowan series)
and several others, of course.

Happy reading!