This* is why we love her:
Some YA books are shit. Some are brilliant. Some bore me. Some should never have been published. Some make me happy in a slightly guilty way. Some are the best thing I’ve ever read. Some really really aren’t. Some are simple. Some are complex. And some of them really piss me off.
Pretty much like adult books really.
*And because of her books, of course. Go read them.
Yeah, okay, it's not very exciting. I just thought it was funny because it made the news.
Another one here.
Odd cover art. I don't remember any of the differently biotic girls being a cheerleader -- one of the boys goes out for football, but... well, that's probably just me being too literal minded. It's eye-catching, regardless, and I like how it wraps around.
Throughout the United States, the dead aren't staying dead. It's only a recent phenomenon, it only happens to teens, it only (so far) has happened in the U.S., and it doesn't happen to every teen who dies. There is, so far, no explanation. The politically correct terms are "living impaired" and "differently biotic". The less sensitive throw around words like "corpsicle" and (of course) "zombie".
Phoebe realizes that her goth look has taken on a whole new meaning, but she likes it and she's stuck with it. At her high school, Tommy Williams, a living impaired student, goes out for the football team. Phoebe finds herself fascinated by him, maybe even attracted to him. Her best friend, football player and karate student Adam, is secretly in love with her, and he'll do what he can to make her happy -- including support her in this new friendship-that-may-become-more. But not everyone feels the same way.
Generation Dead has a really fun premise. I mean, c'mon -- ZOMBIES IN HIGH SCHOOL! But while I loved the idea behind it, the book itself didn't really work for me. The story felt (this is going to sound weird, because, HELLO, ZOMBIES IN HIGH SCHOOL) flat and long.
There were brief moments when I felt the characters become real people -- the scene between Karen and Pete in the woods is the one that immediately comes to mind, because in that moment I suddenly realized how she had died, though the author didn't let me know for sure until quite a bit later -- but for the most part, not so much. I felt very little chemistry between the characters (except between, oddly, Tommy Williams and Pete, the (possibly literally) psychotic football player and between Adam and Karen), and I was told again and again that Adam was in love with Phoebe but I never felt it. It's interesting that the most successful, believable interactions in the book were between the living impaired and the living.
Of course, the differently biotic kids can easily be read as a metaphor for any minority group. It's a story about prejudice, about breaking boundaries and about pretty much any sort of -ism you care to mention. I do think that will appeal to a lot of readers. To me, it felt obvious and a little preachy. I appreciated the attempt to show different kinds of and reasons for prejudice, but because the characters never felt real to me, they all felt like representations of different views rather than, you know, people. Overall, lots of it was very clever -- the Skip Slydell Transforming The Culture Through Commercialism scene was especially good -- but I didn't feel much heart.
The most interesting storyline in the book (to me) was the one surrounding the (very possibly sketchy) Hunter Foundation, but there were only hints. That makes me suspect that there may be a sequel in the works. I also wouldn't be surprised to see it get turned into a movie. I'll be interested to see how this one goes over. While it wasn't my cuppa, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it gain a decent following -- it's had decent reviews elsewhere and at the moment, there are three 5-star ratings at Amazon.
1949. A murder occurs at a weekend house party. Sounds like an Agatha Christie novel, right?
Wrong. This isn't the 1949 we're familiar with -- the people at the house party belong to the 'Farthing set', the political group that overthrew Churchill in 1941 and made peace with Hitler. When a prominent member of the set is found murdered, a dagger pinning a yellow star to his chest, suspicion immediately falls on the one Jewish man at the party.
From the very beginning, it's clear that David Kahn is being framed. Well, it's clear to David, of course; to Lucy, his wife (who is the daughter of two members of the Farthing set); and it's clear to Inspector Carmichael. But whether or not anyone can prove his innocence is questionable, because of the anti-Jewish sentiment in England and because the murder may have more far-reaching political implications than any of our heroes imagine...
As I said on Monday, I loved Farthing. I believed in (and adored) Lucy from her very first two sentences. This bit is from the end of the first chapter:
But anyway, when I heard that Sir James Thirkie had been murdered, that's the first thing I thought of, Angela Thirkie being mean to David the afternoon before, and I'm afraid the first thing to go through my mind, although fortunately I managed to catch the train before it got out of the tunnel that time so I didn't say so, was that it well and truly served her right.
You can hear her, right? I hope so.
Lucy narrates the odd-numbered chapters, while the even-numbered chapters follow Inspector Carmichael. I loved it that I was able to follow the investigation and larger political situation from both viewpoints -- that I knew the bits that Lucy knew that Inspector Carmichael didn't and vice-versa -- but that I was still surprised again and again. And I loved how the book began as a simple murder mystery but evolved into something much more. I'm so very much looking forward to the sequel -- and then, to the third book!
Okay. I'm not going to go on and on. I loved it, the end. Just know that there's a blurb from Ursula K. Le Guin on the front cover and that the author thanks Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey and Peter Dickinson in the Acknowledgments. How could you possibly go wrong?
I just realized that one of the baddies, James, is played by Cam Gigandet, who played Volchok on The O.C. Whee! He's definitely a character I loved to hate, though I didn't hold that whole killing Marissa thing against him because she, you know, sucked.
I can't believe I hadn't seen this one:
(via the SBs)
It is April 1837, and 17-year-old twins Persephone and Penelope Leland are preparing for their debut into society. Pen is very much looking forward to the balls, the gossip, the flirting and the CLOTHES. Persy, who is much more shy and studious, is not. She's terrified that she'll make a fool of herself, and newly discovered feelings about a childhood playmate only make her more nervous.
If it were up to her, Persy would much rather be a teacher like their beloved governess, Ally. But that isn't what viscounts' daughters do.
Off they go to London. But once there, Ally disappears. The girls know that she's been kidnapped, but they can't tell their parents -- if they did, they'd be forced to reveal the truth: That they are witches, and that for the last ten years, Ally has secretly taught them to use and control their magic. But magical talent is not something to be advertised -- the last execution for witchcraft occurred less than a hundred years ago. So the girls have to prepare for their presentation at court, survive the season, conduct a secret investigation into Ally's disappearance AND, hopefully, rescue her.
My favorite line:
Lucky Pen, to have been able to sit with an acquaintance on her first foray into society, while she'd had to sit with the Giant Yellow Brocaded Sausage.
Bewitching Season has romance, intrigue, humor and magic -- and pretty much everything else the cover and description suggest. It's light, fun, and requires no work on the part of the reader. There weren't really any surprises, but sometimes that works. In this case, I felt it did -- for me, it turned out to be a nice little comfort read.
A good pick for young fans of the Sorcery and Cecelia series, though the language in that series was richer and the characters had much more depth. While the loose ends are tied up at the end, the author has certainly left room for a sequel -- and I will definitely welcome it.
The Stork Didn't Bring You: Obviously, it's dated -- the girls' vocabulary section has entries like 'Obstetrician' and 'Gynecologist', while there's one in the boys' section on Prostitutes ("Also called harlot, whore, or trollop.") and the author explains that homosexuality can be "corrected" by hormone injections and/or counseling -- but her attitude towards sex ed in general, as seen in the Introductory Word, is pretty wonderful.
AND it must be noted that she was super-hip -- as she says to the reader, "this is cold turkey in your own language".
(via Bookslut)
To the complete jackass who marked up the Portland Public Library's copy of Jo Walton's Farthing:
In a way, I understand. Typos irritate me too. And some of the typos you corrected were, indeed, genuine typos.
Others, though, not so much. Constantly correcting Lucy's grammar was an especially annoying move (Criminy, her chapters were in the first person, are you seriously unable to give the author some room for artistic expression? Does Lucy really seem like someone who'd concern herself with who vs. whom or run-on sentences?), but that was nothing to your habit of crossing out the names of historical figures and replacing them with the "correct" ones.
WHAT PART OF 'ALTERNATE HISTORY' DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND, YOU DOUCHE?
As I said, typos irritate me. But your pencil marks are far, far more offensive. Next time you feel the need to edit, return the book to the library, head over to a bookstore and buy your own copy.
To anyone who is wondering: I loved the book and I'll write more about it later. I'm going to ILL the second one today and just hope that the wannabe editor hasn't attacked that one yet.
Make sure to watch the whole thing.
The city of Ondinium, capital of Yeovil, is a strictly socially stratified city. The exalteds, the cardinals and the plebians rarely mix, and the lictors are always around to "prevent indiscriminate mixing of castes". As an icarus, Taya is one of the few citizens who has the freedom to cross caste lines on a regular basis -- the icarii deliver messages to everyone.
On the morning of her sister's wedding, she rescues two exalteds from a wireferry accident. Her heroics lead her to mystery and adventure involving terrorists, political intrigue, murder and romance.
The mystery itself wasn't a tough one to figure out. I had the baddie identified from the first introduction of the character. That didn't detract from my enjoyment, though (which is odd, as that's usually a huge pet peeve of mine), because I had so much fun trying to puzzle the clues given and my gut instinct into a more detailed theory about Why and How and so on.
The other odd reaction I had to Clockwork Heart was that even though I never got particularly attached to or invested in the characters, that didn't detract from my enjoyment either. Usually a lack of connection with the characters is a huge problem for me -- here, not so much.
I think I was able to get past both of those issues so easily because of the world building, which was, hands down, my favorite aspect of the book. Dru Pagliassotti dropped me right into (well, technically above -- Taya is flying when the book begins) Ondinium and let me get acquainted with the world as I read. As the book progressed, the world got bigger and bigger, the technology became more and more interesting, the politics got increasingly more complex, and my perspective was constantly affected by snippets about the history of the world and by the different opinions of the characters. The interactions between different castes had me fascinated and I'm very curious about the world outside Ondinium.
I really hope there will be more books set in this world, whether they are a continuation of Taya's story or about completely different characters.
A genius, I tell you!
"Patterson himself came up with the tagline “for readers age 10 to 110,” which is now featured on the books' covers."
I am SO impressed! However did he come up with something SO BRILLIANT?
Bah.
I'm still in shock, and I've only watched the first one so far.
Isabella Rossellini = Most Awesomely Strange Lady Ever.
(Thanks to Adam for telling me about this. I think. And also thanks to Adam for helping me shift the shelves at work yesterday. YAR! Down with VHS!!)
[Later: Oh, my. I just watched the Bee Video. I had no idea that that's what happened when bees mate. YIKES.]
Actually, you know what? Strike that. Prince can do whatever the hell he wants.
(Via Bookninja)
Huh. I don't know. It looks kind of... not very good. But I guess we'll see, right?
Surprise, surprise, Tango is at the top of the list. Again.
This is the first time I've seen The Golden Compass on the list. I'm annoyed about this:
Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass," an anti-religious work in which a former nun says: "The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake."
Dr. Mary Malone said that in The Amber Spyglass. She's not even in The Golden Compass. Get it right, dudes.
My apologies if everyone's already seen this. It was new to me.
(via interactivereader)
I've been busier than usual lately, so I've been (surprise, surprise) missing stuff left and right.
That boingboing post about YA led to a whole bunch more, including one at John Scalzi's blog. This bit made me cheer:
I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again: The most significant SF writer right now is Scott Westerfeld, whom it seems most adult science fiction fans still have not read and indeed barely know exists. In a sane world, Westerfeld would be a hero to adult science fiction readers, because he’s pretty much single-handedly flown the flag for science fiction to teenagers, thus saving the genre’s bacon for another 20 years. But: He’s YA. So he doesn’t count.
It was the bit about Scott Westerfeld saving the genre's bacon that made me cheer, of course, not the bit about him being YA and therefore not counting.
(via Omnibus, where, at the bottom of the post, you'll find more related links.)
And I've been thinking about the Alexie comments (also mentioned at Omnibus), and I've gotta say, I really don't read them as condescending.
• From a profile of Sherman Alexie at the Guardian:
Stephen King's Carrie (1974), about a high-school misfit with telekinetic powers, revealed to him the "eventual power of being an outsider: that which makes you a freak when you're 12 makes you magical when you're 24".
• I've been meaning to post a link to this for a while, so you've probably already seen it: Con artists pretending to be authors scamming money off of bookstore employees. Because bookstore employees make soooo much money?
• Plagiarism: The Lighter Side.
• Seconded.
• That's all for now, as I ripped my thumbnail in half (horizontally) yesterday and I'm, like, DYING. More later if I survive.
