Literature Book recommendations? (Fantasy/YA)

[bethbubbles]

I'm craving something new to read. I want something in the vein of Throne of Glass/ACOTAR by Sarah J Maas, Daughter of the Forest by Julliet Marillier or The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater - basically a kick-ass, emotionally complex female protag in a fantasy/paranormal setting, with a side of cute boys and epic romance (a side, not the main event).

I'm willing to give anything a go! I've read some awful stuff in the search of my next fix, so literally anything is welcomed.

 

[Seldil]

Castes and outcastes was pretty good and light reading. Its a trilogy if that matters.

 

[glowworms]

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black, Fair folk and forest stuff. Protagonists are a girl and her older brother and they try to figure out where they stand in this town.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab (Shades of Magic series), Traveling to different universes and stuff. There are two protagonists, sorta, Kell who is a Magician from Red London and Delilah, a "gentleman thief" that dreams of being a pirate.

So You Want to be a Wizard by Diane Duane (Young Wizards: New Millennium Edition series), a girl becomes a wizard and has to stop the world from ending with the friends she makes (not much romance happens for awhile, though, she's like 13 but gets older as the series progresses.)

Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett (Tiffany Aching of the Discworld Series), a 9-year-old girl with First Sight and Second Thoughts has to stop universes from colliding. Interesting bits include grandmother/granddaughter relationships, people who live on the edges of society and what it means to be a witch (historically, the kinds of people who were called witches).

 

[Saccharine Cyanide]

I love His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. It has a kickass, complex female protagonist, little romance, and some amazing worldbuilding.

My sister's recommended me Sabriel by Garth Nix. It's about a female necromancer and it has some dark fantasy elements, not sure how much romance but I'm sure it's minimal. There's also a new book in the series with an asexual female protagonist, pretty cool.

There's also the Mistborn series which I also haven't read, but I've heard good things about it.

Howl's Moving Castle is an absolute must if you haven't read it yet! It has A really strong, likeable female protagonist and a cute guy. ; P

 

[Taiga]

Hey there! I would really recommend 'The night world' series by L.J.Smith! Also anything fantasy-ish by Jennifer Armentrout. Their books are my favorite.

 

[bethbubbles]

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black, Fair folk and forest stuff. Protagonists are a girl and her older brother and they try to figure out where they stand in this town.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab (Shades of Magic series), Traveling to different universes and stuff. There are two protagonists, sorta, Kell who is a Magician from Red London and Delilah, a "gentleman thief" that dreams of being a pirate.

So You Want to be a Wizard by Diane Duane (Young Wizards: New Millennium Edition series), a girl becomes a wizard and has to stop the world from ending with the friends she makes (not much romance happens for awhile, though, she's like 13 but gets older as the series progresses.)

Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett (Tiffany Aching of the Discworld Series), a 9-year-old girl with First Sight and Second Thoughts has to stop universes from colliding. Interesting bits include grandmother/granddaughter relationships, people who live on the edges of society and what it means to be a witch (historically, the kinds of people who were called witches).

I read Tithe and Valiant by Holly Black, but I hadn't though to check out her other series so I will have a gander!

And the Terry Pratchet one relates to a book I'm currently writing so may come in really handy...

I love His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. It has a kickass, complex female protagonist, little romance, and some amazing worldbuilding.

My sister's recommended me Sabriel by Garth Nix. It's about a female necromancer and it has some dark fantasy elements, not sure how much romance but I'm sure it's minimal. There's also a new book in the series with an asexual female protagonist, pretty cool.

There's also the Mistborn series which I also haven't read, but I've heard good things about it.

Howl's Moving Castle is an absolute must if you haven't read it yet! It has A really strong, likeable female protagonist and a cute guy. ; P

I tried getting into His Dark Materials a looooong time ago but I found it a bit too slow paced, though now I'm older I could always give it a go. To be honest I'm a bit spoiled for it because I really liked (gasp) The Golden Compass movie, so I have pretty high expectations for the books.

Howl's Moving Castle!! I had no idea that was a book, I just saw the film! But now you've said it I 100% have to go and check it out? Oh my god.

Hey there! I would really recommend 'The night world' series by L.J.Smith! Also anything fantasy-ish by Jennifer Armentrout. Their books are my favorite.

The Night World has been recommended to me before but again I was kind of young at the time and it didn't really appeal to me, but now I'm reading the blurbs and I've definitely perked up on the idea of them! So thanks

 

[xXKittieChaosXx]

There's a series that I'm reading right now by Kelly Armstrong. The first book is called Sea of Shadows. It's really interesting. Plenty of magic, weird creatures and turns out both main characters are pretty kickass and they're both females too. I've been devouring the books.

 

[MechanicalHeart]

Wheel of time series?

 

[ThatOneGirl357]

Hush, Hush by Becca FItzpatrickis my all time favorite series. Totally recommend it.

 

[Unknownn]

You should read the Harry Potter series, if you haven't done that yet.

 

[Blemmigan]

My sister's recommended me Sabriel by Garth Nix. It's about a female necromancer and it has some dark fantasy elements, not sure how much romance but I'm sure it's minimal. There's also a new book in the series with an asexual female protagonist, pretty cool.

I would definitely second The Old Kingdom trilogy. The premise is that there's Ye Olde Fantasye World, with its own form of magic, a royal family, a glacier full of clairvoyants, necromancers and dangerous free magic. So if that's the kind of setting you're into, then I would recommend, yes.

Spoiler: Info

I think that Lirael was the first book of his I ever read, although it's second in the trilogy. It features different characters and locations though, so hey. I'm particularly nostalgic about The Old Kingdom trilogy as I only recently read Clariel, which is kind of an addendum novel exploring that universe a bit more. And I haven't yet read Goldenhand, which is another sequel, aaah.

As for romance, can confirm that there is not much: there's no "oh I like this person but what shall I do". They're kind of more preoccupied with the reanimated dead and ancient powers awakening, or travelling into Death to rescue someone. The usual stuff. Also, there's a disreputable dog, who is the best character.

In order, the books are Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen. There's later The Creature In The Case, which takes place after, and Clariel, which takes place about 600 years before, but follows a character mentioned in the trilogy. That's the thing about necromancy and magic, people/creatures can end up hanging around. Goldenhand is the latest one, set after the original trilogy.

Spoiler: blurb for Sabriel

Who will guard the living when the dead arise? Sabriel is sent as a child across the Wall to the safety of a school in Ancelstierre. Away from magic; away from the Dead. After receiving a cryptic message from her father, 18-year-old Sabriel leaves her ordinary school and returns across the Wall into the Old Kingdom. Fraught with peril and deadly trickery, her journey takes her to a world filled with parasitical spirits, Mordicants, and Shadow Hands - for her father is none other than The Abhorson. His task is to lay the disturbed dead back to rest. This obliges him - and now Sabriel, who has taken on her father's title and duties - to slip over the border into the icy river of Death, sometimes battling the evil forces that lurk there, waiting for an opportunity to escape into the realm of the living. Desperate to find her father, and grimly determined to help save the Old Kingdom from destruction by the horrible forces of the evil undead, Sabriel endures almost impossible challenges whilst discovering her own supernatural abilities - and her destiny.

I do love Garth Nix's books, even now. His writing and the worlds he builds are always fun to read and don't seem patronising, if that makes sense. Seeing as I'm almost definitely outside the intended age range. But hey.

He's written a few other series of books in various universes, which I won't list here. But if you give one of the above a go and like his writing and his worlds, then there are more to try. The Keys to the Kingdom and The Seventh Tower have younger protagonists, which may make them seem more like children's books, but they don't have that attitude in how they're written. Plus, no romantic tension in either of those two (that I remember), despite the fact that they both have at least one male and female protagonist. That's a plus.

Shade's Children is a standalone book by him that's YA, and set in a more science fiction universe, with alien-invasion, survival, future technology and good old grey-and-grey morality.
I'm writing an RP based on some of the premises in it that will likely never see the light of day ah well.

Spoiler: blurb for Shade's Children

On your 14th birthday, you're dead meat... In a futuristic urban wasteland, evil Overlords have decreed that no child shall live a day past his fourteenth birthday. On that Sad Birthday, the child is the object of an obscene harvest resulting in the construction of a machinelike creature whose sole purpose is to kill. The mysterious Shade - once a man, but now more like the machines he fights - recruits the few children fortunate enough to escape. With luck, cunning, and skill, four of Shade's children come closer than any to discovering the source of the Overlords' power - and the key to their downfall. But the closer the children get, the more ruthless Shade seems to become...

Other writers!
Philip Reeve's Predator Cities (aka Mortal Engines) books are great. It's more science fiction than fantasy, but I'm putting it here because I love them just that much (and it's not... laser guns and aliens and super-advanced technology).
If you like steampunk and dystopias then this is the book for you!

Also, as far as I know they are making a film of the first book, to start production later this year. It should be released next December, so that is exciting. I'm excited. Peter Jackson will be producing it. Fingers crossed.

Spoiler: More info about the books

Long after The Sixty Minute war pretty much wiped out all civilisation on Earth, the geography has been altered entirely, and countries no longer exist. Cities, however, are now independent city-states. They are also giant mobile machines that people live on, while the whole thing travels around the desert and attacks smaller cities, stripping them of resources and capturing the residents.

The first setting is London, which is of course one of those moving cities (known as a Traction Cities), and throughout the course of the series other places are visited. Airships are used to travel between cities and places like Air Haven a huge floating city in the sky. There are also murderous robots. There are constant references to current locations and similar things from this time, usually in a kind of "this is a little of what we know life used to be like", referring to us as "The Ancients" and mixing up history with myth. So Mickey Mouse is considered a lost god of North America. America itself was discovered by Christopher Columbo, well known explorer and detective. You get the idea. Anyway, it's great.

There are four books in the Predator Cities series (known in the US as Hungry City Chronicles I think): Mortal Engines, Predator's Gold, Infernal Devices, and A Darkling Plain.

Then there are prequel books, in a series of their own known as Fever Crumb. The first book is also called Fever Crumb (as is the protagonist), followed by A Web of Air, and Scrivener's Moon.

The named protag is a young woman (who is also confirmed bisexual by the third book), and the series is set just as Traction Cities are beginning, but still long after the Sixty Minute War. There are still remnants of the war around, such as mutant creatures. A race known as the Scriven have just been overthrown, and there are woolly mammoths, because why not?

Altogether, A+ would recommend.

Other Authors... Diana Wynne Jones, who wrote Howl's Moving Castle which was recommended above. There are also two others set in the same universe: Castle In the Air, and House of Many Ways.

She writes a lot of standalone as well as series of books. The Chrestomanci series is set in a kind of Edwardian era with magic, and is named for a powerful enchanter who has nine lives, although most of the books aren't about him directly. There's lots of magic and dream worlds and split universes connecting this world to others (including ours).
It's probably best to start with Charmed Life, then The Lives of Christopher Chant. Although there's likely not a best order, because timelines.

Spoiler: blurb for Charmed Life

Everybody says that Gwendolyn Chant is a gifted witch with astonishing powers, so it suits her enormously when she is taken to live in Chrestomanci Castle. Her brother Eric (better known as Cat) is not so keen, for he has no talent for magic at all. However, life with the great enchanter is not what either of them expects.

For standalone books, I like The Power Of Three, which again involves the kind of not-quite-out-world magic that I apparently love.


Oh, and the Wind On Fire trilogy! By William Nicholson.
For a change, no magic in these as such. Rather, power in song. Empaths. Prophecy. Immortal and beautiful armies. Deserts and slave cities and ice.
Books are The Wind Singer, Slaves of the Mastery and Firesong.

Spoiler: blurb for The Wind Singer

"I hate school! I hate ratings! I won't reach higher! I won't strive harder! I won't make tomorrow better than today!"

In the walled city-state of Aramanth, rules are everything. When Kestrel Hath dares to rebel, the Chief Examiner humiliates her father and sentences the whole family to the harshest punishment. Desperate to save them, Kestrel learns the secret of the wind singer, and she and her twin brother, Bowman, set out on a terrifying journey to the true source of evil that grips Aramanth.

Okay, I'm done. This took too long to write. There are more YA style books I enjoy but this is probably enough of me getting excited over the dumb stuff I read.


EDIT: Nope, I forgot Neil Gaiman! How could I forget? Maybe because his books aren't YA, just straight up fantasy. Urban fantasy? Slightly unnatural reality?
If that doesn't help describe it then... he wrote Coraline and Stardust, which have been made into films that you may have seen. He also writes comics, the most famous probably being The Sandman.

Anyway, he is one of my favourite writers. His work reminds me a little of Terry Pratchett in terms of how bizarre and humorous it is. And he did collaborate with Pratchett on Good Omens, vaguely about the birth and rising of the Antichrist. I think that's getting a TV adaptation next year, after there was talk for ages of making a film.

Spoiler: blurb for Good Omens

"Armageddon only happens once, you know. They don't let you go around again until you get it right." According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch - the world's only totally reliable guide to the future, written in 1655, before she exploded - the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just after tea...

People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it's only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. This time though, the armies of Good and Evil really do appear to be massing. The four Bikers of the Apocalypse are hitting the road. But both the angels and demons - well, one fast-living demon and a somewhat fussy angel - would quite like the Rapture not to happen. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist...

The first book of Gaiman's that I read was Neverwhere, about a world beneath London, where all the people go who fall between the cracks. It's still one of my favourite books.

Spoiler: blurb for Neverwhere

Under the streets of London there's a world most people could never even dream of. A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, and pale girls in black velvet. Richard Mayhew is a young businessman who is about to find out more than he bargained for about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his safe and predictable life and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and yet utterly bizarre. There's a girl named Door, an Angel called Islington, an Earl who holds Court on the carriage of a Tube train, a Beast in a labyrinth, and dangers and delights beyond imagining... And Richard, who only wants to go home, is to find a strange destiny waiting for him below the streets of his native city.

Also American Gods, about gods from various mythologies and religions still existing amongst us, and the side of the world that they inhabit. Anansi Boys is a kind of spin-off, about the sons of Anansi (aka the most embarrassing father who ever existed). That's another of my favourites.

Spoiler: blurb for Anansi Boys

Fat Charlie Nancy used to have a normal life. But that all changes the moment his estranged father drops dead in a karaoke bar, leaving a trail of chaos in his wake. Fat Charlie didn't know his dad was a god. He certainly didn't know he was Anansi the trickster spider-god, lord of rebellion and disorder. He didn't know he had a brother, either. Now his brother, Spider, is on his doorstep trying to take over his life, flat and fiancee. And Fat Charlie's going to have to resort to something drastic - and dangerous - to get back on track.

 

[abnormal]

Queens of geek (Jen Wilde), Good omens (Terry Pratchet, Neil Gaiman) and the Tiffany Aching books. ^^

 

[Sibelle Grey]

Read the Lunar Chronicles Trilogy (Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Winter).
Also, the Young Elites Trilogy (The Young Elites, The Rose Society, and the Midnight Star, I believe).
Two of my favorites. 10/10, highly recommend