Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thinking of reading The Book Thief or that popular nearly-movie one that's one word and starts with D but I can't remember the name at the moment!

Anyone read these?

Divergent is pretty bad. The Book Thief is good but keep in mind it's a middle grade young adult book.

Not sure why you'd have to keep that in mind. YA is basically a marketing label that's not even used in most other countries. Either you think it's worth reading or you don't (I agree Divergent isn't, but I've heard good things about the Book Thief and he has another book called I am the Messenger that's good).

I know what YA is. I read it a lot. Some of it is purely labeling; some isn't. I think it's helpful to keep the audience in mind as far as expectations. It's written so that 12-year-olds can get it. It's good, but it's not The Goldfinch.

No need to be snotty when someone is trying to comment helpfully.

Sorry if you thought that was snotty but my point is that it was not written so that 12 year olds can get it. Someone decided that it was a great book for that age range because they can get it, so it seems a little odd to then warn people about that fact.

I don't know every book being discussed, but from the ones I know I can say there are a lot of different types of books being recommended on this thread-- from the Spellman chronicles to Beautiful Ruins to Life after Life to Game of Thrones. Some of those 12 year olds could get and some maybe they couldn't, but I think those are all good books that I'd recommend and unless someone gives me a specific type of book they want I wouldn't try to tell them which are which.

I agree that sometimes the label is arbitrary (The Spellman Files would be one that I could see going either way and it would make no difference) and that a good book is usually a good book regardless. But, if Zusak wrote The Book Thief with no audience in mind, I think the publishers made the right decision. I'm glad I had appropriate expectations when reading it. It reads like a novel for younger readers, not grown-ups.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thinking of reading The Book Thief or that popular nearly-movie one that's one word and starts with D but I can't remember the name at the moment!

Anyone read these?

Divergent is pretty bad. The Book Thief is good but keep in mind it's a middle grade young adult book.

Not sure why you'd have to keep that in mind. YA is basically a marketing label that's not even used in most other countries. Either you think it's worth reading or you don't (I agree Divergent isn't, but I've heard good things about the Book Thief and he has another book called I am the Messenger that's good).

I know what YA is. I read it a lot. Some of it is purely labeling; some isn't. I think it's helpful to keep the audience in mind as far as expectations. It's written so that 12-year-olds can get it. It's good, but it's not The Goldfinch.

No need to be snotty when someone is trying to comment helpfully.

Sorry if you thought that was snotty but my point is that it was not written so that 12 year olds can get it. Someone decided that it was a great book for that age range because they can get it, so it seems a little odd to then warn people about that fact.

I don't know every book being discussed, but from the ones I know I can say there are a lot of different types of books being recommended on this thread-- from the Spellman chronicles to Beautiful Ruins to Life after Life to Game of Thrones. Some of those 12 year olds could get and some maybe they couldn't, but I think those are all good books that I'd recommend and unless someone gives me a specific type of book they want I wouldn't try to tell them which are which.

I loved The Book Thief. Reading The Goldfinch now and it's just gotten to the part where I get why people recommend it.

There's another Nazi WWII one, appropriate for DC crowd, called In the Garden of Beasts…it's a novel about real-life people; American diplomats in Germany as WWII comes about, and in particular, the young adult daughter, who starts dating Nazis. Very interesting.

My all-time favorite book is "Gates of Fire," about the famous Spartan defense at the pass at Thermopolyae. (I'm a woman, btw, but I love it because) it's great writing about a very interesting event--it was the first time ancient Greeks stopped seeing themselves as bickering city-states (Athenians, Spartans, Corinthians, etc) and saw that the larger picture--saw the idea of being Greek and being a free people--as more important than their tribal differences. Without this battle, the USA would not be in existence. As usual, the Greeks are outnumbered but resort to their wits.

I've recently read:
The Orphan Train
What Alice Forgot
The Rosie Project
The Valley of Amazement

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thinking of reading The Book Thief or that popular nearly-movie one that's one word and starts with D but I can't remember the name at the moment!

Anyone read these?

Divergent is pretty bad. The Book Thief is good but keep in mind it's a middle grade young adult book.

Not sure why you'd have to keep that in mind. YA is basically a marketing label that's not even used in most other countries. Either you think it's worth reading or you don't (I agree Divergent isn't, but I've heard good things about the Book Thief and he has another book called I am the Messenger that's good).

I know what YA is. I read it a lot. Some of it is purely labeling; some isn't. I think it's helpful to keep the audience in mind as far as expectations. It's written so that 12-year-olds can get it. It's good, but it's not The Goldfinch.

No need to be snotty when someone is trying to comment helpfully.

OP, I LOVED The Orphan Master's Son. I believe we probably have similar taste in books. I recently finished A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and thought it was wonderful. Give that a try. It's by Anthony Marra.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thinking of reading The Book Thief or that popular nearly-movie one that's one word and starts with D but I can't remember the name at the moment!

Anyone read these?

Divergent is pretty bad. The Book Thief is good but keep in mind it's a middle grade young adult book.

Not sure why you'd have to keep that in mind. YA is basically a marketing label that's not even used in most other countries. Either you think it's worth reading or you don't (I agree Divergent isn't, but I've heard good things about the Book Thief and he has another book called I am the Messenger that's good).