Interesting that the runners-up were much more conventional choices, Pride and Prejudice and To Kill a Mockingbird.
I've never read Mockingbird; I gotta say that it doesn't sound like a fun read. I really admire Jane Austen, though I find her books a bit of a slog even now. (I really hated them when compelled to read them in high school, though with the aid of some film adaptations I have a much better understanding of what those books are about.)
Hunger Games does nail a sweet spot of Young Adult fiction: compelling, easy to read, but not completely dimwitted.
The first Harry Potter book might have been a good choice, but it's really a juvenile rather than YA, and that narrows the audience somewhat as a "favorite book". Later Harry Potter books are more appealing to older readers, but no single one of them quite captures the lightning of the first one.
It's certainly not the best of all time. Goodreads' user base appears to have a pretty narrow demographic, though, so I don't think that any general conclusions can be drawn from opinion polls of them.
I've never read Mockingbird; I gotta say that it doesn't sound like a fun read. I really admire Jane Austen, though I find her books a bit of a slog even now. (I really hated them when compelled to read them in high school, though with the aid of some film adaptations I have a much better understanding of what those books are about.)
Hunger Games does nail a sweet spot of Young Adult fiction: compelling, easy to read, but not completely dimwitted.
The first Harry Potter book might have been a good choice, but it's really a juvenile rather than YA, and that narrows the audience somewhat as a "favorite book". Later Harry Potter books are more appealing to older readers, but no single one of them quite captures the lightning of the first one.
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