Best coming-of-age fiction about deeply troubled teens

Coming of age is a threshold – but where does it lead? And what are we becoming? And while we grow out of our teens, our coming of age continues until we die. At least, that’s my perspective!

Four of the five books pictured above, influenced me in writing Water Ghosts. David Handler’s novel was published the same year, so it didn’t influence me but I enjoyed it, in an uneasy way — laughing one minute, cringing the next. All five stories have elements of humor and horror, because you can’t appreciate one without the other.  To read why I liked these five, click on the link.

Shepherd Books is an expanding universe, or maybe a rabbit hole of reading discovery. It’s a website, an interconnected web of “best books” about  various topics created by more than 7000 authors, of which I am one. The participating authors gain exposure for our own books — our bios and books are linked to our lists — but we are recommending other authors’ works — books that affected or inspired us in our own endeavors.

Shepherd Books continues to expand and develop. It’s fun to browse,  to go down the rabbit hole and discover books, both old and new, fiction and nonfiction, best sellers and obscure treasures. You can search by author, or you can search by topics or themes. Check it out!

I have created five lists for Shepherd Books. Titles that inspired me in writing Water Ghosts, Looking for Redfeather, and Star-Crossed. Here are the links to those recommendations:

Best books on sea voyages gone badly

The best coming of age, darkly fiction

Best literary road trips

Best books about 18th & 19th century cross-dressers

My own tastes in reading are quirky and diverse, changing over time. These days I am drawn more and more to memoir and creative nonfiction. I just finished Prince Harry’s memoir Spare and I’m currently reading Mary B. Kurtz’s Apertures: Findings from a Rural Life.  More on these, later…

What books do you recommend?

audiobook narrated by Aaron Landon