My almost 14 year old daughter is struggling with friend situations, and with finding some good books with themes that she is enjoying. She recently complained that all the books she tried from the library were about “best friends”. Whereas her experience is that everyone already has their cliques of besties figured out, and they don’t need her! ( A common theme in our household.)
Does anyone have good young adult suggestions that grapple with themes of loneliness and that doesn’t just end with magic and rainbows that fix all the difficult feelings? A protagonist that she could empathize with perhaps?
Her reading level is very high, so more adult books are fine, provided the themes aren’t too adult-oriented. I’ve never known her to be particularly interested magical realism or sci-fi, though some of the books below seem to have magical themes. So I dunno!
P.S. When I asked her examples of books she is currently enjoying, she pulled these off her shelf. (I am old and thus unfamiliar with all of these books!)
The Girl who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh
If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang
The Lost Souls of Benzaiten by Kelly Murashige
by vaguename85
1 Comment
You can try perks of being a wallflower maybe? It helped me through a lot of tough times, read trigger warnings beforehand though