coming of age books

Although 1984 is an immaculate, beautiful work of literature it is not a coming of age book, right? Haha. Ah, but I love that book.

Fuck. How is coming of age even defined?

 

Coming of age is a young person's transition from adolescence to adulthood.
(I'm only clarifying because I had the same misconception as the person that listed 1984 before reading some of the answers and finding out that way, and want to save other the confusion.)

I just finished reading Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, and in its own way I'd consider it a coming of age book, as well as one of the best books I've ever read..

 

don robertson's trilogy about a boy growing up in cleveland,ohio between 1944 and 1952.the first one and the best is "the greatest thing since sliced bread." then "the sum and total of now" and "the greatest thing that almost happened"robertson had a way of describing events and characters that was very original.humor and insight were a large part of his story telling.he wrote mostly about ohio in his historical novels.

 

in my life, the ultimate coming of age story was the His Dark Materials series, by Philip Pullman. I first read the series in early middle school and fell in love with the language, the story, the world that existed inside those pages.

I still find myself coming back to these books, over and over.

they're among my favorites to this day.

 

There are so many good ones ... Secret Life of Bees, for sure. Was a pretty good movie, too.

I just read two that I didn't even realize were "coming of age" stories until I read them ...

1. Testimony by Anita Shreve. This is about a scandal at a private school in Vermont, and how it effected the lives of several of the students. If you don't recognize the name, Anita Shreve also wrote The Pilot's Wife. Beautiful writing.

2. The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle. Whew, this is a very dark story of a young girl who lives on a horse ranch in Colorado. Her older sister runs off with a rodeo cowboy and eventually returns when things get tough, her mother hasn't left her upstairs bedroom in 12 years, her father is a dreamer who can barely support them, she has a strange crush on one of her teachers, and one of her acquaintenances drowned in an irrigation canal, which is what actually kicks off the story.

This is not your typical story about girls and their horses. It seems like at every point where the story could have turned in a predictable, "heartwarming" direction, it didn't, and in fact did just the opposite. So the plot was kind of surprising and disturbing at the same time. There were times when I wanted a break from it ... I wanted something nice to happen in this girl's life. And even when that could have happened, she wouldn't let it.

The horses themselves were major characters in the story, and at times seemed to have more "humanity" and connection than the people, although they also serve as allegories for human relationships. In one scene, a young mare is turned out with a small group of older broodmares, and they hound her incessantly.

This is a very rich novel, full of strange events and unexpected turns. I gave it to my youngest daughter, who just turned 20. She loves animals, horses in particular, and she both loved and hated it, she said.