Over at Book Riot this week:
I’ve talked a bit about All The Rage by Courtney Summers here prior to its release. Now that it’s out, we’re taking part in the blog tour for the book — because Courtney is a friend, I won’t review the book, but I wanted to talk about why it’s one you need to read and talk a bit about the quote above.
One of the big images throughout the book is that of red lipstick and red nail polish. They’re the main character Romy’s armor; they’re a way of her having a ritual and control in a world where
There’s a moment when the pair of school mannequins, which are there for school spirit, become a means for Romy’s peers to bully her. In one scene, the Jane mannequin has her lips colored in red, so there’s no doubt she’s being used as a means to mocking Romy. When Romy sees this — and she anticipates a certain level of being made fun of and ridiculed because she’s the girl who dared speak up about the school’s golden boy who raped her — she tries to scrape off the color.
Romy’s former best friend Penny watches this happen, and it’s when Romy catches her watching on, she feels not only betrayed, but she feels a thousand knives of betrayal. She decides then and there she can’t handle being at school any longer, so she leaves and goes home.
The quote above, “It all feels too close,” is when she gets home and she can’t make up her mind about what to do. Everything claws at her at once: wanting to hide away in her room — one that doesn’t feel like hers yet, since she and her mother have just moved into a place with Todd, her mother’s romantic other — and wanting to flee and put space between her and the world she inhabits. Here’s the entire passage:
The part of me that wants to go is louder.
This may feel small, but it’s a huge piece throughout the book and ultimately, swings back to the conclusion of the book, too. What Romy feels is this constant push and pull, but it’s the desire to go — to step outside her own situation and her own skin and her own place of hiding — that seems to be louder.
The biggest theme running through Summers’s book is the importance of believing girls. By believing them, we let them speak their truths. We hear their stories, however raw and painful they may be. And the more we hear them, the more we let their voices stand. The more we then, in turn, believe their voices even more.
To celebrate the release of All The Rage, Courtney created a hashtag campaign aimed at offering insight, advice, and voice to girls everywhere in #ToTheGirls. For those who may have missed it as it trended worldwide, there have been nice write ups in the New York Times, BlogHer, the Huffington Post, MTV, and a shout out on The Today Show. This is well-worth sharing with teenagers, as the advice shared here is powerful, moving, and could be life-changing. I ended up dropping off the spare ARC I had of the book into the local Little Free Library, which is located between the middle school and high school, with a note about the hash tag, hoping a girl sees it, reads it, and is moved by it.
This month, I had the honor and privilege of having Courtney Summers in conversation with the legendary Laurie Halse Anderson on the topics of feminism, sexual violence, and the importance of girls’ stories. Please read this — both women are phenomenally passionate, well-spoken, and what they have to say can, and will, change lives.
With a shocking conclusion and writing that will absolutely knock you out, All the Rage examines the shame and silence inflicted upon young women in a culture that refuses to protect them.
I’ll select a winner on or around May 5.
After listening to Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear, I decided to dig into these two memoirs – one about Scientology, one about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). I had begun Jessop’s Escape in print several years ago but never finished. (In my
early 20s I often checked out lots of interesting nonfiction from the
library and then never read it.) I have an interest in first-person
accounts of fringe religions/cults (like many of us do, I’m sure).
Raised without a religion, I’ve always been intrigued by what people
believe and why they believe it, as well as where that line between a
religion and a cult actually lies.
Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill with Lisa Pulitzer
Jenna Miscavige Hill is the niece of David Miscavige and was born into Scientology, trained from a young age to join the Sea Org. She fled Scientology in her early 20s and wrote this book about her experiences growing up in the religion. Much of what she discusses is covered in Wright’s book, but getting it from a first person point of view is valuable.
Although Hill was related to the most powerful man in the religion, this was a mixed blessing. At times it seemed she was given preferential treatment (allowed to visit her mother and stay in a relatively nice hotel while others in the Sea Org were not); at others, it seemed she was blamed for it (punished for asking for something she had always gotten before, not realizing it wasn’t standard). What struck me most about Hill’s story was the manipulation and mind games played by Scientologists with power. Frequently, Hill was called in for “security checks” that lasted hours. She was made to answer personal questions and often felt like she was being disciplined for an unknown infraction. Sometimes she’d discover that it was her parents who had misbehaved; often the reasons remained unknown. Particularly startling are Hill’s statements as to how infrequently she saw her parents (half a dozen times in as many years) and how little supervision is exercised over young children. For example, one of Jenna’s jobs as a pre-teen was to administer medical care to all the other children in training for the Sea Org. There was no adult back-up.
The “harrowing” part of the subtitle is a little misleading when compared with Carolyn Jessop’s account of her escape from the FLDS (below). This is partly due to Hill’s writing, which is simplistic and very event-based. She describes her feelings, but mostly this is a straightforward account of what happened, and then what happened next. The events themselves are interesting enough, but it’s not among the most riveting memoirs I’ve read. (Interestingly, neither of these two memoirs were narrated by their authors.)
Escape by Carolyn Jessop
Jessop’s account of her life in the FLDS and her escape at age 35 after over a decade of marriage with a man over 30 years her senior is riveting and horrifying, just as the accounts of Scientology are. She had eight kids at the time of her escape, including one who was profoundly disabled. She managed to escape with all of them and received full custody of them. She tells of rampant abuse, both physical and psychological. I expected that her husband would be horrible, and he was, going so far as to deny life-saving medical care to one of Carolyn’s children in order to punish her. What I didn’t expect was just how horrible her “sister wives” were as well. One of the wives was clearly the dominant one in her husband’s affections and used that power to manipulate and harm the other wives and their children. It ranged from little things, like not allowing the other wives time to use the washer and dryer, to more extreme things like preventing enough money to be given for the purchase of food.
In some ways, members of the FLDS are harder to understand than Scientologists – perhaps because of the way they dress. At first glance, Scientology doesn’t seem harmful as much as it seems just weird and a place for gullible people to get fleeced of all their money. The FLDS is definitely more blatantly awful, particularly for women (but not only for them).
As memoirs go, Escape is better-written than Hill’s Beyond Belief. The people in Jessop’s story have personality and depth, even those who were sometimes cruel to her. She delves deep into her reasons for believing and staying in the FLDS as long as she did. While both Hill and Jessop were born into their respective religions, the FLDS doesn’t really accept newcomers as Scientology goes. The FLDS needs to get them from birth and keep them isolated, and that’s exactly what happened with Jessop. Unlike Scientology, there doesn’t seem to be much to appeal to someone raised outside the FLDS. Even as she came to realize that her husband and those in power were not good people, Jessop believed in her religion. This creates sympathy for her daughter, Betty, who returned to the FLDS when she turned 18.
Next on my list: Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven.
Both books borrowed from my local library.
I attended the Texas Library Association annual conference last Wednesday and Friday (living in Austin, where the conference was located, makes this easy). There’s just something about the way a library conference exhibit hall smells that makes me happy. I didn’t shell out for a full pass and opted just for the exhibit hall this year, since I wasn’t going to be able to make it to enough programs for it to be worth the money.
The first time I attended a library conference as a graduate student, I was amazed that publishers were just handing out free books left and right (not to mention lots of chocolate). Even over just the past few years, the frenzy at library conferences over the giveaways seems to have increased exponentially. (The staff at the publishers’ booths seemed even more Over It on the last day this year compared to previous years.) Several years into my career, my wonder at the exhibit halls has
significantly faded, in part because of this, but it still gives me warm fuzzies to see so many
people who love reading and libraries all in one place.
I’ve made a conscious effort at conferences in recent years to only pick up those books I’m reasonably sure I will read myself or that I can pass off to someone else to read. With that in mind, here are a few of the books I chose that I’m particularly excited about.
Ink and Ashes by Valynne Maetani
Maetani won the inaugural New Visions Award given by Tu Books, an imprint of Lee and Low, for a debut middle grade or YA novel by a writer of color. Ink and Ashes is a mystery featuring a teenage girl who discovers that her father was a member of the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia. Teens getting involved with organized crime crops up fairly regularly in modern YA, and it’s a theme I usually enjoy (although I tend to dislike seeing it in film).
The Immortal Heights by Sherry Thomas
This is the third book in Thomas’ YA trilogy that she has called “Harry Potter with cross-dressing.” It’s a fantasy where our non-magic world coexists side-by-side with the magical one, much like in the Harry Potter books, but Thomas’ series has a very different feel and her writing style is quite distinct (it’s historical, for one). It’s a classic-style fantasy with lots of magic, adventure, romance, and a fight to bring down an ultimate bad guy. These books are hugely appealing with gorgeous covers.
Wolf By Wolf by Ryan Graudin
I haven’t read Graudin’s The Walled City, which I’ve heard terrific things about, but the buzz over that book is a large part of why I picked this one up. Wolf By Wolf is an alternate history where the Axis powers won World War II, much like Caroline Tung Richmond’s The Only Thing to Fear. Alternate history is a subgenre I love but that I don’t think is done completely successfully a whole lot. I’m curious to see how Graudin’s book fares.
The Hunted by Matt de la Pena
This is the sequel to the 2014 Cybils YA speculative fiction award winner, The Living. I served as a Round 1 panelist this past year and it was a terrific experience. The Living is a great book that I read in nearly a single sitting. It mixes a lot together, but does it successfully: survival story, government conspiracy, a little bit of romance. Protagonist Shy has such a strong, realistic voice and de la Pena doesn’t shy away from writing about how class and race has affected his characters (pun intended). I’ll dive into this one when I need a fast-paced, thrilling read.
Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older
I have seen so much buzz over this book, a modern urban fantasy where art is imbued with spirits, I’m surprised it was still sitting at the Scholastic booth on Friday morning when I stopped by. The staff at the booth were handing out all of their display copies so they didn’t have to ship them back to New York City, and I knew this was my only chance to get a copy of the book (there were no giveaway copies, probably because its publication date is fairly close). When I grabbed it, the staffer clapped and told me how great it was. So I’d say I’m excited to read it.
Death Marked by Leah Cypess
Another sequel to a Cybils finalist, one I probably wouldn’t have read if it weren’t for the Cybils. I’m excited to see how Ileni’s story continues.
Believe it or not, today is STACKED’s 6th anniversary. It all began with an email to Kimberly asking if she’d want to write for a blog and post a couple times a week about books and reading. The rest is history.
We’re honored by all of our readers taking the time to read, talk, and share with us each and every day. It’s such a blast to be able to write about anything that strikes our fancy and know that someone out there is reading it and thinking about it. It’s thanks to this blog that I have the job I have, and I’m sure Kimberly can say that it’s thanks to this blog she gets to do some of the cool things she does at work, too.
Being numbers nerds, a snapshot of STACKED: last month, March 2015, was the biggest hit month in our history, with nearly 100,000 visits. In 6 years, we’ve published 1,920 posts. That’s a lot of words and a lot of eyes.
So much has changed in our personal lives since beginning this journey, but one thing remains the same: we’re both book lovers and we are passionate about advocating for readers.
To celebrate our anniversary, as well as to thank readers long-time and brand new, we’re giving away a $60 gift certificate to a book retailer of your choice. We’ll let the winner choose where they’d like to get their gift certificate, so long as we can order it online. Winner will be pulled and contacted on or around May 1.
Thanks for being a part of our daily reading and writing lives, and we can’t wait to see what this next year holds at STACKED!