> I was a kid of the 80s and 90s. I grew up outside. I played rough and got hurt and then played rough again. I explored. My parents existed to feed me, clothe me, and yell at me for not achieving enough. Any book depicting a parent who sat their child down to give them sage advice about life was completely foreign to my experience.
You might like Cormac McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses" [0]. The prose style is idiosyncratic, but also arguably his most accessible. It's about a 16 year old crossing over into Mexico and with little else but the clothes on his back and love for horses, but not "juvenile" --- if anything the author elevates the teen's stumbles into love, adventure, and heartbreak, into a grand vision of the American frontier.
You might like Cormac McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses" [0]. The prose style is idiosyncratic, but also arguably his most accessible. It's about a 16 year old crossing over into Mexico and with little else but the clothes on his back and love for horses, but not "juvenile" --- if anything the author elevates the teen's stumbles into love, adventure, and heartbreak, into a grand vision of the American frontier.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Pretty_Horses_(novel)