bookshelves of doom

Use of The Glass Castle challenged...

...in a Michigan high school:

It never dawned on Heather Campbell that she'd one day work to get a book banned from a school's curriculum.

But Campbell found herself in just that position after she read Jeannette Walls' memoir "The Glass Castle," a book assigned to her freshman daughter over the summer as part of the 9th grade honors English course at Traverse City West Senior High School.

The complainants are now working to have the book removed from all but the 12th grade curriculum.

My Friend Dahmer -- Derf Backderf

Well, this was one of the more depressing books I've read this year.

My Friend Dahmer is an account of Jeffrey Dahmer's teen years—the years just before he began killing—written in comic book format by one of his high school classmates, Derf Backderf. As Backderf draws heavily from his own recollections of and interactions with Dahmer, it works, in part, as a memoir, but he also spoke with former classmates and did a huge amount of research—there are pages and pages of notes at the end* in which he lists all of the various places (books, news reports, interviews) he pulled details from—so it works as a work of nonfiction as well.

That was probably a more long-winded explanation than you needed, but I always find it annoying that "graphic novel" is used as a catch-all term for the format, even in the instances in which the book in question isn't a novel. Anyway.

It's an outstanding book. The story isn't sensationalized, and there's no exploitation of Dahmer or his victims. It's a sad story about a tormented person set during a weird time in an everyday place. Backderf's inclusion of scenes featuring his own family and friends serve as a striking parallel to Dahmer's experience at home and at school, and in addition to the partial biography of Dahmer, the book also serves as a very specific portrait of a small Ohio town in the 1970s.

There's a big difference between searching for the reasons behind something—trying to understand—and making excuses. This book falls firmly in the former category. Backderf stresses in his introduction that he doesn't sympathize for Dahmer-the-monster, but that he has pity for Dahmer-the-lonely-kid. And that comes through: he successfully separates the pre-killings Dahmer from the post-killings Dahmer, and he makes it really easy to feel for the pre-killings Dahmer. In My Friend Dahmer, he's a kid with no one to turn to—if adults didn't even notice his rampant alcoholism, it's hard to imagine him turning to any of them for help—struggling against violent, ugly urges that he knows are wrong.

Ultimately, he gives into them, and we all know where the story goes from there.

Blerg. I need recommendations for a happy book, please.

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*Which are easily as interesting as the rest of the book.

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Author page.

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Amazon.

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Book source: ILL through my library.

Jack Gantos on Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me.

From the interview:

GANTOS: And so, at any rate, so I go to court. I dress up. I look nice. And the judge, you know, asked me if I have anything to say for myself. I go, I'm guilty, Your Honor, but I'm a very nice boy.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

GANTOS: And he looks at me and he says "nice boys don't smuggle dope." And I was, like, oh, you got me there, Judge.

How'd you do on the quiz? I was 2/3. (Without guessing! I knew the answers! I don't know what that says about my brain, but there you go.)

If you haven't read Hole in My Life, you really should.

Ditto Love Curse of the Rumbaughs, though I do fully understand that it won't be to everyone's taste...

And before anyone asks, Dead End in Norvelt is near the top of my TBR pile. I SWEAR.

A sampling of quotes from...

...Hilary Duff's new novel (it sounds AWESOME*), as well as a list of Bieber-isms that are so vomitrocious that they left me hoping the teen heartthrobs from my childhood weren't quite so saccharine.

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*In case you weren't sure, that was sarcasm. The quotes are actually amazingly (though not shockingly) gag-tastic.

A few bits and bobs before work.

• Tony's Blair's memoir is the first nonfiction book to be nominated for the Bad Sex Award. Which is only given to works of fiction, so it's a double insult from the Literary Review. Wowza. (Should I start mentioning that to all of the patrons who are waiting for it? Hmm.)
• Casting for The Hunger Games movie isn't the only one to keep an eye on  -- City of Bones is in the works, too!
• Speaking of The Hunger Games movie, here's another post about casting and skin color -- but this one focuses on Rue.
• As I've got Lois Duncan on the brain, I was excited to see this month's giveaway at YA Books Central.
• James Franco's book is about teenagers.
• Have you seen The Tempest trailer?:
  
   

Briefly surfacing from my Cybils reading to say...

...that my BACA membership may need to be revoked, because I kind of want to read the Harry Hamlin memoir.

Okay, more than kind of.

Also? The Lisa Rinna novel.

I'm not proud, but there it is.

How to get in good with the YA crowd...

...or not.

From Tom Grimes' memoir:

"I began to consider the implications of having a book marketed as a baseball novel published by Disney. I imagined serious reviewers tossing it into a bin reserved for young adult novels, all of which ended with a World Series winning home run that completed the fairy tale season of a team of plucky underdogs."

Weirdest tagline ever?

Josh is re-reading All Creatures Great And Small, and as I was wandering by this afternoon, I noticed this bit on the back cover:

If Jonathan Livingston Seagull needed a doctor, James Herriot would be the one he'd choose...

Just... WHAT??

Your dreams are about to come true, world!

Lindsay Lohan is writing a memoir.

Things that drive me bananas, #43.

People who use the term "graphic novel" as a catch-all term for any book in comic format, EVEN IF IT'S A MEMOIR.

According to the Wikipedia page, it can be used in that way, but I protest.  Strongly.  On the grounds that IT MAKES NO SENSE.

Ooo! Ooo! Look!

Salon lurrrves Hannah Friedman's Everything Sucks!

Want to know how to tell that they really, really love it?  That it's really super fantastic?

Because it's not like THAT OTHER YA:

Not only is Friedman's writing striking for its blunt, unromantic realism; her prose also displays a self-aware wit that is all too rare in the genre.

Her refusal to moralize or provide an easy resolution sets "Everything Sucks" apart from YA literature's preponderance of breezy, formulaic narratives.

Because a memoir marketed to YAs is exactly the same thing as a series novel marketed to YAs, or a SF novel marketed to YAs, or a historical fiction novel marketed to YAs, or a thriller marketed to YAs, or a romance marketed to YAs, or literary fiction marketed to YAs. 

I mean, heck, that's how we look at books marketed to adults, right?  When talking about whatever new memoir is taking the adult literary world by storm, it would be totally acceptable to say it was better than the majority of adult literature by comparing it to books by James Patterson, right?  Because not only does it make sense to compare a memoir to series fiction, it totally makes sense to take potshots at popular fiction while we're at it?

I am so over this garbage. 

(link via LizB who got it via Omnivoracious)

Gag.

If the fat sandwich didn't do you in, you should go and read* Justine Larbalestier's hella-disgusting (and hilarious) first kiss story.

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*Or re-read, if you've already read First Kiss, Then Tell.

Because if it works once*, it'll work thirteen more times.

From PW:

HarperCollins Children’s Books has acquired world rights to 13 children’s books featuring the Labrador John Grogan wrote about in his bestselling memoir, Marley & Me.

I'm sorry, but gag me.

And also, BO-RING.

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*My mistake.  Apparently, there are already two Marley picture books in addition to the middle grade adaptation of the adult memoir.

Maybe you could publish it here, Mr. Burgess.

From the Guardian:

"I'm always getting asked 'is this you in this book?'" said Burgess, "so I thought I'd say what I'd done. It was also a good way of looking at what it's like being a teenager. I did it, it was finished, and my publisher at Andersen Press was happy with it. Memoirs don't sell as well as fiction, but it was all sorted, but then they had it read for libel."

Well, I want to read it.  So I hope it works out, and I hope it works out so he can publish it as an actual memoir, rather than fiction.

Peter Sis on The Wall.

From PW:

And what was it like rediscovering some of your boyhood books?

It was interesting to see them again. I know some people recall growing up with The Little Prince, but some of the books I read as a child were awful. It was hard to get books at all, and many that we could get were of dubious quality. But still they would speak to me and I knew it was special to have any books at all. Looking at them again they preserved that moment in time for me, the same way as songs from the 1960s do. They help me to recall so many emotions, and so much upheaval.

I am THERE.  I hope my library gets a copy soon.