books: a list

[muladhara]

Right, I am after books with male points of view, preferably YA.

So I've accrued myself a list so far (some of these are YA, some are adult), and this is what I've got:

- Easy - Tammara Webber (apparently this is awful)
- What I Was - Meg Rosoff
- Beastly - Alex Flinn
- Beautiful Creatures - Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
- Night's Kiss - Amanda Ashley (vampires!)
- Dead To Me - Anton Strout (apparently this is terrible, and a knock-off of Harry Dresden. Which I didn't like, but hey ho. If it is a bad book I will read it, because apparently that's a thing I do)
- Nightlife - Rob Thurman
- The Fallen - Thomas E. Sneigoski (apparently this is also terrible but has angels, so IDK?)
- Among The Living - Jordan Castillo Price (this has a gay protag and his boyfriend)
- Something Like Normal - Trish Doller
- The Secret Year - Jennifer Hubbard
- Beautiful Disaster - Jamie McGuire (apparently this is awful AND the worst book ever. It's only on the list because I thought we owned it, but it seems we don't) (and actually it's the sequel - Walking Disaster - that's from the male POV, not this one BUT ANYWAY).
- Personal Effects - E.M. Kokie (this will allegedly make me cry)

I know nothing about any of these, except for what I read on Goodreads. Who tell me four of these books are awful (the one they all loved, I had no desire to read). And that Beautiful Disaster is the worst book ever (and boy can the author wank up a storm defending her point of view - she seems to be a proponent of Laurell K. Hamilton's mantra: "if you don't like it, don't read it.")

If you have any recs I can add to the list, that would be aces! (They don't have to be YA, and they most certainly don't have to be Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Romance (which some of the above are, some of them aren't. Though I think the ones that aren't are in the minority).

I'm going to the library in a bit. This could be really good, or it could be really bad.

Comments

[mr_gent]

If they don't have "Nightlife" I can send it to you, plus the next 3 books even, should you end up liking the first one (I certainly didn't, but maybe your taste is different!) ETA: tho I bet it was the one you didn't have a desire to read, I am lucky that way, lol
I know nothing about all those other books, except when they have been turned into terrible movies/TV series bc I read reviews of these sometimes? XD
Also please let me know what you think of Night's Kiss (because vampires, of course)...

[muladhara]

They had Nightlife - which the reviews Goodreads also said was a pile of tripe (there were some good, but it was the complaints that caught my eye). I was intrigued to see how the author handles elves, because it said they were evil bastards in this world. To me, that's how elves should be - not prancing around the place, flicking their hair like they're in L'Oreal commercials, you know? (I mean, that's not how they are in a lot of books, but they're not presented as evil, either).
Hey if it turns out that I like this one, I can certainly take the books off your hands (I'm assuming you don't want to keep them?)

Oh no, the book I didn't want to read that got good reviews wasn't listed above (and I can't remember the title now), but by then I'd got a bit overwhelmed looking through lists, so I just went, nope and clicked away.

I know nothing about any of these books, but the fact that some of them were turned into bad TV series/movies doesn't really surprise me.

Sadly the library didn't have Night's Kiss, but I might have a look for it the next time I'm in a bookshop (and I would quite like to read Among The Living so I'll make a point to look for both). So consider that a yes for letting you know what I think of it :) I was thinking of you when I wrote "vampires!", heh (also it was sort of a note to myself, because otherwise it sounds like a generic Paranormal Romance title to me).

[mr_gent]

Belated update re: Nightlife, Deathwish, & that other one with the title I cannot remember -- I was very amused that you intensely disliked the first book, because I don't mind feeling vindicated, heh. Last week I put the other two up at a german site created specifically for swapping english books, hopefully someone will want them. If not, I could still try eBay, or the freecycle shop, or the public book shelf.
I can also exactly pinpoint the moment when I was furious with Nightlife and ready to throw it at the wall, because I think Robin Goodfellow is the only worthwhile thing about the series and I hated the revelation concerning his motives, at the end of the book. So yeah. Tripe. (Also, some reviewers seem to have an interesting definition of "noir storytelling", because Cal's voice just sounds terribly whiny to me, and also the actual noir narrators were people who had lived long enough and seen enough shit to actually *warrant* their cynic outlook and snarky comments. Cal is just a teenaged dude with angst and a few chunks of his life missing.)

[muladhara]

I read this comment just before I caught the bus and the entire journey I was all, "Nope, Cal really is a whiny so and so!" which, yeah. I am SO SICK of whiny/emo protags (although guilty of writing them, trying to fix this by writing a generally chirpy protag and it's weird). Fingers crossed someone will take them off your hands.

Oooh, I don't know about any of the characters (I read literally fifteen pages, went nope, and haven't looked at the books since), but I can understand that about a decent character having a weaksauce motivation - it's bad writing.

Also, some reviewers seem to have an interesting definition of "noir storytelling", because Cal's voice just sounds terribly whiny to me

Oh this so much! How whiny and angsty teenager is noir is beyond me, because uh, no. (They probably never encountered proper noir storytelling before, I bet).

[zerenitia]

What exactly is this goodreads? I've heard it mentioned a few times but I'm kind of curious now XD Reviews for books?

[muladhara]

Yeah, it is kind of a book review site. You enter books you've read, or want to read, and you can leave reviews accordingly. I assume there's a bit more to it than that, but I don't know because I'm not actually a member - it was just that everything I was looking at yesterday was directing me there.

[zerenitia]

ahaa, sweet. I'll have to check it out sometime :O

[spectrier]

...I'm just now noticing how few books I actually read with male characters. How odd!

As for recommendations for you, most of Darren Shan's YA books have male POV characters. I'd specifically recommend either the Saga series or the Demonata series (vampires or demon invasions, take your pick). They're both long series (both are twelve books long) but I think the first books work well enough as standalones if you don't want to put in masses of time to get through a series.

Also The Knife of Never Letting Go (and the books that follow) is definitely worth checking out if you haven't already read that.

I really hope your current list ends up with you finding more good books than bad ones!

[muladhara]

Yeah, the specific area I want (YA romance) doesn't seem to feature male protags a lot, which gave me the basis for an idea. I'd rather read about women (well, I would if they were well-written but YA romance drives me crackers and honestly I'd like to read an Urban Fantasy that doesn't turn out to be a Paranormal Romance in disguise with a competent female lead (some of the ones I've read are OK, but I seem to pick all the bad ones, and not even on purpose!)

I might pick up some Darren Shan next time I'm at the library - they've got quite a few of his in both adult and teenage books.

I think I've heard of The Knife of Never Letting Go. I'll certainly ask about it.

Ha, I should be so lucky! I ended up with one that wasn't on the list (but that I had noted and dismissed), one from the list and only two others being able to be requested. The others weren't on the catalogue - thought looking on Amazon reveals two of them are e-book only, which explains a lot and is vaguely irritating. I ought to update the list, really.