A Book That Changed Your Life As A Teen

[Maharincess]

Is there one particular book you read in your youth that you feel changed your life or the way you look at life?

I think that book for me would be Christiane F. At the time the author was Anonymous but she has since come forward.

Her name is Christiane Felscherinow.

The book is an autobiography. She's a drug addict from Germany.

This was one of the best books I've ever read. I first read it when it was released here in the states when I was 14.

It was just so gritty and raw. It stayed with me more than any other book I've read. 35 years later and its still with me.

It changed me because both of my older brothers were on drugs at the time and they would try to get me to do them too. They reasoned that if I was doing the same things they were doing, I couldn't tell on them. I had always been tempted because they were 4 and 5 years older than me and I thought they just wanted to spend time with me.

This book made me tell them hell no every time they wanted me to try their drugs. I envisioned myself living under a subway hooked on heroin every time I thought about doing drugs. Any time in my life if I was around or ordered drugs, I thought about this book.

I've never done more than smoke weed. I've never even really drank much, I've been drunk once in my life. I give this book a lot of the credit for that.

I read my original copy so many times it finally fell apart. I've never been able to find a replacement that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

They have a newer version called Zoo Station that I just bought for my Kindle.

The reviews say its a sanitized version of the original. I guess I'll find out.

Has anybody else ever read it? I know its required reading in German high schools. I think it should be everywhere.

This is the first topic I've ever started. My apologies if I did something wrong.

Edited November 2, 2014 by Maharincess

[psychoticstate]

Go Ask Alice.  At the time, everyone assumed it was 100% real but even if fiction, it scared the bejeebus out of me.  I read it multiple times as a teen during the 80s and I think that book kept me from ever being interested in drugs. 

 

Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews - - the first book I ever became obsessed with and it started my love affair with the author, which lasted a handful of years.

[galax-arena]

1984 by George Orwell. I think I read it in the seventh grade, and it kickstarted my fascination with linguistics, which I ended up majoring in. 

 

ETA: As a side note, I want to say that I only picked up 1984 because I had read and loved The Giver as a sixth grader, and read one review that said it was similar to 1984 (but for kids!). Um, no….

Edited November 3, 2014 by galax-arena

[Pickles Aplenty]

You are all going to hate me, but The Catcher In the Rye.  It was a very emotional book, and I read it at a time when I was trying to block my emotions and not get upset over anything.  As messed up as Holden was, he made me see that it was okay to feel things.  I know how cliche that is, but it's true.

[JayKay]

I think I was technically a preteen, but Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky was a gamechanger for me. IIRC I initially checked it out from the middle school library to impress the librarian because I wanted the open spot for library assistant the next quarter.

But it sank its hooks in almost immediately. I could relate to Raskolnikov's neuroticism and anxiety that accompanied living in poverty. A lot of his self-consciousness and desire for independence hit home, especially at that age. The murder of his landlady disturbed me but his emotional issues afterward are what really made me examine my morals and who I wanted to be. Reading that book helped me realize that it wasn't worth compromising myself for some fleeting reprieve from hardship. It made me question my decisions on the basis of how much they could potentially haunt me later. That book probably saved me a lot of grief when I eventually became "the responsible one" of a wild crowd.

And Dostoyevsky remains my favorite author because he was my first voluntary exposure to "existential" literature, which has been a lifesaving genre for me.

[Athena]

There is probably more than one, but for some reason, it was Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy for me. I was 14 and read it for fun after seeing some of the movie. I felt that it was a cornerstone and turning point for me as a reader. Even though I had been reading adult books for about two years, AK marked this new era of book love that continues to this day. So many of the characters were unrelateable to me then, but Tolstoy's style of storytelling, his prose, his characterizations, just mesmerized me at the time. Literature had moved me before, but maybe it was the timing. I still love Tolstoy and other Russian authors too. 

[Snow Apple]

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. That was the first book I read that wasn't for children. Blew my mind to read about the "other side of the tracks" and teen angst. I read Flowers in the Attic shortly after and it's warped my mind ever since, yet it's what I suspect made me an open minded person.

[Maharincess]

Great books you've all chosen. I love hearing about how a certain book changed a person or made them look at things differently.

Thanks for sharing.

Flowers in the Attic is one of my favorites from my teen years. I was 14 the year it came out, it definitely made the rounds at school. I think every female in my high school read it.

I also loved Go Ask Alice. I was disappointed to find out that it was fake though.

The Outsiders is another good one. Both of my kids enjoyed that one too.

My kids are grown now and are avid readers like I am. I average about a book a week. When my kids were young, every Friday we had reading nights. We would have a fire in the fireplace, turn the TV off and the three of us would read our books.

We'd read to ourselves for about an hour, then take turns reading to each other.

I'm glad I instilled a love of reading in them at a young age. Most of their books these days are on E Readers. I have a Kindle and get a lot of books on that, but my favorite thing will always be spending the afternoon at the used book store and loading up on books.

The Kindle is nice but there's nothing like the feel of a real book in my hands.

I guess I'm just old fashioned.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Maharincess

[GreekGeek]

I think I was technically a preteen, but Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky was a gamechanger for me. IIRC I initially checked it out from the middle school library to impress the librarian because I wanted the open spot for library assistant the next quarter.

But it sank its hooks in almost immediately. I could relate to Raskolnikov's neuroticism and anxiety that accompanied living in poverty. A lot of his self-consciousness and desire for independence hit home, especially at that age. The murder of his landlady disturbed me but his emotional issues afterward are what really made me examine my morals and who I wanted to be. Reading that book helped me realize that it wasn't worth compromising myself for some fleeting reprieve from hardship. It made me question my decisions on the basis of how much they could potentially haunt me later. That book probably saved me a lot of grief when I eventually became "the responsible one" of a wild crowd.

And Dostoyevsky remains my favorite author because he was my first voluntary exposure to "existential" literature, which has been a lifesaving genre for me.

A minor quibble: It wasn't his landlady that Raskolnikov killed, but a pawnbroker with whom he had done business (and her sister, who did nothing wrong except walk in at the worst possible time). But I also read the book as a teenager and found it thoroughly gripping. I also thought it was funny that Porfiry Petrovich was the role model for Columbo on TV!

 

I read The Brothers Karamazov shortly thereafter and was just as hooked. I was particularly fascinated by how Smerdyakov played Ivan. 

[Sara2009]

Is " Go Ask Alice" ALL fake? I've never read the book, but I've seen a lot if debate about that.

[Maharincess]

I've been reading a lot about it and everything I'm reading points to it being fake.

Its being said it was written by a woman named Beatrice Sparks. Apparently she's done a few books similar to Go Ask Alice.

Its still one of my favorite books though.

[GreekGeek]

Is " Go Ask Alice" ALL fake? I've never read the book, but I've seen a lot if debate about that.

It may be, as they say, "inspired by true life events," but apparently it is all fiction. Discussion on the Snopes.com page here: http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/askalice.asp

[MichelleAK]

I'm not sure about changing my life, but the book that changed what I read was Strange Wine, by Harlan Ellison.  I'm not even sure how I came across it, but that book really led me to other speculative fiction, plus short story/novella fantasy and horror fiction, which was kind of off my radar before then.   I think I was about 15 when I read it, which would have been shortly after it came out in the mid-70s.

[Rosieroo]

I had always been a good reader but I read comic books and magazines like Tiger Beat the notes under the pictures of National Geographic.  I tried to read the Nancy Drew books but they didn't hold my attention.  Nothing held my attention.  My mother had me tested (Hi Sheldon!!) because I routinely scored high on the end of the year number two pencil test but was struggling in regluar classes. The result?  "She doesn't pay attention but if you can hold her attention...she can handle the work."   I passed more than one grade on the strength of those scores even though my class grades were sometimes abysmal.   I was the younger sister to a gifted student two years ahead of me and always felt like "the dumb one".   Fast forward to ninth grade English and To Kill a Mockingbird.  I had never lost myself and my surroundings so completely in a book before but from the first page I was capitaved and imersed in that small town in Alabama.   I loved the book but even more than that, I learned that reading can completey transport  you to anywhere and anywhen you can imagine.  I started reading and reading and reading and my grades improved even in other areas. I went on to college and to my surprise, excelled .  Fast foward again to my daughter's second grade parent teacher conference where I learned they had tested her and what do you know?  Attention Deficiet Disorder.  I started reading everything I could find including the literature the teachers had given me point by point, right down the list.....that was ME!!  My daughter got tutors and we did extra work and learned how to keep her focused but my sister and I have had many conversations where we both agree that my love of reading is what saved me even though there was no knowledge of ADD when I was a child...they called it daydreaming" and "not living up to your full potential".  Without Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird ....who knows what would have happened with me and my grades.  I've often wanted to write her a letter and tell her she changed my life...but she doesn't really like to be contacted. So, thank you, I'm grateful for the opportunity to tell you all.  Pass it along if  you see her. 

[Ceindreadh]

Great books you've all chosen. I love hearing about how a certain book changed a person or made them look at things differently.

Thanks for sharing.

Flowers in the Attic is one of my favorites from my teen years. I was 14 the year it came out, it definitely made the rounds at school. I think every female in my high school read it.

 

 

I wouldn't call it a favourite, but Flowers in the Attic definitely affected my outlook on things.  The biggest thing I remember from reading it as a child (and most likely I was too young to have read it when I did) but I remember the mother blaming their problems on the fact that she didn't know how to earn her own living and that was why the family had to hide in her father's house.  I remember thinking then that there was no way I was ever going to be 'just' a housewife with no income of my own.  I didn't know what career I wanted but I knew at the very least I was going to do some sort of secretarial course so I'd always have some saleable skill.  (30 years later, being to type as a result of that course is one of the most useful skills I have)

[Queena]

I read today because of Flower's in the Attic . I saw my Mom reading it, and I couldn't wait to grow up and read it.

The books that impacted me as a teen are:

The Wild Children by Felice Holman

Homecoming and Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt

Heaven by V.C. Andrews

Horror of Cabrini Green by Bruce Conn

Edited November 11, 2014 by Queena

[elizacat]

Is there one particular book you read in your youth that you feel changed your life or the way you look at life?

I think that book for me would be Christiane F. At the time the author was Anonymous but she has since come forward.

Her name is Christiane Felscherinow.

The book is an autobiography. She's a drug addict from Germany.

This was one of the best books I've ever read. I first read it when it was released here in the states when I was 14.

It was just so gritty and raw. It stayed with me more than any other book I've read. 35 years later and its still with me.

It changed me because both of my older brothers were on drugs at the time and they would try to get me to do them too. They reasoned that if I was doing the same things they were doing, I couldn't tell on them. I had always been tempted because they were 4 and 5 years older than me and I thought they just wanted to spend time with me.

This book made me tell them hell no every time they wanted me to try their drugs. I envisioned myself living under a subway hooked on heroin every time I thought about doing drugs. Any time in my life if I was around or ordered drugs, I thought about this book.

I've never done more than smoke weed. I've never even really drank much, I've been drunk once in my life. I give this book a lot of the credit for that.

I read my original copy so many times it finally fell apart. I've never been able to find a replacement that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

They have a newer version called Zoo Station that I just bought for my Kindle.

The reviews say its a sanitized version of the original. I guess I'll find out.

Has anybody else ever read it? I know its required reading in German high schools. I think it should be everywhere.

This is the first topic I've ever started. My apologies if I did something wrong.

I've read this book, I was probably about the same age as you when I read this book I first heard about it because of the movie.

Again like you I read it again probably 10yrs ago - I managed to find a copy on amazon i think. I also got the dvd interesting very sad story.

I think it possibly had an influence in my interest in drugs and played a part in my career choice of being a drug and alcohol counsellor specifically working with young people for many years.

[lucindabelle]

Salinger's Franny and Zooey. I was just so moved by this book, it made me think deeply about what I really value, my relationship with my family, so many things.

 

That's in the "change your life" camp.

 

As a young teen, 14, read Florence Parry Heide's When the Sad One Comes to Stay. A girl makes the WRONG choice, shallow mom or kindly, lonely elderly woman. i cried and cried and cried. I wrote the author an outraged letter trying to pose as an adult. She wasn't fooled because I wrote it on foldover stationery, and she wrote me back.

 

It was old stationery, I'm sure she thought I was 9 or 10. The chapter where we're in the old woman's pov, waiting for her friend to come over and spend the night, and we know she's not coming... i still can't think about it without wanting to hit someone and cry and hug my cat. Definitely made a bigger impression on me than if she'd made the RIGHT choice. I used to pick up books from the children's section as light beach reading, although I'd graduated to adult. This seemed an easy peasy thing. Not somethign that would reduce me to angry, heartbroken howls.

 

But if it's just favorites, too:

 

Night's Master by Tanith Lee. Never read interlocked short stories before. And the idea of handsome demons was still new then.

 

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. The details, the things not being what they seemed.

 

Just before college:

 

The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett. Like When the Sad One Comes to Stay, I picked this up expecting a light summer read. The artwork showed a Scottish guy embracing a woman. Well, the romance is NOT the point of this book. The (anti)hero is sarcastic, brilliant, mercurial. Who is he working for, the english or the Scottish? Everyobdy hates Francis Crawford of Lymond. He sets fire to the castle his mother is in!

 

But... but...

 

author never writes down. Chapters inclined to end with "and then he knew." and you're like what? What did he know? Long list of historical characters at front. You'd better understand that the French and Scots are allies. i was confused about that for a long time.

 

I devoured its sequels my freshman year (one memorable week not coming out of my room hardly at all) but the first one's still the best.

[Maharincess]

I've read this book, I was probably about the same age as you when I read this book I first heard about it because of the movie.

Again like you I read it again probably 10yrs ago - I managed to find a copy on amazon i think. I also got the dvd interesting very sad story.

I think it possibly had an influence in my interest in drugs and played a part in my career choice of being a drug and alcohol counsellor specifically working with young people for many years.

She wrote a sequel last year called Christiane F. My Second Life. Its not out in English yet but I will be first in line to buy it when it comes out.

I've been reading a lot about her recently. Its pretty amazing that she's still alive. She has hepatitis c and probably won't live much longer she says.

I also read that she still receives more than 2000 dollars a month in royalties from the first book.

Fascinating woman.

[sunshinelover]

Now I really want to read Christiane F!    But the copies I see on Amazon are super expensive, and from what I can see in the reviews the newer version isn't as good.  So on it goes to my Christmas wish list!

[Maharincess]

I just finished the newer version. Its different than the original but its still really good.

[Snow Apple]

A mention of Tanith Lee reminds me of reading Red As Blood: Tales from the Sisters Grimmer at 14-15 years old. It was a collection of fairy tale retellings. I had never heard of such an idea and it blew my mind! Retellings are still one of my favorite genres and it all started with that book.

[elizacat]

She wrote a sequel last year called Christiane F. My Second Life. Its not out in English yet but I will be first in line to buy it when it comes out.

I've been reading a lot about her recently. Its pretty amazing that she's still alive. She has hepatitis c and probably won't live much longer she says.

I also read that she still receives more than 2000 dollars a month in royalties from the first book.

Fascinating woman.

Yeah I read some stuff on her too and would really like to read the follow up am hoping they do an English print run at some point.

Did you ever see the film - its actually pretty good. Theres also some interesting stuff about that as they actually filmed it in Zoo station and from what I remember some of the extras were actually people hanging out around the area.

[Maharincess]

I haven't seem the movie. I really should.

I read that they are in the process of doing the English translation now. No word on when it will be released though.

[Mystery]

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. Not so much for whether or not Richard III was guilty of murdering the princes in the tower, but for the love of research that the book shows and for the realization that history books are written by the victors and can't just be taken at face value. I still reread it every few years. 

[Mabinogia]

The Daughter of Time is one of my favorite books because it really made me think more about history and how it is told/written. It is also just a good story, I like the idea of a modern detective piecing together a historic mystery. I always recommend it to people when they ask what they should read next.

I remember best reading Turn of the Screw for an English class. We were then divided into two sides and asked to debate if it was a ghost story of if the governess was mad. It left such an impression on me because after arguing one side we switched. I was so amazed at how convinced I was it was a ghost story, but when put on the other side I was equally convinced it was not. I read it almost every year and can still see both sides of the argument. It was when I really learned to look beyond the surface of a story to see it from different perspectives.

Edited March 13, 2017 by Mabinogia

[raven]

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle.  I WAS Meg (not quite as smart, since she's brilliant) but I was good at math, not part of the popular crowd, wanted to do things my way, etc.

It was a school librarian who handed it to me and told me I would like it.

It was fantastic to read about someone who was like me (though Meg landed the cute boy in school), who went on an adventure.  Plus animals were an important part of the story, even as bit players.  I did read all the follow up books but the first one always stayed with me.  I still have the paperbacks from when I was a young teen and yes, read them every once in a while.

[Glory]

Ooh... this is a fun topic. 

Unfortunately, my book pick is not quite so literary as all of yours! I remember reading Wizard's First Rule as either a Freshman or a Sophomore in high school (a friend loaned it to me when I was sick for a while) and it was my first real experience with epic fantasy! I was hooked! I read as many of the Sword of Truth books as I were out at the time, moved over to the Wheel of Time and then got really into Salvatore and Greenwood and Weiss & Hickman and the books based off of Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings. 

I still, to this day, prefer fantasy books over most other types of books. Though I do like mystery/thriller novels with a spy type bent - think the Tom Clancy novels and the like. 

I read a lot. I try to read a book a week or so... but I'm forever grateful to the person who loaned me that book. 

[Babalu]

My teenage years were a looong time ago, but the first book I thought of was Catch-22. It was my bedside book, and I read it and re-read it, often opening it and reading a chapter or two at random before I'd go to sleep. I think it was the very randomness that resonated with me - you can't really rely on something happening just because it makes sense that it will. I also liked the non-linear plot, told from different perspectives; I think it made my perspective a little more flexible as I started to enter adulthood. I haven't read it for years, but think I'll order it from iBooks right now, although I'm a little scared it won't live up to my memories.

[Archery]

Well, of course, Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret.  And this obscure one: The Alfred G. Graebner Memorial High School Handbook of Rules and Regulations.  Not easy to say why, but I identified with both main characters, outsiders and awkward and not fully buying into the accepted narratives of their lives.

[psychoticstate]

1 hour ago, Archery said:

Well, of course, Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret.  And this obscure one: The Alfred G. Graebner Memorial High School Handbook of Rules and Regulations.  Not easy to say why, but I identified with both main characters, outsiders and awkward and not fully buying into the accepted narratives of their lives.

Oh man, I LOVED Ellen Conford's books as a teen. Along with Graebner, I also loved Hail, Hail, Camp Timberwood; To All My Fans With Love from Sylvie; Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate; Anything For a Friend; You Never Can Tell; and And This is Laura.

[Lovecat]

Oh, another big fan of Graebner and Timberwood here!  Made me run right over to Amazon to make some purchases...

[bubbls]

The Grey King by Susan Cooper. I read it when I was 14. I'm now 50 and I still reread it and find it as delightfully intriguing and dark as it was 36 years ago. It's a combination of Arthurian fantasy and Welsh folklore. I can't really say it changed my life, but it had a huge impact on me that's never left and I can't put into words. 

 

I just ordered The Daughter of Time at the library !

Edited March 28, 2017 by bubbls

[Mystery]

I loved the Dark is Rising series by Cooper; you make me want to read it again. 

[starri]

I was really fond of a YA (although he worked a long, long time before that was a thing) sci-fi writer named Alexander Key.  He probably most famously wrote the book upon which Blockbuster Video VHS staple Escape to Witch Mountain was based.  For my money, his best was a novel called The Forgotten Door, about a boy from another planet who falls through a wormhole and ends up in the North Carolina side of the Great Smokies, which is where my family is originally from.  His stories tended to be about teens who had special abilities and were persecuted for them (very similar to the X-Men, although he was writing long before Stan Lee), which really spoke to a gay kid in the South for some reason.

I've tried to reread The Dark is Rising as an adult.  I don't think I ever actually read Over Sea, Under Stone, and I had a really hard time getting into it.  And because I'm a completist, I wouldn't move forward until I did.  Maybe I should give it another push.  When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back...

This is more something from being a tween (again, that was before that was a thing), but Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game probably had a lot of influence on the kinds of weird mysteries I like as an adult.  If there isn't a little Turtle Wexler in Veronica Mars...

[surreysmum]

The Flight of the Heron, by D.K. Broster.  As a teenager, it hit all my buttons: the highly romanticized version of my homeland, Scotland; the unlikely and equally romanticized friendship between two enemy soldiers; lots of hurt-and-comfort scenes; and a really strong sense of historical time and place* that nonetheless didn't overwhelm the story. Forty years later, if I'm scribbling something, I still have to double-check this and some of my other Brosters to be sure I'm not unintentionally plagiarizing, so strongly did her novels imprint themselves on me.

*Broster was a historian, Oxford-trained, of the generation where women could get the education, but were not awarded the degree.

[Danny Franks]

Lord of the Rings. I read it when I was twelve, and it was the book that first formed my love of fantasy literature. So I guess that really did change my life.

And that led me to Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy, which really helped me in my teenage years. A book about a young boy growing from the age of six to twenty, and all the growing pains, angst, drama and misery that comes with puberty, first love, loss, all that good stuff.

The Discworld books, which probably went some way to forming my sense of humour, and way of looking at the world. Pratchett's vicious satire and affectionate mockery of stereotypes meant a lot to me, and I do see it reflected in my own outlook a lot.

[blueray]

Harry Potter: While I knew how to read, it was something that I was struggling with at the time. When I was 12 I saw Sorcerer's stone in the theaters and decided to read the book. It was the first book that showed me that there is more to reading than boring stories you read in school. I learned that it could be a great escape and it basically taught me to love reading. I quickly read the first four books (all that was out at the time). I went on to read harder books such as the Lord of the Rings. But it was Harry Potter that honestly taught me to read and really did change my life. As I entered my high school years, the series and it's fandom continued to be a support for me. To this day HP is still my go too books when I'm stressed or need an escape, as I said on another thread.

[nodorothyparker]

Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, at least the first three.  It may sound silly now, but as a small-town depressive angsty teen in the late '80s at the mercy of the public library before the internet, these books were a life line for me when I was wrestling with questions about faith and life and death and didn't really have anyone who could relate to where my head was.  There was a whole world in those books so much bigger than anything else going in my life at the time.  Plus, Lestat was just a lot of fun. 

[festivus]

Right now there is lots of press on The Outsiders because it just turned 50. So I know this is super cliche but that was a book that changed my life. I've always been an avid reader and I had tons of books as a child (which I still have). When I was in the 7th grade our teacher had us read The Outsiders and it just made a huge impact on me. It was the first book I had read with more serious adult themes (even though it was written by a teen) and I'm not even sure how to describe how it impacted my life I just know that it did. I even ended up naming my oldest son Sodapop. It's still one of my favorite books even though I am now 50 myself.

[Epeolatrix]

Stephen King's Carrie, perhaps indirectly. I was a small, meek, and frequently picked-on girl in 7th grade when I read it, and I was just finishing it up in the cafeteria where early arrivals were corralled before the start of school. A gigantic 9th grader (rumored to have been held back at least one year) asked if she could borrow it and just took it without waiting for my answer. Then we're dispersed to our classes. I see her later in the hall at lunch and I say, "I want my book back, please." She looked down at me, took it out of her bag, and threw it into the garbage next to me. "Fetch," she said. For the first and only time in my scholastic life, I got in a fight. I slugged her in the face, she pushed me to the ground and was about to do damage when a teacher showed up. The girl got suspended for an unknown length of time and I was sent home for the day to calm down. Book lesson learned was apparently, "Don't give in to bullies."

[BrittaBot]

For me it was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Read it at a time in my life when I got ostracized out of friend group and was generally vulnerable. Made me feel a lot better. Also it showed me that being an introvert is okay.

[Mindthinkr]

The Drifters by James Michener. 

It gave me a serious case of wanderlust that plagues me to this day (I'm traveling right now lol and thought I'd check this out while I had a free moment).

[Spaceman Spiff]

The first book that got me to enjoy reading just as a hobby was given to me by my 8th grade teacher. It was Jack London’s (dual story book) White Fang and Call of the Wild. This made it easier in high school with the assigned reading of not so enjoyable (Grapes of Wrath, The Great Gatsby) to enjoyable (Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Of Mice and Men).

But like @Glory and @Danny Franks during this time I was given,  by a friend, The Hobbit, followed by the Lord of the Rings trilogy and my love for epic fantasy began. From there I started my paper back collection. Weiss & Hickman’s Dragonlance/Krynn series, The entirety of the Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft. Terry Brooke’s Shannara  and Landover series, McCaffrey’s Pern series, David Edding’s Belgariad, Stephen R Donaldson’s White Gold Wielder, Piers Anthony’s Xanth and Adept series, , Raymond E Feist’s Riftwar Saga, Melanie Rawn’s Dragon Prince and Exile series (of which she never completed the third book....so mad).  Even delved into the horror genre with Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Robert McCammon (Wolf’s Hour being one of my favorite books).

[Zola]

"Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" by Jeanette Winterson

Perhaps the most pivotal book I have ever read, and a book I have a lot to be thankful for.

My teen years was full of the usual rebellious angst against my parents and the Establishment (i.e. schools). Complicated somewhat because I wanted to come out and say to the world "I'm gay! I am a lesbian. I am still normal!" etc. but I just didn't have the nerve to do so.

But a friend loaned me this book, and it just ticked so many boxes that it quickly became my own little saviour and "best friend". So much so that it gave me the courage of my convictions to finally "come out!" and to hell what society thinks! (As it turned out it was pretty smooth-going, other than a few battles with my parents)

[DearEvette]

Well, I didn't read any books as a teen that changed the way I looked at life, but I did read a couple of books that changed the way I approached reading or pleasure.

I have always loved reading, but I was one of those teenagers who grew out of reading Nancy Drew & Trixie Belden to deciding I needed to read "IMPORTANT" books.  So I started making a list of classics to read -- you know Melville, Dostoevsky, Faulkner, The Brontes etc. etc.and worked my way importantly through them.   But I worked in a library as an after school job when i turned 15 and so I became very exposed to popular fiction.  There were three distinct book that changed how I approached reading.

Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer.  I had never read a romance novel before and not one in such a alien to me setting at the time as regency England.  I had completely bypassed Austen (not considered 'classic' enough) , but for some reason I picked up the Heyer book.

The Stand by Stephen King.  it was the re-issues and expanded and version that clocked in at 1100+ pages.  For some reason the very bigness of the book attracted me.  it highhandedly  made me like Post-Apocalytpic fiction

The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins.  Holy cow.  It was so trashy.  And Glitzy.  And the explicit, descriptive sex!  My poor little teenage self clutched my pearls and kept reading. 

After this my classic list was abandoned I got pulled over to the darkside of commercial & genre fiction.  Bodice rippers weren't far behind....

[justcris]

When I was 15/16 I read Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre for my philosophy class in high school. It was unlike anything I had read before, and it made me think like nothing else had at that point.

Then when I was around 18/19 I read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and 1984 by George Orwell. I still to this day often think about those books. 

[JAYJAY1979]

For me, it was To Kill a Mockingbird at age 15.. and Flowers in the Attic when I was 12.

[DrSpaceman]

On ‎6‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 2:27 PM, JAYJAY1979 said:

For me, it was To Kill a Mockingbird at age 15.. and Flowers in the Attic when I was 12.

I didn't read it until I was older, but To Kill a Mockingbird is still my favorite book of all time. 

Dune, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Foundation series.  Great sci fi series for a teenager. 

[scarynikki12]

Animal Farm for me and I still love it to this day.