So You Want To Read YA?: Guest Post by Laura Arnold

April 2, 2012 |

This week’s “So You Want to Read YA?” comes from one of my friends from college who has made a name for herself in the book world, Laura Arnold.

Laura Arnold is a senior editor at Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

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I was chatting with my YA editor colleagues about the task of writing this blog post, and the more we tossed around titles, the more we became panicked. So many good books! Where do you start? Where do you even think of starting? So I decided to look at a few distinct categories…and my choices flowed quickly from there.

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Start with the beginning: When I think of the origin of “young adult literature,” my brain jumps instinctively to The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (1967) and I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier (1977). To suggest that these novels and these alone are the beginning of YA is an entirely unscholarly remark, of course (also, sacrilegious in that I’ve omitted Judy Blume). Yet, read today, each of these stories crackles with the same pent-up energy with which they electrified readers decades ago.

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Start with the bestsellers: First it was Twilight. Then it was The Hunger Games. Right now I think it might be John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. I can’t get on the subway without witnessing an adult absorbed in one of these YA smash hits. These books aren’t bestsellers just because of their marketing campaigns. Their success speaks to one element above all: passionate word of mouth.

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Start with the perennials: Two titles spring to mind for me here as books that will never stop being talked about: Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher, and The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. Conceptually they’re quite different, though both seemingly dark. Thirteen Reasons Why is about teen suicide, The Book Thief about the Holocaust. Yet each is powerful, unforgettable and, ultimately, life-affirming.

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Or start with the fun: Maybe you just want to kick off your shoes and curl up with something ridiculously enjoyable. What’s your poison? Werewolves? Try Shiver or Nightshade. Angels? Allow me to plug Immortal City (which, full disclosure, I edited). Fantasy? How about Graceling? Doctor Who fan? You’ll love Across the Universe. Rom-com? Float up into the more thoughtful world of Sarah Dessen.

The point is, YA has something for everyone, young adult or not. There’s a rich trove waiting to be discovered. Dig in, and enjoy!

Why I’m giving up on YA

April 1, 2012 |

I’ve been sifting through a number of really heavy thoughts lately. My life’s changed a lot in the last year, and my priorities and goals professionally and personally have shifted pretty dramatically. I guess you could say that I’ve found everything moving a little too fast and that there’s been way too much pressure to stay on top of everything.

It’s really challenging to keep up on reading, and it’s even more challenging to make sure I’m writing thoughtful reviews on every book that comes into my house. I realize my privilege in receiving books for review, especially when they’re books so many people are clamoring for.

Part of what makes blogging and reading and reviewing challenging for me is that I am one half perfectionist and I’m one half incredibly laid back. So, it’s tough to rectify the first part — my perfectionism — with the second part. I want my blog posts and my reviews to be perfect, but I also don’t want them to come off as too try-hardy. I struggle regularly with this personality quirk, and it’s something that’s led me to do a lot of thinking and a lot of reading about finding a sense of balance. Because right now, balance is something I so sorely need in my life.

Fortunately, over the last week, I’ve read a couple of things that have hit home the truth of the matter in a way I didn’t think about before. Probably because it’s so, so scary and so life changing for me. Thinking about this has been hard, but actually putting this out there, publicly, on the blog I love writing so much, is the scariest thing I’ve ever done.

I’m giving up reading and reviewing YA books.

Cold turkey.

I was really grateful to stumble across this article because it really nailed what I’ve been struggling with lately. Reading all of these YA books at breakneck speed and racing through my piles of review books has led me to forgetting the real joy in reading. In sitting back and having a book challenge my perspectives and in sitting back and having a book force me to confront the gross things in my life. I can’t recall the last YA book I read that begged me to look at the world differently or pushed me to really think about characters or their struggles. Moreover, I don’t remember the last YA book I read that actually STUCK with me. YA books are like candy. As soon as I finish one, I move on to the next one and forget completely about what the last one was about (vampires, right?).

So while I lingered over what Maura Kelly said in that piece, I was alerted to another piece that only further solidified my decision. Stein does an excellent job in this article, and for once, I feel like he gets to the heart of my own problem with YA lit: there isn’t depth to the language and certainly, there’s not depth to the characters. Racing through all of these books leaves me feeling empty and sad because I cannot connect to these teenagers. They’re all so shallow. So one-dimensional. And the writing itself always leaves something to be desired because it’s stilted, hollow, and lacks inspiration.

In short, I’m not learning anything from reading YA.

It’s time for me to walk away and not turn back because I have better books waiting for me. The kind that are slow burns. The kind with real depth of character, with thoughtful and intelligent use of language. The kind of books that get to the heart of matters and make me evaluate my own life and my own beliefs. I want a book that makes me cry because it so perfectly captures what it feels like to go through something Important and Life Changing. Because I struggle so much with my own perfectionism/laid back attitude, I need to read books that help me better refine those two characteristics so that I do not struggle with writing a review. Because I only want to review the books that demand a review. By taking a step back from what I’m doing now and slowing down, focusing hard on just the things that are good for me, maybe I will quit feeling like I’m never doing this right. Our time here is limited, right? And since everything on the internet is so fast-moving, so ephemeral and flash in the pan, I should only be writing about the things that truly Matter.

It’s a good thing no YA book has ever made me think about or relate to what it’s like to grow up with an absent father, or what it means to survive when you feel you have nothing left to live for, or heck, what it’s like to grow up embracing your imperfections in a world where everyone expects you to do or be a certain and acceptable way. None of the books in YA have ever shed light into how I could think about my own challenges or how I could look at a problem in a new way. Or how I could relate to someone who maybe had a similar experience as I did.

I’m only going to find that in quality Literature.

It only took three years of blogging to figure this out, but better late than never, right?

Happy April Fool’s Day to all of the fools out there thinking that YA lit is nothing but the bottom of the barrel in the book world. You make it a more enjoyable place for those of us who love it and want nothing more than to talk about how it relates to us all because adolescence is a universal human experience.

First quarter reading roundup

March 31, 2012 |

Today’s the last day of the first quarter of 2012, and I always like to check in on my reading at the end of a quarter. I’ve been using GoodReads to record what I’m reading for a few years now, but I’ve been hand writing every book I’ve read since I started high school. I like to think of what and when I read as somehow related to my own growth and development. So far this year, I’ve read over 50 books, which includes a number of manuscripts/to-be-published titles I can’t quite talk about yet.

Here’s a look at the books I’ve read, with a quick comment on each (or links to reviews as applicable). Some of these I haven’t posted the reviews of yet but will closer to pub date. I’ve gone ahead and starred those reads that were particularly stand out to me.

* 1. Battle Royale by Koushan Takami (adult): I’ve seen the movie countless times, and I finally read the book. Got through it in one day because I loved it. I refuse to live in a world where Takami’s book is hailed as the “better” version of The Hunger Games because they cover two different things entirely. This is brutal and heartbreaking, and I enjoyed every second of it.

2. Unraveling Isobel by Eileen Cook (ya): A fun thriller/ghost story, but the premise overall was kind of thin. Kimberly reviewed this in depth.

3. The Girls of No Return by Erin Saldin (ya debut): A darkish mean girls tale set in the wilderness. I liked it, and even though it won’t end up being a favorite, I am still thinking about this months later which tells me quite a bit. Longer review here.

* 4. Catch & Release by Blythe Woolston (ya): Woolston not only nails this story, but she develops such great, unique characters. I liked her first novel a lot, but this one made me a full believer in Woolston. Full review here.

5. May B by Caroline Starr Rose (mg debut): I enjoyed this historical novel-in-verse set on the Kansas prairie. Definitely nice appeal on this one, and I loved the setting. Full review here.

6. Blood Bound by Rachel Vincent (adult): Not my usual fair, but I enjoyed it because of that. It’s the start of an urban fantasy series about secrets and loyalty, trust and betrayal. Dark, gritty, and bloody.

7. Life is But a Dream by Brian James (ya): The schizophrenia storyline brought me in, but ultimately, this one left me kind of disappointed. It felt a little bit preachy, even if that wasn’t the intent. Longer review here.

8. Wanderlove by Kirstin Hubbard (ya): Complicated characters in a fresh setting reeled me in and kept me hooked. Full review here.

* 9. Crazy by Amy Reed (ya): One of the best portrayals of bipolar disorder I’ve ever read.

10. Me & Early & The Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews (ya debut): I’m not usually a fan of cancer stories, but the humor in this one made this stand out. Longer review here.

11. Beginner’s Guide to Living by Lia Hills (ya): Recommended to me by so many people! I enjoyed this lyrical story about grief and living through it. There’s a nice romance in this one. Reminded me a lot of CK Kelly Martin’s I Know It’s Over in terms of voice.

12. Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley (ya): Secret identities are at play in this “one last night” story. I liked it when I read it, but I’m struggling to remember much about it now, months later, other than the writing and relationships in the story were the strengths.

13. Never Eighteen by Megan Bostic (ya debut): Problematic story about having your last words before you die. Longer review here.

* 14. This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers (ya): This zombie novel is much less about the zombie apocalypse and much more about what it means to live when you really have nothing to live for. Months later, I’m still thinking about this one. Summers’s best yet.

15. Jersey Angel by Beth Ann Bauman (ya): A book about sex and nothing else. No characters, no real story.

16. The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour (ya): Road trip novel about life after high school. I wasn’t completely enthralled, but it wasn’t entirely disappointing. Review here.

17. The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth (ya debut): A lesbian coming-of-age story. Good but not mind-blowing for me. Longer review.

18. The Knife and the Butterfly by Ashley Hope Perez (ya): Not up my alley, but fills a much-needed niche in the ya world. Longer review.

* 19. Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield (ya debut): Despite being a realistic mystery, this one reminded me a LOT of Imaginary Girls and I mean that in a great way. Beautifully written with a compelling storyline and characters.

20. Thou Shalt Not Road Trip by Antony John (ya): Another road trip book, but this one features a great brother relationship.

21. MWF Seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche (adult nf): An okay memoir about what friendship means when you’re an adult. Longer view here.

* 22. Drowning Instinct by Ilsa J Bick (ya): Jenna’s got one of the best and most memorable voices I’ve read in ya. This book is challenging in the best way. Full review here.

23. Waiting by Carol Lynch Williams (ya): Underdeveloped storyline and weak characters led to a disappointing read. The verse didn’t work.

24. The Pigman by Paul Zindel (ya): Rereading this one still left me loving it.

25. The Year of the Beasts by Cecil Castellucci (ya): I like Castellucci’s writing style, but this graphic novel hybrid didn’t work for me. The story wasn’t strong enough.

26. Darling Meat Angel by Kate Robinson (adult poetry): Kate’s one of my friends from college, and I adored her first book of poetry. It’s raw and gritty.

27. Purity by Jackson Pearce (ya): Interesting premise but weakly executed with a wealth of mixed messages about sex, religion, and, maybe most problematic, female-male dynamics.

28. The Springsweet by Saundra Mitchell (ya): Second book in the series worked well. Lush language, great setting, and an aching character.

* 29. Pieces of Us by Margie Gelbwasser (ya): Complicated story about people who just aren’t nice. Loved how challenging it was. Full review here.

30. Black Boy, White School by Brian Walker (ya debut): Weak writing, interesting story, with definite appeal to more reluctant boy readers. Longer review.

31. The Complete Lockpick Pornography by Joey Comeau (adult): Comeau treads a fine line with humor, violence, and honesty. Two stories that explore identity and social norms.

32. One Lonely Degree by CK Kelly Martin (ya): Read this in one sitting. I have no reason to believe Martin will ever steer me wrong in her writing. I related a LOT to Finn and her insecurities and self-doubt.

33. Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman (adult): Rory’s story wasn’t easy to read and I never found myself connecting to it because it was written in fragments, flashbacks, documents, and other elements.

34. Kiss the Morning Star by Elissa Janine Hoole (ya debut): Road trip story about two girls learning to love each other and themselves. Longer review.

35. Wanted by Heidi Ayarbe (ya): Bonnie and Clyde meets Robin Hood. A modern western novel that had some great parts and some not-so-great parts.

* 36. Something Like Normal by Trish Doller (ya debut): When a marine returns and he’s not a hero but rather a fully flawed (and interesting) character. Loved this book and cried some ugly, ugly tears.

37. Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown (ya): Yet another road trip book, and this one looks at what it means to be brother and sister. Good, but not my favorite.

38. Unbreak My Heart by Melissa Walker (ya): A sweet and light romance story that has definite appeal for the Dessen crowd. It fit my mood perfectly when I read it.

39. Survive by Alex Morel (ya debut): A girl wants to die and finds the chance to, but then when her plan backfires and she’s a survivor, does she want to? Kind of like Hatchett but ultimately, not as good as it could have been.

* 40. Yesterday by CK Kelly Martin (ya): A scifi adventure story with time travel, a dystopian future, and maybe even a tiny bit of romance. This was a crazy read but I loved every second of it (and I’m particularly pleased my review is 2063 words long since that’s when the future happens).

41. Zoe Letting Go by Nora Price (ya debut): This one reminded me a lot of The Girls of No Return meets Wintergirls and will definitely appeal to both. A contemporary delving into dark issues, though it’s not perfect.

* 42. Nothing Special by Geoff Herbach (ya): The follow up to Stupid Fast made me so, so happy. Felton is so great, even if he himself never feels that way. Voice! Voice! Voice!

43. Happy Families by Tanita S. Davis (ya): A story of twins dealing with their father’s coming out as a transexual. Great concept, but I didn’t find the story or characters strong enough.

44. All These Lives by Sarah Wylie (ya debut): Another cancer book and another book about twins, but this one is not about the twin dealing with the disease, but the one who is not. This was a really unexpected surprise in a good way and the writing was great.

45. Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolf (ya debut): Mystery about why the main character’s abusive boyfriend died in a car wreck and she didn’t. Disappointing mystery with an uninteresting lead character.

46. Are You My Mother by Alison Bechdel (adult gn): Much less about Bechdel’s mother and much more about herself. Art and life, with a lot of psychoanalysis going on. Not an easy read.

47. Various Positions by Martha Schabas (ya debut): What seemed like a story about competitive dance turned into a weird story about sex that was never believable and really uncomfortable. Longer review.

48. 172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad (ya): Technically, I’m not finished with this as I write this post, but I think I’ll be done soon enough to call it a first quarter read. Scifi adventure with a tinge of horror.

I’ve had two books I didn’t finish, which were Welcome Caller, This is Chloe by Shelley Corielle (ya debut) and Railsea (ya) by China Mieville.

I’ve read 14 debut novels, too, which is great progress toward my goal of reading 32. I don’t think I’ll have a problem at this rate. I’ve also been keeping my database of contemporary reads up-to-date as I finish each title.

Phew! It’s hard to visualize WHAT you’re reading looks like when you’re doing it, but now looking at this list, maybe I’ve done more reading than I thought I have.

Now I ask (if you made it this far): what have been your favorite reads so far this year? Doesn’t matter whether or not they’ve been published in 2012, as long as you’ve read it in the last three months.

Competition, Envy, & The Fine Print

March 30, 2012 |

The last day or so has brought a great amount of fodder for blogging. The more that came up, the more these things felt connected and the more I knew I had to say something.

I’m a fine print reader. I’m one of those people that does read the contest rules and regulations for anything. I read through all 100-some pages of my mortgage before signing the dotted line, and I had no problem calling my realtor and lender for every single question I had. I like to know what I’m getting myself into.

So last night, when I checked out the contest going on by GoodReads and the Independent Book Bloggers that gives book bloggers the chance to win a free trip to BEA (including airfare, hotel, and convention access), I read the fine print. And I tweeted about being a little nervous reading the fine print for this contest because it mentioned that the sponsors could use my entry, including my post content, without credit or compensation. There are any number of reasons this makes me nervous, but I ran the wording by someone who is savvier about legalese than myself, and I was informed this was fairly standard wording. Except — she couldn’t see what I was seeing. The terms I copy/pasted to her weren’t the ones on the website. In the few minutes between mentioning something on Twitter (and having a couple other people mention it), the terms changed. I’m not going to talk about what they say because that’s been addressed right here.

Honestly, they’re not that different than any other contest terms. The thing is, so few people READ the terms that when you do read them and see something like that, it’s jarring and makes you stop and think a little bit.

After thinking about the way the terms were now laid out, I decided to go ahead and enter the contest. I’d love to head to New York City and BEA for free. I love the networking aspect of the event, even if the show floor does little to nothing for me. As soon as I hit “submit” on the entry, though, I began to feel weird about doing it. I scrolled through a number of the other entries, and I began doubting more and more my decision to enter.

The contest is set up in two rounds: the first allows anyone to vote through their favorite blogs. Starting April 10, bloggers can campaign to earn votes, and the top 15 entries in each of the four categories will then be judged by a panel on a number of criteria, including writing quality, analysis quality, design, tone, and reader impact.

In short: it’s a popularity contest to start, followed by a real evaluation.

I sat on my entry for a few more hours, thinking about the work involved in promoting my blog among the other hundreds of YA blogs that entered. I sat on my entry thinking about having to spam my readers and my Twitter followers and whoever the heck else I could think about to vote for me. I sat on my entry looking at the other bloggers who have far greater followings than I do.

I took my entry out of the contest.

The only thing I could think about was the impending drama to come from this sort of set up. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t think that the things which come up in the blogging world are necessarily drama, and addressing it that way belittles some of the legitimate issues worth talking about when it comes to blogging. But I’m not going to lie: my chest got tense thinking about how my Twitter and my Google Reader will look starting April 10 as people begin begging for votes in this contest. And why wouldn’t people try to get them? It’s a free trip to BEA and to NYC.

This leads me to talking about the bigger issue, which is envy. I sort of addressed this in my post about blogging stats and how it’s important to remember you’re doing what you’re doing because you’re passionate about it, whatever the reason behind it is. It’s hard to remember that sometimes, though, especially when you’re so eager to be a part of something big.

Being a part of a big promotional event is neat. It feels like you’ve been chosen because of something that makes your blog special and unique (even if sometimes it’s simply stats). When you’re not selected to be a part of something, it feels like you’re not good enough. It’s easy to find yourself envious of those who were picked, and it’s way too easy with social media to not only find yourself obsessing over who did get to be a part of something, but to also find yourself lamenting and devaluing your own work because you weren’t. Where one blogger gets something exciting — whether they asked for it or it just happened — another one doesn’t. It’s not fair, and there are going to be feelings on both sides of the equation.

I invited everyone to read Sarah’s post about this topic where it comes to the In My Mailbox meme because she hits it perfectly. While I do think In My Mailbox has a genuine and good purpose behind it, it does get people worked up quite a bit.

I’m not comfortable begging people to choose STACKED over another, equally worthy blog. I’m not comfortable, either, when we’re given an opportunity — one we may not have chosen to be a part of but were instead selected to be part of by some reasoning beyond our knowledge — and people find themselves judging us or themselves as more or less worthy. Because the truth is, we’re all here doing something good and we’re all doing something different.

Even though I’ve pulled my entry for the BEA contest, the anxiety of it hasn’t left me because I know there will be hurt feelings all over the place. It’s the same kind of hurt people have when they don’t get the latest ARC or promotion. What makes it challenging to keep doing what we’re doing with camaraderie and without the hurt feelings is that we ARE all working toward a common goal (spreading the word of great books) and sometimes, the rules and decisions are ones completely out of our hands. The decision makers don’t always take the implications of their contests or their promotions into consideration before they put them out there.

And the thing is, they don’t have to.

It’s our responsibility as bloggers to stand up and choose whether or not we participate. It’s our responsibility to decide whether or not we’re going to let ourselves get anxious or nervous about them, too. It’s our responsibility to speak up and speak out.

We blog because of the freedom it allows us. The only way to keep it free is to remember we have the right to say no thanks and we have the right to step out when we’re not comfortable with how things are going.

That’s the fine print, and we get to write it ourselves.

Same Difference by Derek Kirk Kim

March 30, 2012 |

I’ve resisted picking up Derek Kirk Kim’s Same Difference
for a while for what might be a silly reason: the illustrations are in
black and white. Ever since I started reading graphic novels, I’ve been
more than a little prejudiced against black and white art, no matter how
good that art may be. But I’ve pretty much read through my entire
library’s small collection of full color graphic novels whose stories
seemed remotely interesting to me, so it was time to buckle down and
move on.

There’s no better place to start than Same Difference,
a much-lauded book featuring characters in their twenties, which First
Second re-released in a “deluxe edition” in 2011. By much-lauded, I mean
that it garnered Kim three major comics awards when it was first
published in 2003: the Eisner, the Harvey, and the Ignatz award for new
talent. Pretty impressive, yes? Plus, I really dug Kim’s illustrations
in The Eternal Smile, so I hoped I would like them equally in black and white.

I needn’t have worried – Same Difference
deserves the accolades. By saying that, I realize this review won’t add
much of anything new, since the world has had almost ten years to
figure this out on its own, but for the two of you who hadn’t heard of
this book until now, this is for you.

Simon
and Nancy are two friends going through a quarter-life crisis. They’re
in their mid-twenties, a bit directionless, past high school but not
quite settled into adulthood yet. They’re eating lunch together when
Simon gets a blast from his past: he sees Irene, a former high school
friend of his, waiting at a bus stop. Rather than go and talk to her, he
instead recounts to Nancy the story of their friendship, a story that
still makes Simon feel deeply ashamed of his actions.

Later, the two are at Nancy’s
apartment and Nancy admits to Simon that she’s been receiving letters in
the mail addressed to a former tenant from a lovesick man named Ben –
and she’s been writing back, pretending to be Ben’s object of affection.
Ben lives in Pacifica, which just happens to be Simon’s hometown, and
the two decide to go to Pacifica, hoping to get a glimpse of the man
Nancy’s been stringing along. Not only is Ben not what they expected,
Simon also runs into Irene – and he can’t avoid speaking to her this
time.

The best thing about Same Difference
is the way it manages to be both funny and poignant at the same time. I
laughed out loud at so many moments. At one point, after high school
Simon realizes what a giant…jerk…he’s been, he’s depicted as just
that in the panel. There might not be anything funnier than a picture of
a giant sad-faced…jerk. (Three guesses: What do you think my favorite
part of Superbad was?) And Simon and Nancy are great wise-crackers, constantly ribbing each other like good friends do.
Often, the humor is a lead-in for something a bit deeper: reflections on
life, past experiences that haunt us, and mistakes we continue to make
into adulthood. It’s never heavy-handed, though, and it’s done in only
80 pages with black and white artwork that perfectly captures both the
humor and the poignancy.

The
only thing I wish First Second had done differently with the re-release
is to include the “Other Stories” that were published alongside the
original story.