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Links of Note: June 8, 2013

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One of my recent displays at work, which was completely emptied out just a week later.
My teens LOVE mysteries, espionage, and thrillers. 

Since last week I was out of town, I didn’t get a chance to do a proper Links of Note. But I’m going to do my best to cover everything I’ve read recently I think is worth sharing. It’s a little light because I haven’t been around the blog world catching up quite yet, so if there’s something I must see, let me know in the comments.

  • Literopathy: it’s like Dear Abby but for people who want their therapy via book lists. I love this idea, and I love book list compilations, period. 
  • The Children’s Book Council Diversity blog delves into one of my trigger topics, which is where the fat kids have gone in kid lit. This is a topic I’m considering revisiting here sometime in the near future, but in the mean time, read this post. It’s spot on and important and good thought fodder. 
  • Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s post about gender, the null hypothesis and privilege is out of this world good. I’m not linking to the John Green post that inspired it (you’ve probably read it anyway), but I love Barnes’s examination of what the claims are and her willingness to call out the question she got about her initial post on the topic. 
  • A couple of interesting blog posts recently popped up about the role of friendship in YA fiction. There’s this one and then this one. Both are worthwhile reading. My only comment to really add is that I think there are actually a lot of YA books that tackle friendship head on and do so in really worthwhile ways. But I say this as someone who has been working on a book about contemporary YA and has an entire chapter dedicated to friendship. It’s there. The problem is that it’s not the selling point of many books (which is hit on in those posts) and it’s not as sexy a lead to readers as a romance is. I’m not sure if that’s actual truth or something we’re simply told and led to believe. 

Neptune’s Tears by Susan Waggoner

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Have you ever finished a book, set it down, and thought to yourself “I liked that way more than it deserved?” Neptune’s Tears by Susan Waggoner is one of those books for me. It’s thin in all ways – not just page count – but it doesn’t stop the concept from being cool, and sometimes that’s enough for an enjoyable read.

Seventeen-year-old Zee lives in London in 2218. She’s training at a hospital to be an empath, a career choice that is still relatively new for her time. She has to be careful not to form any close emotional relationships herself, as it would interfere with the work she does helping patients repair their own emotional well-being.

But then. (You knew this was coming, right?) She meets a boy.

He’s not just any boy. He’s an alien – a very human-looking alien, but an alien nonetheless, one of a race who landed several years before and have managed to assimilate rather well. Actually, the first encounter was a bit of a letdown for most people, as the aliens themselves didn’t seem to have much of a plan other than studying Earth. Zee’s father remains convinced that the aliens have other intentions, and it’s made him obsessive and distant.

While the aliens didn’t bring much strife, Zee’s future world is far from utopian (though this is emphatically not a dystopia). It’s plagued by anarchist terrorists who set off shock bombs without warning and kill swaths of people at a time – without even realizing they’ve been hit. And the world is divided on the aliens, of course. Zee herself is resentful of them due to the way her father reacted to them, so her attraction to handsome alien David is very unwelcome.

And yet, she can’t help but seek out his company, and the two fall in love. Then it becomes clear that David has a few secrets, and Zee’s empathic powers begin to grow stronger and morph into something newer and rarer. Everything culminates in a deadly anarchist attack, when Zee learns the secrets David has been hiding and her world is upended.

There’s a twist at the end, and it’s abrupt and unexpected, barely telegraphed at all. It also leaves the book on a bit of a cliffhanger, though many readers probably won’t care (that it’s unresolved or enough to read a sequel, to be honest). It also makes the book about something completely different than initially expected (in much the same way that the twist in R. J. Anderson’s Ultraviolet did. Readers may have the same feelings about it, too – either very excited or very betrayed).

This is a short book, and it suffers for it, I think. Characterization is pretty thin, and the plot doesn’t go much of anywhere (until the very end, of course). I wouldn’t call it a frothy, fun read either, though. It’s just a bit dull, despite the intriguing premise.

That said, I certainly enjoyed it. The short length helped, as I didn’t have much time to get bored before I had finished it. And I really dug Waggoner’s ideas, though they weren’t executed particularly well. I like the idea of empaths as healers in a science fiction rather than a fantasy setting. There are also a few intriguing details of this future world sprinkled throughout, including a lovely background story that explains the title. Even the anarchist terrorists seem a bit different from the usual fare with their choice of weapon. Little bits like this hint at real creativity and a story that never really comes into its own.

Review copy received from the publisher. Neptune’s Tears will be published June 25.

Let’s start a Riot!

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I know I haven’t updated about BEA yet, and I’m not sure yet what all I have to say about it — it was good! It was much more about the social stuff for me this year than the “getting all the things” aspect (I picked up maybe 15 books).

But I did have something else to share that sort of came out of BEA. And that’s this: you know the awesome site Book Riot, focused on readers and written by those who are readers?

I’m writing for them.

My first post is up today, and it’s all about my genre kryptonite. Anyone who has been on Stacked for a day or two knows my passion for dark realistic YA fiction, so that’s what I’m talking about.

The best part of writing for Book Riot, aside from all of the other great things, is that it’s short form, and it’s a site of readers who seek out books for reading’s sake. Which means, my tone writing over there can be a little different than it is here, and the pieces are much briefer. It’s a really nice opportunity to branch out and talk in more places about books and reading. Nothing will change at Stacked, as I love having this space and I love and appreciate everyone who stops by to read or shares what we do here.

I like to think of it as fulfilling my dedication to getting beyond the easy reach, too, which I know I’ve blogged about many times before.

When my next post goes up, I’ll link it up (because I wrote about one of my all-time favorite things that I have been thinking about a lot lately and is relevant to many a recent article across the internet), but following that, I’ll only call out posts in the biweekly link round ups on Saturdays.

Templar by Jordan Mechner, LeUyen Pham, and Alex Puvilland

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Martin is a templar knight, but he never made it to Jerusalem. Instead, he’s been recalled to France, along with his fellow knights, where the pope has caved to political pressure from the king and set events in motion that would end the order. The knights have all been arrested on charges of heresy, and it’s only a matter of time before Martin himself is executed, along with the rest of the order.

Instead, he manages to escape, and he sets out on the run with a few other knights who have managed to remain hidden from the clutches of the king. With the assistance of a former flame of Martin’s, they resolve to keep the king from gaining the famous treasure of the Knights Templar – by stealing it themselves.

Mechner has used the history of the end of the order to set up a seriously fun (and surprisingly moving) story. Due to the length of the book, he’s got time to create interesting, fully-formed characters and a fairly complex plot. I like that the search for the treasure is grounded in the actual history of the Templars and takes place in their historical period, rather than focusing on a modern group of historian-thieves. There’s good camaraderie as well as bickering between the rogue knights, who are refreshingly not portrayed as lily white defenders of the faith.

I feel like Templar is a book created just for me. It’s a historical fiction full-color heist story (so many things I love all in one package!) that’s actually novel-length and takes more than a single afternoon to read. It’s beautiful (with just the kind of art I love), it’s moving, it’s exciting, it’s funny; it’s just overall so well done, and all the time that went into its creation (as Mechner describes in his foreword) is very apparent. And it’s not a complete testosterone party – Martin’s ex figures prominently and is important to the story, without seeming to be shoehorned in.

It’s also a self-contained story, which may entice readers who are wary or weary of the multi-volume stories so prevalent in the graphic format. The ending is a punch to the gut, both unexpected and realistic. It adds a bit more gravitas to what could be seen as a very silly story – and reminds the reader that Martin’s situation was dangerous and bloody.

This should have great appeal to teens who love high-action comics. There’s a little nudity, but it’s blurry, drawn with steam clouds from a hot springs bath covering most of it. Highly recommended.

Finished copy received from the publisher. Templar will be published July 9.

Twitterview: Katie Williams

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This month, we have author Katie Williams here as our Twitterview guest. We’re talking about her new book Absent, about creepy YA, ice cream, and much, much more.  I reviewed Absent yesterday and it’s one of my 2013 favorite readers. I am going to give away a copy to one lucky winner at the end of this interview.


For now, Katie!

What inspired Absent?

Staying after hours when I was in high school. It feels strange to be in a place built for crowds when it’s empty.

If you had to put a genre label on Absent, what would you call it?

A ghost story through the looking glass? Or post-death coming-of-age? I like to mess with genres.



There are ghosts in this book, and they aren’t necessarily Casper-nice. What inspired the ghostly aspects of Absent?

My ghosts are facing this incredible loss. It makes them look at who they were and how they’ll be remembered. They have tough moments.

What sort of research, if any, went into Absent? Feel free to link to relevant media that influenced/informed your story.

I read ghost stories to decide how I wanted my ghost world to be. Recommended
ghostly reading: here, here, here, here, and here.

Paige can “press into” anyone and BECOME them, altering their destiny (at least briefly). If you could “press into” someone, would you?

I want to say no because it’s a truly unfair thing to do. But honestly, who could resist that sort of masquerade?

Who would it be and why?

See? You knew I’d say yes. Maybe not any one person, but a lot of different people, not to change things, just to walk for a bit.

Stereotyping is a big theme throughout the book. What do your characters learn about this through their journey?

Viewing others with nuance and generosity allows you to view yourself with nuance and generosity. We should do more of both.

What, if anything, should readers walk away with from Absent?

That quiet, complete feeling of having read a good story. (This is what I hope!)

If you had to give a “______” meets “_________” pitch for your book, what would you say are the 2, 3, or 4 titles it’s a combination of?

Since you’ve asked for a Hollywood pitch, I’m going to give you movies. How about “The Breakfast Club” meets “The Others”?

Both Absent and The Space Between Trees are creepy reads. What inspires your writing in this way?

So macabre, I know! But I see them as about identity, the stories we tell about ourselves and others. And fear is a great revealer of self.

What gets you jazzed to write?

Reading good books. Taking long walks. There’s also a fair bit of procrastination masked as apartment cleaning.

Who or what do you write for?

I write YA for my sixteen-year-old self.

Why YA? What’s compelling about this arena to make you want to write it?

YA takes risks; it’s sleek and fiery; it doesn’t care what genre. Readers demand both pleasure and knowledge, in short, a damn good story.

What scares you the most about writing or the writing process?

Representing people or experiences in a reductive way.

Is there something you’ve always wanted to explore in your writing but have been too fearful to do yet?

I’m terrified of the 1880s setting of my current project. Our time period shapes us, and we also recognize each other across time, both.

What’s been the most satisfying part of your career to date?

Hearing from readers. I also love seeing the covers because I wish I could draw.

Who are your top three writing influences?

Tops is Ursula K. Le Guin. Two others: Jennifer Egan and Kelly Link. All three take risks and trust the reader.

What was your most influential read as a teenager?

I read everything Stephen King had ever written…under my desk during class. I think my parents had to take a special meeting.

Who do you believe is breaking ground in YA right now?

Kristin Cashore astounds and amazes. All hail.

What’s the best writing advice you ever received?

Read your first drafts like your sweetest friend and your final drafts like your snarkiest critic. Wisdom from writer Charles Baxter.

What’s your best writing advice to give?

It’s normal to feel foolish or frustrated (or both!) when you write. Be brave. Keep going. You will get somewhere true.

Do you have a writing soundtrack? Care to share some of it?

I don’t. I start typing the song lyrics! But my mom says this song reminds her of Absent:

(It’s pretty uncanny.)

What’s next for you?

Next: Low-magic fantasy in late-1880s American West. Then: Near future science-
fiction about a teenage reality TV show.

Favorite ice cream?

Cinnamon. Try it. Trust me.