14-year-olds and over: Brontë and Kafka sometimes have to wait, writes Niall MacMonagle
In Ian McEwan's novel, Saturday, Grammaticus, a bit of a grump, sneers at the "young adult" fiction his granddaughter reads and persuades the 13-year-old to read Jane Eyre and Metamorphosis. But that doesn't work for everyone. Just as teenagers prefer their own to adult company, "young adult" or "purpose-built" fiction plays its own important part in their reading lives. Brontë and Kafka sometimes have to wait.
These young adult fiction titles ask questions known to every teenager, as well as providing escape. The topics covered preoccupy a young person near you: family, friendships, the past, school, identity, young loving and, let's face it, money, sport, cars and sex.
Full Throttle (Harper Collins , £4.99), by Sam Hutton, is - surprise, surprise - a story in fifth gear zooming from "zero to kph in 5.7 seconds". Beatings, murders, car thefts and other charming activities are the norm here and the writing is fast, formulaic and harmless, as in: "There was a sharp click. A stiletto knife blade gleamed." But who cares? Not the kids who love the action-pack. This slick tale of teenage special agents, Maddie and Alex, is for them. Stir in arms-smuggling and the plot grabs that reluctant reader.
The Swallow and the Dark (Corgi, £4.99), by Andrew Matthews, tells a complicated story simply and effectively. Sam, aged 16 and diagnosed with a debilitating illness, is on medication: "Places he hadn't been and faces he hadn't seen before zipped through his brain like a video in fast forward." This modern kid becomes a young first World War lieutenant, and both Sam and his alter ego must face death. Sam's feistiness is evident in both worlds, those of grim diagnosis and of the front, where "death has no honour, no dignity, no purpose". Matthews handles this parallel-world device exceptionally well and, though the story is overshadowed by death, leaves us with a sense of life-affirming, appealing mystery.
In Mimi Thebo's Get Real (HarperCollins, £9.99), Mum and Dad are seriously wealthy, driven, ambitious. They weekend on yachts, eat out, network and court celebrity, but spend hardly any time in their fantastic house. Artie, their eldest child, has a likeable, interesting, sharp voice: "Girls with curly hair straighten it and girls with dark hair try and bleach it and girls with pale skin get tans and girls with freckles wear a lot of make-up trying to cover them up - and I really just don't get it." Thebo bangs no drum but tells a very enjoyable story; it's a wake-up call that highlights substance over style. In the end the family choose between "staying as we were, and being happy". They get real. They choose wisely. Life "is completely ordinary now"; it's also wholesome, decent, worthwhile.
Joan O'Neill's Fallen Star (Harper Collins, £5.99) tells a familiar tale with all the ease and fluency of a Maeve Binchy. In small-town Ireland in the late 1950s, 15-year-old Stella, from the cottages, falls for Charles, the handsome, Protestant, wealthy schoolboy, and finds herself pregnant. He does a runner, she's sent to a Magdalene Laundry in Dublin where the birth of Holly (as in Buddy) with her "sweetbaby smell" is tenderly, beautifully described. O'Neill's strong storyline and boldly drawn characters engage. The ending is sugary but Fallen Star offers a chilling glimpse of Ireland's bad, bigoted old days. And today's teenager will be glad to have escaped it. You'll want to read this right through without stopping.It's another winner from O'Neill.
The Wish House (Young Picador, £9.99), by Celia Rees, charts 15-year-old Richard's summer of firsts: kiss, love, sex, death. On holiday with his dull parents in a Welsh caravan park, life is about as interesting as their "green plastic plates" until Richard discovers the alternative Clio and her colourful, promiscuous, arty family. He finds himself "in the grip of a greater excitement than he had ever known" and Rees is skilled at catching Richard's deepening fascination with a "nothing hidden, nothing forbidden" world and its effect. Celia Rees doesn't word process, she writes, and The Wish House is sophisticated, immediate, interesting storytelling. Its take on art and morality lingers.
In David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy (HarperCollins, £10.99), gay issues are treated with aplomb. When Paul's parents meet boyfriend Noah for the first time, they're holding hands and he's brought him flowers. Dad is unfazed; Mom cooks pancakes. But Levithan, in this more-than-okay-to-be-gay story, opts for a too-good-to-be-true situation. Reality is more complicated than this depiction of gay youngsters where the only problem comes when Paul's ex-boyfriend, Kyle, resurfaces. The "church group network" does go "into overtime" when Tony says he's gay, but in school the 6ft 4in quarterback jock is a transvestite, same-sex crushes crowd the corridors and the Boy Scouts defiantly reinvent themselves as "Joy Scouts" when same-sex relationships are frowned upon.
Levithan tells his story without hang-up or apology, the brittle, soulful teenage conversations sound real, and every teenager, straight, gay or AC/DC, will discover something interesting here. But this supposedly liberating, squeaky-clean version of events is, at times, simply silly.
Candy (Chicken House, £12.99), by Kevin Brooks, the strangest tale of two middle-class kids, jumps in at the deep end and doesn't let up. When Joe Beck meets Candy, "a shining jewel in the gutter", he's hooked ("She fired me up and turned my body inside out"). That she's hooked on heroin and has a brutish pimp makes for a dangerous, gripping story. Joe's uncomfortable self- conscious, nervy, shaky, guitar-playing self is brilliantly realised, though why Joe risks all for a girl he's only met "two and a half times" is puzzling. But then adolescence can be volatile, vulnerable, unpredictable. Candy, though flawed, is impressive. It's a walk on the wild side and an exciting read. Brooks is one of the best young adult writers around. Get this book. Word-of-mouth will do the rest.
And now kids, who's for Finnegans Wake?
Niall MacMonagle teaches English at Wesley College, Dublin. His Leaving Certificate textbooks, Poetry Now 2007, have just been published by The Celtic Press. The Open Door Book of Poetry, which he edited, will be published next month by New Island