College Students! discussion

I've been having this feeling lately, that no-one writes for me anymore. Or rather, that no-one writes for my age group. I feel like I'm caught in between YA books, which are just too juvenile, and adult books that I can't relate to. I don't want to read another book where the main character is in high school, because I'm over that phase in my life right now, and I'd like to move on. But I also don't want to read a book about family issues or someone coming back to the town of their terrible childhood, or bad marriages, or other things that I just have no way of relating to yet. It isn't that I can't handle adult emotions, it's just that I can't make myself care about those kinds of subjects. The same goes for YA books. I remember what it was like to be that young, but I just don't care about the same things as I did back then.

Are there any books written for those of us in the middle? Are there any books that are made for people older than YA but not old enough for a mid-life crisis? Or are there any books that are timeless, that it doesn't matter how old the characters are, because that doesn't really effect the book? Because I'm a little lost here. I can't find anything that catches my interest or means anything to me like I used to when I was younger. Everything about people my age seems to be terrible chick lit or gossipy stuff that I, again, have no interest in. Surely there are meaningful books that are made for us.

Is anyone else having this problem? Or does anyone have a good book to recommend that doesn't fall into either the YA or "grown up" stereotypes? I thought that this, the college students group, would be a good place to ask.

Thanks

I was trying to talk about this in the Twilight thread a little. I mostly don't believe literature can be cleanly divided into age-group genres. Of course there are some works that describe a phase of life one particular age group is stereotypically better suited to appreciate, but really, I think it comes down to good and bad literature -- that is to say, the varying degrees of good literature possess something inherently true, to the point where it is... maybe not applicable, but appreciable at any time. There are PLENTY of problems with this theory, I understand, but the point I am trying to make is that some of the older works are a good place to start -- i.e., things published before we were born that were good enough to still be read and loved today. This is almost self-evident from your asking for "timeless" works, I realize....

Assuming, though, for the sake of argument, that there are fixed age-group genres, what would that be for us, this "post-Young Adult"? Would the literature our parents' or grandparents' generations loved at our age work the same for us? Do you mean that you feel like no one writes for our generation?

I guess I'm saying I don't know what you mean by "made for us," if not "made for me," because I don't entirely buy, either, this idea that age or gender or race or any such superficial detail alone can determine what is a good book for a person. It can, to an extent, suggest the things that might be meaningful to him or her, but there is no rule, for example, that all adults ages 18-22 attending university in America will hold the same or even similar values. I can only recommend books that I respect and love in hopes that you might enjoy them, too.


ALL THAT SAID: I am happy to recommend books! Books and words are some of my favorite things to talk about! That is the purpose for this forum, I suppose? We can guess at what books that another person might like once we get to know them a little better.

Did you like Salinger? He is a favorite of mine. Cormac McCarthy? Neither are dead yet, but they're both very good.

Vonnegut?

I don't know you very well, so trying to recommend things for you feels very hit-or-miss, but I suspect that you might like Nabokov? Everyone I know who's read him is either too embarrassed by his characters or worships him. I would be of the second camp.

Camus? (The Stranger) Or maybe Woolf? In the last year, I finally got around to reading Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I enjoyed very much....

Right now, I'm finishing Letters to a Young Poet, by Rilke, and it speaks a lot to me, where I am right now.

I know you mentioned distaste for weightier themes, but if you're looking for things that are truly time-tested, there're always the classics. I used to have trouble relating, but if you give, for example, the Divine Comedy an honest go, it is amazing-amazing-amazingly rewarding.


EDIT: I realize I've recommended too much of myself. I think they're amazing, and I think everyone should read them, whether they suit their tastes perfectly or not, but you seem to like dystopian fiction... have you read A Brave New World or A Clockwork Orange?

Well, that was a fabulous reply. Really.

I guess the problem for me isn't really that I feel that all books have to be for a certain age/race/gender/whatever, but that I feel like I'm having problems relating to a lot of books recently. I am the kind of person that either has to really love the characters in a book or the meaning behind it or I just can't read it. This leaves some problems, because I have difficulty loving teenagers (they whine) and I can't really find enough meaning in books about middle-aged problems like parenting or marriage or coming to terms with childhood. That just doesn't mean anything to me because I don't really understand.

But really, the books don't have to be about people my age for me to like them. I have read McCarthy and Camus and enjoyed them both. I've also loved many of the books I've read for school, like The Count of Monte Cristo, Frankenstein, The Great Gatsby, and 1984. I think the reason for that is because these books aren't about age specific meaning or problems, but rather timeless and human problems, like revenge or guilt or love. So maybe what I'm asking for are books where the main issues aren't something that you have to be the right age for, like a coming of age story or a story about parenting, but rather something that everyone can enjoy. I guess I am looking for weighty themes, but just the right ones.
Maybe I should go looking for classics. I guess they're classic for a reason.

I'll also have to check out that Letter to a Young Poet. I've read some of Rilke's work and it really speaks to me.

Yes, I recommended Salinger hesitantly. For some reason, I suspected Holden might grate on your nerves a little, haha. You might like his Nine Stories (shorts), if you haven't read those? Especially the first and last ones.

My mistake! I shouldn't have said "weighty" themes. Of course you want to read something important! It's why people read (most of the time).

I'm really excited for you and Rilke. I'm sure the two of you will get along wonderfully.


If you can bear the length, Proust's In Search of Lost Time absolutely changed my life, and I would very, very highly recommend it. A lot of words, but not one of them too many (if anything, it's tragically abridged as he died before he could finish), and all of them beautifully arranged.


ONE MORE THING: You have read the His Dark Materials trilogy, yes? If not, I think you might really like that one.

The first book that popped into my head when I read this was The Bell Jar. People would discover I was reading it in college and thought I was crazy, because the main character, Esther, is in college.

There are some generational gaps that I've come up against in it. For instance, Esther has one scene where she's deciding between being a writer and being a mother, which is very characteristic of the era in which the book was written. Nowadays, there isn't so much of a push for women to pick; rather the burden is that women, in order to well-rounded, must do both.

You might also want to check out some of Mavis Gallant's short stories. Again, a bit generational and very Canadian, but she often speaks of what it's like to be seen as a very young girl at an adult job. (In one of her stories about a girl named Linnet Muir, Linnet lies about her age, saying she's 22, in order to get a job during the war. All the stories about Linnet are amazing and speak to the sort of unraveling of childhood truths.)

I second what N. said about Proust.

I'll check out the Proust definitely, since it gets such good recommendations here, and Salinger's Nine Stories too. And yes, I have read His Dark Materials, and I did love them. They were crazy and contrived and jumped the shark at least twice, and I loved them. My mom won't let my brother read them. Apparently they'll corrupt him. ;)

I've been meaning to read The Bell Jar for years now and just haven't gotten around to it. I'll check that out too, though probably not until I get home. My mom has a grudge against Plath for some reason. She doesn't like anything too weird. I've never heard of Mavis Gallant before, but I'll have to look that up.

I think I need a book to change my life. I haven't had one of those in years, if ever.

I recently read The Unbearable Lightness of Being and can't see how anyone could fail to relate. Wonderful book.

I despised The Unbearable Lightness of Being. (Sorry. I know there are lots of his fans out there!) I didn't read it for school, but it was recommended to me by a fan of Eastern European lit. There's something about Kundera's plots and style that I don't jive well with.

I loved Tayib Salih's Season of Migration to the North. But like Nools, I don't think books can really be divided up into age categories - at least not distinctly. I also recently read The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg, which probably fits into my mother's age group more than mine (if we are to put labels on them). I liked it a lot, though!

Maybe Sarah Waters? Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet are really really good. THe characters in it are young, not teenagers and not quite adults, and are all very interesting.

wow I'm happy to know I'm not the only one with this 'over young-adult but not feeling the adult' dilemma..
I liked Water for Elephants and I loved The Host by Stephenie Meyer.. Both adult books where I felt I could relate to the main character

I've heard a lot of good things about Water for Elephants, but am still skeptical to read it because I don't know if I'll be able to relate to the main character.

Coll, you said you could relate. What do you think, is it worth bumping up on my TBR list?

DO IT ANASTASIA! It was great!

Yes, Water for Elephants is very good.
I say I can relate to the main character because he is young and I feel he is just trying to find himself and grow up.
I've been having trouble finding books that are about younger people but aren't so blahh.. like Emily was saying.

LOL ok, I'm sold.

I gotta jump in on this just because i LOVED Water for Elephants!!!


Emily: I dont know if you have read Khaled Hosseini but I would definitely recomend both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Heavy issues. But I dont think the characters will be too hard to relate to.
Two of my favorite books. I havent met anyone yet that hasnt thought they were awesome.

Good luck!

I've been thinking about this alot lately! I hate being in this limbo!

Haha, I started this thread forever ago, and now that I read it again I'm happy to say that I'm finally out of my funk. I'm so sorry you're feeling this way Jamie! I hope you find something that really grabs your attention soon.
It turns out that reading the classics, or even modern classics if you can call them that, is really what got me out of that limbo feeling. It's so hard not to be really absorbed and moved, intellectually and emotionally, by writers like Jane Austen, A.S. Byatt, and Ursula K. Le Guin. It seems that, for me at least, literary fiction is the only surefire cure for a reading slump.

September 22,20014

To whom may concern:

I completely agree about I've been having this feeling lately, that no-one writes for me anymore. Or rather, that no-one writes for my age group. I feel like I'm caught in between YA books, which are just too juvenile, and adult books that I can't relate to. I don't want to read another book where the main character is in high school, because I'm over that phase in my life right now, and I'd like to move on. But I also don't want to read a book about family issues or someone coming back to the town of their terrible childhood, or bad marriages, or other things that I just have no way of relating to yet. It isn't that I can't handle adult emotions, it's just that I can't make myself care about those kinds of subjects. The same goes for YA books. I remember what it was like to be that young, but I just don't care about the same things as I did back then.

Are there any books written for those of us in the middle? Are there any books that are made for people older than YA but not old enough for a mid-life crisis? Or are there any books that are timeless, that it doesn't matter how old the characters are, because that doesn't really effect the book? Because I'm a little lost here. I can't find anything that catches my interest or means anything to me like I used to when I was younger. Everything about people my age seems to be terrible chick lit or gossipy stuff that I, again, have no interest in. Surely there are meaningful books that are made for us. I am a story teller some day I would love to write story about 20 yers and be an author if I ever get the nerves and education. I have a lot of learn disabilities the slowing I down I would get there someday.

here an author I think like you do and she write all her book in our age group her name is Cora Carmack here is her website http://www.coracarmack.blogspot.com/p...
best