Over the past few years, I've read the Wicked years by Gregory Maguire, Saga by Brian K Vaughn and Fiona Staples, Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith, and the first two books in the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons, and I've adored each one. I really love how all of these books take place over many years, focus on multiple characters' lives, and how the authors add in little funny bits of idiosyncrasies in what is generally a dark emotional story that make the world feel so much realer. Hyperion and Wicked both have lots of literary references that I appreciate. And all of these books have excellent pacing in my opinion; the moment I start to get a little bored with a scene, it moves on to the next. Does anyone have any good recommendations of stories like that? It doesn't have to be sci-fi or fantasy, but these books all happen to fit in that category.
On the other hand, I'm very sensitive to YA fiction and it's usually a big turn off. I read the Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington recently and I really had a hard time engaging with anything at all in the pages.
by 420fuck