What's Your Rec for Good, Light Secular Fiction?

amother

Tan

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 5:29 pm

I need some ideas for books. Nothing too gory and no horror - Stephen King's books still haunt me years later, but not shallow lightweights either.

Honestly, I'd love an adult version of Harry Potter, though I haven't found that dream book yet.

Any recommendations for some good, light well-written and well characterized fiction?

amother

Magenta

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 5:33 pm

I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. It's a fanfic, but written as if Harry had the mind of a 25 year old genius.

In one word... wierd.

http://hpmor.com/

Watching this thread for suggestions... I'm almost done with HP yet AGAIN.

And no, Rowling's book for adults (The Casual Vacancy) was not interesting.

Can't wait for the script of HP and the Cursed Child to be released next month.

Maya

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 5:35 pm

Maeve Binchy

amother

Denim

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 5:38 pm

Madelaine L'Engel's Wrinkle in Time and its sequels are in the vein of Harry Potter, and also written for young adults so they're not gory even though they have suspense.

amother

Magenta

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 5:46 pm

Are they funny?

I have NEVER read adult drama/mystery fiction that made me laugh out loud the way HP does.

amother

Tan

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 5:47 pm

amother wrote:

The Casual Vacancy... Forget about not interesting, it was so morbid and gray. I had sympathy for only one character (I already forgot her name) out of a bewildering cast of more than 70 characters. I plugged through the entire book, it was depressing beyond belief.

amother

Tan

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 5:57 pm

Maya wrote:

Maeve Binchy

I was actually thinking of starting to read those - I heard they're great! Which ones do you recommend?

Maya

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 5:59 pm

amother wrote:

I was actually thinking of starting to read those - I heard they're great! Which ones do you recommend?

My favorite is The Glass Lake. But I like all of them.

amother

Tan

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 6:03 pm

Thanks!

shoshiesavannah

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 6:22 pm

Recently read and enjoyed:
And Again (Chiarella)
The Nest (Sweeney)
Eligible (Sittenfield)
The Raven Cycle series (Steifvater)
Wolf by Wolf (Graudin)

The last two are YA but still very intriguing and well-written.

bigsis144

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 6:26 pm

Everyone calls Lev Grossman's The Magicians the "grown-up Harry Potter" BUT IT'S NOT. The only thing in common is a school for magic, I don't know why that soundbyte is so popular as a description for it. It's waaaaaaaay more depressing and existential. I HATED the first book because all the characters were jerks. But a friend encouraged me to read the later two books and that redeemed the first book for me because the characters did show growth and the whole point of the books was going from immature selfishness to selfless heroism. But tons of gratuitous (in my opinion) s-x, drugs and general bad life decisions.

General recommendation for ALL the works of Brandon Sanderson -- they are pretty clean (he's Mormon, and while s-x is alluded to, there are no long graphic scenes) and they are wonderfully funny. He is very good at taking typical fantasy tropes and then swerving at the last second when you thought you could predict where it was going. Elantris is a one-off book if you don't want to commit to reading an entire series, and it has a smart heroine, some sweet romance, zombies if you kind of squint, politics and religious wars... The Reckoners series is more YA, it's like reading a comic book. Lots of explosions, superheroes, gadgets that are Made of Awesome. The Mistborn Trilogy has a system of magic that took me a bit of time to get used to, but it's worth the investment because the characters are great and it just is very wise when it comes to humans and their motivations and their complex inner lives...

Also general recommendation for all the works of Jim Butcher. The Codex Alera is a swords-and-sandals type world, basically Roman-level technology and culture plus elemental magic (spirits of air, fire, earth, water, wood and metal that can be harnessed in creative and awesome ways). The Dresden Files series is up to 15+ books already, and it's insane how he manages to top himself in each one. These do have some language and s-x (there's an entire sub-species of vampires that feed on lust -- some books focus on them, some books barely mention them), but they are a fantasy kitchen sink (faeries, werewolves, Valkyries in helicopters, the Chicago Mob, polka music, demon monkeys throwing flaming poo, a talking skull named Bob, the actual Greek God Hades...) and SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUNNY. They make me fist-pump as I read and literally laugh out loud. The audio-books are narrated by Jim Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and are highly recommended if you like your books on tape. The first 3 books lean a bit more heavily on noir tropes (the hard boiled detective who refers to women as leggy dames and has a cheap office in a bad part of town but has a heart of gold), but it really comes into its own.

Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles books are really interesting, and also have a sense of humor. The second book has the protagonist/unreliable narrator spending a while with an Elven s-x goddess which kind of is a longer tangent than it needs to be, but it fits the general sense of the story being about a larger than life character and how the truth is different from the tales people tell. Beautiful descriptions of magic and music, and Rothfuss's "sympathetic magic" is a well-thought-out system of magic with thought-provoking applications.

tl;dr -- sorry for the wall of text. Read Brandon Sanderson, Jim Butcher or Patrick Rothfuss. Caveat emptor for Lev Grossman, even if people say it's the next step for Harry Potter fans.

amother

Pink

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 7:03 pm

Just binged-read Diana Gabaldon's entire series (8 books at about 1,000 pages each kept me quite busy lol). Sx scenes and the occasional rape didn't bother me. Doesn't fit into one genre - it's fiction, romance, historical, bit of sci fi or fantasy because it involves time travel, some of them have some mystery.

Fun, easy chick flicks - Sophie Kinsella's books.

esther11

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 7:07 pm

bigsis144 wrote:

I agree with everything you said here!!! I thought the magicians was depressing, love Jim butcher and Brandon Sanderson, and am about to start reading Patrick rothfuss (he was just recommended to me lol)

Any other book recommendations?! I like the way u think!

mommy27

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 9:51 pm

If you want funny fantasy, read books by Terry Pratchett. Connie Willis is also great.

debsey

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 10:00 pm

While you are talking about clean, Mormon fantasy writers, don't forget the king of them all, Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game and all the books in the Ender verse, while a bit darker than Harry Potter, are just as thought-provoking and mind expanding. Diane Wynne Jones writes the Chrestomanci books, which are also light, funny, and well- written.

joss3

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 10:07 pm

Every book written by Kate Morton or liane moriaty.

Amarante

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 10:54 pm

The Two Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigmam

Brooklyn, 1947: In the midst of a blizzard, in a two-family brownstone, two babies are born, minutes apart. The mothers are sisters by marriage: dutiful, quiet Rose, who wants nothing more than to please her difficult husband; and warm, generous Helen, the exhausted mother of four rambunctious boys who seem to need her less and less each day. Raising their families side by side, supporting one another, Rose and Helen share an impenetrable bond forged before and during that dramatic winter night.

When the storm passes, life seems to return to normal; but as the years progress, small cracks start to appear and the once deep friendship between the two women begins to unravel. No one knows why, and no one can stop it. One misguided choice; one moment of tragedy. Heartbreak wars with happiness and almost, but not quite, wins. Moving and evocative, Lynda Cohen Loigman's debut novel The Two-Family House is a heart-wrenching, gripping multigenerational story, woven around the deepest of secrets.

Amarante

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 10:56 pm

As Close To Us As Breathing by Elizabeth Poliner

A small stretch of the Woodmont, Connecticut shoreline, affectionately named "Bagel Beach," has long been a summer destination for Jewish families. Here sisters Ada, Vivie, and Bec assemble at their beloved family cottage, with children in tow and weekend-only husbands who arrive each Friday in time for the Sabbath meal.

During the weekdays, freedom reigns. Ada, the family beauty, relaxes and grows more playful, unimpeded by her rule-driven, religious husband. Vivie, once terribly wronged by her sister, is now the family diplomat and an increasingly inventive chef. Unmarried Bec finds herself forced to choose between the family-centric life she's always known and a passion-filled life with the married man with whom she's had a secret years-long affair.

loss for members of this close-knit clan. Seen through the eyes of Molly, who was twelve years old when she witnessed the accident, this is the story of a tragedy and its aftermath, of expanding lives painfully collapsed. Can Molly, decades after the event, draw from her aunt Bec's hard-won wisdom and free herself from the burden that destroyed so many others?

debsey

Sun, Jun 05 2016, 11:02 pm

In a totally different genre, try the books by Paul Marantz Cohen. She takes Jane austen's "two families in a country village" dynamic and uses it in a Jewish retirement community in Boca Raton! Her ear for dialogue is spot on, and while the books are occasionally unintentionally tragic - what her characters don't know about their own Jewish heritage is sad - but the books are light, funny, and surprisingly insightful. She wrote Jane Austen in Boca, Jane Austen in Scarsdale, and Much Ado About Jessica Kaplan. Really great reads and mostly clean

amother

Tan

Mon, Jun 06 2016, 2:45 am

mommy27 wrote:

If you want funny fantasy, read books by Terry Pratchett. Connie Willis is also great.

Ah, Discworld!

I've never read Connie Willis. I know she writes fantasy, but what style?