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[honey]

OK, my dealio is that I need to figure out which books out there sound like me so I can figure out who are the best publishers for me.

PROBLEM... Kelly hardly ever reads and thus has no idea which books are like hers.

SO, I have to start reading/researching some books.


QUESTION...

Does anyone here read a lot of fiction? Do you have any recommendation s of Books or Authors that you like? More specifically any young adult fiction/romance you could recommend?

[mare]

I love reading!

Read Nineteen Minutes by Jody Piquolt. It's an excellent novel about a school shooting and it's told from everyone's point of view. I know it isn't necessarily your syle but it's an excellent book lol

As for romance, think Double Day books. I think they take manuscripts from people without agents.

I would also recommend Anne Tyler. She's an excellent romace-ish type writer who has a great comedic style. Back When We Were Grownups and I think the other one was called Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant are two great books she has written.

Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True and She's Come Undone <-- he's my hero. He's my JK Rowling lol

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver was a great book as well. Although I have found some of her other ones to be kind of on the snorefest side.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson MCCuellers is a classic, great read.

The Secret Life of Bees is also fantastic.
 
I haven't read very many books directed at teenagers so I can't really help you out in that reguard. but I have read a TON of books so f I think of anything else i'll add it to the list.

[honey]

thanks Mare. Anywhere is a place to start, but I've also made it a goal to just read more in general, even if it's not necessarily my genre, because it will still help me with my own writing. Plus, it's almost the real beach season and my kids and I will go probably once or twice a week here shortly, and I love taking books to the beach so I'll need a good summer reading list lol.


And I know you're always talking about Wally Lamb, so what kind of writer is he? Like mainly drama?  Are most of these books dramas?

[honey]

Oddly enough most of my reading has been in the action adventure category. Like I've read most of Michael Crighton and a lot of the Dirk Pitt series by Clive Cussler. Not romance at all lol.

but yeah, I know there are some teenagers here on this board. What are you guys reading these days?  Oh lord that just made me sound so old. LMAO.

I really do need to find some good books that are geared toward teenagers. Like the twilight series or the Traveling Pants series... stuff like that.

[mare]

Anne Tyler's books are more conedy then drama but yes, the others are more drama centered.

Wally Lamb just does a great job writing in first POV as a woman in She's Come Undone that you almost think it was written by a woman. It's a drama but there are a lot of very funny parts in it as well. I Know This Much is True is an incredibly huge book but a great one. It's a story in a story about identical twins but one of them is mentally ill. Those are the only books he's written actually lol I don't know, maybe because of my upbringing and my families dysfuntion but both books really spoke to me and inspired me to write Mel's. The first draft lol

Deception Point is another great book. It's Dan Brown and a suspense action one and I read it in about three days lol I couldn't put it down.

[mare]

Oddly enough most of my reading has been in the action adventure category. Like I've read most of Michael Crighton and a lot of the Dirk Pitt series by Clive Cussler. Not romance at all lol.

but yeah, I know there are some teenagers here on this board. What are you guys reading these days?  Oh lord that just made me sound so old. LMAO.

I really do need to find some good books that are geared toward teenagers. Like the twilight series or the Traveling Pants series... stuff like that.

one of my 6th graders was reading the third book in the Twilight series today. I thought of you lol She was reading the first book last Friday so it didn't take her long to get through them.

[honey]

aww. Mare thinks of me.    haha yes. I just devoured those silly books. and 6th graders... that sounds about right lol. Though I know a ton of adults that love those books as well. Stephenie Meyer is actually publishing a new book soon in the Adult market and she actually went through a different publisher and everything. I don't know if she's going to use another name or not for that one, but I will be curious to see the genre switch.

[mare]

on a random note about teens. They enjoy big print lol little print scares them.

[starbeamz]

Jennifer Crusie is one of those beach/chick lit authors, and she's part comedy/drama/mystery/romance...one of those that's a perfect mix of it all lol

Megan McCafferty writes this series that started off in high school. It's the diaries of this one average teenage girl and pretty much follows her musings and what goes on around her in school and life lol There's only 4 books and they move fairly fast.  I loved the first two: Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings.

I know every time I'm in Target, I always check out the book section and Gossip Girls and this other set of teen fiction (TTYL I think is the name of one of the books lol) are always right up there at the top of the teen reads. 

AAH! Meg Cabot! How could I forget her?! She wrote the Princess Diaries books along with a bunch of others, and I think your stories mirror hers in a lot of ways as well.

Wow, it's been a while since I've touched young adult lol and I'm only 20

[honey]

Anne Tyler's books are more conedy then drama but yes, the others are more drama centered.

Wally Lamb just does a great job writing in first POV as a woman in She's Come Undone that you almost think it was written by a woman. It's a drama but there are a lot of very funny parts in it as well. I Know This Much is True is an incredibly huge book but a great one. It's a story in a story about identical twins but one of them is mentally ill. Those are the only books he's written actually lol I don't know, maybe because of my upbringing and my families dysfuntion but both books really spoke to me and inspired me to write Mel's. The first draft lol

Deception Point is another great book. It's Dan Brown and a suspense action one and I read it in about three days lol I couldn't put it down.

haha well I might have to read that one. I mean I am the queen of mental illness.    And as for him writing well as a woman? My hats off to the man. Because I just wrote a book from the boys perspective and he's soooo girly. That's hard to do. Really fun, channeling my inner boy, but hard.

The only Dan Brown I've read is the Da Vinci Code. But I really enjoyed it. Much more than the movie.  I'll have to put Anne Tyler on my list first then cause I tend to flock to the more humor and less drama books.

[honey]

on a random note about teens. They enjoy big print lol little print scares them.

hahahahahahaha little print scares me too. man I have issues.

[honey]

Jennifer Crusie is one of those beach/chick lit authors, and she's part comedy/drama/mystery/romance...one of those that's a perfect mix of it all lol

Megan McCafferty writes this series that started off in high school. It's the diaries of this one average teenage girl and pretty much follows her musings and what goes on around her in school and life lol There's only 4 books and they move fairly fast.  I loved the first two: Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings.

I know every time I'm in Target, I always check out the book section and Gossip Girls and this other set of teen fiction (TTYL I think is the name of one of the books lol) are always right up there at the top of the teen reads. 

AAH! Meg Cabot! How could I forget her?! She wrote the Princess Diaries books along with a bunch of others, and I think your stories mirror hers in a lot of ways as well.

Wow, it's been a while since I've touched young adult lol and I'm only 20

Some one else was telling me Meg Cabbot. I was looking at her publisher the other day too.  Thank you ladies. My list is already starting to grow. Yay!  Oh, man, maybe I should go to the beach now... I wonder how warm it is right now.

[starbeamz]

I think, if I were you (and I'm obviously not lol), I'd go to Barnes and Noble or Borders and look through their Young Adult section. Usually, they separate out their bestsellers in each section, so you could peruse through those as well and get more ideas.  There's a ton of books out there in YA land that I'm sure not all of us know of or have read, so what better place than a bookstore to find more books, right?

[nicksgal]

I liked the Sweet Valley High Books!.... I don't read much anymore. I suck! lol

[RokofAges75]

My favorite books ever are Harry Potter.

As far as adult romance goes, I like Nicholas Sparks.  My favorite book by him is "The Guardian," probably because it has a good suspense/mystery subplot, so it's not all romance (his books that are all romance tend to get boring for me), and it has good characters.

My favorite young adult author is Lurlene McDaniel... she writes romance, but it's the sappy, tearjerkery type (my favorite! LOL).  Favorite book is "Don't Die, My Love."

My other favorite young adult author is Elizabeth Chandler.  She also writes romance, but with a supernatural/suspense/mystery twist.  She has a series of books called "Dark Secrets," but my absolute favorite by her (one of my favorite books of all time) is a trilogy called "Kissed by An Angel."  I have the Collector's Edition, which is all three books in one, so I tend to think of it as one book, but technically it's a trilogy.  It's soooo good.  It's technically young adult; the main characters are in high school, but I can read it now, as an adult, and enjoy it as much as I did when I was in 8th grade and read it for the first time.