I hate present first tense. It drives me nuts because I'm used to seeing things written in past tense and I'm constantly dragged out of the story because the tenses are just so jarring. Present tense works well in avant-garde kind of literature, but in most novels, you want to create an entertaining story for the reader without having them distracted by the language use. 

First tense annoys me generally unless done very well. I detest angsty characters in first person. Okay. I get it. You're a teenager/young adult with FEELINGS. I got that, I don't want to have to experience your feelings first hand. Presumably, I'm a human reader who should be able to understand what "angry", "sad", and "lovesick" means. I don't have to be privy to your every thought to know what an emotion feels like. Many young authors (by young I mean inexperienced) choose first person because their main characters are avatars for themselves. They write as if they are telling someone else a story of what happened to them. I don't mind stories of what happen to people as long as they don't take 150+ pages to tell. The authors aren't writing a novel, they're simply telling the world what happened to a specific character, which better suits an epilogue. In first person, explanations feel very odd, especially in present tense. Present first tense should sound like thoughts, but what person wakes up and thinks, "Here on the planet we all call Earth, humans have ten toes and generally live in houses. I have a mother, and she is fourty-three. One of my everyday chores is to walk my dog, Charlie,"? Additionally, in battle scenes and high stress scenes, a lot of characters have very coherent thoughts. Let's consider this realistically. Let's say a fireball flies out of nowhere and tries to hit you. Do you think:

A) What the heck- Run away!

or 

B) A fireball comes crashing out of the trees. I stare at the glittering orb of fire for a few seconds, then am jerked back into reality harshly as Charlie yanks his leash out of my slackened hand. I will my legs to run away from the airborn juggernaut.

My last complaint of the style is that if the narrator is only one person, and it is written in first-present, we all know that the character will be okay. They won't die, suffer such psychological trauma that they own't be able to think coherently, or otherwise stop narrating. It's boring. In the first Hunger Games, Katniss thinks, "Oh no, I might die!" but we have a hundred pages left. We know she won't die. I, for one, was very sad. I wanted that book to be over and if the heroine died as well, all the better.

I personally like a tense I don't know the name of. It appears to be a third person, but we know that there is actually a person telling us of events and they may mention themselves occasionally, but they're a very sligh character, if anything. The Series of Unfornuate Events is a good examply of that. 

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Spammy says fizz. A real word! 

I like both of them, sometimes. Hmm. 

Well, first on present tense. If you can do it, it can actually be really good, but my brain will sometimes translate present tense into past tense. When reading SAVING THABLEHAVEN, I noticed this happening several times. It was a good story, and I understand that Catherine Jinks was just being an experimentalist and all, but she writes better in the past tense.

So. On first vs third. I understand what Ruby is saying with the disadvantages of first, but there are some similar disadvatages for third. There are some places where you really can't replace a name with "I." Take James Patterson. I believe all of his books I've read have been in first person. I couldn't imagine I FUNNY in third person, maybe DANIEL X, but part of his style is the witty first person narration you get from his characters. Most of his stories revolve around one character, in return, but that's okay. If you tried to rewrite his books in third, or even second if you're the sort of person who likes doing that stuff, it won't be half as good. It will take away the life he's poured into the character.

There's an idea. First, second, and third narration are basically how you're putting life into your main character(s).

First: You have a large cup, filled anywhere from the middle to the top.

Second: You hand the reader the cup. They get to fill it.

Third: You have a medium sized cup, and a bunch of tiny ones, the medium one filled to the top, and the tiny ones filled depending on how much of that character is revealed.

It's just an idea.

I know that I will by default write in third, though I try to even out how much I write in both styles. 

Off-subject question: What sort of narration do you think other things (such as comics and movies) should be categorized under? Or should they not be categorized at all, being a different medium and all? 

I like both First and Third Person, although it depends on the writing itself. What annoys me about first person is the constant repeat of "I" (sometimes not but it happens quite a bit) and in Third Person I sometimes don't feel connected to the character(s) as much as in First. 

In writing, I find first person easier but at the same time I sometimes fall into the "I"-Trap. What I like in third person is that you can be a little more descriptive...

Re: Present Tense - If done well, I like Present Tense. It gives me the feeling that I'm standing right behind a tree and watching or something similar.

What do you think of second person? Something about it is sort of ... intriguing? I'd really like to write a book in second person sometime. In one of the last issues of Cicada there was a story in second person. It was very interesting to read.  

Many of the books I have read are in the third person, but many books are in first person, too. I like both, since when books are in first person, you can read what the character is thinking, but the bad part is, you can't really think about what other characters are thinking about. When a book is in third person, you can read about all of the characters' thoughts and feelings. Sometimes there is a case when the author is kind of narrating the story and uses "I" to share his/her own thoughts. I can't write stories in the first person, because I'm worried the character will sound way too much like me, writing from my own perspective like I'm writing in my diary. The character could be a completely different character than you, but when you're writing in first person for a character like that, the character could sound like you, or the character in the story that seems like a completely different person than he is. Some authors are very good at writing in the first person, though. So there are many pros and cons on this subject. 

What exactly is second person? I don't think I've ever read a book in second person before and don't exactly know how it works. Could you give me an example, please? Sorry...