Recommend some good books for young adults

[Proteus_MST]

Pratchett has some very fun books for young readers.

I absolutely agree. Pratchett is a good idea.

Maybe also Harry Potter

Not to forget: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (or some of the other books of Douglas Adams, like the electrical monk)

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I'm afraid if your children haven't started reading by 10/14 they're never going to. Is the wifey averse to trying again?

"Started" isn't the issue. Kid#1 was an avid reader at 10-12, but has since discovered YouTube.

[Aeson]

When I was that age all I read were Louis L'amour westerns. Probably won't go over well with young women though. Or English teachers ... one of which offered our class 1% grade increase per excess book report ... and ended up getting like 50 book reports from me on Louis L'amour books. Same plot for all of them, just with different place/character names. Like book report Adlibs! I didn't have to do any English homework that semester, and my teacher learned a valuable life lesson

[onodera]

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.

[Elok]

If the girl's become accustomed to mucking about in the YouTube sewer, she's not going to have the patience to dig through anything real challenging at first. I don't think you guys appreciate the unbelievable stupidity of the **** young people these days will sit and watch; my high-schoolers just adore a looped vid of a two-legged horse running endlessly while making stereotypical "******" noises. That's literally all it is. They will watch it, and laugh, for a good thirty seconds. On their tenth viewing. If the poor girl's been exposed to much of that, you can forget about Discworld or Hitchhiker's. Way too dense and complex.

I'd suggest you call up the librarian at her school and ask what all her classmates are reading. If you can nudge her to keep up with the hot trends, that will carry a lot more weight than "as your father, I resent your infatuation with the moving-picture-shows." Barring that, kids around here like:

-Rick Riordan's Greek and Egyptian mythology adventures. I've shunned these as a matter of nerdish principle (HOW THE **** DOES ATHENA HAVE A DAUGHTER?), but they're apparently a fun, easy read. And addictive.

-Harry Potter is still surprisingly popular.

-Hunger Games. Strong female protagonist, and Collins's annoying tendency to hit readers over the head with her message might actually be a selling point here.

-The Divergent series. Basically a crap HG knockoff, so simplistic and silly that I couldn't get through the first book. Also, I'm told they have a strong anti-intellectual subtext; the "bookish" caste is trying to take over this dystopian society. I mention them anyway because I'm damned if a lot of kids don't seem to love them.

-The Fault in our Stars. This is if you're feeling truly desperate, I gather it's a maudlin Nicholas Sparks-type book. And apparently required reading for tweenage girls.

Good luck.

[self biased]

Patrick Freivald's Once Bitten and Special Dead are pretty good, and hve zombies in them.

[Ecthy]

It's time they grew up and got real:

Atlas Shrugged

[Dinner]

Harry Potter. It is easy to read but has a good BFF story.

[Lorizael]

"Started" isn't the issue. Kid#1 was an avid reader at 10-12, but has since discovered YouTube.

Bah. A childhood spent surviving the Oregon Trail didn't stop me from consuming every last Dragonlance book I could get a hold of.

[loinburger]

At that age I really enjoyed the Heroes in Hell series - it's a collection of short stories that take place in Hell (e.g. Julius and Augustus Caesar have a long running beef with Mithridates)

[pchang]

Guns, Germs, and Steel

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

They want fiction.

[Proteus_MST]

They want fiction.

In this case the bible may be ideal.
Although it could well be that the sexual content and the violence don´t make it suitable for 13 years olds

[Sir Og]

...

-The Fault in our Stars. This is if you're feeling truly desperate, I gather it's a maudlin Nicholas Sparks-type book. And apparently required reading for tweenage girls.

Good luck.

The author of that book is a fairly popular youtuber so that might be a selling point. Though IIRC they made a movie last year so they might want to just watch the movie.

[molly bloom]

Ursula K Le Guin's 'Earthsea' cycle.

http://io9.com/10-reasons-why-le-guins-earthsea-books-can-still-chang-1459354329

John Wyndham's 'Midwich Cuckoos' or 'Chocky'.

Any decent collection of the Greek or Norse or Celtic myths- they are all full of powerful female figures, and young heroes/heroines too.

Oh, and 'Little Women' and 'Jane Eyre' or 'Wuthering Heights'.