Book Thoughts: Library visit + final #SpeakGeek post

First, the results of my weekly library trip:

Picked up this week:
Sweetly - Jackson Pearce
This Thing Called the Future - JL Powers
Dust and Decay - Jonathan Maberry

Still have from last week, haven't started:
The Floating Islands - Rachel Neumeier
Wrapped - Jennifer Bradbury

Finishing now:
Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America - Jeff Ryan (will be finished and reviewed for Nonfiction Monday this coming week! Really enjoying this book; it's absolutely fascinating, even to someone like me who isn't a hardcore gamer)
Don't Stop Now - Julie Halpern (all nerds need to check out Into the Wild Nerd Yonder for its awesome look at high school D&D and LARPing)

Read This Week:
She Loves You, She Loves You Not - Julie Anne Peters (Peters writes awesome lesbian angsty romance. Unfortunately, the rest of the book kind of falls apart, since 90% of the drama hinges on something that could be solved with one conversation)

Usually I end up reading more than one book in a week, but Super Mario is pretty big, and I haven't even finished it yet - I've got one more chapter to go, I think, and it's too big of a book to justify carrying on the subway for such a short amount left to read! Need to finish it this weekend though, so my husband can take it with him when he travels for work (boo).

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I've been debating what to write for my final Speak Out with your Geek Out post, and finally decided just to go big:

I am an internet geek.

I know it sounds kind of vague, but seriously? I love the internet. Not blogging, not Twitter, not news sites, not chat rooms.

The Internet.

Getting the internet at home back in 1997 absolutely changed my life. We weren't cutting edge by then - I was  hardly the first of my friends with a computer, and I'd been on the internet in school for a few years at that point. But I had some advantages some of my friends didn't - namely, after a few months my parents started trusting me enough to let me go on the internet without supervision (for you young'ns - this was before Net Nanny software and all of that - supervision when I was 13 meant my mom literally sitting just over my shoulder, watching the AOL chatrooms I was in!).

I wasn't yearning to do anything too crazy at that point, but it did mean I had the freedom to interact with people my "real life" friends couldn't, because their parents were sure everyone on the internet was a pervert.

I met my first internet friends in an old chat room called Trekker Chat. It was a great way for young little me to get my feet wet in internet friendships, because my parents ended up joining the chatroom too. Even if we weren't on at the same time (impossible, since we only had one computer!), people knew that little Bellana's parents would be coming around later, so don't hassle the kid.

I also wasn't the only kid of an adult chatter in the room, and it was there that I first met someone other than myself and a few school friends who read the Animorphs books. And thus began my first forays into maintaining websites, writing fan fiction, and developing some of the best friendships I had in my life.

Through high school I had a sprawling online social life, one far more active than anything in school. I was friends with people of all ages, from a few years younger than me up through people as old as my parents. I would have long chats on ICQ with people all around the world. While other kids were sneaking out in the middle of the night to party, I was staying up until 4, 5 or 6 in the morning to put the finishing touches on my latest fan fic masterpiece.

I did have real-life relationships at this time too, just so you know. My two best friends in high school stood up for me at my wedding...as did one of my best online friends from this time (a friend I never actually got to meet in person until after I'd asked her to be in the wedding! I sent her an e-mail and was like "Uh, I know this could be totally weird to you, so just know that if you say no I won't be offended or anything! But will you be one of my bridesmaids???"). I did theatre all through high school, and book club after school and in the summers. But in my first year of college, when I had to write a speech about a community I belonged to? I wrote about an Animorphs fan fic mailing list 1) to be sure I had an original speech subject and 2) to honor a group of people that were no less real to me, just because we only interacted via e-mails and instant messages.

During college my internet socializing backed off a little - thanks to those stupid things called "classes," but after college my internet usage, as well as TV watching!, picked right back up. Instead of focusing on Animorphs and fan fiction, however, I've moved into book blogging. Just like in my Star Trek and Animorph super-fan days, I've met bloggers in real life, and even attended conventions dedicated to my hobbies. For some reason these aren't looked at with fear and skepticism like they used to be - is it because I'm an adult now? Internet friendships are more recognized? I'm working online on something that's at least tangentially related to the career I'm pursuing? I don't know.

And alongside book blogging folks, I'm accumulating a whole new set of friends now that I've joined an MMO - City of Heroes. I've got a role playing supergroup that is pretty epic - both in terms of role play and the people that are in it. I've actually just set up Skype on my work computer, since that's the chat client of choice among my fellow superheroes, so we can keep in contact during the day.

I've also totally jumped on the Google + bandwagon - though I am the sort of internet geek that notes that it has some ridiculous shortcomings that are going to prevent it from reaching its full potential. Sigh.

The internet is so much more than a mere tool for me. It's a gateway to entertainment, information and communication. And perhaps most importantly, it facilitates a new way to find communities and build and maintain relationships all around the world.

So out of everything I geek out about, I'd really have to say the internet is what I'm most passionate about. Because without it, so many of my passions never would have had a chance to flourish.

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For more Speak Out with your Geek Out posts, be sure to check the official site. Also, on this week's episode of A Couple of Geeks, I shared my geek love for YA lit!

Book Thoughts: Anachronistic Historical Fiction

A few months back I wrote about the suspension of disbelief in fantasy and science fiction, and how it's not necessary to counter one fantastic element with everything else being hyper-real, especially when it comes to cultures that oppress minorities.

But...now I'm going to go be all complicated and look at when defying reality feels like it goes a little too far for me.

I started reading This Dark Endeavour: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein earlier this week, drawn in by the connection to Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein novel. While the writing is great, however, I think this is one of the few books I'm going to give up on before finishing?

Why? The characters are too darn nice.

In Victor's family, girls are educated just as well as boys. Interest in the arts is cultivated just as much as an interest in science. The rich family spends every Sunday cooking lavish meals for the serving staff!

Any one of these things I would have been okay with - heck, I'd probably be okay with all of them - if the characters weren't so damn smug about how enlightened they are. And, like SF dystopia XVI earlier this year, (so far) there's been no explanation of why this family is so magnanimous. Especially if you're a family with some sort of power, some tangible reason to keep the status quo, if you're going to break that status quo I wan't to know why.

Or? I don't want it to be acknowledged. If the Frankenstein's are wise beyond their years, that is awesome, but why not just show them being awesome? Why make them so aware of their awesomeness? If that awesomeness is integral to the plot somehow, then just show us them being awesome in contrast to evil horrible people who subjugate their women and/or servants and/or artists.

For me there's a difference between escapist literature (imagining a world that is better than the one we live in), and...I guess I would call this overeager literature. It emphasizes that the world MAY HAVE been bad, but look at these people who hold our modern values in this antiquated time!!!

Anachronism can be used well - slightly altering the order of events for better drama, bringing in an invention a few years early or a few years late, or setting aside some common bigotries in order to better get to the story you want to tell. But when anachronism is handled poorly, when that anachronism seems to become a plot point, or a point that overshadows the plot, I get turned off.

How important is historical accuracy to you in historical fiction? What do you think about characters holding 21st century values in settings that are decidedly not the 21st century?

Book Thoughts: Library trip, graphic novels, #speakgeek

I ended up taking the whole summer off from blogging, for all intents and purposes. Didn't really mean to, that's just kind of how it happened. Back in June...I don't even really remember what I was reading, but I was getting burned out because so much of it felt kind of repetitive and derivative that I didn't want to write about any of it because almost every post would have been "blah blah, this sucks, blah blah, copy-cat."

Yeah, I wasn't a happy camper!

I also joined Google Plus and have gotten really involved in a couple of "communities" on there - RPG players are huge on there, and then there was the big controversy over G+'s name policy (they require you to use your "common name"). I happen to be on there using my legal name, because I actually want to leave some digital footprints behind (the same reason I blog here under my legal name), but I totally understand why one would value a pseudonym (since I used a few for much longer than I've been using my RL name online).

For the past two weeks I've been posting my library hauls on G+, and I thought pasting in one of those would be a good way for me to get back into the blogging habit!

Picked up this week:
Don't Stop Now - Julie Halpern
She Loves You, She Loves You Not - Julie Anne Peters
The Floating Islands - Rachel Neumeier
Wrapped - Jennifer Bradbury
Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America - Jeff Ryan

Still have from last week, haven't started:
This Dark Endeavor

Still have from two weeks ago, haven't finished
Wild Unrest: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Making of "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Read This Week:
Dreams of Significant Girls - Cristina Garcia (really wanted to like, but it fell short)
Ultimate Iron Man graphic novel - Orson Scott Card
Will Super Villains be on the Final? - Naomi Novik (another graphic novel)

And the two graphic novel reads inspired the follow rant/book thoughts on graphic novels and me:

Conclusion this week: I can't do graphic novel series. Hate, hate, hate how essentially it's just a snippet of a story. Iron Man came closer to telling a full story than Super Villains, but it's still clearly just a hook to get you to come back again next month.

I hate novels that end on total cliffhanger endings. The books that best start a trilogy are the ones that finish one story, but leave one or two tantalizing hooks for the next one. Katniss survives the Arena - but there's still the danger of President Snow lurking back in her civilian life. Tally redeems herself for leading to the destruction of the Smoke - in part by promising the hook for the second book "Make Me Pretty." If you never go to book two in these trilogies, you still had an entire story. You probably want to know what happens next, but this particular story had a clear beginning, middle and end. Comic books and series like Will Super Villains be on the Final just don't have that completeness for me, so I end up feeling frustrated that there's so much missing, rather than enjoying what I did just read.

And finally, next week is going to be an awesome event that is going to result in you guys seeing a lot more of me: Speak Out With Your Geek Out. It's going to be a great week of geek-positivity. From 9/12 to 9/16, we're asking geeks of all stripes to blog/tweet/write/speak about what they're passionate about. This isn't just for "traditional" geeks - the Magic players, RPG nerds and video game obsessives - but for anyone who's truly passionate about...something. One of my topics here next week will definitely be about YA lit in general, and possibly a few posts about why I love specific genres. I also want to plug my call for audioclips to contribute to next week's edition of my podcast. If you want to rave about YA lit in general, a genre or specific title you totally geek out over, or really any topic at all in audio form, follow these instructions on how to be included in our special episode! And Twitter users, there is (of course) an official hashtag - #speakgeek.

Looking forward to getting back in the saddle next week - thanks for bearing with me everyone!

Book Thoughts: Why I'm Not Worried about Boys (or Men)

Image via Wikipedia

Ooh, provocative title is provocative ;-)

Last night was another meeting of the #YALitChat on Twitter. And part of me really wanted to join in, because I loved the authors being highlighted (Michael Grant, Scott Westerfeld, and Jay Asher). The other part of me wanted to avoid the internet for a couple of hours because the topic of the evening just grated my nerves in the worst possible way.

The topic? Why men write YA.

If nothing else, this was annoying because it's not a topic worthy of a two hour chat, because I can answer it in three words: they want to.

And I think it became quite clear that it wasn't a hot topic because while there were some great conversations going on, few of them that I saw actually addressed what was the main topic of the night!

Instead, there was a lot of hand wringing over what do boys want to read, and whether it's important to have male authors in order to appeal to them.

Which makes me roll my eyes, because I spent years in English classes reading nothing but male authors and fighting like hell to get to read women. For more on this, I direct you to Maureen Johnson.

I'm not saying what's good for the goose is good for the gander - that because my education sucked boys should now be forced to read nothing but Little Women and Little House on the Prairie and Twilight. That doesn't help anybody.

What bothers me is seeing authors talk about writing specifically what appeals to "boys" and what appeals to "girls." First of all, it sets up gender as a binary, which current scholarship on gender and sexuality doesn't support. Second, even if gender is binary, it implies that all boys want the same thing, and all girls want something totally different.

At one point I jumped into the chat when Scott Westerfeld asked if "the shift from paranormal romance to dystopian been correlated to more boys reading?" I replied that recent dystopian novels have all looked awfully romancey to me (which could be a whole other post - anyone interested in my thoughts on Whither?). I'd love to see a straight up dystopia again, in the vein of Uglies or the first book of The Hunger Games. Instead a lot of these books are paranormal romances, but with dictatorial governments rather than vampires or fairies or angels. Sarwat Chadda, of the awesome Billi SanGreal books, asked me if I thought dystopian was "real" or something bigged up by publishers. After fangirling for a second over a REAL LIVE AUTHOR actually asking MY OPINION on something, we got into a great discussion about dystopian lit, and paranormal, and paranormal romances, that culminated with Dawn Metcalf coming up with the best ACT vocab comparison of the night: "romance" is to "paranormal" as "lemony" is to "fresh."

However the most illuminating part of the dystopian/romance part of the convo was when fellow chatter mimicross said, in response to my point on dystopians becoming more like romance, "Well, if world is ending, what would you want to be doing?" And this got me back to my thinking on boy books vs. girl books. Because when I was in high school, I hated romances. Part of this was because I was more interested in dating other girls at the time and wasn't finding many books that addressed that, but even after I started dating my first girlfriend I wasn't all that romantically inclined (this may be why the relationship didn't even last a month...). Writing a book that is supposed to appeal to "girls" is likely to backfire on someone like me - I want explosions and guts and car chases. And I know plenty of boys and men that prefer more relationship-oriented books (maybe not straight-up romances...or maybe they're just embarassed to discuss such an 'un-manly' topic with me!).

It was especially troubling to hear authors talking like this. I expect the marketing department to worry about who is going to end up reading a book - it's their job to get it into the hands of the most profitable demographic. But as writers, why don't we concentrate first on writing an appealing story - and if you want to think about marketing, think about the type of person you want to read the book - is this for someone quiet and nerdy, someone brash and hyperactive? What about brash and nerdy? These are qualities that aren't attached to gender.

Ultimately my opinion of the night boils down to Twitter being a terrible place to have a nuanced chat - something that came up earlier in the day during the new #GayYA chat, where all of us were unfailingly aware of how limiting those 140 characters were (and the one time outside of a specifically feminist space I've heard people throwing around terms like "cisgendered"!) #YALitChat is great for promoting an author or a broad subject (why a genre is popular, how to break into the business), but delicate subjects related to gender should probably be left to overly-long blog posts.

Book Thoughts: Suspension of Disbelief, featuring Huntress by Malinda Lo and Captain America

If you ever read books or watch movies outside of realistic contemporary fiction, you're familiar with the idea of the willing suspension of disbelief, even if you haven't heard the phrase before. It's how when we're faced with a story with fantastic settings or characters, if there's something "real" in there that connects these fantastic situations with the consumer, we're willing to suspend our disbelief - the instinct to roll our eyes and say something is impossible - in order to enjoy the story. Wikipedia is telling me the term was coined by philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was saying that if writers could add "human interest and a semblance of truth" to their stories, readers would be willing to go along with whatever else was thrown at them.

Today, reading the comments in another blog, I came across what is allegedly the contemporary rule for the suspension of disbelief:

The rule of suspension of disbelief is that if you have something fantastic...you have to make everything else as true-to-life as possible. If you have little things which takes you out of the believability, you find it less likely to believe the fantastic things.

In this case, the media in question is the new Captain America movie, where it appears some of the military units have been integrated, even though in reality, integration didn't happen until after WWII.

While reading this, in my head I heard the proverbial needle scratch across the record. Because in the book blogosphere, I think we just had this conversation, in a more specialized sense perhaps, inspired by Malinda Lo's blog post on taking the homophobia out of fantasy. Lo's point is that when authors are creating fantastic new worlds, even if those worlds are often based in some part on our own, we have the ability to remove something that is unfortunately common in our society, and truly imagine some place fantastic. We don't have to "make everything else as true-to-life as possible" - to use Lo's books as an example (and I'll be sure to review Lo's latest, Huntress, this week), just because we have fairies and magic doesn't mean we also have to have an oppressively patriarchal and homophobic society. Lo does an amazing job in Huntress of making love between women just another romantic possibility - there's some good-natured teasing about who likes whom, but it's never a joke because of gender.

So rto go back to Captain America, if we're already going to re-write history to say the Nazis have some bizarre Red Skull on their side, and the US develops a super soldier serum that turns a scrawny guy into Captain-freakin'-America, why would the straw that breaks the camel's back be a black man fighting alongside the personification of American ideals?

Suspension of disbelief is a good rule to keep in mind when creating a fantastic setting - to continue another comic book movie conversation I saw this weekend, will our disbelief be shattered in Iron Man 3 when Tony Stark doesn't call upon the other Avengers to fight the latest bad guy? It's also important we remember the less-than-perfect aspects of our history, and the real struggles real people went through in order to correct historic injustices, but I'm having a hard time seeing this particular argument as anything other than nerd!rage. Want to have a real conversation about re-writing history in a fantasy/sci-fi context? Check out Ta-Nehisi Coates' examination about the dearth of people of color in X-Men: First Class. In the meantime, I plan on enjoying Captain America's look at what WWII could have been like, unless something realy ridiculous pops up - still not sure I'm buying the CGI that makes Captain America's actor look like a 98-pound weakling...

Book Thoughts: YA Saves...in a different way

Dear @wsj, #yasaves

Late last night, the Wall Street Journal posted a terrible excuse for journalism in the form of Darkness Too Visible. The main thrust of the article is that today's YA books are too filled with darkness and depravity like "vampires and suicide and self-mutilation" (is it just me or is one of these things not like the others?).

The response on Twitter has been breathtaking. As I write this, the #YASaves tag is the second highest trending topic in the United States. I saw reports that we cracked top three in worldwide trending over night, and while the WSJ article has collected 26 comments, there are over 15,000 #YASaves tweets. This is why Twitter is an amazing tool! That tag is filled with amazing testimonies by teens, authors, librarians and parents about how some of these "dark" YA books have literally saved their lives. It makes for some truly powerful Sunday morning reading - a way better accompaniment to my Pop-Tart than the WSJ!

Last night, however, Justine Larbalestier posted a tweet that got me to thinking. She points out:

"Yes, @OfficiallyAlly, it's ironic. Majority of YA *isn't* dark. We've both written light funny books. We're hardly anomalies. #yasaves @wsj"

It's not just the deep, dark books that are "important." In YA, it takes all kinds - girls that love vampires, boys falling in love with other boys, people overcoming rape and abuse, as well as the class clown, the fantasy adventurer, and the silly group of BFFs navigating the silliness of high school.

So I want to start compiling some of those books. There are lots of blog posts already reiterating the importance of the books the WSJ article denigrates, and I'm in complete agreement with all of those blog posts! I contributed my own bit of #YASaves to the hashtag last night, and I think we all know someone for whom Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak has been a literal lifesaver. I'm not downplaying their importance - only highlighting that these books aren't the only things going on in YA, and that there's more than one way to save a life. As others on Twitter have said, if the mom in the beginning of the WSJ article had been in an indie bookstore or library, she would have easily found something appropriate for her daughter.

• How to Ditch your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier - Set in a fantasy world where girls playing sports is totally normal - as is having a fairy that grants you a special talent. Charlie has a good parking spot fairy and she does everything possible to get rid of the darn thing
• Graceling by Kristin Cashore - this is my go-to YA comfort novel. It's not hilarious and has some heavier issues like self-determination, committing violence, and that perennial favorite of moral scolds, pre-marital sex, but if the real world is weighing me down, Graceling has become my saving grace, letting me slip into a fantastic world where I already know everything's going to turn out all right!
• Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson - love this light-hearted romp through experimental theater and living in a hotel in Manhattan, with a quirky family that legitimately loves each other, even as sometimes they find each other impossible.
• Little Blog on the Prairie by Cathleen Davitt Bell - I love this family summer camp story, where a girl and her family go to pioneer camp to live like it's the 1800s. The action comes in as Gen texts her friends back home with her hilarious observations about the camp through her illicit cell phone. The romance is chaste and far from the focus, which would probably give it even more bonus points for those who are so against darker explorations of teen life.
• Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julia Halpern - A must-read for D&D gaming geeks everywhere, especially us girls and young women who sometimes feel like we stick out like a sore thumb around the gaming table! Another book with excellent family relationships (I still count Jessie's dad among my favorite YA parents).
• The Sweetheart of Prosper County by Jill Alexander - This one has a dead parent, and a bit of racism, but Austin stays so positive in the face of adversity, even as she's chasing a rather meaningless prize (in the grand scheme of things). 
• Geektastic ed. by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci - a collection of short stories that span the full spectrum of YA possibilities, from serious and heartbreaking to absolutely absurd. Another must-read for any self-respecting geek!

8 PM update:

• Bookgazing queers up the list by suggesting Empress of the World by Sara Ryan, which I left off the first time because this is my personal #YASaves title, and thus I probably imbue it with more weight than it actually has. It is easily the one book that changed my life, in more ways than one, and I shall always be grateful for its existence. Bookgazing also adds Boy Meets Boy and most of the rest of the David Levithan bibliography, and A La Carte by Tanita Davis.



Dear @wsj, #yasaves

• @readjunkee suggests Evolution, Me and Other Freaks of Nature and Fat Cat by Robin Brande; The London Eye Mystery by Dowd; How Not to be Popular by Ziegler; North of Beautiful by Headley; and "Anything by Jordan Sonnenblick, Roland Smith, Gordon Korman, Lisa Yee, Helen Frost "

Okay, I know my tastes to tend to skew more towards the dramatic, so leave your own favorites in the comments! I'll update this list throughout the day as I get more suggestions. And I've already decided this topic is getting covered on my weekly podcast, A Couple of Geeks, so check back here on Tuesday for a link to the podcast!

Sci-Fi Friday Book Thoughts - Series, featuring Plague by Michael Grant

Welcome to the first of my experimental posts - provided I like how this turns out, and depending on feedback, more of my reviews might end up looking like this.

Series are a big thing in the sci-fi/fantasy world right now. Really, they've probably always been a big thing, and for good reason, at least from an author's perspective: you put all this work into creating a (hopefully) totally unique world, why wouldn't you want to stick around and play in it for as long as possible? Using your best settings for a one-and-done story doesn't seem like the greatest use of creative resources from some perspectives, I'm sure.

But there's a tricky balancing act that authors have to do when they're writing a series, and that is how to remind readers of what happened earlier. For one thing, not everyone is going to start with the first book of your series, usually through ignorance that there are earlier books (something that could often be alleviated through good design - I offer the new Uglies covers as a tangentially related aside on an awesome example of how to work the series listing into an awesome cover design). How do you re-introduce previous story elements so they stay fresh for your loyal fans, but keep your new readers from getting frustrated?

But then there are also loyal fans like me, who either have memories like a sieve or just read too darn many books in a year to remember every last detail from your last book. And this became painfully obvious to me when I was reading Plague, the fourth installment in Michael Grant's Gone series.

Gone kept me thoroughly entertained. Not the slickest writing or most original plot, but an entertaining new take on the "no more adults" genre. And after seeing him speak at an author's panel where he assured the audience that, unlike Animorphs (which he co-wrote with wife K.A. Applegate), he knew how it was going to end and what precisely had caused the FAYZ, I was excited to see where this series was going. But four books in, I'm afraid I have to give up - at least for now. Maybe, if I'm still curious, I'll pick the books back up when the final title is published, but until then I'm sitting out.

Why? There is absolutely no re-capping in these books. There's a huge cast of characters, and each book picks up shortly after the last one ended - with no look back at what happened last time. Through the course of the story some characters will think back on individual actions, but no details are provided. The tipping point for me this time when it was referenced that Astrid had killed Nerezza - and all I could think is "Who the fuck is Nerezza?!" Seriously, was she one of Cain's evil buddies? Was she a tool of the Gaiaphage? I don't know. And that's a problem.

Re-reading the other books before the new one comes out also isn't an option in this series, for me at least, because these are 500 page books. Life is too short to re-read a 500 page book six times because the author won't review what happened in it. At the very least, I need a cast of characters at the beginning of these books. While I'm sure the intention was to give us a diverse cast to illustrate multiple shades of gray morality, it just ends up feeling unwieldy and, of course, it's impossible to keep track of who did what across 2000 pages of story, now that we're through book 4.

So what are some books that have handled review well? The aforementioned Uglies series, for one. It's not always given to us upfront, in part because Tally gets a hard reset at the beginning of each book, but weaving the backstory in throughout the narrative is an organic way to catch us up. In some ways we meet Tally for the first time in each of the first three books (if you're unfamiliar with the series, the first three books are all about Tally, and then the fourth takes us out of the US and over to Japan to meet Aya, though Tally does eventually show up). The Hunger Games, of course, also gives us a fair number of reminders of what happened before - either through Katniss remembering something from the previous book, or the Capital broadcasting the film of what happened earlier. I just finished reading Eona, sequel to Eon: Dragoneye Reborn, and it opens with a preface that tells you all the major things that happened at the end of Eon, so even if, like me, you haven't read the book in two years, you immediately know the gist of the major events of the previous book, and then as necessary Eona fills us in on some character and emotional development that happened earlier. Is it an obvious tool to catch your readers up? Yes. Do I care? Nope!

Some books can get away with less review than others - I noted in my review of Behemoth that I didn't think it would be a good place for new readers to start, because it picks up immediately after Leviathan and is so action-packed there's never a chance to look back at what happened earlier. So why was I okay with that? For one thing, it's only the second book, not the fourth, so there was less for me to remember. There's also a smaller cast, with narration only being handled by Deryn and Alek, so it presents a more cohesive story. And the two books have had relatively straightforward, action-oriented plots thus far, unlike the Gone series which has multiple sub-plots for each character, and at least two major mysteries that may or may not be intertwined: what caused the FAYZ and how can the Gaiaphage be stopped. For all that Leviathan and Behemoth are set during the complex WWI, so far the main mystery seems to be what Dr. Barlowe has in those eggs and why does she want them delivered to world leaders. Much easier to follow than the freaking Gaiaphage.

With the market flooded with trilogies and series right now, it's a buyer's market for ongoing stories. Perhaps a series like Gone just requires a different sort of reader, but for now I'm going to stick with series that either can keep a firm grip on their wide scopes, or provide more in terms of reviewing what happened before so I don't need to keep a copy of Cliff's Notes (or Wikipedia) nearby.

Book Thoughts: Connections to History

Image via Wikipedia

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It's a tragic event in our national history - 146 people, mostly young immigrant women, died because of unsafe working conditions. When a fire broke out in the factory at 4:40 PM on Saturday, March 25th 1911, the workers on the 8th, 9th and 10th floors found they were locked in. The fire escape tore away from the building, the elevators couldn't move fast enough to ferry the workers to the ground, and the fire department's ladders only reached up to the sixth floor. In desperation, many of the young workers chose to leap from the windows - choosing almost certain death from the fall over suffocation or burning to death.

It's an important part of history - of immigration, worker's rights, and women's rights. And yet I never learned about it in school - I was introduced to the fire through the book Ashes of Roses that I read on my own my senior year of high school. Auch's description of Rose in the fire was incredibly powerful, so much so that the book has stuck with me for almost 10 years and I've included it on my list of Feminist YA novels.

I think part of the reason I have remained fascinated by the Triangle fire is because it was the first historical event that was introduced to me solely through fiction. I've always read historical fiction - it might not be my favorite genre but I don't go out of my way to avoid it. However, I tend to gravitate towards stories that back up a prior interest - like the Salem Witch Trials or the Civil War. I picked up Ashes of Roses because of its connection to women's history, and was bluntly introduced to a tragic aspect of history that had never been mentioned in any of my history classes.


Since Ashes of Roses, historical fiction has become a much larger part of my reading repertoire. I can't say it's an absolute favorite genre because the quality can vary so much between books - good historical fiction must be well written and well researched, while a well written SF novel can entertain me even if some of the science is off. However, I'm always looking for the next story that will fill in the gaps I might not even know I have - like Between Shades of Gray and the Soviet deportations of Lituanians and other Baltic citizens, or Daughter of Xanadu and the life of a warrior princess in 14th century Mongolia.

And I swear I wasn't planning on writing this post when I posted two historical fiction reviews this week!

In commemoration of the fire and its victims, the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition has organized events both online and around the US, for this weekend. If you can't be in NYC, the official commemoration will be streamed online. In addition, two documentaries have been airing this week, one on HBO and the other on PBS (available to stream online!). I haven't had a chance to watch either yet, but I hope to this weekend.

For me, one of the greatest ironies of the Triangle Fire was that the building was toted as being utterly modern in that it was fireproof. And indeed the exterior was - the building is now the Brown Building and its used for NYU classes. Unfortunately for the 146 garment workers and their families, similar advances in technology weren't used on the interior. Today, take a moment to remember those workers, and those who came after them who fought tirelessly to try to ensure such a tragedy didn't happen again.

Book Thoughts: Vacation Reading

I leave for my first real vacation in ages on Saturday - taking a week-long cruise! It'll be awesome and relaxing. We've already planned all sorts of excursions, but there's going to be lots of downtime as well - downtime that will best be spent reading!

I have a ton of books checked out from the library (or libraries, really, since I'm now in an open relationship with both Queens Library and the New York Public Library, thanks to the former's lack of book buying for the next several months). Far more than I could ever take on this trip, but since I'll have a lot of time on my hands I'm not necessarily worried about reading the books in order of when they'll be due back. So I thought I would solicit some blog-reader input on which books I should take with me! Let me know either in the comments or in the embedded poll which books you think I should read while on vacation!

(Links lead to Goodreads pages)
Across the Universe by Beth Revis
Badd by Tim Tharp
Losing Faith by Denise Jaden
Brain Jack by Brian Falkner
Captivity by Deborah Noyes
Edges by Lena Roy
Freaks and Revelations by Davida Wills Hurwin
Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy
To Come and Go Like Magic by Katie Pickard Fawcett
Teenie by Christopher Grant
Cry of the Giraffe by Judie Oron
Camo Girl by Kekla Magoon
Daughter of Xanadu by Dori Jones Yang

...What's kind of sad is that that isn't even the complete list of what I have checked out - just what I haven't decided for sure to take or leave. I know I'll be taking The Latte Rebellion by Sarah Jamila Stevenson and Dark Goddess by Sarwat Chadda with me because I'm super excited to read them (and the only reason I haven't already is because I just picked them up today and I already have another book in progress!).



Feel free to lobby for votes in the comments! If you make a really great argument, I might just include your choice(s), even if it doesn't make the voting cut...

Book Thoughts: Snow Day!

Inspired by Melissa's Teaser Tuesday for Trapped, and New York's own snowy weather, I got to thinking about weather and reading.

         Image by Keith Barlow via Flickr

As I settle in for my own snow day, I really kind of wish that I had Trapped with me - while the snow has stopped so this blizzard won't reach the epic fail that was the Christmas blizzard (which I totally missed by being on vacation Phoenix, Arizona, grr), this still seems like the perfect weather for this sort of book. On the other hand, I can totally understand people wanting to read a book set in a tropical paradise as a bit of escapism today.

So I'm wondering how your own reading tastes tend to go, especially when it comes to frigid winter or sweltering summer days. Do you want to read about characters who are suffering/celebrating the way you are? Or are you purely an escapist fantasy reader and want to at least imagine being some place totally different?

Book Thoughts: 2011 Awards

So yesterday was the big day in kidlit land - the announcement of the ALA's Youth Media Awards. It's already been pointed out that I was way off on YALSA's nonfiction award, but how did the other awards shape up?

Now, if I ran through every single award and honor presented yesterday, we'd be here all day. So instead, I'm going to comment on the most notable (to me) awards for the YA contenders, as well as link to my reviews when applicable, but direct you to the list of all the winners.

Big winner: One Crazy Summer. I clearly made a mistake in not writing up a full review for One Crazy Summer because that was the book to beat this year. A National Book Award honoree, Scott O'Dell award for historical fiction winner, Coretta Scott King Author award winner, and Newbery honoree. It's a small book - where on earth are all of those medals going to fit?!

Awards that made me squee at my desk: Five Flavors of Dumb winning the teen Schneider award and Almost Perfect winning the Stonewall award. I totally didn't expect either of these titles to get any awards attention - Five Flavors of Dumb because of its November publishing date and Almost Perfect because it's actually a 2009 book (and was on the 2010 Best Fiction for Young Adults list). So these were both very pleasant surprises because of my absolute love for both of these books.

Award that made me fistpump: Ship Breaker winning the Printz award. In movie-land, science fiction gets the short end of the stick. Thankfully, YA book people know an awesome book when they see one and gave this epic environmental dystopian tale the top award in the field. SO EXCITING. Also awesome? Our collective excitement got both Ship Breaker and Printz to be trending topics on Twitter. The #alayma hashtag also ended up trending for awhile near the end of the ceremony. Book geeks are loud and proud on Twitter.

The only other award I'm on record predicting and getting right: Firefly Letters getting a Pura Belpre honor. Over at Reading in Color I predicted that The Red Umbrella and Efrain's Secret would be recognized and Firefly Letters would get at least an honor, since she won in both 2008 and 2009. The Belpre committees clearly enjoy Engle's work!

Award that seemed to come out of left field: Moon Over Manifest winning the Newbery. I'm far from an expert on MG fiction, but I hadn't even heard of this one (despite its three starred reviews). I don't think I even saw it on any mock-Newbery lists, and no one mentioned it in last week's Twitter kidlitchat!

Was the National Book Award a predictor for ALA awards? Well, half of the NBA honors won big prizes, and a third honor was also honored at ALA (Lockdown by Walter Dean Meyers is a Coretta Scott King award honoree). Dark Water was completely left out, as was the actual NBA winner, Mockingbird. In the kidlitchat, it was mentioned that the NBA winner never wins the Newbery, and that has held true for another year - seems like it's almost preferable to just get the NBA honor!

Book that left Angela alone in the cold: Stolen. Clearly I'm alone in how this title underwhelmed me (and I still haven't found anyone who can adequately explain why Ty is at all desirable for anyone not suffering from Stockholm Syndrome), given that it received two starred reviews before getting a Printz Honor. I don't want to be unnecessarily negative here, but I just had to say something on this one.

Wait, what didn't win an award?! Out of My Mind. Seriously. Nothing. What on Earth happened there? I acknowledged in my favorite books of 2010 post that some MG experts had problems with the title...but were so many opposed that it didn't get any love? Hopefully it's a book that will get enough word-of-mouth attention to keep it finding new readers for a long time.

This week we should also be seeing what the longer book lists selected as the top books of the year. I can't wait to see what the Best Fiction for Young Adults and Amelia Bloomer lists come out with!

Book Thoughts: 2010 in review

In 2009 I was a rather casual blogger, but in 2010 I stepped up my pace dramatically - I wrote 108 blog posts in 2009 and this will be my 245th post of 2010. What prompted the increase in activity? Because in 2010 I finally stepped in to become part of the kid/YA lit blogging community. In 2009 my blogging was pretty solitary, with only a handful of comments coming in when people would randomly stumble across my blog. In 2010, I started searching for community in the very first week, participating in the comment challenge and my first Bloggiesta (I know dates for Bloggiesta have been set - and I CAN'T WAIT - but does anyone know if the comment challenge is happening again?). Through the two events (plus my second Bloggiesta in the summer) I found lots of new blogs to follow - which in turn increased the number of books I added to my TBR list, as I didn't have to search out new titles; they came to me!

Speaking of the TBR list, at some point in January (maybe during the Bloggiesta?) I created a Google spreadsheet where I tracked all of the books I wanted to read. Not only was this easier than just starring posts in Google Reader or immediately requesting titles from the library, but it made it easier for me to keep track of links back to where I'd first seen the book recommended - I was having far too many instances where it'd be weeks between requesting the book from the library and finally reading it where I'd be asking myself "Why on Earth did I ever think this was going to be good?!" Now when that happens, I can easily look back and see what the inspiration was and determine whether maybe I misread a review or if the reviewer and I just have totally opposite tastes (and if a pattern develops, it's sometimes a signal that I should pare down the list of blogs that I follow, if someone is constantly recommending stuff I despise!).

Since I kept separate tabs on my spreadsheet for what I want to read, what I have read, and what I've abandoned or changed my mind about even starting, it gives me a good overview of what my reading was like this year. It's not a perfect system yet, as one of the tweaks I'll have to do for 2011 is remember to note when a book has been sent to me for review. My Read & Reviewed tab tells me I've reviewed 127 books this year, but I know books like Prisoners in the Palace, which was sent to me, or Monsters of Men, which I picked up as an ARC at ALA, aren't on the list.

Here's what I've read but haven't reviewed (some will be reviewed in the next month, but by February I hope to be reviewing mostly 2011 books)

• Supergirls by Mike Madrid
• She's So Dead to Us by Kieran Scott
• My Life With the Lincolns by Gayle Brandeis
• Freak Magnet by Andrew Auseon
• Sources of Light by Margaret McMullen
• Tension of Opposites by Kristina McBride
• Kiss by Jaqueline Wilson
• Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney
• Jump by Elisa Carbone
• Best Friends Forever: A WWII Scrapbook by Beverly Patt
• Dangerous Neighbors by Beth Kephart
• Trickster: Native American Tales by Matt Dembicki
• The Girl in the Song by Michael Heatley
• Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord
• House of Dead Maids by Claire B. Dunkle
• No and Me by Delphine de Vigan
• Where the Streets had a Name by Randa Abdel-Fattah
• Seven Souls by Barnabas Miller and Jordan Orlando
• Girl, Stolen by April Henry
• Cate of the Lost Colony by Lisa Klein
• The Fire Opal by Regina McBride
• Resistance by Carla Jablonski
• Not That Kind of Girl by Siobhan Vivian
• The Jumbee by Pamela Keyes
• Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John

25 books... and there's still 54 books on my list that I want to read! I have a feeling I'll never be able to get to  the all (in no small part because some of the books have been on my list all year and my library just never got them).

In 2010 I signed up for my first reading challenges...and kinda failed miserably at them. Not that I didn't read enough books to fulfill the challenges (I purposefully chose challenges where I was already interested in the subject), but I had a terrible time remembering to go log my reviews at the challenge sites. And then they weren't the community builders I was hoping for - I'd love to participate in a challenge with roundups like Nonfiction Monday does, maybe with a post once a month that the participants submit their links to so there's a monthly reminder to check out what your fellow participants are reading and blogging about. So for 2011 I'm not participating in any other challenges; instead I'm focusing on my own What Have I Missed? challenge - I'll be posting my tentative book list for that one tomorrow, so there's still time to leave a suggestion or two!

How was 2010 for you?

Book Thoughts: What Have I Missed?

I've realized something recently: when people ask me for book recommendations, my choices are pretty limited. While I read a ton of books (obviously), due to the nature of this blog I tend to limit myself to the most recently published titles. How many amazing YA books have I missed...and don't even realize it?

When I was in high school, I was totally immersed in YA books. Working with Lynn and Cindy as they were on the BBYA committee meant I had access to pretty much any new book I wanted and then some.

And then I went to college and my reading for pleasure dropped like a rock. There were just way too many other things going on. And when I did finally get some time to myself back, the first thing I did was throw myself back into watching TV. I didn't get back onto the YA bandwagon until two years ago, when I started this blog.

So I've decided I'm not joining any official reading challenges next year, but I would like to start one for myself, drawing the reading list from you guys. I want to read at least 12 books next year (roughly one per month) that were published between 2003 and 2008 - my lost YA reading years. However, I hardly know where to begin since there were roughly a million books published in those 5 years. That's where you come in! Please, leave a comment with a book (or two or ten!) published between 2003 and 2008 that you think I must read. And by this time in 2011, I hope to be able to call myself a much more well-rounded YA reader than I am now.

(Edited to add: I knew my blog anniversary was around this time...turns out it was yesterday! So...happy 2nd blogaversary to me!)

Book Thoughts: More awards and blogger/librarian praise

In November we had the National Book Awards. In the past week, the shortlists for two ALA awards have been posted as well: the YALSA award for Excellence in Nonfiction and the William C. Morris Award for debut authors writing for young adults.

Nonfiction shortlist:

• Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing by Ann Angel
• They Called Themselves the KKK by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
• Spies of Mississippi by Rick Bowers
• The Dark Game: True Spy Stories by Paul Janeczko
• Every Bone Tells a Story by Jill Rubalcaba and Peter Robertshaw

I just picked up Janis Joplin last night, and I have to admit that out of the three I haven't read, it's the one I'm most excited about.

Morris shortlist:

• Hush by Eishes Chayil
• Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey
• Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride
• Crossing the Tracks by Barbara Stuber
• The Freak Observer by Blythe Woolston

Guardian of the Dead is still one of my favorite reads of the year, so currently I'm rooting for that one...but it's also the only Morris nominee I've read. I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the others at my library!

In non-awards news, this week also saw the publication of a profile on one of my favorite people in the world, Cindy Dobrez, my librarian from back in middle school and current blogger extraordinaire along with Lynn at Bookends. I talked to a columnist with the Christian Science Monitor last month, sharing how Cindy inspired me as a student and still helps me out today (even if most of that didn't make it into the article!) Check it out! 

Book Thoughts: National Book Award nominees

Hey...so...that "change in schedule" thing turned into a month long blogging vacation. That was weird and unexpected. And I apologize for not jumping back in with a regular review post, but the National Book Award winners are being announced TONIGHT and I actually managed to read all of the nominees, so I felt some round up of my thoughts was necessary, as a follow up to the finalists post I did a month ago, even if I don't have time for full reviews.

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi is the one title that did get a full review since I read it back during the summer when 5 or 6 day a week blogging was more feasible for me. I still love this one as one of my top picks of the year and, I'll confess, I want it to win the big award. Smart science fiction (even if that isn't what Bacigalupi would call his work, according to a tweet I saw earlier this evening and managed to not save) is woefully underappreciated, and I would hope that winning a big award like this could change some of that perception.

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine is probably the most controversial title on this list, as many bloggers seem to be undecided on whether Caitlin's Asperger's is authentic and what the author should or shouldn't have revealed about  her personal connection with autism-spectrum disorders. For me, I felt Caitlin was fine, but her teachers and counselors weren't using therapy techniques that seemed like they would actually work. Also, in that little author's note at the end, Erskine writes that she wanted to write about school violence/shootings and Asperger's because they are both cases where early intervention is necessary, which totally threw me for a loop, as the wording used made me feel like the two issues were being compared in ways they just shouldn't be. Unfortunately I've returned the book to the library and the text isn't available on Amazon, so I can't pull a direct quotation for you, but the comparison was really unsettling for me. Verdict: a complicated story that may have been trying to fit too much into one package to truly be successful.

Dark Water by Laura McNeal. The jacket copy on this one sells this as a "forbidden romance" which makes me uncomfortable because this isn't a love story. This is a story of obsession and lust. Pearl falls in "love" at first sight, but we never get into Amiel's head and he's one of the least talkative characters I've ever seen (thanks to an accident that damaged his voice). There's an inherent power imbalance, since Pearl is the niece of the man who employs Amiel (who is an undocumented worker), so to me it read a lot like Amiel spends most of the book indulging the whims of a younger girl who could probably get him fired, if not deported, if she didn't get her way. Not that Pearl comes across as that petty, but it seems like a logical thought process for someone in Amiel's position. Verdict: this may be a case of poor advertising, but while the writing is painfully beautiful I couldn't get over the fact that this was "supposed" to be a romance

Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers. What a frustrating and terrifyingly realistic book. Why frustrating? Because it's obvious that the juvenile prison where Reese is being kept is a corrupt institution. Also, the "code" among the inmates is only going to keep them walking in place, or headed for a real prison. A terrifying look at our "justice" system that lets known drug dealers out on plea bargains while kids who screwed up are locked away without the help and support they really need. Also fascinating is the inclusion of an elderly survivor of the Japanese occupation of Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia. He gives Reese a historical perspective, in the midst of his senile and racist tirades. Makes this much more than just a prison story. Verdict: I still want Ship Breaker to win, but I wouldn't be too disappointed if this took the prize instead

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia left me wanting more - namely the story of the girls' mother. I can't think of a single other book where I've been more fascinated with a parent than with the young protagonists. Garcia drops hints that Cecile has a less-than-idyllic past - including an oblique reference to wishing she'd gone to Mexico to "take care" of her pregnancies before her daughters were born. What really drove her to abandon her family? Why, after so many years, did she agree to take her daughters for the summer? On that note, why would the girls' father insist on sending them to someone who wasn't totally committed to their welfare? Ever since The Rock and the River I've been dying for more insight into the Black Panthers, and I think One Crazy Summer could have been a great story for me - if it were either from Cecile's perspective, or if Delphine had been just a little older than 11 so Cecile could have shared more of the facts of her story. Verdict: Left me wanting too much more.

Any last minute predictions before the awards announcement tonight? Want to take issue with any of my thoughts? Leave a comment! And for my fellow Twitter-users, the whole awards dinner and ceremony is going to be live-tweeted, so be sure to follow along! I know I will be watching.

Book Thoughts: National Book Award Finalists - awards season begins!

The National Book Award finalists were announced today. What made the cut for young people's literature?

 Shipbreaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. Yes. I loved this book - it's still one of my favorites for the year. I'm so glad the NBA isn't an award that shies away from science fiction - in 2002 they gave the award to House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer and in 1980 they actually had an award just for science fiction (not in the young people's/children's fiction category, but still awesome). This is the only one of the five finalists I've read so far, so it's not fair for me to cast a vote...but I'm certainly rooting for it at this point!

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine. I was looking at the nominees for the Best Fiction for Young Adults list the other day and counted at least four titles featuring characters with asperger's syndrome. I guess Marcelo in the Real World kind of opened the floodgates on that topic. I also wonder if people are going to get confused between this title and The Mockingbirds which is coming out in November (not to mention the other big avian-title of the summer, Mockingjay).

 Dark Water by Laura McNeal. This is the one title on the list that I haven't heard of at all, and that intrigues me. It's a romance, but it's set against the 2007 California wildfires and the male lead is an undocumented Mexican immigrant. This is at the top of my TBR list as of now!



 Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers. Unlike Dark Water, this one has been on my radar all year, but it keeps getting bumped down my TBR list by other titles that grab me a little bit more. This one is jumping back up and going on this week's library requests.


 One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. This one I have requested before, but for some reason my library dropped my request. What the heck, library? They have issues sometimes. Anyway, Ari of Reading in Color recommended this one after I reviewed The Rock and the River and I'm kind of kicking myself for not staying on top of my library requests and getting hold of this one sooner.


Also, I'm happy this is one award we don't have to harp on for inclusion, as there are both white and non-white authors and protagonists, as well as male and female. I'm always excited when diversity happens naturally, without any hand holding or special directives required.

How many of these titles have you read? Any early predictions for the winner?

Book Thoughts: Fall Releases

While fall is the big season for movies (awards season! FINALLY all of the good movies are being released), for books it's sometimes not quite as hyped. After all, autumn is when we're going back to school and gearing up for major holidays. There's so much other stuff going on, but there's also some really exciting books being released soon. Here's a preview of some of the books I'm most looking forward to:

 Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld. The sequel to last year's "diesel-punk" Leviathan. I'm reading it now - expect a Sci-Fi Friday review in a week or two - and having A LOT of fun. I'm a little disappointed in the cover change - the hard cover version of Leviathan was just stunning and here the cover has been designed to match with Leviathan's paperback cover - but I'll be interested to see if the overall design looks like the first book (heavy paper, slightly larger dimensions) or if they've scaled back for the sequel (I'm reading from an ARC I picked up at ALA, so it's incredibly flimsy. And missing page 12). October 5.

 Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness. Another ARC I picked up at ALA, only instead of waiting months to read it I barely waited hours and finished it before I even left DC. This one comes out next week, and if everything goes according to plan I'll be posting my review tomorrow. It's an epic conclusion to the Chaos Walking trilogy, and I highly recommend you read the first two before diving into this tale of war, insurrection, backstabbing, friendship, and explosions. Lots and lots of explosions. September 28.

 Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry. I'm always a little disappointed in myself when I discover a book because I'm browsing at Barnes & Noble, rather than through blogs or other online resources. I feel like I'm failing a little as a blogger - I'm supposed to know these things in advance, right? Especially when it's a ZOMBIE book (like you couldn't guess that from the cover). From the Goodreads description: "In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn't want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human." September 15.

 Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler. Another title I saw at ALA (though I don't believe I got an ARC...will have to check the "October" row of my ARC shelf!) and was instantly intrigued by. Excerpted from the description on Goodreads: "Lisabeth Lewis has a black steed, a set of scales, and a new job: she’s been appointed Famine. How will an anorexic seventeen-year-old girl from the suburbs fare as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?" I LOVE the juxtaposition of anorexia and Famine. This is the start of a new series, and I'm very interested to see how it's going to turn out. October 18.

 Jane by April Lindner. "What if Jane Eyre fell in love with a rock star" is the tagline on this one. I read Jane Eyre in college and didn't totally hate it (though I enjoyed The Wide Sargasso Sea so much more), so I have to admit I'm curious about this one. Excerpted from the Goodreads description: "Forced to drop out of an esteemed East Coast college after the sudden death of her parents, Jane Moore takes a nanny job at Thornfield Park, the estate of Nico Rathburn, an iconic rock star on the brink of a huge comeback. Practical and independent, Jane reluctantly becomes entranced by her magnetic and brooding employer, and finds herself in the midst of a forbidden romance." October 11.

 Prisoners in the Palace by Michaela MacColl. Colleen at Chasing Ray first highlighted this one, drawing attention to that fabulous cover. Then just this morning, Tara at The Bodacious Pen absolutely raved about this one. Excerpted from the Goodreads description: "London, 1838. Sixteen-year-old Liza's dreams of her society debut are dashed when her parents are killed in an accident. Penniless, she accepts the position of lady's maid to young Princess Victoria and steps unwittingly into the gossipy intrigue of the servant's world below-stairs as well as the trickery above. Is it possible that her changing circumstances may offer Liza the chance to determine her own fate, find true love, and secure the throne for her future queen?" October 13.

 The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney. Eary reviews of this initially had me thinking this was going to be about wacky revenge hijinks. Pretty sure this was an incorrect conclusions. From the Goodreads description: "Themis Academy is a quiet boarding school with an exceptional student body that the administration trusts to always behave the honorable way--the Themis Way. So when Alex is date raped during her junior year, she has two options: stay silent and hope someone helps her, or enlist the Mockingbirds--a secret society of students dedicated to righting the wrongs of their fellow peers." "Date rape" and "hijinks" don't go hand in hand. November 2.

 The House of Dead Maids by Clare B. Dunkle. It's the season of Bronte stories! This is a prequel to Wuthering Heights. Which I've never read. But since this is a pre-quel, that shouldn't be a problem, right? Excerpted from the Goodreads description: "Young Tabby Aykroyd has been brought to the dusty mansion of Seldom House to be nursemaid to a foundling boy. He is a savage little creature, but the Yorkshire moors harbor far worse, as Tabby soon discovers. The ghost of the last maid will not leave Tabby in peace, yet this spirit is only one of many. Why do scores of dead maids and masters haunt Seldom House with a jealous devotion that extends beyond the grave?" September 14.

Where the Streets had a Name by Randa Abdel-Fattah. A contemporary story set in the West Bank. I can't think of any other YA novels that have taken on that setting. From the Goodreads description: "Thirteen-year-old Hayaat is on a mission. She believes a handful of soil from her grandmother's ancestral home in Jerusalem will save her beloved Sitti Zeynab's life. The only problem is the impenetrable wall that divides the West Bank, as well as the checkpoints, the curfews, and Hayaat's best friend Samy, who is always a troublemaker. But luck is on their side. Hayaat and Samy have a curfew-free day to travel to Jerusalem. However, while their journey is only a few kilometres long, it may take a lifetime to complete." November 1.

 Girl, Stolen by April Henry. I like this version of a girl's face on the cover! Interesting take. Also interesting: this is the second book with a blind female protagonist I've seen this fall (the other is the already released Blindsided, where the girl is going blind. At least that's what the jacket said - still waiting on the book from the library). Excerpted from the Goodreads description: "Sixteen year-old Cheyenne Wilder is sleeping in the back of a car while her mom fills her prescription at the pharmacy. Before Cheyenne realizes what's happening, their car is being stolen--with her inside! Griffin hadn’t meant to kidnap Cheyenne, all he needed to do was steal a car for the others. But once Griffin's dad finds out that Cheyenne’s father is the president of a powerful corporation, everything changes." September 28.

 Cate of the Lost Colony by Lisa Klein. Not so much a fan of this cover, but that's just because I think putting the face of a contemporary girl dresed in vaguely period clothes is some lazy design work (I'm very hard to please when it comes to covers - this is why I ignore them most of the time). I am, however, totally intrigued by Roanoke and don't think I've ever read a YA book set there. From the Goodreads description: "The greatest unsolved mystery of American history--what happened to all the colonists who landed on Roanoke Island in 1587? This novel traces the fortunes and misfortunes of one Cate Archer, banished to Virginia by a jealous Queen Elizabeth because of her dalliance with Sir Walter Ralegh. What will be her fate in this dangerous New World?" October 12.

 The Other Side of Dark by Sarah Smith. All I have to say is this sounds utterly creepy. And it has an interracial romance - you all know I'm not a romance fan, but I am so, so glad to see a paranormal story that isn't lily white. Excerpted from the Goodreads description: "Since losing both of her parents, fifteen-year-old Katie can see and talk to ghosts, which makes her a loner until fellow student Law sees her drawing of a historic house and together they seek a treasure rumored to be hidden there by illegal slave-traders." November 2.


 Sapphique by Catherine Fisher. This was the ARC at ALA that almost got my arm ripped off, Lynn was so eager to have it. She found her own copy, my arms are both intact, so we're both happy. Incarceron and Sapphique are unique in that this is a pair of books, rather than stretching into a trilogy. I really think the story would have suffered if it'd been drawn out into a third novel - the pair of books pull this story together in an extremely satisfying way. December 28.



Okay, I think it's about time that I stop. What titles are you looking forward to this fall?