Books: I've got the Touch!

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.

Early Suspicions: Gentlemen

This is more for me to reference if I guess it right and would like proof.

( so I don't know the etiquette for spoiling books that aren't hugely popular with their own fandoms, but just in case, behind this cut are my suspicions about The Gentlemen. )

Gentlemen

I finished this one tonight. That's how good it was. Here was a book that used the first person to its advantage. Besides the more immediate sense of 'intimacy', first person really works when an unreliable narrator is crucial to the story--and in this story, it is truly important. If you saw my earlier post, then you saw I was halfway and had some theories.

In this book the narrator is a fifteen year old boy and the story feels like it's being told by one, too. Micheal (yes that's how it is spelled) and his friends are from the 'wrong sides of the tracks' and that was a nice change from most of the YA I've read. I was completely caught up with Micheal until I pulled away and went 'wait a minute' and then I started going 'oh, honey, stop.'

The ending was total win. Now I kind of want to see where they end up in ten years.

I definitely plan to buy this book at a later date. Maybe even I'll get a hardcover edition.