STACKED

books

Kelly Interviews Kimberly: On 5 Years at STACKED

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I asked Kimberly what we should do to celebrate blogging for five years, and besides a big giveaway, we thought it could be fun to interview each other. We’ve known each other now for six years, and through reading and blogging, we’ve gotten to know one another even better.


But there are things that we don’t talk about much when it comes to our blogging processes, our reading styles, and more. So we asked each other ten different questions. Today I’m talking with Kimberly and tomorrow, Kim will be talking with me! 




Kelly: How has your reading changed since beginning to blog in 2009?
I read a lot more! Not out of any sense of obligation, but because I’m much more attuned to what’s being published – and that means there’s just so much more that I want to read. Blogging has also really focused my interests and broadened them at the same time. By that I mean blogging has allowed me to discover that I’m really passionate about young adult fiction, but it’s also encouraged me to read more widely within that group. Before blogging, I stuck mostly to adult high fantasy and would likely have never picked up something as realistic as A. S. King’s Ask the Passengers or as bizarre as Pete Hautman’s Obsidian Blade.

What’s your favorite piece you’ve written and why? 

I’m going to cheat and pick two. I had so much fun doing this cover math post. It allowed me to be more creative and use my brain in a different way. My other pick is my piece about non-fantasy readers and how fantasy fiction is often reviewed. I’ve been a lifetime reader of fantasy fiction, and here I was able to put into words why it’s so powerful for me. Blogging has allowed me to find my voice in defense of it, as well as find a community of like-minded readers and reviewers.

How do you think blogging has changed since we started STACKED on 2009?  

Even in just the past five years, there’s been an explosion of content in the blogosphere. A lot more people are blogging books, which means it can be tougher to pick and choose the blogs that are worthwhile reads for me. It seems there’s a lot more blogs that go for snappier, less critical reviews. There’s a place for that, but I love getting down into the nitty gritty and reading reviews that tell me what worked, what didn’t, and why. 
What’s one thing you hope to accomplish in your reading and/or blogging habits in the next year?  

I want to read more diverse genre fiction – books starring characters of color, LGBT characters, and so on – and feature them more prominently. The lack of representation of these groups of people in SFF is an acknowledged ongoing problem and I’d like to be a part of solving it.

Has there been a reading experience that’s surprised you in the last five years? If so, what and why?  

I’m surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed reading graphic novels! I always felt they had a place in a library collection, but pre-2009, I didn’t really feel like they were for me personally. I had to learn how to read them in a different way from prose novels, and it often felt daunting since there’s so much history with so many of the comics out there. But I love them now. I read Castle Waiting in library school and liked it a lot, then picked up the first volume of Fables. After that, I was hooked.   

What keeps blogging fun and exciting for you?  

I love discovering new things, so that’s a big one. Blogging has plugged me into this whole new community where discovery is constant. And I think almost everyone loves sharing the things they love and are passionate about with others – blogging is a way for me to do that. My introvert self loves this method, since I don’t need to actually talk to anyone to do it. I also get really motivated when people comment on anything I’ve written. Often blogging feels like sending something out into the void; comments let me know my voice is being heard. (I am a terrible commenter myself. I am not perfect.)

What piece of advice would you share with anyone who wants to get into blogging?  

Don’t let it become an obligation. Blogging is least fulfilling for me when I feel like I have to do it. If it’s not fun anymore, perhaps it’s hiatus or quitting time. Also, try not to take it too personally when you get your first nasty comment. 

Is there something you’d love to find in a book that you haven’t found yet? A topic? A theme? A genre blend?  


I really want to read something that astonishes me with its creativity. This could take any number of forms. It could be a book that plays with gender roles in unexpected ways. It could be a sci fi story that features some really odd, totally inhuman aliens. It could be a fantasy story that creates a wholly new culture not copied from one of Earth’s cultures – but it’s got to be believable (and not full of white people!). I like my tried and true stuff, but I’m also hungry for new ideas. I think there’s still so much unexplored territory in SFF and I want authors to push hard at the boundaries.

What would be the perfect Kimberly book? What book that you’ve read might come closest to being that?  

I love this question! Creativity, as I mentioned above, is really important to me, but I do have my favorite sorts of stories. The perfect book would probably be high fantasy, featuring a girl protagonist who can hold her own mentally as well as physically (though perhaps not right away). I love stories with some sort of quest element to them, where there’s a final goal in mind, so there’s some action, but I like it to be interspersed with some quiet moments too. Oh, and it should be third person past tense. I can be picky! The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson comes really close, though it is first person. I think that a perfect Kimberly book could be different from a favorite book. When I think of a perfect Kimberly book, I tend to get all nostalgic and pick stuff similar to what I loved as a teen – really formative stuff.

Has blogging changed you?  

It’s made me into a more critical reader. It’s vastly improved my reader’s advisory skills. It’s sharpened my writing. It’s connected me to a group of people – librarians, educators, readers – who I never would have known otherwise. It’s increased my personal learning network tremendously. It’s made me more knowledgeable and passionate about something I already loved – reading.

Five Year Blogging Anniversary Giveaway!

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Kimberly and I have now been blogging here at Stacked for five years.

Five years!

To celebrate, we’re going to give away 10 books — five from each of us — which have stuck with us, that have impacted us, or that we’ve somehow had a big connection with in these last five years of blogging. One winner will get a copy of each of the 10 titles (and perhaps this is a look at the flavor of Stacked at a glance, too).

Tomorrow and Wednesday, we’ll be celebrating our anniversary with a pair of interviews we’ve done with each other. It was fun to ask Kimberly questions and it’s been fun, though tough, to come up with answers to the questions she’s had for me.

But without further ado! Here’s what we’re giving away as a huge thank you to everyone who takes the time to read, share, or comment on our posts. We’re eager to see what another year of blogging and shenanigans have in store. This giveaway is open to US or Canadian residents only. Entry form is at the bottom, and we’ll pick a winner on or around May 15.

Kelly


I thought picking five titles to giveaway — five that have had an impact on me — would be hard. But it wasn’t and maybe because I “cheated” for more than half of the titles.

If “cheating” is choosing to give away three titles that I selected as winners/finalists in the Cybils when I served as a judge/panelist.

In 2010, I was on the judging side of the YA category for the Cybils, and our winner was Courtney Summers’s Cracked Up to Be. In 2011 and in 2012, I served on the panelist side of the Cybils, and Swati Avasthi’s Split and Geoff Herbach’s Stupid Fast were titles that went on to become Cybils winners.

I guess, technically, I’ve got four books up for grabs there, since I’m going to give away a copy of What Goes Around, rather than Cracked Up to Be, since it contains both the Cybils winning Cracked Up to Be and the Cybils short listed Some Girls Are.

As for the other two titles I’m going to give away, they shouldn’t be too surprising. I went for books that have stuck with me long past the time I’ve read them and/or tackle subjects near and dear to my heart.

Also included in my five-book pick for this giveaway are Susan Vaught’s My Big Fat Manifesto — one of the few books that does justice to fat female characters — and Trish Doller’s excellent debut Something Like Normal, which tackles mental illness and so much more (and a title on the Outstanding Books for the College Bound list).

But because I can’t resist a nice giveaway, I thought I’d throw in three pre-order titles as well, to sweeten the pot a little bit more. These books will arrive in May, July, and September, respectively:

Not having reviewed any of them yet, I’ll say this much: I want to give them away as preorders because I really dug each one for very different reasons. Guy in Real Life tackles gender and gender expectations (and gaming!). Dirty Wings is about friendship and plays with the Persephone myth in a really neat way. Poisoned Apples is a collection of art and poetry that could best be described as a series of feminist fairy tales. Hopefully, it’s endorsement enough that I want to give them away before I’ve even reviewed them.

I think this is a nice mix of contemporary and non-contemporary titles. There’s humor, there’s darkness, and there’s everything in between.

Kimberly 



Choosing only five books was tough.

Since starting this blog with Kelly, the amount of reading I’ve done has exploded. Not really through any conscious effort – just being plugged in so much more to a community of readers has upped the amount of time I dedicate to reading and writing about books. And I’ve read a lot of great stuff in five years.

I decided not to go with my absolute favorites, necessarily, but instead chose titles that I come back to again and again, titles that I find particularly thoughtful or creative or haunting or groundbreaking. Most are books I wish would get more attention, which is why you won’t see titles like Daughter of Smoke and Bone or Grave Mercy on here. They’re all books I loved in some way or another, and I hope our winner will love them too.

 
First up are two completely different sci fi tales. The Knife of Never Letting Go was one of the first books I reviewed, back in September of 2009. It doesn’t need my help to get readers, but I couldn’t leave it off my list. This was one of the books that solidified my interest in YA as an adult, and I find myself recommending it over and over again to readers looking for something fresh and challenging. The True Meaning of Smekday, which I read and reviewed in 2010, is still the funniest book I’ve read since I started blogging. It’s creative and hilarious and full of Deep Thoughts. Just thinking about it again makes me want to re-read it. I want to push it into the hands of every 12 year old with even a tangential interest in sci fi. 

I read and reviewed The Obsidian Blade in 2012, and it is the very definition of a book that sticks with you. It’s got time travel, human-sized maggots, cults, ritual sacrifice, non-corporeal beings, robots, math that causes illness, and portals to other dimensions. It is so bizarre, and it all works. Each page brings something new to discover.

There were a number of different fantasy titles I could have included in the giveaway. I considered two recent favorites, The Winner’s Curse and Cruel Beauty, both of which are standouts for different reasons. I decided to go instead with a couple of older titles that I know have had staying power for me – Vessel and The Shattering. They’re each very different from the other. Vessel is a high fantasy story that features gods who inhabit the bodies of their devotees. I can still easily summon up a mental image of the book’s desert setting, described so vividly and so well. The Shattering is a modern fantasy set in New Zealand that tackles suicide while still managing to be fun (and even funny at times). I fell in love with Healey’s writing with this book. She knows just how to deliver an emotional punch.

Bonus pre-order! Mary E. Pearson’s The Kiss of Deception publishes in July, and all fantasy lovers are in for a treat. It reads like an old-fashioned high fantasy tale, featuring a runaway princess, a scorned prince, a little bit of magic, and a good deal of trickery. I’m excited for it to be out in the world in a few months.

Would you like to win all FOURTEEN of these most excellent books? Enter your information below. We’ll select a winner on or around May 15. All information will be kept confidential and removed after the giveaway ends.

There’s No Such Thing As A Straight Line

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Today would be a links of note post Saturday, but because there’s been so much going on in my life over the last couple of weeks, that’s not going to happen. Most of what I had planned on linking up is stuff that I pulled together in a post on Book Riot this week, “We Need Bigger Megaphones For Diversity in Kid Lit.” What I have to say isn’t that important. It’s what the links in the post say that stands out.

Sunday — tomorrow — marks five years since Kimberly and I started STACKED. We plan on a few of celebratory posts next week, including interviews of one another and a giveaway of books that have impacted us in some capacity while we’ve been blogging.

In no way did I think I’d be doing this and loving this for five years. I thought it would be fun and enjoyable. That I’d read a lot of books and talk about them.

I never thought that blogging would lead me to some of the best and most important friendships and relationships in my life. But it has, and I’m beyond grateful for that every single day.

Over these last five years, I’ve been working in libraries. First, at a suburban two-library system. Then to a small, individual library where I was the entirety of youth services. Then on to the semi-urban library I’m at now. Each of these library positions has come with accomplishments and with set backs. In each position, I learned as much about who I am and how I function and think and work as I did about the job itself and how other people function and think and work. In some ways, it’s been really good and in other ways, it’s made me do a lot of thinking about what I want to be doing down the road.

I knew pretty early on that management in libraries was something I had no interest in. The problem is that in public libraries, you can only go so far without choosing a management path. Especially if you’re in the kind of position I’m in, being a little location bound and that location isn’t an urban area with many opportunities available.

It was with many of the friends I’d made through this blog I was able to get through some of these hard parts of my career. I’d work through what was tripping me up, talk about my wants and needs in a career. I’d talk about the good, too, but I knew through these conversations and just my living and working through my life that I needed to change something.

There have been days, especially recently, getting out of bed has been hard. My mental well-being was taking a severe hit in a way that was a wakeup call to me. It wasn’t that I wasn’t taking steps to make a change. It was that the impact of not figuring it out and feeling overwhelmed with what was currently on my plate was hitting me hard.

Last week, I had one of those days. It was Tuesday. I got up, I went through my morning routine, then I checked out and went back to bed. I made it through, then I made it through Wednesday, too. Would I make it to the weekend, though?

Thursday, I got a message in my inbox I wasn’t expecting. Would I be interested in a job? It wasn’t in librarianship, but it was a job that melded a lot of interests and passions I had together and I was the first person they thought of for it.

It took everything not to respond with an enthusiastic yes the minute I got that email. Not because it was a way out of where I was. But because it was a way into something I was exceptionally excited about.

I let it sit in my inbox for a few hours while I went through the rest of my routine, got through my shift at work. Then I responded.

On Friday morning, I talked with Rebecca on the phone, hearing more about the job and what all it would entail. “I know you’d not talked about wanting to change careers so I had no idea if you would really be interested but…”.

Of course she didn’t know because it wasn’t something I talked about. Because I love libraries and librarianship. Because there’s so much opportunity within the community.

But.

I am ready for the change.

Starting May 1, I’m going to be an associate editor and community manager for Book Riot, with some responsibilities over at Food Riot, as well.

I put in my notice at the library this week, and over the last few days, everything has been a whirlwind in the best possible way. How do you wrap your head around not just a new job, but a new career all together? It’s exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. I’ve been on and off all week about it, in terms of trying to close down one part of my brain and my routine and prepare myself to open up to a new one.

A few years ago, a friend I met through blogging told me that you can’t always predict the way a path goes. That it’s not always going to be clear, but that it will unfold in the ways its meant to, when it’s meant to do so. And that person was right.

You can’t predict the way that the path moves. You can only be open to the possibility it might zig or zag, whether or not you know just how much you need it to do so.

But I am so excited about this opportunity.

At this point, I don’t foresee changes to Stacked. Libraries and reaching teens are still passions, and I hope that by continuing to write here and write at Book Riot, I’m of help to those who work with teens, with YA books, or who themselves have respect and interest for YA. Instead, this means there will be more writing at Book Riot in addition to the writing here. There might be hiccups or bumps or the need for adjustments down the road, but until there’s a change in the path, this is still my home.

Last year, I wrote a post called “You Can, You Do, and You Will.” Rereading it today, it still hits home everything I think and feel — and maybe even more this year, this time around.

This is a huge opportunity and I hope that I’m able to really work toward doing more of the things I’m passionate about in a venue that’s been so supportive, nurturing, and fun to be a part of.

Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

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I’ve had this book for a while, but it took me a long time to actually get around to reading it. It’s not because I didn’t think I’d enjoy it. On the contrary, I enjoyed it quite a lot. I just loved the first book so much, and it ended so painfully for its characters, I knew the second installment would do cruel things to my heart. Despite my love for dystopias, I don’t have a huge capacity for reading about awful things happening to fictional people. Often I’ll have to repeat in my head over and over “These people are not real. This did not really happen.”

Needless to say, I had to tell myself that often while reading Days of Blood and Starlight.

It feels like a “middle of the series” book. Often that’s a negative thing, but Taylor’s writing is so good, I doubt many readers will mind. There’s not a whole lot of plot movement initially. Much of the novel focuses on Karou and Akiva coming to terms with what happened in Daughter of Smoke and Bone – namely, the rekindling of the war between the chimaera and the angels. The chimaera have been defeated, for all intents and purposes, but they’ve mounted a small resistance that is growing, thanks to the efforts of Thiago, the brutal son of the legendary chimaera warlord, and Karou, the chimaera’s new resurrectionist. Meanwhile, Akiva tries to (secretly) mitigate the effects of the angels’ actions upon chimaera civilians, to mixed results. They act separately and independently with very little knowledge of the other, but when they do meet on rare occasions, it’s painful – and I mean that in a good way.

So there’s a lot of misery going on here. Taylor does bring a bit of lightness with the arrival of Zuzana and Mik, who get to interact with a whole host of chimaera. Their presence is dangerous but funny at the same time. Their visit doesn’t serve much purpose other than bringing some levity to the story, but the levity is much needed and prevents the story from seeming to wallow in misery. Things do really start to move in the second half, where we go beyond the (admittedly well-written) scenes of skirmishes and slaughters. The ending sets up the third book nicely, setting the stage for a potentially much larger conflict, which is exciting to think about.

Days of Blood and Starlight focuses a lot on the awfulness of war, which isn’t exactly revelatory. But it goes beyond that rather obvious theme to ruminate on questions like: How do two groups who don’t even remember why they started fighting end the violence? What is justice and what is revenge, and does the distinction matter? Is forgiving people who have done awful things possible? How much can a person compromise herself to achieve a good end before the ends are not good anymore?

Where the first book was a story about transformation and discovering one’s true self, this book is a full-on war novel. Sometimes it’s exhausting, but it’s always well-executed.

I actually finally hunkered down and read this book since Laini Taylor was visiting my area. I wanted to have the book done so I could get it signed and attend the event without worrying about someone spilling the beans about its contents. Again, I find myself holding off on reading the third book because I know Taylor will put her characters through even more misery. I need to be in a particular mood to read a book that will devastate me. Don’t worry – I’ll be sure and review it many months after everyone else has already read it, just like this one.

Personal copy.

Laini Taylor and I are having a Very Important Discussion. Also, bonus top of Margaret Stohl’s head.

Girls Reading: What Are They Seeing (or Not Seeing)?

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I’d planned on writing up some reviews for today, but Sarah Andersen posted the results of a survey she ran with her high school students and I couldn’t not talk about it. Go check out her post, “Are Teen Girls Seeing Themselves Reflected in What They Read?”

I love the questions she chose to ask, and I loved the variety of responses her girls shared. They want to see a range of girls reflected in what they’re reading. They want the romantic girls, they want the girls who are strong, and they want the girls who can be strong and romantic at the same time. They want shy girls and brave girls as much as they want girls who funny and sporty. They want a little of everything because they themselves are a little of everything.

What stood out to me, though, were the answers to questions five and six. The girls overwhelmingly noted that they’ve not seen themselves reflected in the books they’ve been assigned to read for school and whether or not female authors or female main characters they’ve been assigned have been memorable for them.

After reading this, I did some serious thinking about what I’d been assigned to read in high school and what sort of ratio there was between male authors who were assigned and female authors. The truth is, it wasn’t very many. The emphasis freshman, sophomore, and senior year was primarily focused on European lit — primarily from England, save for some non-English titles we were able to read senior year (we read Les Miserables and Crime and Punishment). Junior year was American literature year, though it wasn’t uncommon to see an American title other years as an extra.

When I think about the female authors we read, I initially could only come up with a couple. I remember reading Willa Cather both freshman and junior year — O Pioneers and My Antonia, respectively. I remember reading and doing a huge project on Emily Dickinson junior year as part of poetry month.

I also remember reading Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird and reading Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome (which contrary to most people who read the book, I happened to love and pursued reading more Wharton after that). We read quite a few Flannery O’Connor short stories junior year, as well.

But beyond those titles, I can’t come up with other female authors I read. There was a Shakespeare play or two every year except when it was American lit year. I read a Dickens every year except when it was American lit year. American lit featured Stephen Crane, a pair of John Steinbeck titles, The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible. Looking at those titles in particular, it’s interesting how few representations of female characters there are, and those which do exist aren’t exactly flattering. Out of curiosity, I pulled up the reading lists for my high school district today and they look remarkably the same as they did over a decade ago.

It wasn’t until college when what I read became a lot more diverse and incorporated far more female voices. But that was because I had a lot more choice in courses — my first class in undergrad was entirely on Franz Kafka, followed by courses on multicultural lit, Harlem Renaissance lit, contemporary poetry, early modern American lit (including Virginia Woolf, H. D., and Rebecca West and allowed a friend and I to create a feminist literary journal to fulfill a project requirement), Victorian lit (including Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and taught by a visiting professor who really got my tastes and recommended titles to me that I loved), and creative writing workshops which led me to Marilynne Robinson, as well as a variety of modern and contemporary poets beyond Emily Dickinson, who is the poet of choice for poetry units in school.

I think it’s important to read the classics. They’re canonical for a reason, and even debating what that reason is fruitful for diving deeper into the value of literature and why we read. But it’s sad to see how few females are brought to the table in standard curriculum, both as authors and as main characters. This isn’t about getting rid of the male voices. In many ways, those male representations of female characters is a juicy point of discussion in and of itself.

Why is it though that girls are reporting not recalling female authors or female characters in class reading? Why aren’t they seeing themselves in what’s being read? And why is it often that females who are represented in curriculum are those on the fringes — the ones who write short stories or poetry?

I was a huge reader in high school independently. I found myself in a lot of what I read independently, and maybe most notably, Megan McCafferty’s Jessica Darling. No, I wasn’t a runner. I didn’t have a best friend who I wrote letters to. I didn’t have the feelings about boys that she did. But I knew her voice and it was so similar to mine. She wasn’t the only, but she’s one that resonated with me and begged me to stick with her through to the end of the series (which neatly ended at nearly the same point I was in my life when it did).

But what about those girls who are only ever exposed to the books in their classrooms and assignments? Do they know what’s out there? I wonder about this because as much as we like to believe girls will find the books for themselves, not all girls are readers. Not all girls are eager readers. They can be reluctant, too, and if they’re not seeing themselves in the books they’re reading, they can begin to believe reading isn’t for them nor that they’ll never see themselves in a book.

I’m curious: what did you read in high school? Did you see yourself in anything that you were assigned to read? If so, what, and if not, when and where did you first see yourself? I am eager to hear from anyone on this question, and I’m interested in hearing, too, about the books written by or featuring female main characters you were assigned in school.

If you’re a teacher, I’d also be interested in what you’re teaching and how you may be supplementing or encouraging further reading. Are you doing anything to diversify what’s presented to your readers, even if it’s not assigned to them?