 | The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Buy new: £4.97 / Used from: £2.21 Start with a nice one to lead us into the nihilism/existentialism. One of my favourite books: is, quite simply, "lovely". Ideal for a whimsical teen.
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 | The Outsider (Penguin Modern Classics) by Albert Camus
Buy new: £5.97 / Used from: £3.00 Onto the rejection of/from society stuff now. J'adore Camus. Does the protag have a soul? Does it matter? What is living if death is inevitable? A lot is in these 118 pages. The sort of book I love.
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 | On the Road (Penguin Modern Classics) by Jack Kerouac
Buy new: £5.02 / Used from: £2.47 Here we go... I love the beats. I can't help it. I think it's an obligatory youth thing. The plus 30s just don't understand... Now let us follow Dean Moriarty to Frisco.
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 | The Metamorphosis (Dover Thrift) by Franz Kafka
Buy new: £1.50 / Used from: £0.01 Kafka is a staple for us faux-intellectual adolescents. Prominent themes being rejection from society (everyone's against you as a teenager) due to things beyond your control: turning into an insect.
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 | Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Buy new: £5.96 / Used from: £3.72 Onto full disaffection now. Too much cocaine+ too much money + too much sunshine = disillusioned youngsters who subconciously yearn for the simpler times. B.E.E: simulatneously satirical and sad.
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 | Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) by Hunter S. Thompson
Buy new: £4.49 / Used from: £2.53 Complusory reading for all aged 15-25. Basically plotless: but who needs plot when you have a suitcase full of narcotics? Hilarious and disturbing, with occasional philosophical musings. Occasionally.
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 | Naked Lunch: The Restored Text (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) by William S. Burroughs
Buy new: £6.88 / Used from: £3.99 Right. Well. Yes. Burroughs, fondly regarded as the "creepy uncle" of the Beats, goes all out with this abstract novel. Disgusting: yes. Insightful: I would say so. A thought provoking "Experience"
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 | A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Modern Classics) by Joyce James
Buy new: £4.63 / Used from: £2.50 Go on: Reject Catholicism! Awaken Sexually! Write poetry! This is the most literary Coming-Of-Age story there is... it's "well good." High-brow teen angst & discussions on religion & art... excellent
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 | Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Buy new: £5.00 / Used from: £3.00 Murakami: titan of today's disaffected with more literary leanings. This is perhaps his most accessible, but still my favourite. All about the choice between the old and new... growing up, basically..
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 | The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Buy new: £5.40 / Used from: £0.38 Lucid memories, hazy nostalgia, fixations on the beauty of youth gone by... or dead. Love it. Embodies the pains of adolescence, but in an unconventional way.
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 | Nausea (Penguin Modern Classics) by Jean-Paul Sartre
Buy new: £5.73 / Used from: £3.63 Oh that intellectual angst. It really does get to you. This is probably my all time favourite book, just because there are so many "I know exactly what you're talking about" moments.
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 | Slaughterhouse 5, or The Children's Crusade - A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut
Buy new: £5.00 / Used from: £2.14 Not especially teenage - but should be read purely for the Tralfamadorians. I suppose he was young when he went to war...
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 | A Clockwork Orange (Penguin Modern Classics) by Anthony Burgess
Buy new: £4.83 / Used from: £3.00 Teen rebellion. It can get out of control sometimes, can't it? In which case reform is necessary - but is reform that takes away choice still reform? Who can say? Let's discuss it.
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 | The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Buy new: £3.49 / Used from: £2.00 Sylvia Plath appeals to the young. The direct, sharpness of her poetry resonates with them, and this book is another to be thoroughly identified with, but perhaps minus the suicide attempts.
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 | The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Buy new: £4.90 / Used from: £0.99 Really, it's the ultimate. Holden Caulfield will always be the poster boy for teenage disaffection. Swap "phonies" for "mainstreamers" and he could be a 21st century alt youth.
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