juvenile and young adult fantasy

[escritoireazul]

What are some of your most and least favorite of the juvenile and young adult fantasy novels published in the last year or so? Harry Potter is on the list, of course, but this is all beyond Harry Potter.

To start the ball rolling, here are some off the top of my head.

Tamora Pierce The Will of the Empress, a book which follows two quartets, Circle of Magic and The Circle Opens.

Jenny Nimmo Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors, book four of the series The Children of the Red King. The first book very much reminded me of Harry Potter, but as the series progresses, it has grown and changed. I actually like parts of it much more than Harry Potter.

Christopher Paolini Eldest, sequel to Eragon. I have to admit, I haven't read either of them, because I started Eragon and was so disgusted by the writing style I couldn't make it more than a couple chapters in. Weak, weak writing and very derivative.

Eoin Colfer The Opal Deception, book four of the Artemis Fowl series. I loved the first two books to this, but haven't read the later ones. I really should, before Wiscon.

Eoin Colfer Half-Moon Investigations, about which I know absolutely nothing. Has anyone read this?

Jonathan Stroud Ptolemy's Gate, book three of The Bartimaeus Trilogy. I haven't read any of these, and I probably should.

Angie Sage Septimus Heap, Book Two: Flyte. I haven't even heard of this author. Anyone?

Okay, let's get the discussion going. Any thoughts? Favorites? Most hated? Why?

Comments

[lionessvalenti.livejournal.com]

Oh, good. I'm not the only one who was annoyed annoyingly by Eragon. I got about a quarter of the way through. It's still sitting with a bookmarker in it on the shelf in our living room.

I haven't read book #4 of Artemis Fowl yet, but I have to say that #3, The Eternity Code, is by far the best of the original three.

Oh, I would have been so much better at this a year ago. I spent nearly all my money on this stuff.

There's a series called Pendragon, by D.J. MacHale. Some of the writing, especially the mostly-journal format its in, is very juvenile, always recapping things that real people wouldn't be recapping, I think, underestimating even the 10-13 audience its aimed at, but the stories are good, the characters are really cool. It runs through alternate dimensions, and those are all very interesting, and I think, well done. I don't know how many books are out right now, I have the first five, and, yeah, they're good.

Eoin Colfer's The Wish List is also good. The best way I can describe it is Good Omens for kids. It sort of have the same humor about it, but it's on a much smaller scale than GO.

My sister loves the Bartimaeus Trilogy. I couldn't get through the first one. Maybe someday?

[aphrodite-mine.livejournal.com]

I don't read much fantasy. But in the past I've read ummm... Switchers (and it's sequels) by Kate Thompson. It's kind of a British Animorphs. Nothing fabulous, but I found it interesting. (I LOVED Animorphs back in the day)

Let's see... I've started reading Sabriel by Garth Nix, and It's somewhat enjoyable. I like the style, even if it couldn't really hold my attention. Its really not the fault of the book.

Hmm. I suppose "A Great and Terrible Beauty" would be somewhat fantasy. I'm reading that now, and really enjoying the female characters and the historical aspects.

[elynross.livejournal.com]

Loved the Pierce, enjoyed the first Bartimaeus but haven't read the others, didn't bother to finish the second Eragon, although oddly I quite liked the first. I think the flaws were less evident when he wasn't trying to write romance that he'd never experienced?

I picked up the first Charlie Bone, but it didn't catch me at the time; I plan to try again later. Ditto the first Artemis Fowl. And I mean to try the Colfer books. I'm one of the few people I know who not only didn't enjoy Jonathan Stroud, I didn't finish it. I didn't like anyone in it enough to care what happened to them, and while I truly admired the world building, and loved the structure of it, for me she did that thing of taking magic and making it mundane, rather than taking the mundane and making it magical.

Others I'm very much enjoying are Cornelia Funke's Inkheart series, read the first and loved it, haven't yet read the second; Scott Westerfeld's Midnighter series -- I've only read the first, it's a bit more horrorish, which I like, and I'm waiting on the other two. His Peeps is a vampire variation that's pretty interesting. And top of my list, Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series, one for each day of the week -- Thursday's is the book I'm finishing as soon as I leave the computer. *g* I loved his Sabriel trilogy.

I have Dianna Wynne Jones' "latest" Chrestomanci book (my favorite series of hers), from last year, can't recall the title off the top of my head.

I enjoyed the Spiderwyck series by Holly Black and someone else, as well as her two Fairie stories, Valiant's the last one, can't remember the first.

Fantasy seems to be huge in YA these days; I keep seeing "second of" and "third of" books at the local library, but none have intrigued me enough to hunt up the first parts, yet. And I feel like I'm forgetting something, but maybe it will come to me.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Christopher Paolini should be ashamed of himself, and Anne McCaffrey should sue for plagiarism.

[saturniia.livejournal.com]

She should get Bruce Coville to back her up. Saphira's hatching was something straight out of "Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher".

[serpentpixie.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read Mary Hoffman's City of Masks? It's wonderful. It captures the imagination so utterly. Full of political intrigue and human relationships.

[alchemine.livejournal.com]

Just passing by to say that I read and loved both Septimus Heap books -- Flyte and its predecessor, Magyk. I've been dying to discuss them with someone, but nobody but me seems to have read them!