Agreed. I can see everyone's points though, that if you screw it up it could look really bad and ruin the story.
But then if I listened to people saying what shouldn't be done with POV and tense I wouldn't now have Angus lol and I wouldn't be torturing Socrates right now. My writing would be a lot less fun to do. I quite like reading the second person I have read (don't ask me for titles lol can't remember) - for me the best one felt like a discussion with the reader and author it was great. However i like it when people give different a try.
As have people have noted in the thread, there are some good examples of second person POV being done well. Often, when I've heard people coming out against it in an absolute sense, it usually turns out that they haven't read much of it, or else they've heard from other writers that it is to be disdained and hope to appear knowledgeable by dismissing it. When you press the issue or try to talk about specific examples that work well, the subject matter is deflected or else you get *crickets*. That's been my experience over the course of a few in-person writing groups. I don't know whether it applies here or not because I don't know anyone here well enough. I put the absolute prohibition against second person on the list of things that writers like to say because they sound good, but really are meaningless without further scrutiny. Also on that list are "show don't tell," and "write what you know."
Also I think it can be difficult dealing with unfamiliar POVs - when I am immersed and writing first person I can't really take third person, past tense is a struggle when I am editing my work, as I keep editing it lol. Fine when I am not writing. To be honest when just reading I don't care much about the POV beyond whether it makes the story good. It is only since I started writing and I am been moving I have been giving my books a quick check. For someone who is mid thirties second person isn't that alien there are the Adventure Series which where absolutely huge when I was growing up, they were the first thing on the display stand in the bookshop or library. The ideas were used in some great TV Shows. And then having an old fashioned 48K Spectrum there are the RPGs like Bored of the Rings etc (didn't realise how filthy that was until I played it last year) - moving onto PC point and click games like Broken Sword and Myst they have second person 'feel' to them. I don't find it difficult to read but then to be honest I don't really care that much about the author when I read - I just care if I enjoy the reading. Even with something like Roald Dahl's Boy or Going Solo - the story was more important than him. I don't give them a second thought unless I enjoyed it and I am checking to find something else they wrote.
