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books

This Week at Book Riot

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Over at Book Riot this week, I wrote quite a bit…

  • If you’re looking to start a YA sci-fi romance series, I offered suggestions for 7 solid ones to try out. Bonus: they’re all available entirely in paperback. 

All The Rage by Courtney Summers: A (Pre)view & Giveaway

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One of the best experiences I had early in my blogging career was participating in the Cybils. Aside from being a fun and educational opportunity — and it was hugely educational in terms of teaching me how to read, write, and talk about books critically — I made a number of great friends. 

My first Cybils experience was in 2009, and my panel chose Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers as the winning title. It’s a book that we talked about for a long time, and we thought it met the criteria of both being well-written and having wide teen appeal. Immediately after reading that book, I picked up Summers’s second title, Some Girls Are and advocated hard for it to be considered during my second year on the Cybils. And it was.

Little did I know that five years later, Courtney and I would have the kind of relationship that we have. We’ve gotten to know each other well — we hadn’t known or talked to each other before/during those Cybils years — and I’ve really come to appreciate not just her books, but also the level of passion and care and respect she has for teenagers and for teenage girls. That shines through in her writing. Last winter I wrote about her books — and more specifically, the kinds of teen girls she writes about — as part of a read along of her work. If you’re not familiar, that should be a primer to dipping into her work. 

Earlier this year, she approached me about reading her upcoming 2015 title, All The Rage. The book didn’t come easy for her, and the topic isn’t one that would lend itself to easy. It’s a story about rape culture and the ways that society will go to the ends of the world to protect its boys at the expense of the truths girls live with everyday. It’s a powerful story about rape and rape culture, about small towns, about social and economic disparity, and about gender more broadly. 

To say I was blown away by the book would be an understatement. This is a powerful, important, well-written, and feminist story. It’s raw and ugly, timely and timeless. 

The description from Edelweiss: 


In her hardcover debut, from the author of Cracked Up To Be and This is Not a Test, comes a powerful new young adult novel.　

The sheriff’s son, Kellan Turner, is not the golden boy everyone thinks he is, and Romy Grey knows that for a fact. Because no one wants to believe a girl from the wrong side of town, the truth about him has cost her everything—friends, family, and her community. Branded a liar and bullied relentlessly by a group of kids she used to hang out with, Romy’s only refuge is the diner where she works outside of town. No one knows her name or her past there; she can finally be anonymous.But when a girl with ties to both Romy and Kellan goes missing after a party, and news of him assaulting another girl in a town close by gets out, Romy must decide whether she wants to fight or carry the burden of knowing more girls could get hurt if she doesn’t speak up. Nobody believed her the first time—and they certainly won’t now—but the cost of her silence might be more than she can bear.　

With a shocking conclusion and writing that will absolutely knock you out, ALL THE RAGE examines the shame and silence inflicted upon young women after an act of sexual violence, forcing us to ask ourselves: In a culture that refuses to protect its young girls, how can they survive? 






Romy embodies what it means to have everything that’s yours taken from you, and she fights back tooth and nail to regain not just a shred of herself but she fights back to ensure that other girls don’t have to endure what she has. That being made to be “less than” because of someone else’s actions isn’t OKAY. 

It’s a book about girls taking back what is rightfully theirs: the voices, their bodies, their place in society as humans. 

If I had to give this a “meets,” it is spot on Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak meets Veronica Mars. It’s about having your voice taken from you, and it’s about fighting tooth and nail to get it back — and yes, there’s a mystery/thriller component to it. This is Summers’s best work, hands down, and her writing cuts straight to the bone. It’s not friendly and it’s not supposed to be. 

One of the better things that’s come out of not being part of the Printz next year is that I can start talking about — and keep talking about — the really great books coming out in 2014. This is one such book I’m eager to speak up about. It’s already received a pile of excellent blurbs, and Chuck Wendig noted it as a title that’s “stuck with him.”

While it’s too early to review this book, I believe in it so much and want people to be aware of it when it publishes in April. In honor of the cover reveal this week, I’m offering up a giveaway. How about three pre-orders of All The Rage? This is open to people in the US and Canada, and the contest will run through next Thursday, September 25. I’ll draw three winners and order you copies of All The Rage, which will show up in mid-April at your door. 

Fill out the simple form below, and add this book to your to-read lists. Bonus: you can read the first chapter in full here — and it’s about as to-the-bone as it gets.

I love and believe in this book with all of my heart. This is what good, memorable, powerful YA looks like. I want to press it into the hands of every YA reader and everyone who works with teenagers.

Romance Roundup

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I read almost exclusively historical romances, and these usually come in series that feature a certain family or group of friends who each find love in a different volume. This means that the ancillary characters you grow to love in the first book will be revisited in the subsequent books. It also means that protagonists get their own little continuing episodes in sequels.

This is why I particularly love discovering a new romance author. I fall in love with a whole passel of delightful characters, each with their own personalities. I get to keep up with these characters over time, chronicling not just their grand romances, but also their little life experiences afterward, in the sequels that focus on other characters. It doesn’t hurt that romances are usually published in quick succession, meaning the wait for a new novel isn’t usually very long.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve dove into two new authors: Lily Dalton and Courtney Milan. Dalton I picked up quite by accident. She was signing at the Texas Library Association, her book was free, and it was historical romance. That’s all the convincing I needed to give it a try. Courtney Milan I’ve heard talk of for some months now and figured it was finally time to see what all the fuss was about.

Never Entice an Earl by Lily Dalton
Daphne Bevington’s maid Kate has gotten herself into a terrible situation. Kate’s father took out a huge loan from an unscrupulous lender, and now the lender has come to collect. In order to pay off the loan, Kate has taken a side job as an exotic dancer, but she’s fallen ill and can’t make it. So Daphne, without Kate’s knowledge, takes her place for the evening. Naturally, the situation at the dance hall/bar is a bad one; unsurprisingly, our hero is there to save the day.

This was a pretty typical historical romance, I think. The hero and heroine (both upper class and titled) are thrown together into a ridiculous situation where sparks fly immediately. The setting is generically historical: women wear corsets and have to be chaperoned, but other than that, historical detail is almost nonexistent. The story could be happening at practically any point within a 100 or 150 year time frame. All this is fine, actually – I don’t mind any of it when the romance itself is done well. Unfortunately, I never got a real feel for the leads. I have a hard time remembering any of their defining characteristics, and the romance between them happens suddenly and because it’s supposed to, not because their personalities are a match. It’s not a bad read, but not an outstanding one.

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan
This is the first book in the Brothers Sinister series, which features a few full-length novels as well as a few novellas. Our heroine, Minnie, has a scandalous past. Thanks to the meddling of our hero, Robert, this past may come to light and ruin Minnie’s carefully-crafted new life. Of course, Minnie has her own tricks up her sleeve – she has some equally damning dirt on Robert. The stakes here are actually quite high. Milan doesn’t write romances where the hero and heroine are kept apart by mere misunderstandings. Both characters have choices to make, but each choice will hurt themselves or someone they love. The tone of the book is pretty serious throughout, though I’m glad it had the requisite happy ending. I wasn’t wowed by this one, but I did enjoy it, and it was sufficiently different from other romances to keep me intrigued and reading on.

The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan
I liked this one even more than The Duchess War. It’s a great deal funnier, thanks to a premise that is inherently amusing: the heroine has decided she will never marry, and she’s decided to make it happen by being deliberately awful. She dresses in hideous clothing, casually insults lords and aristocrats, and pretends like she doesn’t know the first thing about manners or social niceties. There’s a dark side to the plot, as was the case with the first book, but I found myself laughing out loud a lot despite the gravity of the heroine’s situation. I always appreciate my romances more when they’re funny. I also think Milan’s writing is a bit better here. The affection between the two leads develops at a believable pace and Milan knows just how long to keep them apart before finally throwing them together.

After finishing up this second book, I’ve found that Milan’s books tend to be more socially and politically-conscious than other historicals I’ve read. Her heroes and heroines are usually part of the movement for social change, such as abolishing the peerage, organizing workers’ unions, or expanding the vote to non-landowners. This helps place the books more firmly in a historical context and lends them an air of authenticity that is often missing from other romances of this kind. While the focus is definitely the love story, these historical romances seem almost as much “historical” as they are “romance.” The subplots used to hamper the two leads getting together also seem more genuine since they stem from the characters, who are well-rounded and flawed in real ways (rather than “quirky” ways as is often the case – I’m looking at you, heroines who are delightfully clumsy). As a result, the romance is truly swoon-worthy and all the more satisfying at the end.

Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini

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Josephine Angelini’s new series has a unique concept, one that marries science fiction and fantasy (into what she calls “sci fantasy”). I’ve seen the melding of these two genres bandied about the past couple of years as the “next big thing,” but I haven’t actually seen a lot of published stories that truly fit the description. Usually, the story falls pretty firmly on one side of the SF/F line, so I was really excited to give this one a shot.

Aside from the SFF combo, the concept is unique in other ways: the storyline involves female witches whose magic is derived from the energy within their bodies, activated by certain foods and other stimuli. However, this magic only works the proper way in one of the two parallel worlds featured in the book, which is tough for our protagonist. Lily lives in our world and has suffered terrible allergies most of her life, crippling her socially and ensuring she’s always in danger of suffering some life-threatening attack. When she’s unwittingly taken into a parallel world where witches rule, she learns that her allergies are actually side effects of her magic, which has been held dormant within her body so long without release that it’s causing her harm. In this alternate world, she’s immensely powerful. Unfortunately for Lily, this kind of magic doesn’t work in our world – but that doesn’t stop her from trying to get back to it.

Lily didn’t get to this alternate world on her own. She was brought there by Lillian, an alternate version of Lily, also a powerful witch. Because of her power, Lillian rules over Salem, and she’s not kind or fair. She’s set up magic as the one true way of doing things, meaning that doctors and scientists as we regard them are persecuted. According to Lillian, there is no room for science in a world ruled by magic.

Lily isn’t sure why Lillian brought her to this other Salem, but she knows she wants to get back home. She’s taken in by Outlanders, a group of people who live outside the walls of Salem. They don’t have any of the protections offered by Salem and its ruler, meaning they’re at the mercy of the Woven, terrible creatures that started out as animals but have now become something else. The leaders of the Outlanders want Lily to develop her own magic so they can use it to make a better Salem for themselves. Some of the Outlanders have counterparts in our own world (like Tristan, Lily’s best friend) and some don’t (like Rowan, a boy who once worked for – and loved – Lillian before joining the Outlander cause).

It’s difficult for me to communicate how complex the concept and world-building are here. In some ways, the story is set up as a basic good vs. evil tale, with the Outlanders as the righteous rebels and Lillian as the power-hungry despot to be taken down. It’s complicated, though, because we get some of the story from Lillian’s perspective, and it’s clear she has goals that are not entirely selfish. She brought Lily – a person who could theoretically be powerful enough to defeat her – to her world, after all, and she must have had a reason for doing so. The matriarchal society of alt-Salem is also fascinating and something not commonly seen in SFF. What will draw a lot of teens, though, is the idea of Lily meeting herself – Lillian – in this alternate world. They’re like and unalike in various ways that fluctuate over the course of the story. At first, Lily believes she’s completely different from her alt-self and tries to convince the Outlanders of it; but after some time, she starts to doubt it. This comes at about the same time we as readers start to doubt Lillian’s characterization as entirely evil.

I really liked the ideas behind this story. It’s so creative and so fresh, even when it’s using some common tropes (romance, witches, tearing down a despotic regime). The magic system and world-building in particular are standouts. I don’t think the story is entirely successful in its execution, though. Lily as a character is a bit flat. She’s immensely powerful in alt-Salem, but her actions are mostly reactive (things happen to her, she doesn’t make things happen). That’s not a criticism of Lily as a person (I think a lot of us mostly react to things), but it’s not great for a character in a novel. For a lot of the book, I felt like I was stuck in exposition, even while the characters battled Woven. Lillian’s motivations remained murky up to the end, which is too bad, because she is by far the most fascinating character. This is a series, so perhaps Lily will come into her own a bit more in the sequel – and we’ll get to spend more time with Lillian.

My review copy came with a letter from Angelini stating that the magic system she writes about is based on actual science, which is clearly a marketing ploy, but it’s also fascinating to consider. This would be a good pick for fans of both science fiction and fantasy who want something new and something that makes them think. It’s also a worthy entry into the growing parallel worlds subgenre.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Trial by Fire is available now.

Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang

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Liz Emerson planned it all out. She knew what date she’d crash her car and kill herself. She plotted where it would happen, when it would happen, and then she allowed herself 7 days to change her mind. If she couldn’t find a reason to, she’d go through with the plan.

Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang begins when Liz follows through with the plan. But this isn’t a story that’s told in a linear way. Instead, as Liz lies in the hospital, we’re given flashbacks and flash forwards into her life. What could possibly make her want to kill herself? For someone as popular and put together and respected as Liz, it seems like suicide would be the last thing she’d have on her mind.

This story is told through a surprising narrator, though readers will catch on pretty quickly to that. They may not be clear on who the narrator is until the reveal at the end, but this deliberate choice is why Zhang’s novel stands out from many others and why the book itself is fresh.

The narrator knows Liz and knows Liz well. And that narrator isn’t willing to lie about who or what Liz was in life. Liz, despite appearances as a popular and well-respected girl in her school, is far from a nice girl. She’s manipulative. She’s mean. And she’s persuasive. Those characteristics are precisely why she’s respected though — people don’t want to get on the wrong side of her because they know that nothing good could come from it. But even being close to Liz is a problem. Her best friends, Julia and Kennie, can’t escape her manipulations.

Thanks to Liz, Julia’s found herself with a bit of a drug problem and Kennie has had an abortion. While both girls make those choices for themselves, Liz’s persuasive power and the fear that acting against what Liz says they should do would be cause for worse, they follow through. They listen. They’re under her control, whether they like it or not.

Then there’s Liam. He’s a nice guy. A really nice guy. And he’s at the hospital almost immediately after Liz’s crash. Not because he and Liz are a couple and certainly not because she’s ever given him the time of day. In fact, Liz and her friends did something awful to Liam early on in their high school career that marred his reputation forever. But Liam, being a bigger person, saw through her actions and knew that maybe, just maybe, there was something bigger and something better lurking beneath Liz’s surface. He was, in fact, the person who knew it was her car that crashed. He recognized it and recognized Liz as the driver from the shirt she was wearing. Rather than allow himself to let her be, he instead decides to follow his own good heart and be there waiting for her, whether she recovered or not.

Liam is good, but Liam was also part of the problem, and not by his own choice.

Falling Into Place is fast paced, but it’s nuanced. What seems like a cut-and-dry story of a mean girl isn’t that straightforward. It’s easy to dislike Liz because she’s not likable. But her unlikable characteristics have some explanation. She is exceptionally lonely. With a father who died when she was really young by an accident she witnessed and a mother who travels all the time and finds Liz to be more of a pain than a child to love, she finds herself spending a lot of time in her home alone. Drinking. The mean things she does aren’t done as a means of being vindictive but instead, they’re ways to keep her entertained. To fill her own life with some kind of meaning, despite the fact that she recognizes and knows there are consequences.

Liz is filled with regret for her actions, but the problem is when you’re at the top of the social ladder and people respect you and fear you, admitting your weaknesses is an impossible thing to do.

During the seven days prior to her suicide, Liz tries to change herself. She goes out of her way to try to say the things she’s intended to say forever — she wants to apologize to people and she wants to reach out and ask for help. She tries, and as readers, we see that it’s not done as a means of seeking sympathy, but as a way of really, truly trying to change herself. We know she feels bad, and it comes through in little and surprising ways. There’s a moment when Liz reflects upon her decision and she notes that she has to kill herself on the same day her dad died to minimize the days per year her mother would have to grieve. She’s not doing this to make people feel bad; she’s doing this for the exact opposite reason. She wants people to be free of her being a bad influence and a problem.

She reaches out. During those last few days, she tries to change. She goes to her school counselor and asks for help, but the counselor unintentionally turns her away. She speaks up about feeling depressed, and she’s turned away. Not because the counselor doesn’t care, but because the counselor can’t do anything for her and, unfortunately, her reputation precedes her. Liam sees through her. But Liam also knows he can’t reach her. Kenna and Julia, despite what Liz believes, care deeply about her. They know her. But, as Liz notes, they might not be as perceptive to her inner turmoil as she wishes they could be, and reaching out, she thinks, would be an incredible sign of weakness. Would they care? With how she’s hurt them, why wouldn’t they hurt her back?

Worth noting that readers get to make the choice on whether or not Liz is redeemed in the story. Zhang doesn’t give us a solid answer, and because of who the narrator is, it’s further complicated. This was a smart, savvy narrative choice because it’s the kind of story that has no good answers at the end. It can only lay out the facts, and those facts are inextricably tied to the narrator sharing them, and that narrator shows both the good and the downright ugly. The narrator loved Liz, but the narrator didn’t love everything Liz did.

Falling Into Place is tightly written, and the complex structure works. This book is a fast-paced read, and it’s one that could easily be done in one sitting. Personally, I appreciated walking away a few times because there was a lot to sift through — Liz is anything but one-dimensional and holding the contradictory thoughts of her meanness with the sadness she felt inside required some away-from-the-page reflection. The writing is solid and at times really lovely, and while some of the renderings of high school and secondary characters can feel a little bit flat, it’s forgivable because of who the narrator is, how long that narrator has followed Liz, and, perhaps the thing worth noting but not lingering on, the author wrote this book when she was 18. Without being beyond her own high school experience, it’d be impossible to see the wider world. Which isn’t to say it’s bad — it’s far from that — but instead, some of the depictions read a little young and yet, they show really huge promise.

Zhang’s debut is a memorable one, and I can see this being a title getting some Morris discussion. It hadn’t been one I paid a lot of attention to, but I’m really glad I picked it up because it far exceeded my expectations and left me eager for what Zhang will write next. This book could be called If I Stay meets Before I Fall and that would be an accurate description, though I liked Falling Into Place more than either of those titles. There are shades of Thirteen Reasons Why in this book, too. While a mash-up of the three books may make this sound like it’s the kind of book that’s been done before, it’s not. Falling Into Place is new, different, and it will have huge appeal to readers who liked any of those prior titles without it ever feeling like it’s trying to be any of those titles. This is a book for your realistic YA readers who like complex characters.

Falling Into Place is available now. Review copy received from the publisher.