I’m about three-quarters of the way through The Power of One, a novel set in South Africa about a boy who eventually becomes boxing’s Welterweight Champion of the World. Boxing is not ordinarily a topic I care much about, but this turns out to be a good book. I like the characters. They seem quite real. And there’s the occasional trenchant turn of a phrase.
There’s an abridged version with the same title for younger readers. Read the unabridged version.
I’ve just finished the “Hunger Games” trilogy, very popular among the teen women set. The first volume, called The Hunger Games, is a real page-turner once you get into it. It’s downhill from there. The second volume is not as good as the first; it ends quite abruptly. The third volume is something of a dog’s breakfast: too many characters introduced and killed off (I couldn’t keep track of a lot of them) and the politics got more and more confusing. I’d recommend the first volume for a change of pace, but don’t bother with the others.