bookshelves of doom

BIG CHANGES AFOOT.

Due in part to all of the issues Typepad has been having lately,

The fear that I'm going to wake up one morning and discover that ten years of work has just disappeared,

Wanting to change up the look of my blog but being frustrated by Typepad's lack of choices,

I am finally taking the plunge and moving Bookshelves of Doom.

So! If you follow me via a feed reader, it'll need to be updated, and if you link to me on your blog, same.

I haven't migrated my archives yet, though, so this site will be live for the time being.

As I've got TEN YEARS OF STUFF TO MOVE, it's going to take a while. So. For a good while, my archives will be housed here. So if you're looking for anything posted before today, LOOK HERE FIRST.

(In case you don't remember, by the way, that's the one where Anastasia moves.-->)

Today @KirkusReviews...

...I talk about Brian Conaghan's When Mr. Dog Bites:

He’s a fan of wordplay, and has developed his own personal slang, a creative combination of stream-of-consciousness, cockney rhyming, pop-culture references, and plain-old Scottish teenager. All that, when peppered with the unintentional vocalizations that fly when he’s nervous or upset, guarantees that you’ve never read anyone quite like him.

New YA: June 15-21.

New hardbacks:

Dark Metropolis, by Jaclyn Dolamore:

If you’re not in a questioning frame of mind and would like an adventure with atmosphere, some chills, and a bit of romance, give it a try! If you’re feeling like something with stronger character development, give it a miss for now, and pick up Jenny Davidson’s excellent The Explosionist instead: While it’s different in tone—it’s a much quieter book—like Dark Metropolis, it’s about a European girl who stumbles upon a sinister, world-altering plot, but it’s meatier in every department.

Jex Malone, by C.L. Gaber and V.C. Stanley:

I really WANTED to like this book. I mean, based on the premise, it looks practically tailor-made for me. But, alas. The main, overarching reason it doesn’t work is this: It reads like two or three different drafts of the book were smooshed together into a non-cohesive, often incoherent mess.

The Body in the Woods (Point Last Seen), by April Henry

Rebellion (Tankborn Trilogy), by Karen Sandler

#scandal, by Sarah Ockler

Ruin and Rising (Grisha Trilogy), by Leigh Bardugo

Otherbound, by Corinne Duyvis

Blazed, by Jason Myers

No Dawn without Darkness: No Safety In Numbers: Book 3, by Dayna Lorentz

I Am the Mission (The Unknown Assassin), by Allen Zadoff

Graduation Day (The Testing), by Joelle Charbonneau

Fan Art, by Sarah Tregay and Melissa DeJesus

New paperbacks (that I've read):

Girl of Nightmares (Anna Dressed in Blood), by Kendare Blake:

If you still* haven’t read Kendare Blake’s Anna Dressed in Blood, you may want to do that before reading what I have to say about the sequel, Girl of Nightmares. Because, you know. Spoilers. If you’re a fan of Supernatural or Buffy, though, you really must give the duology a try. Like both shows, it’s a fabulous combination of gore, humor, wit and intense creepiness that recognizes genre conventions while still being emotionally truthful about friendship, love, loss and sacrifice. To top it off, both books are printed in rust-colored ink: the color of blood

Confession: I don't really know what Kendall and Kylie Jenner are famous for.

From ONTD:

Aspiring “authors” Kendall, 18, and Kylie, 16, arrived for their book signing at Barnes & Noble at the Grove in Los Angeles, where they posed with the novel for three minutes, scowled and refused to answer questions, then sat down for their obligatory book signing with all the enthusiasm of teenagers in a summer school algebra class.

Photographers stood in awe as security staffers surrounded the pair just minutes later, declaring “the signing is over.” Barnes & Noble organizers plead in vain for the girls to fulfill their duties, but no dice.

ETA: I have now educated myself by reading their Wikipedia pages. Yay.

"True, child worries about a prized ribbon being cut in half don’t measure up to adult anxieties about job security or rent increases, but that doesn’t make them any less valid or real."

At Avidly:

Cleary is just one example of an author who wrote for a certain age range, but whose writing can benefit and engage the ages beyond. As a kid reader, Mr. and Mrs. Quimby’s worries about money and jobs and childcare was brushed aside by me as “boring parent stuff,” because while Cleary was validating the idea that all kids worry about their parents on some level and while her books could be a way for kids to talk to their parents about these anxieties, I just wanted to get back to Ramona putting burrs in her hair. Now, as an adult re-reader of Beverly Cleary, those bits of the books that I pushed aside as a kid are almost too painful to read as a parent.

And now I want to re-read the whole series.

Strike that, now I want to re-read EVERY SINGLE CLEARY BOOK.

The second annual New Visions Award...

...is now taking submissions:

The New Visions Award, which was created in 2012, will be given to a middle grade or young adult fantasy, science fiction, or mystery novel by a writer of color. Established by Tu Books, an imprint of LEE & LOW that publishes YA and middle grade science fiction and fantasy, the award is a fantastic chance for new authors of color to break into the world of publishing for young readers.

Links, etc. shared on Twitter: June 7-13.