Need a romance novel...

[nwhiker]

AC reads pretty much sci-fi and fantasy. She'll occasionally read something else (Anthody Horowitz or Robert Muchamore) but essentially... SF/F with a minor of action/adenture. (Judging by the boys in her class, she's pretty much got the tastes of your average 12 year old boy).

For school she needs to read four books in totally different genres.

She chose Horror (she has a book, I forget what it's called), non-fiction (we helped her pick out Cliff Stoll's _The Cuckoos' Egg_, I think she'll like it), and biography (Lance Armstrong)

For her last genre, she had the choice between Western or Romance.

Western isn't going to fly. So.....

Anyone have a suggestion for a Romance book for 12 year old girl, who isn't AT ALL into romances? She loved _Shards of Honor_ which is romance, but so heavy on the sci-fi as to barely be recognisable as such. I'd have suggested that, and she's willing to read it, but there is a scene in there that I don't want her reading, and it's easy to skip over on CD but less in a book.

Any advice/suggestions welcome. Her reading level is pretty good.

Comments

[maiac.livejournal.com]

Any Georgette Heyer. My favorite is Frederika. -- That is, if AC is good at figuring out word meanings from context. Heyer uses a lot of Regency slang. That's one of the things that makes her books fun. The library should have at least a few of her books.

I think Jane Austen counts as romance, but you should probably ask the teacher to make sure she agrees.

[nwhiker.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm not sure AC is quite... ready for Austen. It's a genre she isn't interested in, she doesn't have much to any understanding of the society of which Jane speaks, and I think it'd be much too hard for her.

She's good about figuring out words, and several people have suggested Heyer. I'll check them out at the library, there seems to be plenty of them. Heh.

If she'd been able to go cross-over, I'd have had her argue that Shards of Honor was good enough. The teacher said they could have one book on CD in their reading. What I like is how flexible she is: books on CD, something they're already read if it's recent and they can talk about it. It's a good project, really.

[cassandra7.livejournal.com]

Georgette Heyer also wrote mysteries, but in this case you can probably judge a book by its cover. I agree that her romances are lots of fun and, in some cases, pretty good novels as well. Cotillion, for example.

Austen is too Neo-Classical for real Romance, but the Brontes are Romantics. Hard to read, though.

[nwhiker.livejournal.com]

An other vote for Heyer, I see. I think that's about five or six people who suggested her. I'll check them out at the library.

There is NO way she could read Austen, or any of the Brontes. I wrote to Maia above... AC is not into the genre, so has no desire to really delve into the book, she does not have the knowledge of the society of either Austen or the Brontes, and I'm not 100% sure she is an advanced enough reader either. I mean... she's 12. I don't think she's THAT far behind her peers, but maybe she is?

[jonskifarms.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

The inability to read Jane Austen at age 12 does NOT put her behind her peers! Gracious. It's not in the teen section at the library, after all... And as I've said elsewhere, I still don't get all the society stuff in Austen books, and I'm a mother to a 12yo.

Hmmm, thinking of children's literature. Little Women? Anne of Green Gables? Not sure if either one counts as a romance, and might suffer from the same datedness.

Of course I'm still leaning towards Flipped, but I know your library might not have it. (You could always buy it - Linnea will probably love it when she's old enough to read it. :^)

I wonder if there are any Newbery winners that would qualify as romance? That way you can be more sure she's in the target age range.

How about Bridge to Terabithia? Is that a romance? Or just a "buddy novel"?

Okay, I just went meandering through a Newbery list, and ended up reminded that Madelaine L'Engle wrote books other than the Time (trilogy/quatrology/quintology), and I devoured all my library had before I went off to college. Read the first review of Ring of Endless Light in this Amazon listing:

http://www.amazon.com/Ring-Endless-Light-Austin-Chronicles/dp/0312379358/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264700666&sr=1-1

I dunno, maybe it's not really in the romance genre, but it includes romantic attentions as a major plot element....