Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I'd Hand to a Teen Who Doesn't Like to Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish.  Each week a new Top Ten list topic is posted and book bloggers fill in their own choices.  I'm a list girl (as in, I don't function without them), so I thought this would be a good choice for me!   This week's topic is a bit difficult for me because I think it depends entirely who your non-reader is...  So, for the purposes of this list and its relevance to my YA book blog, I will say that these are the top ten books I would give to a teen who doesn't like reading.

Top Ten Books I'd Hand to a Teen Who Doesn't Like to Read

1.  The Hunger Games Trilogy~ This is a "duh" choice, but one that needs to be on the list.  I've met VERY few people, readers or not, who have not raved about these books.  These are the types of books that get kids reading.

2.  Everlost by Neal Shusterman~ This is a book that sucks you in and makes you want to keep reading until the end, and then leaves you wanting more (fortunately, there are two more books- Everwild and Everfound).  I think a lot of kids don't like reading because they are either intimidated by the length of certain books, or lose interest.  This is a book that make losing interest an impossibility because Neal Shusterman is amazing, and because of this, the length of the next two books is a non-issue.

3.  Empty by Suzanne Weyn~ This book is super-short, and very relevant.  A non-reader would never be intimidated by the length, and the story is quite good, and extremely plausible.  This is one I recommend to reluctant readers regularly.

4.  A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess~ This book reads like a movie, but is SO much better than the movie version.  This is one of the books that I most remember reading in HS.  It sticks with you.

5.  Lord of the Flies by William Golding~ I've never met a boy who didn't like this book.  It's a little more hit or miss with girls, but I would still recommend it to the right one.  I'm a girl, and I loved it when I read it at age 11.

6.  Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin~ This book was on last week's list too, but it's just one of those books that I think everyone likes, but not a lot of people know about.  There's a little something for everyone in Elsewhere.

7.  The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien~ Tolkien is the master of world-building!  This is one of the books that turned me into a reader.  Who has to willpower to NOT get sucked into Middle Earth?

8.  Harry Potter 1-7 by J.K. Rowling~ These books have already turned a lot of non-readers into readers.  Of course, with the movies, many opt not to read the books, but they should.   We all know the movie is never as good as the book!

9.  The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis~ For the same reasons The Hobbit and Harry Potter are on this list...

10.  Trackers by Patrick Carman~ Or any of his other recent books.  He is one of the first to do the online companion thing with his books, and kids that don't typically read, seem to enjoy that part.  Other books he's done this with are the Skeleton Creek series and The 39 Clues (along with the multitude of other authors that wrote them).

Obviously, this list is a generalization.  When I make recommendations, especially to reluctant readers, there are questions I ask them before just offering up something.  There are much better choices for certain personalities, but these are book that I would recommend to almost any teen who doesn't read much.