Animorphs is a fun kid's series about changing into animals and fighting aliens! Also the brutalities and hard decisions of war, the terrible consequences of pacifism, and all the kids get PTSD from the awful battles they fight and the atrocities they're forced to commit. Also Area 51 has an alien toilet!
“Watership Down”, too. It was based on Adams’s experience in the military and particular people he knew, so there was plenty of material and real shit to draw from (like real shit; IYKYK), as then translated into stories he told to his daughter when she was small about a little tribe of plucky hero rabbits in the face of danger. If you can come up with a better formula for creating a fuckin epic story, I will be surprised.
To be fair: I am currently reading "how high we go in the dark" by Sequoia Namamatsu. It's so sad. It's speculative fiction, but everything is too real and too sad.
Being an adult means also confrontation with sad topics
Thanks, this is good. I've just started with the 100 year old guy and it's interesting (early days, though!).
The thing I've always hated is stories always revolve around conflict and (usually) people making terrible choices. Watching lessons in chemistry was mostly delightful because of this (must read that!)
I'd quite happily read lots of stuff that's just 'nice' and people being good. I'm sure I'd get tired of it eventually, but I'm sick of manufactured BS.
I'm quite aware I've grown up on lots of sci fi, so love me some world building and crazy ideas, but I'm starved for characters, broadly speaking...
have anyone read "The missing piece"? Fuck that book. Made me cry in the midle of the store. I bought it and instead of listening to sad songs I read this book when I'm down. I just cry like a baby for 3 hours than I'm happy again. Fuck this book full of feelings
I reread a book that I probably read in middle school (12-13 years of age) and enjoyed it. I think I got more out of it now, as an adult. All that matters is that you read.
Wish we could all be more childlike reading Harry Potter. Why couldn’t we have just left it as a well written fantasy series, instead of questioning the preferences of some of the characters and the -isms of the author?
It's hard. I love Harry Potter. I love Ender's Game. But their authors hate the people I love. Not personally. They don't know them and hate them anyway. It makes me sad. I want to share those books.
But I guess it's better to share books by people who don't hate my friends. I'll always have Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I've been sharing The Golden Compass with my kids lately.
Harry Potter was good. But I can live without it in my life. I think I will keep sharing Ender's Game though.
I understand why Harry Potter found a place in everyone's hearts. But with the behavior of the author, the books are in hindsight a lot more mean spirited than I remembered. That hatred for me and my loved ones bled into the books quite a lot now that I can recognize it.
I still enjoy it and plan to read it to my kids one day. It's a fun world, and always will be, independently of the beliefs that the author developed decades after it was written.
Lovecraft, Tolkien, and certainly the majority of classic authors held beliefs that most would find objectionable. That doesn't make their work any less great.