Books: I've got the Touch!

[wishfulclicking]

From the previous post about first person pov and books, specifically YA, (oh and thank you so much for all of the book recs and discussion!), I just took that day when every YA book except one was first person was more a fluke based on my habit of being drawn to certain kinds of cover and some other random things; I also took more a look at other books I read to see how they fell. Three of my favorites books used first person: She's Come Undone, I Know This Much is True (both written by Wally Lamb), and Tenderness* all used first person.

Tenderness gets the * because it uses both first person present and third person past to differentiate between the two povs of the main characters; and more immediacy the first person presents is definitely wielded to an advantage in that book. I'll probably talk about the book more later.

But to where I discover a hidden skill: so I pick up my requested books from the library, and wouldn't you know that three out of four of them are written in the first person! It's kind of amazing in a trivial way. Only one is YA, though two others had younger protagonists, they are aimed at a more adult market.

While I do wish to have a more profitably quirk, like finding random sums of money, this one is cool too. To complete it, I feel I should read a book, that isn't CYOA, written in the second person; also, I don't remember any books written in the future tense. Any suggestions?

Oh and the books I got from the library are Caucasia, Gentlemen, Billy, and Fledgling.

Comments

[twtd]

I meant to comment on that last post about YA but got distracted by something. I pretty much adore Fledgling and I wish there was a way to find out what was supposed to happen in the rest of the series.

Thief, which is technically children's fiction and not YA, has a male protagonist and is in first person, while the rest of the series is in very limited third person and Megan Whalen Turner makes use of that in an absolutely brilliant way. I've never read something that really uses POV so throughly and so well.

And Richard Peck's A Long Way From Chicago and A Year Down Yonder are in first person too (and are also children's lit.)

I can't think of anything in future tense or 2nd person, though I'm sure someone out there is experimenting with them.

[wishfulclicking]

I'll have to add Thief to my list of books to read and of course the other books too.

Besides Choose Your Own Adventure Books, I've never seen 2nd person used in a book. I think it could work. I've yet to see profic use future tense but I do remember a really good fanfic that played with tense and it was just perfect.