YA fiction

This week's Booking Through Thursday is:

Do you read books written for children or teens? Or do you stick to books for adults?


While I do mostly ready adult fiction (and I don't mean the 50 Shades of Grey kind), I am partial to a good teen fiction novel now and again - mostly dystopias like The Hunger Games or Divergent, as I feel they still have some really interesting points to make, they're just not as dressed up in philosophy and subtlety as adult ones often are.

I'm not sure the age distinction is particularly valid, it's more about reading level and patience. Sometimes you want something a bit more direct and to the point, and a 'teen' book can be great for that. Of course there is the fact that novels with sex or a with a main romantic interest as the central theme are less suitable for pre-teens because it's not really a part of life that they understand at the time - I was reading many 'adult' standard novels by age 12 or so, and there were parts where I just didn't understand the motivation of the characters because I wasn't emotionally mature enough to do so.

So yes, if it's well written I'm perfectly happy with teen fiction, although tearing through it in a couple of days is a little less satisfying than a book that lasts a week or more.

Scary

This week's (topical) Booking Through Thursday is:

What’s the scariest book you’ve ever read?

I don't tend to gravitate towards horror stuff, so this is a tough one. If I'm being facetious, I'd go for 50 Shades of Grey - it did genuinely scare me in a way that it's become so popular and that many people really go for it as literature. In terms of novels that are actually intended to be scary, Dracula had me jumping and looking behind me as I passed mirrors for a while (which obviously is silly because you can't see vampires in mirrors anyway), and The Prestige got really creepy by the end.

I try to avoid things that make me actively feel frightened - I've never understood the 'scaring yourself for fun' thing. How about you? Any favourite (/hidden or destroyed forever) scary stories?