This Week Around The Web

February 3, 2017 |

Over on Book Riot this week:

Recommended recent and upcoming books that feature stories and lives of fat girls. Fiction and non-fiction, prose and comic form. These three books are so different and so wonderful.

A look at YA authors who have adapted their own books into comics.

Feel like taking part in a low-pressure Instagram/Bookstagram challenge? I set one up at Book Riot and it’s so nice to have an entire social media feed filled with nothing but happy pictures of books. Join in whenever you want to this month.

More things from around the web, this time having to do with Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World:

The last two posts at Teen Librarian Toolbox for their Social Justice in YA Lit project went up. You can check out interviews with Sarah McCarry and Daniel José Older. You can catch up on the whole series of interviews here.

Jim Higgins at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote an excellent review of the anthology (& it was so neat to pick this up in print and hold!).

Shelf Awareness awarded Here We Are its FIFTH starred review.

Jen Doll at New York Magazine (!!) called Here We Are one of the 11 great books for “stoking the feminist fire” in young readers. I’m on a list with The Baby-Sitters Club, y’all.

I’m going to make this plea regularly, but if you read and love my book, would you drop a short review on Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble? Algorithms on consumer sites are set up such that more reviews lead to better findability for readers. I’ve set my own goal of copying over reviews to those sites once a month, so I can put my own money where my mouth is.

This Week Around The Web

January 27, 2017 |

Over on Book Riot this week…

I wrote about growing up as a library kid and the fond memories of being a kid of the library.

This week’s not-so “3 On A YA Theme” looked at YA spy stories.

And a round-up of 28 awesome bookish coffee mugs (including the Poe one I own and never can get enough of!).

With release week, there’s been a ton of other stuff around the web I’ve been a part of. Here’s a round-up of those pieces (note how patient the bunny is being in the above photo — usually he’s game with photos but he was not interested that night!):

At the Teen Librarian Toolbox blog, I’ve done a week-long series for their Social Justice in YA Lit project, which has included interviewing four of the contributors of Here We Are about their essays and about feminism and social justice more broadly. They also all include a tiny excerpt from the finished pieces. Since I’m writing this post pre-Thursday, not all are up yet, so I’ll share the rest next week. But you can read my take on how I’m an activist, Alida Nugent on using humor to do good work, and Brandy Colbert on finding her voice in feminism and on social justice. Amanda MacGregor also posted a really thoughtful, wonderful review of the anthology.

I was interviewed by Nadya Sarah Domingo for Teen Vogue and you can read her take on the book and our conversation here. That was such a delight, I can’t even explain. Great questions, great conversation, and what an honor to be featured on the leading source of actual news in the US right now.

Kayla Whaley, one of the contributors to Here We Are, wrote an unbelievably thoughtful post for the B&N teen blog about the anthology.

There’s more to come, some that I know about, and some that I don’t. Thanks for being along for the ride. I will ask this frequently, in part because it’s a thing I am resolving to be better at myself, but if you read and loved the book, can you drop a quick review on Amazon? Consumer reviews help the book land in the site’s algorithm, making it easier for other readers to discover the title. It doesn’t need to be long or intense. I appreciate it so, so much.

This Week at Book Riot

January 22, 2017 |

Popping the round-up here a little later than usual because of Friday’s fundraising endeavor. Here’s the short list of this week’s post at Book Riot:

3 On A YA Theme is far more than 3 titles this week, with a look at stand alone fantasy titles.

If you don’t get the “What’s Up in YA?” newsletter from Book Riot, now is a great time to sign up. One reason some weeks have more writing on site from me than others is the newsletter — if it’s a heavy-writing week for the newsletter, it’s shorter on site. Tomorrow’s newsletter is all about backlist YA, and in a very-soon future newsletter, I’ve got a killer interview with a debut author whose book is going to explode in the best possible ways.

This Week at Book Riot

January 13, 2017 |

Over on Book Riot this week…

18 great bookish puzzles (because sometimes you need a break from reading).

30 ways to make your winter a little more bookish.

“3 On A YA Theme” tackles teens who are misfits (which could be so many, but alas, I’ve limited it to 4. See what I did there?)

And here are over 20 gorgeous journals for you to buy and write in. I am a collector of journals and not a user of them, but one of my goals this year is to be better at using them, rather than saving them.

Also this week, I received the beautiful finished copies of Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World. The book comes out in a week and a half, which is so soon. Bunny not included, though he sure is cute:

Don’t forget that if you preorder and send proof of your purchase my way, you can be entered for a chance to win a really nice prize pack.

This Week at Book Riot

January 6, 2017 |

Over on Book Riot this week . . .

170 YA books hitting shelves between January and the end of March. Talk about a huge TBR list. If this is overwhelming, I’m bringing back an old feature here at STACKED breaking these lists down month-by-month.

The first “3 On A YA Theme” this year is all about YA book which feature “Start” in the title.

In non-Book Riot writing, I’m making it a goal to work more on Size Acceptance in YA this year, since it got away from me last year. With that, here’s a look at some 2017 YA titles featuring fat characters or representation.