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books

The List by Siobhan Vivian

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The Monday of Homecoming week at Mount Washington High School is when the annual list shows up. It’s written anonymously and has on it the names of two girls from each grade: one who is the prettiest and one who is the ugliest. For all eight girls, being put on the list changes their status at school, despite the fact none of them choose to be included. Suddenly, they’re all in the spotlight.

Siobhan Vivian’s The List is a story about the eight girls on this year’s list and what being put on that list does to them.

There are eight voices in this book and each of them is unique and fully developed. It’s in third person present tense, and it works — rather than being inside the heads of each of these girls first hand, we’re getting more objective understandings of each because we’re removed from them. Vivian excels in writing tight prose that elevates and rounds out the characters, but she does so without forcing the reader to believe one thing or another about them through the story; they’re dynamic.

When readers are dropped in the story, the characters are just learning they’ve been put on the list. That means the first interactions we have with the characters are emotional ones: Abby, prettiest freshman, is pleased to find herself on the list but immediately worries how her older sister Fern will react; Danielle, ugliest freshman, has just reunited with her football playing boyfriend Andrew after a summer apart and now being called out as not only the ugliest girl but as “Dan the Man” has her worried how much longer he’ll hang around; sophomore ugliest Candace is trying to make sense of going from being one of the prettiest to becoming one of the ugliest in just a year and keep her friends in line with their elaborate Homecoming plans; Lauren, the prettiest sophomore, is adjusting to being at a normal high school after spending her life as a homeschooler; Sarah, the ugliest junior, doesn’t care she’s made the list because appearances aren’t her thing at all; prettiest junior Bridget went through a dramatic physical transformation over the last summer due to a worsening eating disorder; senior ugliest, Jennifer, has made a school record in being the only girl to appear on the list four years running, though it’s not necessarily a badge of honor; and finally, Margo, prettiest senior, takes this as a sign she’ll follow in her sister’s footsteps and become Homecoming Queen but she’s quickly approached by the principal, as he’s suspicious that she knows the truth behind the list. He wants answers and he trusts her to deliver them.

As the week progresses, we learn these girls are a lot more complex than their labels suggest. I found myself invested in some girls more than others. I don’t find that to be the fault of the writing, but rather, the fact that some characters spoke to me more than others. In particular, I thought Sarah’s story was extremely compelling — she’s okay with being the ugly girl. More than okay, in fact, as she owns it and displays it. She chooses to go without showering as sort of a sign that the person or people behind this list were right. Sarah is the loud representation of everything that’s wrong with the list: she’s proving the point she can become what people want to believe if they go by appearance alone. Deep down, she’s a hurting girl and she’s complex, but that’s not what the people around her way to know her as. They only care that she’s unattractive. Her owning it is as much of a middle finger to the people around her as it is a defense mechanism for the pain she’s carrying.

On the opposite end, I also found myself quite invested in Bridget’s story, too. She’s gained her notoriety as the pretty girl through her eating disorder. For her, being on the list is almost confirmation of the way she’s treated herself, and it’s also almost motivating, since she doesn’t find herself stopping the behavior, either. Whereas the “fame” gives Sarah a way to rebel, it gives Bridget a sense of purpose. The other character I found myself drawn to was Danielle — her relationship with her boyfriend hurt to watch. Not because he didn’t treat her well, but because he becomes pressured by his teammates to reconsider his involvement with the girl deemed ugliest in the school. The list had power to not only impact the girls who made it, one way or another, but it impacted those who knew the girls, too.

The List explores the power of labeling, as well as the power of identifying with or rejecting them. Of course, the labeling is a small aspect of it, since the story is much more about appearance and the power beauty does or doesn’t have in defining people. Vivian does a good job of keeping the story very much high school. There are big issues here, but it never comes across as inauthentic. Because this story takes place over the course of Homecoming, the big event plays into the story and grounds it. It’s a time when emotions are already a little heightened, but the list only amplifies them. Also playing a role in the story is the fact the list is anonymous. There are plenty of ideas of who could be behind it, but there aren’t many strong leads, except for the fact whoever creates and distributes the list has — or has access to — an official school seal, which is placed on each of the copies.

For me, this is Vivian’s strongest book yet. It combines her ability to develop full characters with strong writing and an engaging premise. More than that, though, it not only tackles the complex issues of labeling and appearance well, but it also tackles a slew of other issues within each of the individuals without ever making them stereotypes nor flat, single-issue people. This book will appeal to fans of Vivian’s other books, and it’ll appeal to teen readers who like strong contemporary stories that are very much about high school life. While I don’t dismiss the fact there will be male readers who can enjoy this story, I definitely see this having higher appeal to female readers, and in part, that’s because the characters are relatable. I can see teen girls finding themselves in at least one, if not more, of these stories. This is the kind of book that’s made for a book discussion because there is a lot to dig into and talk about. The List is also partially inspired and in the spirit of the classic Cormier title, The Chocolate War, which gives it even more to dig into.

Previously: 
Review of Siobhan Vivian’s Same Difference
Review of Siobhan Vivian’s Not That Kind of Girl
Twitterview with Siobhan Vivian 

Review copy received from the publisher. The List will be available April 1.

So You Want To Read YA?: Guest Post from Kathleen Peacock (author of Hemlock)

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This week’s “So You Wanna Read YA?” post comes to us from Kathleen Peacock.

Kathleen spent most of her teen years writing short stories. She put her writing dreams on hold while attending college but rediscovered them when office life started leaving her with an allergy to cubicles. You can learn more about her on her website at www.kathleenpeacock.com or follow her on Twitter @kathleenpeacock. 


Without further ado, let’s date some YA books, shall we?

Trying any new genre is a bit like jumping into the dating pool: you cautiously wade in, make a few missed connections, and wonder if you’ll ever find “the one.” And that’s all it usually takes. Once you click with one book, the whole genre seems less intimidating and becomes an awesome all-you-can-eat buffet.
(I realize I’m mixing metaphors. Just roll with it.)
To help you make a love connection with the YA title of your dreams (see? we’re back to dating), I’ve taken three books that I frequently thrust upon non-YA readers and written online dating profiles for each.
Do any strike your fancy? If so, you can pick up the lucky book(s) at your local library or bookstore. Try taking them out for coffee and see where things go.

Nickname: A_Great_Perhaps  
Real Name: Looking for Alaska
Pick up line: “I’d finally had enough of chasing after a ghost who did not want to be discovered.”
My perfect date: A small coffee shop filled with misunderstood people and corduroy.
My friends would describe me as: Shy and a little too earnest for my own good but my crooked grin and combination of innocence and smarts makes people fall hard and fast.
About Me: There’s no point in denying it: I’ve got a thing for manic pixie dream girls. If you’re misunderstood and angry yet adorable, let’s hang out.  Self-destructive girls and thoughtful guys please do apply. And remember: a bazillion nerdfighters can’t be wrong.
I’m perfect for you if you like: That blond girl in Almost Famous, thoughtful, self-deprecating guys, getting your heart ripped out in the best possible way

Nickname: TheGirlOnFire  
Real Name: The Hunger Games
Pick up line: “May the odds be ever in your favor!”
My perfect date: Hunting. I’ll shoot a squirrel. You cook it.
My friends would describe me as: I actually only have one friend. He’s short on words but good at setting snares.
About Me: I’m only here because the Capitol thought my life wasn’t hellish enough and signed me up for online dating.
I’m perfect for you if you like: Lots of action, Survivor, doomed romances with a body count, commentaries on reality TV, voyeurism, and consumerism

Nickname: ItsNotAll$andc@stlesAndN!njas  
Real Name: Going Bovine
Pick up line: “Someone needs to push the reset button on this planet.”
My perfect date: Trying to track down an obscure band which may or may not exist. Or hooking up with punk rock angels. I’m not picky.
My friends would describe me as: My friends are a hypochondriac and a garden gnome. Both may or may not actually exist outside my mind. Either way, you don’t want to know how they’d describe me.
About Me: I’ll never make sense and you’ll love me that way.
I’m perfect for you if you like: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, that claymation episode of Community, movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Stranger than Fiction, conversations that make no sense.

***
 Kathleen Peacock’s debut novel Hemlock will be published by HarperCollins May 8. Hemlock follows high school senior Mackenzie as she attempts to solve the mystery of her best friend’s murder in a town affected by the werewolf virus (description via WorldCat).
Because Kathleen has a soft spot for libraries, she’s got a great give away going on now for librarians. Check out this blog post for the easy details on how you could win one of two pre-orders of Hemlock. 

Shelf Life: A Book Case Tour

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I let my bookshelves get out of hand. To the point where I have no room, have things in piles on top of piles on the shelves, and then eventually, I give up all together and have piles all over the floor. But after spending approximately all day yesterday (and a good chunk of the day before…and the day before…and the day before) perusing Unf*ck Your Habitat, I finally got the motivation to just tackle the shelves full force. It’s about this time of year every year I go through my I don’t want to become a hoarder stage and end up pitching half my house. I think this was a big first step.

Because I know I dig looking at other people’s shelves, I thought I’d give the grand tour, before and after style.

So these are the bulk of my office shelves, and they were arranged by color. The three wooden shelves were pretty good in terms of not being too messy. But then if you look to the wire shelves on the left, things weren’t quite as nice:

This is what happened after the Cybils, and I never bothered doing anything about it. I just kept shoving books in there. Then as I started finishing more recent books, I went ahead and made some nice piles on top of the shelves. Now, seeing this set of rickety shelves is beside the treadmill desk, it was only going to be a matter of time before I had a real disaster on my hands.

On the other side of my office (and mind you, my office is tiny – it’s probably 10 feet by 10 feet) is another book case. This one wasn’t so bad because it’s a lot smaller.

There was actually room on this set of shelves. Kinda.

The room next to my office is my bedroom and there is another small book case beside the bed. Also semi-empty, also not too bad.

I’m starting to kind of get embarrassed by how disorganized all of this was. Except that it only gets kind of worse from here on out. Before getting to my shame piles, let me take you to my living room book case, which is where I keep the more recent titles I’ve gotten and the things that are unread (the stuff in my office and bedroom is either stuff that I’ve read or stuff that’s not a review title and therefore less of a priority or it’s stuff that belongs to my husband because yeah, I let him put his books on my shelves).

Apparently, I’m showing off my incredible clutter habits in addition to my shelving habits. But anyway. This set of shelves isn’t too terrible. The top shelf, up on the left, houses books that either I need to review or are books that I’ve meant to review or do some further action on and the ones on the right are books on writing craft. I’ve also got my paper book lists (because yes, I hand write every single book I read down in those little notebooks on the middle shelf), my Cubby (if you’ve read Frost that will be a fun reference), and my husband’s junk box on the second-from-the-top shelf.

Okay. Now I give you two photos of shame. First, this is underneath the front window in my living room:

These are the most recent books I’ve received or at least that’s what I continued to claim they were. The truth is, most of them were ALA books I never bothered to put away (or didn’t have room for, as evidenced by the shelves). In addition to these shame piles, I have my committee book pile in the guest bedroom.

These are the Alex books coming in and causing me even more stress because I have no idea where to put them.

But alas, I learned today that not all is lost, and that I can take care of my own book shame. First, it took an incredible amount of purging. Between books I plan on giving away and books that were in crummy enough shape that recycling them made the most sense, I got rid of about six garbage bags and cleared a ton of room. It left me so much space I tinkered around a bit with my shelf organization, though by no means is there a true method here.

Starting back in the office:

This is my now usable set of wire shelves. It’s become where all my reference-type books have gone, along with the Norton Anthologies I cannot bring myself to throw away. As much as I hate them and as little as I use them (read: never), I can’t bring myself to get rid of them. I think it’s because I know I have some great stuff written in the margins and maybe someday I’ll want to remember what I was thinking about some piece of post-modern fiction (…I can dream). Also, as you’ll see, I’ve got my husband’s immense collection of Uncle John’s titles, coding books, style guides (because who doesn’t have an APA and an MLA guide sitting around), and my copy of ED Hirsch’s masterpiece on Cultural Literacy. Read that last part with a tinge of sarcasm and knowledge my copy is stuffed with glitter.

So the shelves to the right of the wire set have been completely reorganized, too.

Look at how straight the books are! And how much room there is! On the left set is adult books and poetry, the middle set of shelves is a mix of a few different things, and the right set are my ya books. Let’s look closer (because I know you’re interested in WHAT is residing on those shelves as much as the fact they’re now pretty to look at).

Grouped together on the top few shelves are my different-books-by-the-same-author, including Bill Bryson, Douglas Coupland, Don DeLillo, Franz Kafka, Haruki Murakami, Ryu Murakami, Kurt Vonnegut, etc. After that, it’s just by size from left to right on the shelves until the very bottom shelf — that’s where I’ve stacked all my poetry books. This is a mix of fiction and non-fiction.

 
My middle and shorter shelf is a mix of a few things. The very top of the shelf has some of my magazines, my college’s literary magazines, and all my graphic novels. On the top shelf, I’ve got my smaller paperbacks (all adult). The middle shelf is one of my favorites — it’s all my signed books. Yes, I’ve met Bill Clinton, yes he’s signed my book, and yes, I’ve read it. The bottom shelf is the start of my ya fiction and it’s all my series books. As you can tell, there’s room for some titles to be added (and some of them are currently loaned out to other folks).

And here’s my ya fiction book case. There is no organizational scheme at all, except by size across the shelves. The bulk of these are ones I’ve read but there are a few that are still in the “I’ll read it some day” category. Honestly, the majority of my purging today was of old galleys that I knew I would never get to. The things that, if I really had the whim to read, I’d go pick it up at the library. I hate things taking up space in my house, and those were doing just that.

The shelf across from these became an overflow for all the adult books, both fiction and non-fiction. Most of these belong to my husband.

I want you to know we call the little monkey bank “Sunshine.”

So now that the office was tackled, I had the entire book case in my bedroom to use. I’d emptied it completely, adjusting everything to fit in the office. But before I went to fill the bedroom case, I weeded the book case in the living room, moving all the older galleys into the bedroom. And then I decided I should just rid myself of the Alex shame pile in the guest bedroom at the same time. So my bedroom shelves now look like this:

There is even room for more books as they come in. I’ve been warned this will certainly not be enough room, but as you can see, there is a small floor space to the left of the shelf, and that’s where I’ll be piling them up. At least that shame pile will be in my bedroom beside the book case, next to the rest of the same type of book.

And finally, I moved the books residing on the floor in my living room to my living room shelf. It is now a thing of true beauty and simplicity.

My top shelf, where I held all those “to complete action on” books is now down to two books I have to write reviews for, and the pile of books between those and my writing books are books that belong to my friend Andrea. I made so much room, in fact, the entire bottom shelf is empty.

There you have it — a tour of my book shelves and the entire process behind purging and shifting. Let me tell you how nice it feels to have gotten rid of so much stuff. I love books as much as any other reader, but I’m not really attached to the product when I finish reading. I don’t have a huge problem letting go of the physical copies, especially with the ease of being able to access them via my ereader if I want to (but I think I’ve mentioned before I kind of hate ereading…but the point is I CAN access books if I need/want to). More importantly, I no longer have shame piles in my house, and I foresee this being the case for quite a while.

I see weeding as a huge part of having a big reading life, and I think it’s important, too, as part of the process of reassessing one’s growth and development as a reader. Keeping old things around weigh us down and hold us back. At my first library job, my coworkers used to comment on my weeding because I was pretty ruthless about it, but my philosophy is that the more you weed and the more you get rid of the things that you don’t have some sort of attachment to, the more you find the things you’ve maybe missed out on and the more you can better define what it is you do love. Hokey but true. It also helps you from becoming a hoarder.

Links of interest round up

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Here’s another irregular installment of links that have caught my attention or have otherwise been neat to see.

  • Jennifer Hubbard has a list of books that deal with suicide — the topic at the center of her latest novel, Try Not to Breathe — up on her blog. It’s a sensitive topic but it’s an important one.
  • Have books you need to get rid of or a pile of ARCs you want to pass on? Help out one of Blythe Woolston’s local organizations by sending them on for their EPIC library. I’ve already sent some myself, and I’ll tell you the secret to keeping it affordable: pick up a flat rate box and pack it to the gills. For sending about 20 or so books, it was under $15. Worth it for the cause.
  • A few weeks back, Kelly Thompson at Comic Book Resources wrote a fantastic post about inequality in female/male representation in comics. She approaches it from a bit of a different angle, and it is well worth the read. Both the article and the comments are thought-provoking. 
  • On the lighter side, I love this comic of Tolstoy discovering a bad review of Anna Karenina on GoodReads, and I’ve gotten more than a few laughs out of Least Helpful Reviews (which seems to have blown up this week — but it’s been around for a while).
  • In totally self-indulgent news, Tracey Neithercott wrote up a great article in this month’s AARP magazine, and she was kind enough to give us a shout out. Thanks to her, and thanks to everyone who has stopped by to check us out! And in more self-indulgent news, I was included in an article for April’s print and digital edition of SELF magazine, talking about my treadmill desk. Check it out, if you want to — you can even see a sliver of my books in the background (of course).

Tomorrow we continue our “So You Want to Read YA?” series with our first guest post. We’re so excited about this series and we hope you’re enjoying it as much as we are! 

Spreading the love: Blogs I’m reading

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Over the last few weeks, I’ve been in the process of cleaning out my feed reader and weeding out the blogs that aren’t active anymore, that don’t suit my interests anymore, or that otherwise don’t merit my daily attention. I probably subscribe to a healthy number of blogs, but I haven’t subscribed to many new blogs in a long time. I put a call out last week on Twitter for help and got some responses, but part of the challenge is that you don’t know what I’m reading and enjoying.

In a way to spread some blog love, as well as a way to solicit some new reading suggestions, I’m sharing a handful of the blogs I love reading. Not inclusive, not a full representation of everything I read, but more of a way to talk up some of the blogs maybe not everyone knows about. These are blogs that are strictly book blogs (so the library blogs that do a lot of reviews I read aren’t included).

I’m not the best blog commenter, despite being a big blog reader, but these are among my always-reads and the ones I hope someday to be a better commenter at. Also, these are all full-feed blogs; as prickly as it sounds, I can’t read blogs that aren’t full-feed. I am trying to get better about it, but it does make me less excited about content if I have to click on a new screen. 

Feel free to leave links to any other blogs you’d like to share. I am open to reading most book blogs, as long as they’re well-written, don’t rely on memes (one or two a week is fine with me as long as there is other content), and the reviews are thoughtful (length doesn’t matter). I’m not a vlog watcher.

These aren’t in any order.

  • Crunchings and Munchings: Aside from their savvy and thorough reviews, I am digging how they’re writing book lists (and book/film lists) on different topics. They’ve got a great voice. 
  • That Cover Girl: If you love covers at all and you’re not reading Capillya’s blog, get on it. She not only talks covers, but she has neat features spotlighting the cover designers talking about their work. She’s also interviewed a number of authors about the cover process.
  • Inkcrush: I like not only that she’s Aussie and exposes me to a ton of Aussie titles, but her reviews are thorough and thoughtful. Her short reviews, though, are just as good, and they’re to the point.
  • Reading with My Ears: I love posting the links to Lee’s reviews during for AudioSynced, but anyone who listens to audiobooks needs to read this blog. She knows exactly what she’s talking about when it comes to the good and the bad side of the listening experience.  
  • The Readventurer:  These girls are among my favorite GoodReads reviewers to read, and they have an excellent blog together. What I like best is that it’s a wide variety of books being reviewed, and that it’s not all reviews — and they’re not afraid to talk audiobooks, either. The pairing of a song with a book review is unique, too.
  • Someday My Printz Will Come: I know I’ve talked about this one before, but this blog is so good at the in-depth, textual analysis I love reading. They’ve also just added a third blogger, Sophie, who served on last year’s Printz committee, so I expect this great blog is just going to get better. 
  • The Midnight Garden: I’ve been reading the GoodReads reviews Wendy writes for a long time, so that she and two fellow GoodReads power users have a blog excites me. Again, this one has thoughtful reviews and fun features that make it a must-read.
  • YA Love Blog: Sarah’s a teacher, and the way she writes her reviews is very reflective of the fact she works with teens. I love that perspective, and I love how she has her students interview the authors for her interview features. 
  • The Book Smugglers: I’m pretty certain most people know this one, but just in case you don’t — they write some of the most thorough and honest book reviews around. I like to read what they write on books I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about, as well as the books I review myself because we either agree whole-heartedly or we’re on completely different sides. I love that! I don’t like to read blogs where I agree on everything said. 

This isn’t at all exhaustive, as I’m also a regular reader of about twenty other blogs, including this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, and so forth.

Hope this filled up some of your reading holes in the blogging world, and now I’m eager to see what you’re reading (and enjoying).