First off, if you haven’t already entered the THE SECRET YEAR Teen Diary Contest Extravaganza, please do so in the official contest thread! The contest will be open until 4 PM Pacific time today, so best get diarying.
Tomorrow THE SECRET YEAR will be published, and it will soon, dare I predict, become a favorite for many teens out there. And since we have both teens and former teens alike here on the blog: what was/is your favorite book as a teenager?
And by popular demand, a bonus question for the former teens: what was the worst outfit/hairstyle you wore as a teenager? Bonus points for a link to a photo.
Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden, a brilliant book and series, though anyone not living in Australia won't know what the heck I'm talking about. It was about a group of teens who go off camping in the bush and when they come home, its to find we've been invaded by a hostile nation and their families captured. They then have to survive on their own and not get caught.
Also, anything with RL Stein on it instantly caught my attention.
My worst fashion mistake? Spicegirl-esque platform runners. Almost broke my ankle. Sorry, no pics…
Willard (Ratman's Notebook) by Stephen Gilbert.
Here I am in all my 1978 glory.
And Both Were Young by Madeline L'Engle
And, always, The Secret Garden or Narnia, even though I'm not sure those are strictly YA.
The Outsiders, and Rumble Fish. My worst teen look was my Madonna look. Caramel girls with thick brown hair don't pull that look off so well.
I adored Daphne Du Maurier's REBECCA, lots of time imagining Mr. de Winter.
As far as hair, I believe the worst I had was a Dorothy Hamill wedge. Nasty.
I had a few, too. The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice, Jane Eyre *one of the greatest books ever written*, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the Count of Monte Cristo.
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud. For sure.
I wasn't a teenager when it came out, but I am now and it's still my favorite.
As for fashion and hair…I dress up as anime characters at random. It's not bad fashion, it's culture!
The Eight by Katherine Neville – still one of my favorite books.
As for hair cut… really short hair like Janine Turner at the start of Northern Exposure… Everyone mistook me for a boy… suckage…
Like "The Writing Muse", I loved Anne of Green Gables and wished my blonde hair would turn into a carrot-top so that a Gilbert would fall in love with me.
Also loved Alice Walker; loved James Welch "Winter In the Blood". And I wouldn't have been a teenager if I hadn't loved The Outsiders.
Stay gold…Ponyboy…
As for fashion foibles: the 80's works…bangs sprayed up tidal-wave style, slippery shoulder pads, and socks pulled over the rolled-up jeans (oh the shame). And yes, lots of Madonna black rubber bracelets etc.
My favorite books when I was a teenager: Cape of Storms, Mandingo, Hawaii by James Michener, Gone with the Wind, Pride and Prejudice …
I'm not embarrassed by anything that I wore as a teenager. I am grateful that I wasn't a teenager in the 80's or 90's. Gah!
I did get my hair permed when I was a senior. That was a mistake. I wanted curly hair and what I got was friz. And no I am not posting a pic of it. :p
JJ Bennnet, Nice picture show off ! NO one needs to see me in big hair.
My write side. I forgot all about Go Ask Alice. I also read Christian F. As a 60s kid, I could not wait to grow up, move to San Francisco, and become a flower child. I can honestly say those two books scared be from drugs and I never did get to try LSD. Shame eh ? heh heh
However, I do live in San Francisco.
I read all of those Christopher Pike books when I was a pre-teen, and also especially loved those Choose Your Own Adventure books. I'm not ashamed to admit that I read every single one of L. M. Montgomery's books. Ok, I am a little ashamed.
As a teen, my all time favorite book was Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. I read it over and over and over.
Here's some teen pictures for you. Frumpy-chic fashion is courtesy of the mid-90s.
https://s747.photobucket.com/albums/xx116/krambrose/
Is it bad to say I didn't have a favorite book? The wave of awesomeness that is now YA fiction came along a little too late for my teen years. I read lots of awesome books (The Giver, etc.) until about age 13 when I outgrew them, and then had a hard time finding stuff until I was an adult. Oh, except for Harry Potter.
Best teen outfit when I was 15, in 1998: Army-green overall SHORTS, grey t-shirt, Birkenstock clogs with socks. Oh, and bangs that were reeeeally curled under.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Hair: Bangs straight up in the air as high as I could get them–think crazy steep skateboard ramp–and a horrible piggyback perm (for the uninitiated, that's one perm on top of another for maximum frizziness). And no, I won't be posting that picture.
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. It was the first book I ever picked up after I learned how to read. I devoured it and read the LOTR trilogy in a year. I think I was nine years old. After that it was the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis. I still love them.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, The Complete works of Wm Shakespeare and The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.
The Outsiders. It probably had something to do with the movie coming out at the same time I read it in junior high. I was boy crazy, and that movie had the boys.
I can still recite the first line of the book and I wrote a song about the book!
One of my worst outfits was the baggiest white tshirt ever and even baggier long white shorts with black graffiti on it. Then I had people sign my bare legs on the last day of school to match the graffiti on my shorts. Yes, I was a freshman at the time.
To Kill A Mockingbird
I fell in love with Lord of The Rings in 9th grade and read the library's copy over and over again until I could afford my own.
Worst do? I had a haircut called a shag. Think McGyver in his early seasons.
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Growing up Long Long Ago on a small Indonesian island with no power, no TV, no phones, I read whatever I could. One of my early favorites was from my pastor father's theological shelves: Fox's Book of Martyrs, graphically detailing various ways in how people can be tortured and killed. And no, this didn't warp me, at least I don't think so. It was just one of the very few books I had to read, and was much more fascinating to a boy than Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible.
1. Catcher in the Rye
2. I am the Cheese
And still I can't kick that self-involved angst!
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood and Fifth Business, Robertson Davies.
I was very fortunate to have had an amazing teacher for my Canadian Authors class. He turned a fickle teenager into an avid reader of homegrown lit.
Bad hair was rampant in the eighties, and I admit to trying it all…
Battlefield Earth, L. Ron Hubbard. Still remember him finding the destroyed army base…sent shivers down my spine. 🙂
I loved Little Women and also the Frances Hodgson Burnett books – The Little Princess, The Secret Garden, and Little Lord Fauntleroy.
Senior year of high school I took AP English, and then my favorite author was Dostoyevsky … 🙂
Cool question, Nathan!
Hmmmmmmm…I don't think I can answer with just one book. So…
"The Swampees" books by Gilian Osband
"Rescue Josh McGuire" by Ben Mikaelsen
"Phoenix Rising" by Karen Reese
(which I just bought a la Amazon a few days ago)
"Kirk's Law" by Robert Newton Peck
"Follow My Leader" by James B. Garfield
Except for The Swampees and Phoenix Rising, these books were each read aloud to me by both my mom and older sister. Thanks for helping take me on a ride through my literary past. It was fun! 🙂
"The Friend" by Rosa Guy. It's what made me want to write for teens.
As a teenager, my favorite author was Andre Norton with No Night Without Stars being my favorite. The Witch World series came in a close second. Ah the memories…
Oooh, and as Jess Anastasi commented earlier, the Tomorrow When The War Began series. Forgot about those. 🙂
I was hooked on greek mythology and read Plato's the trial of Socrates my freshman year. The Hobbit was great. I guess the only teen age type books I really enjoyed when I was a teen were in the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. I've enjoyed many teen books as an adult. Speak by Laura Halse Anderson and Harry Potter of course. I still have not forgive Rowling for killing off Fred. That was totally uncalled for. That is the mark of a truly brilliant writer, when they kill off a character and the reader morns them as if they'd lost a real friend.
Books: Anything R.L. Stine and Stephen King. Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, haha….no seriously, it was a great book. Any book that takes you time traveling in a phonebooth has got to be great.
Clothes: Osh Kosh overalls rolled up at the bottoms with BK's that lit up.
Hairstyle: Buzz cut with a "rat-tail". It was better than the mullet.
Favorite books as a teen:
Gone With the Wind
Little House Series
James Herriott books
Worst outfit? hmmm . . . We watched Back to the Future the other day and told my 14 year old daughter I used to have a pair of pink pants with paiseys exactly like MJ fox's girl friend wore it the movie. I loved those pants. I'm not stuck in a time warp though. I've been known to wear skirts purchased at Hot Topic.
I read Shogun as a teenager and I LOVED that book. Thank goodness by then I no longer had the Farah hairdo or the bell bottom jeans 🙂
"Catcher in the Rye" JD Salinger and my worst outfit was definitely wearing men's boxers as shorts paired baggy T-shirts w/ the sleeves rolled up.
Wow. What a tough question. I liked so many books as a teenager, like The Pigman and my mother's Stephen King collection. I was especially fond of the classics that I was assigned to read in school… The Scarlet Letter and The Once and Future King among them.
Yeah, I was a weird kid.
Oh, and since I've been kinda out of it lately (alternately overworked and sick), I have yet to congratulate you, Nathan, and your client, Jennifer, on the impending publication of The Secret Year. Congrats to both of you!
P.S. As for the worst hairstyle, I'd have to go with that terrible perm (for which I blame my mother). WHAT was I (she) thinking?
I get it – you're just trying to find out how old we all are!
I read constantly as a teen (and still do), but my all-time favorite that I read over and over was Anne of Green Gables.
Until I discovered Tom Robbins in my very late teens. Then it became Jitterbug Perfume.
I was a teenager in the 80s, so all my outfits were horrible. My worst hair was when I was 18 and I had it with patches of blonde, black, and brown; it was also half-shaved, half long, with one silly dreadlock hanging down.
A wrinkle in time, Nancy Drew, Black Stallion…
But, seriously, there are some amazing selections here. I'm with Jan – Stephen King's work (especially Different Seasons) made me want to be a writer.
Yay, too, for Amy's mention of Rebecca, for Elaine's Jane Eyre pick, and for Stephanie's choice – Their Eyes Were Watching God is a beautiful book, which, of course, reminds me that I also loved Alice Walker and Toni Morrison as a teen.
I see all these classy books we read as teens and I feel very connected to the group here.
Then I read the Dear Diary contest entries and it's like I've landed on another planet — it's all so foreign, and yet for so much of it to sound the same, I guess it's all so common. Me no like – Me too old I think.
Sigh.
jjshannon
Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave or Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword At Sunset.
The Horsemasters, Don Stanford
Probably a toss-up between the Xanth series by Piers Anthony, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the late great Douglas Adams.
hair? a midwestern girl mullet. When you grow up in Indiana in the 80's, it's kind of a rule.
outfit? I have a vivid memory of white tapered leg pants, a white batwing shirt with a bright orange horizontal stripe across the middle, and a pair of white 'wrestling shoes'. Damn I was cool in 8th grade.
Don't have pics of the ultra cool outfit, but I do have way too many pics of the mullet. Maybe I'll try to dig one out tonight.
Many Waters by Madeline L'Engle was one of my favorites. I don't think I have just one Favorite, though, just many favorites.
There was the orphan Annie perm that one year…. but I think I've burned all the evidence, sorry.
Clan of the Cave Bear
Started a love affair with reading and writing. The entire series is wonderful. I gladly wait twelve years between books.
My son is reading Enders Game. He loves it.
Wow, as a teenager? Probably Dark Rivers of the Heart by Dean Koontz, though The Vampire Lestat (or Interview with the Vampire) has always been up there, too. Actually, I wonder how old I was when Fear Nothing came out… For a long time that was my favorite book, but it's been replaced since.
Firestarter was always my favorite Stephen King book, and I think I read it through three times in high school. Something that sort of amuses me is that I also read the Gunslinger when I was 14–and hated it. Absolutely despised it. I think it's because I was too young to deal with what happens to Jake in there. When I went back and reread it a few years ago, it easily jumped to my top ten list of favorite books ever.
Anyway, I was disappointingly boring as a teenager in terms of clothes/hair. Had my hair long (and straight, it wouldn't curl to save my life) and actually looked quite a bit like Sissy Spacek in Carrie. It's actually almost the same now, just a whole lot shorter. 🙂
Song of Sorcery by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. Also liked Uncle by JP Martin a lot.
Illusions, Richard Bach: still a favourite thirty years later.
As my teenage years occured in late 70's/early 80's, all photographic evidence of my hair and clothing styles has been long destroyed, in an effort to preserve my sanity and any remaining dignity.
🙁
Stop Time by Frank Conroy. My 9th grade english teacher assigned this to us, instead of Catcher in the Rye.
Favorite high school books include non-fiction for me.
Gestalt Therapy Verbatim by Fritz Perls, Ends and Means by Aldous Huxley.
Favorite high school fiction included Dracula by Bram Stoker, the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and, of course, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
"The Pinballs" by Betsy Byars (just Googled it and found out it was published in 1976, three years before I was born!) I must have been 13 or 14 when I read it.
Anything Nancy Drew.
I was obsessed with The Babysitter's Club when I was a teenag… I mean, kid. And the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary.
"Are you there God, it's Me, Margaret." Enough said.
I know for a fact that there's a class picture of me rocking spiky bangs (held up by half a can of fume-ridden aerosol hairspray) and a New Kids on the Block tee-shirt. Donnie was my fave. Thankfully, I have no idea where it is! 😉
Yay for the Secret Year! Can't wait to read it!