bookshelves of doom

Lunchtime links.

• Stephen and Tabitha King are paying to transport 150 Maine National Guardsmen home from Indiana for the holidays.
• Reading Rants! presents: 10 Most Underappreciated Teen Books of 2000-2009.  Thoughts?  Additions?  I might have to go wander the stacks for this one.
• 11 Cool Bookcases.  Some of these are new to me, some I've seen before -- unfortunately, it looks like most of the designers favor form over function. 
• Natalie Portman will star in and produce the PPZ adaptation.  Well, we'll see how it goes.  My hopes are not particularly high.  (Granted, it's mostly Star Wars that I'm holding against her.  Which isn't really very fair, as she is certainly not solely responsible.  But, as my co-worker said, it's a LOT to get over.)
• Holiday cheer, Twin Peaks style (via Brian):

Same Difference -- Siobhan Vivian

Emily has spent her the entirety of her privileged life in the same affluent, safe suburb.  Now, at age sixteen, she will do something different. 

Rather than spend another summer lazing by the pool with her best friend, she'll attend an art program in Philadelphia.  For a few days a week, she will be on her own in the city, surrounded by strangers, free to be someone else -- or is it her real self? -- in a way that she's never been before.

This is my first Siobhan Vivian (after finishing it, I went through boxes until I unearthed her first book, which is now at the top of my Post Cybils Pile), and more than anyone else, she reminded me of Cecil Castellucci.  There's something similar in her style (at least in Same Difference) -- Emily doesn't really know herself (or other people), and she doesn't know that she doesn't know.  She isn't prone to Big Emotional Outbursts (even in her own head).  But, through her description of her interactions and her experiences, I was able to see and feel what was going on under the surface -- even when she wasn't aware of (or refused to see) -- it. 

She's an interesting, very real sort of person, and she's full of contradictions.  She comes back from Philly, expecting people to suddenly Take Her Art Seriously, and when they act the way they've always acted, she writes them off as immature and obnoxious and close-minded.  But, without realizing it, she herself is hugely arrogant and close-minded:

"Well, you come from creative parents, too," Mom says.  "So don't sell yourself short.  Your father has to be extremely creative in his job."

"He's a salesman, Mom."  I shake my head.  "Sales is not creative."

"Hey," Dad whines.

"Theater is art," Mom says.  She takes the wine that Mr. Mundy offers her and clinks her fork against her glass like she's made some incredible point.  "Every property requires a new performance."

How could she think that's even close to the same thing?  "Dad's not on Broadway.  He's selling office space to companies."  I take my food back to my lounge chair.

"I agree with your mom," Meg says, joining me.  She starts cutting her lettuce.  I don't know anyone else who cuts their lettuce.  "Rich works a 'typical' job, but he's very creative."

I laugh.  I can't help it.

At first, she doesn't see that in trying to Become An Artist in the way that many of her new classmates Are Artists, she's just trying to hop from one box to another -- rather than what she supposedly wants, which is to be Free From The Boxes.  She's got a lot to learn.

I did find the romance somewhat problematic.  I didn't really find her a very sympathetic character -- I understood her rather than LIKED her -- so it was hard for me to understand someone liking her enough to think romance.  But that's my only real complaint, and that's probably a pretty personal reaction.  Overall, I thought it was an excellent portrayal of someone trying her damnedest to be herself, even though she hasn't realized that she doesn't really know what or who "herself" is. 

Looking back over this, I've realized that as I focused so much on the character-study aspect of the book, I didn't mention that Same Difference is also an excellent, mostly quiet and restrained, look at how friendships change.  And at how friendships can be salvaged.

Thumbs up.  It was just... good.

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Book source/other info:  Review copy from the publisher; Cybils nominee.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.

A few links.

• Dan Humphrey's Top Ten Books of the Year includes Bennett Madison's The Blonde of the Joke.  (It's actually the only YA book on the list, and I rather like the idea of Dan reading it.)  I would love to see this idea -- television characters picking their Best Of lists -- become a trend.  Way more interesting than the NYTimes Best Ofs, at any rate -- and you know that Dwight Schrute's list would be made of awesome.  (via @bennettmadison)
• According to Angiegirl at Angieville, Holly Black's upcoming book "is about a boy named Cassel and takes place in a private boarding school, features a family of grifters, and is about curse magic. Oh, and a white cat. And is a fairy tale retelling."  Well, then.  I'm so there.
• While I was one of the, like, three people on the planet who didn't fall in love with Wake and Fade, I think it's excellent that Lisa McMann has scored a four-book deal -- I have a whole lot of YA patrons who'll be totally jazzed to hear that news.
• GAH!!  And also YECCH!!!  (via Maud Newton)
• Usually I'm seriously not cool with the idea of writing sequels to classics.  But, you know.  It's Hilary McKay.  She's allowed to do anything.

YA Through the Decades.

You know, I try my damnedest to NOT sign up for reading challenges. 

I know that I have the tendency to get super-excited about things and then lose interest when I notice something shiny.

But this one may have to be yet another exception -- because, YAY.

However.  I am going to be good and not commit myself until after The Big Read V.

I am so adult and mature and responsible.

How It Ends -- Laura Wiess

15-year-old Hanna wants Seth, and she wants him above all things.  He always seems to have a girlfriend, but she hopes that sooner or later, his eye will fall on her.

Being so preoccupied with her heartache, she hasn't been spending much time with her adopted grandparents.  Who aren't getting any younger.  And who have dealt with -- and are still dealing with -- their own head and heartaches.  Grandma Helen, especially, knows that there are things she needs to tell Hanna, and she needs to do it while she still can.

How It Ends is made up of Hanna and Helen's alternating narratives, as well as a transcription of the audiobook they listen to together.  It's a coming of age story and a romance -- multiple romances, really -- a story about family, about aging, loss, death and dying, about obsessive love, and about strength, hardship and about how the connections we make with other people can carry us through fire*.  With, you know, bonus Gothic elements.

It's one that won't be for everyone -- many adult readers, especially, will have a hard time with Hanna's bad choices and inability to see much of anything beyond her own situation, and some might feel that the beginning of the book is slow-going -- but it'll hit some people hard.

Like me.

Hoo boy.  I haven't cried so hard since I read The Subtle Knife.  We're not talking Book Thief tears pouring down the face.  We're talking red-faced-mouth-open-can't-breathe-no-holds-barred crying so hard that I was worried Mrs. Across The Street would hear me and come nosing around because she was "concerned". 

I do think that my response was, in part, intensely personal:  How It Ends deals with some of my greatest fears, and there are many parallels between Helen's lifestyle and my own.  So it resonated.  But setting my personal reaction aside, I think it's an extremely strong book on its own -- Hanna's behavior, while maddening to those of us with more life experience, is quite realistic, and the slow beginning is necessary to allow the reader to actually get to know and care about the characters BEFORE the big payoff.

It's one, I think, that could benefit from cross-promoting -- definitely, definitely a good pick for adult readers of the YA.

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*Sorry if I got a little overly dramatic there.  I'm still fighting back tears about this one (even though I finished it days ago), and also we re-watched Babylon 5 recently, so I currently have Jeff Conaway's voice on loop in my head:  "It was the YEAR of fire..."  Plus, you know Delenn or Sheridan probably said something or other about carrying one another through fire.  I mean, it SOUNDS like something one of them would say.  Okay.  I've distracted myself away from another crying jag.  Back to it.

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Book source/other info:  Review copy from the publisher; Cybils nominee.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.

Melissa Marr has released an excerpt of Radiant Shadows!

The prologue and Chapter One!  Free!  At her blog!

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Previously:

Wicked Lovely
Ink Exchange
Fragile Eternity

The Blonde of the Joke -- Bennett Madison

Val Martinez sits in the back of the classroom, she doesn't make eye contact with people, she doesn't talk back to teachers, she doesn't talk, period.  She's pretty much invisible.

So she's understandably surprised when Francie Knight decides that they're going to be friends:

Francie was that kind of girl.  You know the type I'm talking about.  Blonde.  Big boobs.  Total slut.  The kind of girl who doesn't need a name.  It's always the blonde, isn't it?  I guess certain things will turn your hair gold.  Francie's hair was hell-of-gold.

As for me:  my hair was brown like something you looked for and looked for and couldn't find until your mom told you to check under your bed, and then there it was, crumpled in a dusty corner where you couldn't reach it.

Francie teaches Val the ins-and-outs of shoplifting, and together, the two of them set out to claim the entire world for themselves:  one tube of liquid eyeliner at a time.  In a voice both hard-boiled and innocent (I know that sounds strange, but she is), Val narrates a story about the rise and fall of friendship, about secrets hidden in suburbia, about being lost, about finding magic in the world and in yourself, about quests and belief and trust, and about becoming who you are, even if you aren't exactly sure what that means.

At least, I think that was what it was about.  The Blonde of the Joke felt like two books in one.  The first half chronicles the relationship between the girls as well as Val's re-creation and re-invention of herself, while the second half isn't quite as easy to describe.  Fittingly, considering the happenings and tone of the second half of the book, the turning point came with Francie and Val's viewing of Blue Velvet:

After the turning point, Val and Francie's story gets stranger and stranger, but I found it no less engrossing -- even though, by the end, I still didn't have answers to a whole lot of questions, and I'm pretty sure that Val didn't, either.  But then, who has all of the answers? 

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Book source/other info:  Review copy from the publisher; Cybils nominee; read for the RRRead-a-thon.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.  Why?  Dude.  Because in the future, I need to pay someone to entertain Josh while I participate in a read-a-thons.  He's extremely distracting!

This is What I Want to Tell You -- Heather Duffy Stone

Best friends Noelle and Keeley have been inseparable for practically forever.  While they were always two, they were often three:  Noelle's twin brother, Nadio, was the third in their trio.

But after Kelley returns from a summer in England -- the first time that she and Noelle have been away from each other for more than a few days -- everything is different. 

In alternating voices, Noelle and Nadio tell a story about: the end a friendship that had seemed unbreakable, about the beginning of a romance that crept up on everyone, about quiet estrangement, about secrets and lies, pain and first love, about what family is and about how who we are shifts and changes, again and again and again.

From This is What I Want to Tell You:

Noelle: 

I can't tell you exactly what happened, but I can tell you part of it.

My part.

I once read that you should always write about what you know, that what you know will tell the best story.  What I know now is that the stories people tell are always about our insecurities, about the things we left behind, and about the things we wish we could do again.  The real story isn't about what you know; it's about what you wish you knew then.

Nadio:

It is hard to picture what last summer felt like.  I know I was someone else then and I probably couldn't have imagined who I'd become--who we'd all become--but now that I know, part of me wants to remind myself what it was like before.  I told Noelle about the way I'd written to our father, on invisible pages but with permanent ink.  We need to do that, she said, we need to tell this story, even if the pages are invisible.

I started reading this one and it just... grabbed hold of me.  I read from the first page to the last and I didn't put it down once.  Nadio and Noelle have voices that are distinct -- I never mistook one for the other even though the author used the same style (very spare on the punctuation, no quotation marks) throughout -- but also similar.  They echo and complement each other, in realization and experience.  And although we never get to see the world through Keeley's eyes, her emotions and experiences are a slightly-not-parallel version of Noelle's.

I saw a review that called this book 'melodramatic', which I really don't agree with -- while there are events that could have come off that way, I felt that the writing was so strong and the characters were so real that it never veered in that direction.  Many times, I knew what mistakes the characters were making -- mistakes that I've seen characters make a million times before -- but I never felt even remotely frustrated with them or with the book.  Maybe because I really believed in them, believed that they were all figuring these things out for the first time. 

What more can I say?  Something -- a lot of things -- in this book resonated with me.  And I don't think I'll be alone in that.

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Book source/other info:  Review copy from the publisher; Cybils nominee; read for the RRRead-a-thon.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.  Why?  So I can build an arena in which to hold an Epic Battle between RPattz' hair and Taylor Lautner's abs.  And you're invited.

Read. Read. Read-a-thon!

I've decided (at the very last minute) to jump in on today's 24-hour Read-a-thon.

I figure it'll give me a good excuse to get some of my Cybils reading done.  It has nothing to do with just, you know, wanting to read all day or anything.  I swear.

Anyway, onward!  I shall begin at 9AM, which, according to my computer, is in seven minutes, and periodically, I'll post reading responses and whatnot.

So here I am, next to the wood stove with a cup of tea and a pile of books.  According to my husband the weather fanatic, we might actually get snow today, which would make for the coziest day EVER.  (As long as, you know, I stay inside.)

[ETA:  Rather than writing lots of separate posts, I'm going to compile all of the read-a-thon activities here.]

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Books read:

This is What I Want to Tell You, by Heather Duffy Stone
The Blonde of the Joke, by Bennett Madison

My stats:

Hours reading:  5.5
Hours writing/socializing:  4

Due to my inability to remain undistracted by my husband (who, it must be said, put forth an AMAZING effort), those are my final, completely pathetic, stats.  I'd like to say I'll do better next time, but unless he'll be away for the weekend, I'm not making any promises.

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Breaktime Shindig #1 (courtesy of I Heart Monster):

Sarah has two (new to her) very beautiful cats.  Who may or may not be aliens.  Also, she herself is lovely in real life.

The title of Ash's blog -- English Major's Junk Food -- made me laugh out loud.

BrownGirl BookSpeak is new to me, but I'll be keeping an eye on her from now on -- her writing voice is understatedly hilarious.

I've always loved the header over at Biblio File, but I've never mentioned it.  So here I am, mentioning it.

Sasha has books lingering on her Currently Reading list, and she's actually going to DO something about it!  I am inspired.

I need more books on my TBR list Iike I need a hole in the head...

Second half of the sentence #1:  ...SO I'm glad to see that I've already read most of these recommendations, including Sunshine, His Majesty's Dragon, the Earthsea books and Eon: Dragoneye Reborn.  I read a good number of the Pern books back in middle school, but the only part of that series I've been interested in revisiting is the Harper Hall trilogy.  I'm sad that she didn't mention Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, though.

Second half of the sentence #2:  ...BUT what's one more?  After all, it's free.  And a whole pile of people have recommended that I read Charlie Huston.

Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have -- Allen Zadoff

15-year-old Andrew Zansky is the second-fattest guy in the sophomore class.  Tenth grade begins pretty much the same way as ninth:  ten minutes in, he's already been harassed by Ugo the Bully and cheated on his diet.  It looks like this year will involve lots of hanging out with his best friend, Eytan, and the other kids in the Model UN.  Just like last year.

This year, at least he has April -- the gorgeous girl he met at a function his mother was catering -- to fantasize about.  Why not, right?  It's not like he's ever going to see her again. 

Wrong. 

Not that it really matters -- it isn't like Andy has a chance, or that he will ever make a move. 

But.  O. Douglas, star quarterback, golden boy and dreamboat, has suddenly shown some serious interest in Andy Zansky.  And Andy finds himself pulled into a world where getting the girl just might be possible.

I really enjoyed Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have.  I loved Andy's voice, which was funny and confessional (And after noting that the author has the same initials, I wondered just how confessional it was!), self-depricating and genuine, fresh-to-the-ear but familiar-to-the-psyche:

There's a lot of fat in our family, but there's some thin, too.  Dad is thin and athletic, and my sister Jessica is super skinny.  She's also a super bitch, so there's clearly no correlation between being skinny and being nice, at least in her case.

That's my family.  Some of us are fat, some are thin.

It may be true that we have a glandular problem, but if so, it's extremely selective.

The storyline kept me wondering -- with so many people suddenly being so nice to Andy, I kept waiting for the situation to change, for the Big Reveal, for the twist.  Because, after all, it's hard to imagine a world in which a Big (literally) Nobody gets scooped up by the most popular group in school, no strings attached.  Don't get me wrong: it's always refreshing to read about football players and cheerleaders who AREN'T Satan's Spawn.  But I reserved judgement for quite a long time -- because I cared about Andy, and I didn't want him to get hurt.  Emotionally OR physically.

I'll let you find out for yourself about whether or not there is a twist.  Just know that this is a good one.  It's about friendship, trust, branching out, finding out who you are and what you enjoy, about learning to see.  In some ways, sure, it's a story that's been told before.  But the characters are real, right down to the minor ones, and Andy's voice -- and the emotions under his voice -- ring true.  Thumbs up. 

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Crossposted at Guys Lit Wire.

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Book source:  Review copy from the publisher; Cybils nominee.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.  Why, you ask?  Well, gosh.  Tomato sandwiches aren't free, you know.  Especially in December.

Oh, and I forgot to mention...

...now that Issue #2 of TBRT is printed and shipping, I'm now taking submissions for next June!

Which, considering today's 70° day, doesn't seem so very far away.

The 2009 William C. Morris Debut YA Author finalists are:

Ash, by Malinda Lo

Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

The Everafter, by Amy Huntley

Flash Burnout, by L. K. Madigan

Hold Still, by Nina LaCour

I've read a whopping... none of them.  Yeesh.  Man, my reading has been so very down this year.

More info at the ALA's WCMDYAA page.

Another New Moon parody...

...that made me laugh so hard that I felt physically ill.

(And that's a good thing.)

Chuck Bass = Heathcliff.

Wow, so not only has the Twilight saga made the Brontë books super-popular among the Twihard set*, but now there are at least three movies in the works.

Chuck Bass as Heathcliff, though.  Oh, god.  Does this mean I'll actually GO to the Wuthering Heights movie?

Probably.  And I'll probably find his assiness likable.

I have no shame.

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*Which is, you know, great, except that many of them probably think Heathcliff is a dreamypants dreamboat who looks just like Robert Pattinson's hair, when in actuality, BLECCH WITH A DOUBLE TOPPING OF BLECCCCCH.  Which makes me wonder -- would they swoon over stupid Maxim de Winter, too?  YUCK.  YUUUUUUUCK.

**This footnote isn't actually attached to anything.  Just wanted to share:  Yesterday, I displayed Look For Me By Moonlight on the front desk with a card in it that read, "An antidote to Twilight".  So far, every patron's response has been, "'An antidote to Twilight?'  Why would you need one?"  But I know that someone understanding will come along.  Eventually.

Haven't seen New Moon yet?

Now you don't have to bother.

Whew.  I'm in pain from all of the laughing.

Twilight/NewMoon and the National Domestic Violence Hotline's Am I Being Abused? questionnaire.

While I think that this blogger did a bit of reaching on some of the questions, there were enough easily answered with a big fat YES to creep me right the hell out.

I mean, yeah.  It's pretty apparent even without the list, but somehow the checkmarks make it that much more yicky.

On the hilarious side of things, there's the first two paragraphs of this AV Club review.

Now taking orders for TBR Tallboy #2.

TBRT #2 is almost ready to print and will ship next week.  Readers of TBRT #1 will be familiar with some of the names in the line up -- but there'll be plenty of new discoveries as well.

Volume 1, Number 2 begins in high summer and ends with a snowfall.  More specifically, you'll find:

a period piece about raking blueberries and taking chances,
the realization that any friendship is not necessarily good friendship,
an Aiken-esque fantasy,
a modern tribute to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry,
a story about grief and lemon meringue pie,
a pizza delivery guy who has an experience straight out of a pulp-horror magazine,
and the dangers of actually speaking to your long-term crush.

As always, if you're interested in submitting, check out the guidelines, and if you have thoughts about the stories, suggestions, ideas about you'd like to see TBRT do in the future or anything else -- write to bookshelvesofdoom@gmail.com. 

Shipping Destination

USA $5.00 Canada $6.50 Everywhere Else $8.00

2009 Costa shortlist.

The children's shortlist is:

Solace of the Road by Siobhan Dowd
Troubadour by Mary Hoffman
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
Guantanamo Boy by Anna Perera

I've read zero.  Solace of the Road is currently in my TBR pile, as is The Knife of Never Letting Go (I know, I KNOW!  But obviously I'm not going to read Ask/Answer until I read Knife).  I did read a Mary Hoffman book ages ago, and I wasn't a fan, but I'll give her another try.  I haven't heard anything about the Perera.

The grown-up stuff is available at the Costa website.

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Amazon associate.  If you click through and buy, I get money.

Tom Cruise's New Moon audition.

Yes, OF COURSE it's a joke.  The guy's impersonation is so good that I found myself hating him as if he were actually guilty of being the real Tom Cruise!  Poor guy.  I hope people don't throw things at him on the street.

Oh, and I should note that I'm rather proud that I didn't recognize most of the quotes -- clearly, I've managed to avoid much of the TC oeuvre.  YES.  I RULE.

 

Catching up: The Sweetheart of Prosper County -- Jill Alexander;The King's Rose -- Alisa M. Libby;I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I want to be your Class President -- Josh Lieb

The Sweetheart of Prosper County, by Jill Alexander:

Mostly invisible 15-year-old Austin Gray doesn't want to spend yet another year watching the parade go by.  She doesn't want to stand on the curb being harassed by loser-bullies like jerkface Dean Ottmer -- she wants to be IN the parade, smugly waving at loser-bullies like Dean Ottmer.  So she sets out to be the Future Farmers of America Sweetheart.  Which means she needs to raise an animal.  And then there's that whole hunting requirement as well...

As usual, Feiwel & Friends has done a great job of capturing the essence of a book with their cover art.  Super cute, sweet, funny, quirky, and how could anyone not love a rooster named Charles Dickens?  HOWEVER.  There are so many characters and so many Big Issues that I didn't feel that there was any room to breathe -- everything and everyone was introduced, but there wasn't much depth of character, they didn't really develop, and the issues weren't really explored.  Like I said, cute and sweet, though.

The King's Rose, by Alisa M. Libby:

Although 15-year-old Catherine Howard has been groomed by her family for something far more ambitious than a simple marriage to a nice, rich noble, she is still terrified when she catches the eye of King Henry VIII.  After all, her cousin was Anne Boleyn.  Granted, Catherine knows -- like everyone else -- that her cousin was a witch and that she deserved to die, but... still.  And while being queen will be nice, she'll be an old man's queen -- which will leave no room in her life for romance or for passion.  Or will it?

I really enjoyed this one.  While I never connected emotionally with Catherine (Which I think is due to My Stuff, since, well, why get attached when you know someone isn't going to be around very long?), I found her voice compelling and sympathetic, the political maneuvering fascinating, the descriptions of the period vivid, and the slowly-growing peril felt wonderfully tense and claustrophobic.  All that goodness, and the Author's Note made me appreciate the book all the more -- partly because Libby explained what she'd invented and what she'd based on fact, and because her affection and sympathy for Catherine Howard shone through and affected me, making me feel so sorry for this young girl who was used by everyone around her and who, even in death, was eclipsed by her more flamboyant, fiery cousin.

I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I want to be you Class President, by Josh Lieb:

12-year-old Oliver Watson is so dumb that, on rare occasions, people look at him sideways and wonder, "Is that really possible?  Could ANYONE really be THAT STUPID?"  What no one knows (except a few trusted employees) is the answer to both of those questions (at least in this case) is a big fat NO.  Oliver uses the dumb act to disguise his true Evil Genius self.  From his secret Evil Lair underneath his parents' house, he controls multi-national corporations, politicians, much of the media, and, of course, the teachers at his middle school.  What he wants now, though, is something insignificant, something that should be very easy to accomplish -- he wants to show his despised father up by getting elected class president.  Which, even taking into account his father's annoying PBS-brand idealism and his own carefully-crafted paste-eating persona, will turn out to be his most frustrating Evil Plan yet.

I had mixed feelings on this one.  On the one hand, it was hilarious.  Example?  In one of his many wonderful footnotes, Oliver refers to Machiavelli as "A dead Italian who wrote an early self-help book."  On the other, I felt it fell into the This Book Was Published as a MG/YA Book Because the Protagonist Is Twelve, But Really, It's a Humor Book Mostly For Grown-Ups.  Which is fine.  Because I totally did enjoy it.  And there certainly are middle-schoolers who'll enjoy it (I'll definitely give it to my Artemis Fowl fans).

But, you know.  Oliver, while awesomely, evilly funny, isn't exactly a three-dimensional character -- again, think Artemis Fowl -- and while it makes sense that his musical and literary taste would be more mature than the average twelve-year-old's, I found it odd that his musical and literary taste seemed to be more in tune with someone of my generation or older.  Captain Beefheart?  Really?  Raymond Carver?  Okay.  I could have let that go if there hadn't been a scene featuring a (non-genius) classmate of Oliver's wearing Knight Rider pajamas.  I realize that there was a recent attempt to bring it back, but... yeah.  It tanked so fast that I doubt ANYONE was selling pajamas.  And that just felt sloppy to me.  Or at least supremely unrealistic.  Of course, I may be taking this a tad too seriously as the scene in question also involved our antihero torturing the KITT-loving kid by hanging him up like a marionette and making him dance to Oliver's Guitar Hero moves.

So.  Wicked funny, but not, you know, Raymond Carver.  Not that it was trying to be.

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Book source:  The Alexander, borrowed from my local library; the Libby, ILLed from my local library; the Lieb, review copy from the publisher.  All three books are Cybils nominees.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.  Why, you ask? Well, gosh.  How else will I will I ever buy that beautiful dress with the puffed sleeves?

And the National Book Award for Young People's Literature goes to...

...Philip Hoose's Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice.

Un-dislikable.

Is that a word? 

Well, whatever.  You know what I mean.

Anyway, I'm talking about Robert Pattinson.  Who is quoted on cover of the current issue of Entertainment Weekly as saying, "The hair is 75% of my performance."

I'm so happy he still refuses to hire a publicist.

Tillmon County Fire -- Pamela Ehrenberg

From the prologue:

I can look at this page, this news about the trial and all the background noise around it, and I can say that this is my life, and also the life of a lot of other young and old and church-going and non-church-going and hard-working and not-so-hard-working people who live in Tillmon County and places just like it.  It's my life, but it's their life too.  We're in this together, however we might feel about each other at any particular moment.  And remembering that makes me think, at least for a little while, that maybe I've found the point.

Tillmon County Fire is a collection of connected stories that describe, one after the other and in many voices, the lead up to and the aftermath of a fire in the community. 

The narrators of each story -- a young man who finds God at summer camp; a 17-year-old who doesn't think much of his non-interest in his girlfriend until he sets eyes on the new guy from New York; the girlfriend, who has troubles and dreams she's never shared with her distracted boyfriend; the new guy from New York; a trumpet player; his autistic twin brother; a pregnant girl who works in the hardware store, among others -- speak in clear, distinct voices (and different fonts) that, while separate and individual, form a chorus, even though they don't realize it themselves.

I loved the format, and I felt that the different fonts worked -- in some cases, it would have felt gimmicky, but not here.  The writing was too strong for that.  I always enjoy seeing the same setting and the same event from different perspectives, and Tillmon County Fire not only achieved that, but made it feel real. 

I did think that the Postscript detracted from the book.  It felt tacked-on and unnecessary.  I didn't feel that I needed the story of Aiden's early life, as his story and his actions during the trial made it very clear that, like everyone else, he's a complicated person:  not evil, not perfect.  The Postscript made it feel too easy, too pat -- that suddenly every bad decision he made could be somehow traced back to that event.  I felt like it lessened him somehow.

Overall, though, I enjoyed it very much -- I'll be looking for more from Pamela Ehrenberg, and I hope specifically that there's more short fiction in her writing future.

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Book source:  Cybils nominee; review copy from the publisher.

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Crossposted at Guys Lit Wire.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.  Why, you ask?  Well, gosh.  How else will I ever buy an Oompa-Loompa?

Catching up: The Season, by Sarah MacLean

While my TBR piles are still towering over me, the To Be Written About piles are starting to give 'em a run for their money.  So I'm going to do some short responses -- I need to return a pile of them to the library before my co-worker calls me a deadbeat again.

The Season, by Sarah MacLean

This one and I didn't get along.  I was so very excited about it, because:  Regency era!  Romance!  Murder!  Mystery!

But...

I found that the only aspect of the book that suggested that it wasn't set in the modern day to me (other than the descriptions of the clothes and the settings) was that the characters spoke slightly formally.  The main character slouched on a couch (while wearing the dress for her debut), she rolled her eyes at her mother, the banter she exchanged with the menfolk was more akin to stuff I hear from the kids in the library than anything I'd imagine actually coming out of the mouth of a Regency Miss, and while I've read and enjoyed many-a-book starring a Young Lady Who Can Think Of One Million Things She'd Rather Do Than Get Married and read and enjoyed many-a-book starring a Young Lady Who Is More Modern Minded Than Her Times, I just couldn't believe in Lady Alexandra Stafford.  Let alone like her.  And the other characters felt like props.

It is extremely possible that I didn't give this one enough of a chance.  I didn't finish it, because my annoyance level was so very high.  But I am aware that many others loved it, so maybe my inherent crank is causing trouble again.

Huh.  At this rate, I'll be through my pile in no time.

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Book source:  ILLed from my local library.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.  Why, you ask? Well, gosh.  How else will I ever fill my swimming pool with gold doubloons?

I called it!

Two years ago, when I read Adam Selzer's How to Get Suspended and Influence People, I said that I wouldn't be surprised to see it get challenged.

Thank you, lady in Idaho, for making me right.

NBA finalists.

As I was on blog-world hiatus when the National Book Award finalists were announced, I wasn't sure if I was alone in thinking that the inclusion of David Small's Stitches on the Young People's list was surprising and a little bit annoying*.

So it was nice to see this blog post at NPR.

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*Not because there's anything remotely wrong with Stitches, of course.  But as it is on the YPL list, that means that a book that was actually published for Young People was cut to make room for it.  Which doesn't seem right.

Gentlemen -- Michael Northrop

Until I saw this book cover up close, I thought the kid was wearing a hoodie.

But... nope.  It's a body bag.  Yowza.  Big points to the designer.  [Later:  Just found this post about the process behind creating the cover.  They definitely made the right call in changing it.]

Since I loved his voice so very much, I'll let Micheal introduce himself (this is from page two):

I started out in 9A, in case you're wondering, one down from honors.  I'd done OK on the test they made us all take back at the end of eighth grade.  Better than OK, but the classes didn't work out.  They said I wasn't "applying myself," and that's fair enough.  Then I threw Oscar Tully a serious beating for saying something he shouldn't've, and that was that, down to general in the middle of the third marking period.  I had no idea what was going on in G, and I didn't really feel like trying to figure it out.  Sophomore year started and I found myself in 10R.

Fine with me, that's where someone like me belongs--someone of my "pedigree," if you read me.  This should clue you in:  My first name is spelled wrong.  It's Micheal instead of Michael.  Mom or Dad, one of them dropped the ball on that one, probably Dad, in the hospital or wherever it is you fill out that paperwork.  Not that it matters; everyone calls me Mike.  Still, it's a bad way to start things out.

Micheal, Mixer, Tommy and Bones have been friends for a long time.  They know each other well.  So, when Tommy doesn't show up in his afternoon classes after throwing a desk in math, the others don't think much of it.  After all, it's likely that he's been suspended.

But then he doesn't show up the next day.  And he doesn't answer his phone.  And his mother doesn't know where he is.

That's when the three remaining boys start to think about what went on in English class that day.  And about what may have really happened to Tommy.

Short version:  Gentlemen gets a Hulk-sized double thumbs-up from me.  I'm totally in love with it and you really should run to your local library and snag it immediately.

Longer-but-still short version:  What, you don't believe me?  See above.  Yeesh.  Really.  Micheal is very bright, very perceptive and always believable.  His voice is fresh and distinct, clever in a way that feels new, gritty and hard-boiled in a way that feels true to his age, and darkly funny in a way that never comes off as flip or downplays the situation.  He spun the story out in a way that kept me guessing until he himself realized what had happened and what was going to happen, and I'm just totally in love.  Even after finishing the book, I find that I'm thinking of him as a real person.

It's an outstanding, excellent book, and I very much hope that Michael Northrup will have more to come for the YA audience.

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Book source:  ILLed from my local library.

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I read this book for the 2009 Cybils.  (It had been on my TBR list for a zillion years as well -- the nomination just got my rear in gear.)

Angry Management -- Chris Crutcher

I hate the cover art on this one.  I've been sitting here, looking at it, trying to come up with a less harsh way of saying that, but... no.  There isn't a less harsh way of saying it.  I.  Hate.  The.  Cover.  It looks to me like someone slapped it together in seven minutes, and I don't understand if the kid on the front is angry or dancing.  Or doing an angry dance. 

Not that an angry dance is a bad thing.

Anyway.  Don't judge a book, etc., etc.

Angry Management is a trio of novellas about characters from Chris Crutcher's previous books.  Some you'll remember (Sarah Byrnes), and some you very likely won't (Matt Miller, who literally got one line in Deadline). 

The stories are tied together loosely -- all of the characters are in Mr. Nak's (from Ironman) Anger Management group.  Each story begins with Mr. Nak's first impressions of the students:  Sarah Byrnes and Angus Bethune; Montana West and Trey Chase; Matt Miller and Marcus James.

I love Chris Crutcher.  I love Chris Crutcher's books.

I did not love Angry Management.

And I was surprised and disappointed at just how much I did not love Angry Management.

I felt, in the first story, that Angus and Sarah were defined by their pasts.  While I understand that to a great extent, Who You Are is something that is Formed By Your Past, I felt that I never got a sense of either of them OTHER THAN what was in their past.  A good amount of their dialogue felt stilted and unreal -- something very unusual in a Crutcher book -- and the getting-to-know-you portion of their conversation felt like a big infodump.  Because of all that, they both -- Sarah especially -- felt two-dimensional.  The story as a whole felt hurried and like a shallow treatment of characters who deserved better.

The second story felt like a retread of material in other books.  When I wrote about Deadline, I said that readers would recognize themes and character types, but that it felt right and comfortable and like a revisit.  And I said that while the author had previously written about those themes, he still found new ways of looking at them and new aspects to explore.  There is a difference between a retread and a revisit.  Chris Crutcher has told this story before, and he's told it better.  Again, the characters felt two-dimensional and the dialogue didn't feel real.  The antagonist wasn't just two-dimensional, he was one-dimensional.  And it felt preachy.  Which is a hard thing for me to take, even when I agree with what is being preached.

In the third story, pretty much everything I've already said applies, except, in addition, I never saw Marcus James as a person.  I saw him as a symbol.  And that didn't sit right with me.  Even more than in the previous story, I felt that this one came off as extremely preachy:  by the end of the story, I felt that none of the narrators were speaking in their own voices -- they were speaking in Chris Crutcher's.

I very much appreciate the idea that, as in real life, the stories and the realities of these characters haven't ended.  I just didn't feel that these stories did the characters, the author -- or that idea -- justice.

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Book source:  My local library.

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I read this book for the 2009 Cybils.  (Though, of course, I would have gotten to it eventually anyway.)

How much food do you have stockpiled?

Because today is the day that NASA will bomb the moon!  You can follow their progress at the NASA website.

Hell.  We have practically no canned goods.

At least we have a lot of firewood.

If you've read the Pfeffer books, you understand my fears.  GAH!!

If you haven't read Life As We Knew It or The Dead & The Gone, you probably think I've gone bananas.  (You should read them.  Then you can go bananas with the rest of us.)

[Sidenote:  I like typing the word 'bananas'.]

Lookalikes.

Flipping through the new S&S catalog, I spotted this cover:

Which reminded me of this cover:

So I Googled around and found that even with the change, my brain was right in making the connection.

More vulgarity discovered at the Leesburg Public Library.

The two mothers who so disliked The Bermudez Triangle and the Gossip Girl series have found many, many more books to be concerned about.

Due to the uproar over titles like John Green's Looking for Alaska and Louise Rennison's Startled by His Furry Shorts, Garret Freymann-Weyr's My Heartbeat and Sonya Sones' One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies, the city commissioners of Leesburg voted 4-1 to (if I'm understanding the article correctly) split the young adult collection into a "high school"  young adult collection and an-unnamed-but-again-I-assume "younger" young adult collection.

John Green = Not Pleased.

I think it's odd that this is all going on during Banned Books Week and yet the story doesn't seem to have made it into the more mainstream news -- especially when it seems that there are some who are calling for the books in question to not just be moved, but pulled from the library altogether:

But Art Ayris, executive pastor at First Baptist Church of Leesburg, and Fechtel contend that moving all the high-school books is overkill and doesn't address the problem.

"If they move all the books, the indecent ones are still in with the decent ones and that's not accomplishing anything," Fechtel said.

So MOVING the books in question is overkill, but REMOVING the books in question is not?  I guess not, because the books that would be removed are indecent, at least according to the standards of the people raising the challenge.  So obviously everyone else in town must have those same standards.

I think that's what is being suggested here. 

[A few minutes later: 

But then this article makes it all even more complicated:  It sounds like the group isn't asking for the books to be removed altogether, but for them to be marked with a "Mature Audiences" sticker.  While the library seems comfortable enough with the Two YA Sections Compromise, they are not comfortable with a "MA" section:  because a split by age range wouldn't pass judgment on the content, while a "MA" section would. 

Conversely, the group of challengers wants a "MA" section for exactly that reason (I think), so that everything they deem to be vulgar would be found in one place*, and they also want to create a committee which would, going forward, decide what books would be relegated to the "MA" section.  WHEW.  I think I have it straight now.]

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*Which, one assumes (judging by my father's stories about using his childhood church's LIST OF MOVIES GOOD CATHOLICS MUST NEVER, EVER WATCH as a list of recommended viewing), would quickly become THE MOST POPULAR SECTION EVER.

More amazing Twilight merchandise.

I give you:

 

handpainted sneakers at Etsy!

(I've got to hand it to the artist -- she goes all out on these, decorating the boxes and including sparkly shoelaces and everything.  Holy cow.)

(via Beth)

The Exquisite Corpse Adventure.

Working for the Library of Congress/Center of the Book has got to be the most geektastically mindblowingly awesome job there is: 

They have just introduced the Exquisite Corpse Adventure*, in which Jon Scieszka will write an installment and then pass it on to Katherine Paterson, who will write another  installment, and then it will be passed on to (among many others and no, I don't know the actual order other than the first two) M.T. Anderson and Shannon Hale and Daniel Handler and SUSAN FREAKING COOPER (plus there'll be a new illustration each time) and on and on every two weeks, and will finally finish a year from now.

Also, being the brainiacs that they are, they've set it up with an RSS feed, so we don't even have to remember to check the LOC website every two weeks.

HOW RAD IS THAT?

(via Tor)

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*An ECA is that game where one person begins a story and then gives it to the next person, who writes more and then folds the paper over so that the third person can only see what the second person wrote and so on...  You know what I mean.

Couple of movie deals.

Stephenie Meyer's The Host (still haven't read it) and Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely (ADORE).

Film world lingo is as impossible to understand as cricket vocabulary.  What is a "U-based shingle"? 

And no fair looking it up.

Liar -- Justine Larbalestier

Well then.  This one isn't going to be easy to write about.

Because it's rather hard to say anything at all without giving something important away.

As the title indicates, Micah is a Liar.  Now, after the violent death of her boyfriend, she's determined to tell you, the reader, the truth.  No matter how many times she has to back up and start again.

Here's the not-even-vague-spoilers deal:  The hype is accurate.  Liar is a fantastic book.  Quite often, the more something is lauded, the less I end up liking it, because my expectations end up getting heightened, heightened, heightened to nearly impossible-to-achieve levels.  This was one of those rare cases in which, for me, the praise has all been completely justified.  I loved it.  I thought it was outstanding, outstanding, outstanding.  The writing, the plotting, the characterization, the pacing, the format, the newness of it.  Lately I've been feeling a little bit burnt on the YA, but this one has rejuvenated me.  No exaggerations.

So.  If you tend to like the same books as I do, skip the rest of this post, put it on hold at your library or local bookstore or wherever, and make the time to read it when it's officially released next Tuesday.  And then come back here and read the rest of the post and tell me what you think in the comments.  If you want or need to read more, or if you aren't worried about even vague spoilers, feel free to keep reading.

I loved Liar.  That is not to say that everyone will love Liar.  As I said, though, what I say next may verge on spoilery, however nebulous, so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SKIP THE REST OF THIS POST (INCLUDING THE COMMENTS, BECAUSE I SUSPECT THERE WILL BE CONVERSATION) IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS.  I don't want to ruin anything for anyone.

Note that these issues are in no way mine -- I just think that others may have them. 

Possible Issue #1:  I think that some people will not like the huge twist.  The cover flap and the cover art don't hint at it, not even remotely.  And sometimes that sort of thing upsets people.  I mean, of course, neither is going to give it away totally -- but this is such a serious total blindside of a twist that there's no way that everyone will be happy with it. 

That said, it isn't that Micah doesn't prepare the reader for it in her own way.  While I didn't literally think, "Oh, I know what's going on here", there were moments before the Big Reveal in which Micah revealed what seemed likemore than she meant to.  And I had a vague notion.  Not anything specific, but a vibe.  What I'm saying is that if it's a blindside of a twist, it's because of the perceptions of the reader, not because of any cheating on the author's part.  There are the mysteries in which the author gives you all of the clues you need, and there are the mysteries in which the author makes it impossible by holding everything vital back -- Justine Larbalestier and Micah give you the clues you need to put it together before Part Two begins.  It'll be an excellent re-read, the same way that The Sixth Sensewas an excellent re-watch.  (And, NO, I'm not saying that Micah sees dead people.  Yeesh.)

Possible Issue #2:  The ending.  With a title like Liarand a narrator like Micah, there's no way I would expect any sort of wrapped-up-with-a-bow, 'kay-guys-this-is-the-truth-for-reals-FOR-REALS sort of ending.  But I think that many readers would like that and will want that and who mayhold that against the book.  But, guess what?  It's Justine Larbalestier's book, and it's Micah's story, and that's just the way it is.  For me, the ending worked, and worked well.  I thought it was in keeping with the rest of the book, and that it felt right.

AGAIN:  IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS, DON'T READ THE COMMENTS.

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Previously:

Magic or Madness
How to Ditch Your Fairy
First Kiss (Then Tell)

On the cover:

JL on the Liar cover.
Bloomsbury has announced new cover for Liar.

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Book source:  Review copy from the publisher.

This will not be a popular opinion.

The only thing?

That could make?

A Sweet Valley High movie more annoying?

Making Diablo Cody the boss of it.

...

...

Yes, I was one of the four people on the planet who didn't like Juno.

(news via @ecwpress)

Cover Yecch.

So I was just leafing through the new Bloomsbury catalog, and I noticed that they changed the Ten Cents a Dance cover from this:

to this:

Now, I was never all that attached to the first cover.  BUT.  At least it evoked the era.  And I felt that the model's profile suggested Ruby's strength of will.

The new one is so generic.  And modern looking.  And it makes it look way more romance-y than the book is, and the palette is so beige.

I vote FAIL.  (But the book is a total WIN.)

You?

In the Garden of Iden: The Company, #1 -- Kage Baker

I'm hugely irritated that I can't remember who recommended this to me or where it caught my eye.  Because Big Thanks are in order.

In the Garden of Iden begins:

I am a botanist.  I will write down the story of my life as an exercise, to provide the illusion of conversation in this place where I am now alone.  It will be a long story, because it was a long road that brought me here, and it led through blazing Spain and green, green England and ever so many centuries of Time.  But you'll understand it best if I begin by telling you what I learned in school.

For me, that was that.  For the next 300 pages, I belonged to Mendoza.  Because, with that first paragraph, I believed in her and she made me want to know everything, everything, everything.

Fast forward to the distant-ish future: 

Dr. Zeus, Inc. semi-successfully figures out immortality.  There are enough drawbacks -- a major one being that it only really works well on children, rather than on "middle-aged millionaires" -- that it isn't a marketable process, but still.

Dr. Zeus, Inc. also figures out time travel.  It isn't particularly marketable, either, because it is only possible to travel to your own past and back again.  And because history cannot be changed.

BUT.  That bit -- the bit about history?  It only applies to recorded history.

Which opens up some serious windows of opportunity.

And now back to 1541-ish, where Mendoza's story begins:

As a nameless, friendless child, she is rescued from the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition by an agent of The Company.  She is swept away to a secret location in Australia, where she is taught and trained and physically altered:

It wasn't all that different from any particularly demanding boarding school, except that of course nobody ever went home for the holidays and we had a lot of brain surgery. (45)

For the rest of her life -- which will be forever, as she's now immortal -- she will work behind the scenes of history, collecting and preserving plant life for use in the future.

This book is the story of her first mission and of her first love.

Sorry about the ridiculously long description.  I guess I could have just said that it's a SF novel that reads in some ways like historical fiction and in other ways like a coming-of-age story:

"Characterization is very important in the field.  I don't think you've exactly got a handle on that, yet."

"I have too," I said hotly.  "I think I'm portraying a late medieval Spanish adolescent very well."

"No.  You are a late medieval Spanish adolescent.  It's not a role for you, not yet." (145)

And instead of blathering on, I could just have said that it brought Jasper Fforde's Thursday Nextbooks to mind -- not at all in tone or style, mind you -- because it deals with a group of people who work behind the scenes of our world, manipulating things while the majority of us just swan on through our lives, unaware.  I could have just said that it's one of those books in which I loved the ideas and the worldbuilding just as much as the narrative voice and the characters -- and I loved Mendoza's voice and the other characters very much indeed.  (Actually, I did just say all that.)  But I went on and on about the set-up because I just think it's so dang cool. 

So, yes.  Love love love.  Full of heart and full of brains and full of spunk and full of emotion.  (Though I did think that the last fifth-or-so felt really rushed and it very suddenly got way heavy, which made me suspect that some of the Heavy Stuff was a Way of Setting Up Our Heroine's Tragic Past and to give her A Reason to Question Her Situation in Future Installments, but I could be wrong.)  Do not, do not, do not let the atrocious cover (that comes nowhere near suggesting the storyline, let alone the tone of the book) scare you off.

Every time I hear about the rediscovery of a species previously thought long-extinct, I will think of The Company.  And I will wonder.

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Book souce:  ILLed from another library.  Because my library has NO books by Kage Baker.  NONE.  Needless to say, I've put in a request in for the second one.

A bit more on the Ellen Hopkins challenge.

According to this article, the parent "requested an official review" of Glass.  Which I assume means that the book has been officially challenged.

So the superintendent felt that as the book was under review, it wasn't appropriate for the visit to continue.  As per district policy, the books will remain in the school library until a decision is made.

I rather think he should have treated her visit the same way -- until a decision is made, the book stays on the shelves, so it follows (in my mind) that her visit should have continued as planned as well, and according to him, the district policy states that parents can exclude their children from events, so it isn't like there wasn't already an out for the parents who are uncomfortable with the book -- but it's always easy to be a backseat driver in situations like this.

Anyway, I'm glad that Karin Perry (the librarian) was able to schedule an off-campus event -- regardless of what happens at the school, Ellen Hopkins will speak at the Hillsboro Free Baptist College at 7:30 tonight.

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Previously:

Just in time for Banned Books Week...

Just in time for Banned Books Week...

...Ellen Hopkins' planned visit to an OK middle school has been canceled due to a complaint from one parent.

Oh, and also?  Her books were pulled from the school library.

From her LiveJournal:

Because the school superintendent not only pulled the books for review, he CANCELED my author visit. Wouldn't even allow me to move to the high school. Seriously? What did that parent and he expect me to do? Go in with a live demonstration? Use the f-word? Talk about sex? I mean, you've got to be kidding. I've done hundreds of school visits. Pretty positive I've never corrupted a student. In fact, my talks inspire them. Arm them. Inform them.

(via LISNews)

A celebration of International YA Bloggers...

...at Persnickety Snark.

I hope my Google reader can handle more feeds.

Booktrust Teenage prize shortlist.

And the titles are:

Auslander by Paul Dowswell
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray
The Ant Colony by Jenny Valentine
The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

Sigh.  I am so behind this year.  I've read one of the titles.  One.

And it's the one that everyone else has read.

After reading the descriptions at Booktrust, I kind of want to read all of them.  Especially... oh.  I just realized that I especially want to read all of them.  Minus the Ness, but that's only because I still need to read the first one.  And minus the Gaiman, because I've already read it.  But all of the others. 

I'm seeing an Amazon UK order in my near future.

Meridian -- Amber Kizer

Meridian Sozu has always been unhealthy.  Her color is bad, she's lived most of her life in pain, and she's much too small for her age.

And there are the dead things.  They started small -- dead flies collected in her crib, a toad died next to her bed -- but as Meridian aged, the animals got bigger and their numbers grew.  Her backyard is a cemetery.

The situation has not gone unnoticed by her peers, and so Meridian Sozu is an outcast.  They call her "Reaper, Grave Digger, Witch".

Just after her sixteenth birthday she learned the truth.  She is a Fenestra: a half-angel, half-human being whose purpose is to transition souls to the afterlife.  Now that she is sixteen, she must learn to transition humans through, or she will die.

There are those who will help her, but there are those who do not want to see her survive.

Bloggers have been all over this one, it has strong reader reviews at Amazon, and I'm sure it'll be quite popular with the rapidly growing fanbase of romantic paranormal YA.  And really, I wouldn't be surprised to see it get adapted into a television show.

Personally, though, overall, I thought it was... okay.  I had a hard time believing in Meridian, because I didn't find her voice particularly believeable.  The writing, overall, felt uneven -- sometimes it was funny (if tv-ish):

"Don't tell me the 'go to the light' thing someone always says to dying people in movies is accurate."  I was trapped in a Lifetime special.

but sometimes it was... well:

I packed everything I think you'll want.  Please forgive me if I overlooked a beloved token of your childhood.  I did my best.  Your father sends his love.  Sam will miss you more than the rest of us combined, I fear.  You are one of the Chosen, Meridian.  For that I am both grateful and sorrowful.

Beloved token; I fear; grateful and sorrowful.  I have a difficult time imagining anyone actually using that language in this century. 

I had a hard accepting the idea that her parents knew what she was but withheld that knowledge, even though they knew she was miserable and hurting.  I understand denial, but that was too much for me to believe -- that they moved around the country to avoid trouble, but they treated her somewhat crappily and didn't prepare her for the future, all because they wanted her to have a "normal childhood". 

And Meridian was unfortunately one of those smart-but-dense types.  I spotted the villain immediately, and while it didn't take her all that long to catch up, it still took her too long.  For that matter, Auntie or Tens should have picked up on it ages before Meridian even came to town.

I did like how the villain used religion to gain followers.  Unlike the first few House of Night books, the book didn't feel offensively anti-Christian.  There was a sense of history that made me imagine the Aternocti using the same methods for centuries -- but the Big Bad ended up being so two-dimensional that he wasn't even remotely frightening.  When someone evil is trying to convince you to join his side, it seems like he'd use an argument a tad stronger than, "We're the winning team".  Especially after he'd been portrayed as so silver-tongued that he'd easily convinced an entire town to follow his Evil Lead.

Part of my problem was certainly my own -- due to chatter in the blogosphere, I expected something different.  Loads of people have been saying that this book is NEW and DIFFERENT, but I didn't see it that way.  I've seen Buffy.  Many times through.  And I've read a lot -- A LOT -- of books.  I'm very familiar with the Girl-With-A-Responsibility-To-The-World-Who-Doesn't-Really-Want-The-Responsibility-To-The-World-Because-Guess-What-She's-Sixteen storyline.  And then (kind of hilariously, but in a good way) right at the very end, Meridian morphed from Buffy into Supernatural.  (Which actually made me decide that, despite my reservations, I'll probably pick the next one out when it's released.  Lesson here?  Familiarity can go either way, depending on the whim of the reader.)  While I can't hold my expectations against the book, I can't say that they didn't color my reading of it.

So.  As I said.  I can't imagine that this one won't be popular with many of the Usual Suspects, as long as the issues mentioned don't drive them bananas.

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I read this book for the R.I.P. IV challenge.

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Book source:  Review copy from the publisher.

Here's one to look forward to...

...Maureen Johnson's new series, which involves modern-day Jack the Ripper killings and a British paranormal police force.

Aaaand the first one is due out mid 2011.

Rats.

Not even an attempt at a pun?

"'Twilight' fans can get happily get lost in corn"

It seems like the Deseret News could have come up with something. 

...

...

Nope, other than wanting to wish Bella away to the cornfield, I've got nothing.  So I guess I shouldn't give them a hard time.

...

...

What, you want to see a picture of said corn maze?

Here it is, in all of its New Moon-y glory:

Any idea what that little guy on the right is up to?  Is he part of the New Moon mazes?  What is he holding?  A microphone?  A lollipop?

(Photo via here, link via Misty -- thanks, Misty!)

Summer of Fear -- Lois Duncan

Things are good for Rachel Bryant.  She's almost sixteen, she's dating her shaggily handsome next-door neighbor, she and her best friend are tight as tight can be -- and it's lovely, lovely summertime.

Until the accident.  Her aunt and uncle die, and suddenly, a grieving cousin from the other side of the United States -- a girl Rachel hasn't ever even met -- is moving in.  For good.  Into Rachel's room.

At first, Rachel is determined to make the best of it -- to welcome Julia into the family, to console her, to become her almost-sister. 

But there's something not right about Julia.  Something... evil.

This being a Lois Duncan book, that's 'evil' with a capital 'E' and an additional pile of lowercase 'e's:  Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil.

I hadn't read this one since I was in middle school.  It holds up in some respects, not so much in others.  The majority of the book -- the Summer of Fear itself -- is a flashback.  The first few and last few pages are set in the misty future, where Rachel says things like:  "For too long now I've dwelt upon the past."  The tone of those sections reminded me very much of Flowers in the Attic, actually.  Which, I guess, given the fact that FitA was published three years later, isn't all that surprising.

Some of the dialogue is pretty unbelievable ("Do you recall the name of the village nearest to where they lived?" (16)), as is Rae's voice ("There I received another shock, for the ugly red splotches were not confined to my face." (79)), but... I didn't care.  I think because the book is so very 1970s (the flared pants, going to Dustin Hoffman movies, etc.), because the emotions underneath the stilted writing feel genuine and right, because Rae's almost-overnight estrangement from everyone she loves adds to the horror of the situation, AND because everyone's refusal to believe -- let alone try to understand -- her is something that I know I identified with when I read it Back in the Day.  Oh, and of course, Julia is super-ultra creepy, so together, somehow, it all works. 

That isn't to say that I didn't groan occasionally.  Or that I didn't find the fact that nobody took issue with Peter immediately developed the Serious Hots for his cousin -- Serious Hots equaling, in this case, talking about marriage -- strange.  Or that I didn't think it was hilarious that the friendly professor who lived down the street just so happened to be an expert on witches and also a believer in the occult.  Or that I didn't think of Poison Ivy once or twice or thrice.

I did all of those things, and more.  But Lois Duncan still works for me.  She still manages to creep me out and she still keeps me entertained.  And sometimes that's all I'm looking for.

Ok, WOW.  I had no idea that there is a movie based on this book.  Directed by Wes Craven and starring Linda Blair, no less!  It looks terrible, in the best possible way.  I'm totally adding that one to the Netflix queue, and bumping it right the hell up.  (Josh is going to be so mad!  BONUS!)

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Book source:  My personal library.  (I have no idea when I bought it.  Or if.  It may have just appeared.  I've started to suspect that my books are secretly reproducing.)

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I read this for the R.I.P. IV challenge.

The Cybils 2009 Season is approaching fast!

So start thinking about possible nominations.

(And check out their new header.  Vair nice.)

The Morgue and Me -- John C. Ford

The Morgue and Me begins:

When you're eighteen years old and you shoot somebody in a public place at two in the morning, of course you expect some attention.  Especially when it's the person I shot, and especially when you're found right there on the scene with that person at your feet, gasping away in a pool of blood that seeps around your shoes.  Still, I find it really embarrassing.

The summer before his freshman year of college, photography enthusiast and aspiring spy Christopher Newell gets a summer job at the morgue.  He was supposed to work at the NWMU astronomy department, but that fell through when... well, it's a long story.

Anyway, the morgue.  While snooping (there's really no other word for it) in the coroner's office, he finds $15,000 in cash.  Which is weird.  But then when he realizes that the coroner falsified his most recent report... well, Christopher Newell is pretty good at math.

He teams up with Tina, a Trans Am driving, fishnet wearing, drinking, smoking, big mouthed (and extremely attractive) young journalist -- he wants to solve the mystery, she wants a big break -- and before the two of them know it, they're up to their ears in an investigation that seems to involve every single powerful person in their Michigan town.

And powerful people do not usually take kindly to being investigated: especially when that investigation is conducted by a couple of nobodies and involves corruption, blackmail and murder.

Christopher's narration definitely brings to mind a hard-boiled detective -- not because he is one (or acts like one), mind you, but because he wants to be one -- and it especially comes out in some of his descriptions of people:

I've heard that lots of movie stars have huge heads.  I don't know about his acting skills, but Corbett was qualified in the head department.  His giant helmet of black hair was gelled so thick I could almost see a reflection of the clouds in it.  On his feet he wore tiny black loafers, equally shiny.  In between, there was lots of tailored clothing.

His relationship with Tina is especially well done.  He has to remind himself to stop drooling every time he looks at her even though he knows it is SO not going to happen -- and that attraction persists throughout the book, even as their working relationship develops into a genuine friendship.  And, very importantly, they're rather hilarious:

"See?"  Tina said.  "You lurk a little, you get your answers."

"I'm not sure it was the lurking.  I think it was more the asking."

"Whatever.  We're lurking till I finish this drink."

And while Tina easily could have become a two-dimensional stock character (because it isn't like we haven't met the brash and brassy type many, many times before), she didn't.  As the book progressed, as she and Christopher got to know each other, she became more and more real.  By the end of the book, I felt like she was as much a main character as he was.

Big thumbs up here -- it's a strong mystery (minus one plot point that felt really, really wrong) that feels both classic and contemporary.  It was suspenseful and twisty and funny with strong secondary characters and just good all around.  I know I always say it when I find one, but here I go again:  I'm so glad that we're starting to see more noir-ish crime novels written for and marketed to the teen audience. 

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Book source:  My local library.

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Cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire.

Leviathan trailer.

Oh, wow.

This book has Josh written all over it: