STACKED

books

Absent by Katie Williams

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Fair warning: I plan on spoiling Katie Williams’s Absent throughout the review. There isn’t a good way to review this one without going into the details that make it work, so if you don’t want to have the book ruined for you, come back once you finish. In short, this is a brilliant woven story about ghosts, death, grief, the afterlife, our impressions of ourselves and other people, and high school. It’s tightly constructed, masterfully executed, and leaves almost as many questions for the reader to answer as it provides solutions.

Paige fell off the roof of her high school in a freak accident, and she died when her head hit the cement protective lip of the building. It wasn’t the fall that killed her, but rather, the knock on her head. Now that she’s a ghost and sentenced to an afterlife at her high school, she’s watching in as her former classmates deal with losing her. Paige isn’t alone, though — she’s there with Evan and Brooke. Evan died years ago, and Paige has no idea who he is and he isn’t quite forthcoming about it. Brooke, though. Brooke is someone Paige knows well — it was Paige’s secret boyfriend Lucas who was there when Brooke overdosed in the bathroom. He couldn’t save her.

Paige, Brooke, and Evan sit in on one of the grief counseling sessions (as ghosts, of course) and it’s here when popular girl Kelsey lets slip that she knew Paige didn’t fall off the roof. That she jumped. In no time flat, the rumor spreads throughout the school, infiltrating every social clique there is — from the popular kids, to the burn outs, to the jocks, and more. Paige knows she didn’t jump. Paige fell when she turned too quickly to see Lucas talking with her teacher (they’d been on the roof for the infamous physics class experiment of dropping an egg without it breaking). But now that this rumor has spread, Paige is questioning whether or not her death was truly an accident or whether or not her death was precisely what Kelsey said. Because who starts a rumor like that about a dead girl?

Katie Williams’s Absent is magical realism. Maybe even straight-up supernatural. What happens outside of Paige, Evan, and Brooke’s perspective is entirely in the real world. This is high school. There are cliques. There are classes. There are people spreading rumors about others. But what happens inside Paige, Evan, and Brooke’s world is entirely in their ghost world.

So when Paige discovers that being a ghost means she can press into and inhabit the bodies of the living? Can she change the course of a rumor? Can she get to the bottom of what really caused her death? And more importantly, can she figure out that the labels she’s attached to people — burn out, jock, loser, popular girl — are merely labels and the people are actually much more dynamic and whole than she imagined?

Whenever someone thinks of Paige, she realizes she’s able to press into them. And it’s her former best friend Usha she pressed into first. She’s easy since she thinks about Paige a lot, and Paige is fascinated to know why it is Usha suddenly started hanging out with the weird religious kids. The ones who they’d always made fun of because they’d always come across so fake. What Paige discovers is that, while she’s inhabiting Usha, she can make her say anything. She IS Usha entirely. And all she needs to do to escape from that body is walk to the end of the school property line; that’s when Usha returns to being Usha and Paige is sent back to the roof to relive her death again.

It’s brilliant. The ghost can inhabit the bodies of people who are alive. Paige is marveled by this and knows now she needs to continue doing this. It gives her entertainment, no matter how sick it is.

And what better entertainment than to inhabit the body of mean, popular girl Kelsey and force her to experience life as a less-than-perfect girl? The trick is that Paige has to figure out how to get Kelsey to think about her, and she knows just how to do it — she needs to get Usha to paint the memorial mural at the high school for her and Brooke. That way, whenever anyone walks by, they think of her. It’s the ideal set up.

This is a lot of explanation of plot, isn’t it? But I’d like to note this book clocks in at 188 pages. And it’s not at all plot-driven. It’s character-driven. As Paige discovers this ghost talent, she finds herself learning that the people she went to school with — the people she was so quick to label and judge and throw into boxes — are actually a lot more complex than she’d ever given them credit for while alive. Readers work alongside Paige through these discoveries, and they become more and more important as she works toward figuring out the truth to her death.

One thing Paige starts discovering, though, is that some of the people she’s interacting with, with whom she’d interacted with regularly in her actual life, aren’t acting entirely right. Lucas, who had been her secret boyfriend (and yes, secret — he was a jock and for her, being seen with him was the ultimate bad thing because he was a jock), starts acting erratic. He floods one of the school bathrooms. He makes out with a freshman girl on the floor in the bathroom, right where Brooke had died. Paige also realizes that Wes, who had always been a creepy druggie in her mind, is actually a sweetheart. That he actually had real, authentic, non-shy romantic feelings for her. As a ghost, Paige is torn about this. Her images of people are shattering left and right, and she can’t do anything about it.

Except, this is where Williams’s book becomes not just good, but excellent.

The truth of the matter is that Paige isn’t the only dead person who can inhabit bodies. Turns out that Evan and Brooke can, too. When Paige mentions what she’s been doing to Evan, he becomes frantic. He realizes that Brooke has been using this talent to manipulate people in the same way that Paige had been manipulating people. Worse, though. Brooke’s out for revenge. Perhaps Paige didn’t fall. Perhaps Paige didn’t jump.

Maybe, just maybe, she was manipulated by Brooke.

Where Paige had finally come to discover not everyone is as they seem, she’s also come to the moment where she realizes that there are secrets between and among people, too. That death isn’t always the final answer. In other words, Paige had taken ghost Brooke at face value. Brooke had been messed up with drugs when she died, and it was Lucas who tried to save her. But it’s possible that Brooke’s afterlife involved a lot of jealousy of Paige and Lucas’s relationship. So rather than work through it, rather than forgive what happened, rather than get to the bottom of it, Brooke sought revenge on Paige.

Absent draws upon stereotypes, drags them out, reexamines them, then pushes them back into another shape. These are incredibly complex characters working through grief and loss. Paige, for all she tells us and shows us in the narrative, isn’t a princess or a great girl. She’s not entirely likable. What she’s doing as a ghost in pressing into other people — in what she did to change the course of other people’s futures and memories of her — is terrible. It’s awful. She’s seeking out unnecessary vengeance as a ghost just because she can. There’s an incredible line in the book that sort of sums this up, and it sort of sums up what Paige realizes about who she was in the real world (even if she’s not entirely acknowledging her role in doing this in the afterlife, too): “They walk on, oblivious. People want to believe bad things, I tell myself, glaring around at my classroom. They want to believe the most shocking story. They see you as the worst version of yourself.” And then pages later, there’s Paige having this moment: “This is it. Exactly what I’d engineered, exactly what I’d said I’d wanted. How is vindication supposed to feel? It should feel like the parts snap into place. It should feel like eating a bowl of warm, thick soup on a cold day. It should feel like suddenly you’re solid again.”

And that’s why when the moment comes and Paige learns her death was the result of Brooke seeking vindication, the story snaps into one whole and solid place. Because, despite what Brooke thought the revenge would feel like, it wasn’t. It didn’t change anything of what happened in her waking life. It didn’t change anything except take away the life of another person. Lucas was still who he was. Wes was still who he was. Now, there was just a Paige-shaped hole in the school. And Paige learns that wasting all that time seeking revenge as a ghost wouldn’t change the course of events that led her here, either. Death doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t. That’s why it’s so painful and why grief takes as many forms as it does. For people like Kelsey, it’s through rumor-spreading she deals. For people like Wes, it’s reliving the drawings he made.

For Paige, for Brooke, and for Evan? It’s accepting. It’s forgiving. It’s moving on and up.

Williams writes tightly, weaving all of these threads together seamlessly. Moreover, though, she incorporates very small details that add up to something much greater. The mural on the wall — the one Paige manipulated her best friend to paint — ends up playing a significant role in the story and in the resolution. But that mural is not what we as readers or Paige as a character ever suspect it is. It’s much greater. It’s about freedom and release and acceptance. It’s about moving up, rather than being stuck.

I haven’t talked a lot about why these three characters are stuck here, but it’s important. The three of them were suicide victims. There’s a small line early on about how being stuck in high school for eternity was like purgatory. The characters are forced to relive high school every single day. They’re forced to remember their stereotypes, their boxes, their moments of winning and their moments of losing. They’re forced to accept they can and will eventually be forgotten.

Because that’s Evan’s story.

Absent could be described, I think, as Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall meets Nova Ren Suma’s Imaginary Girls. Readers who dug either or both will like this. In some ways, Williams’s book reminded me a lot, too, of the Korean horror film Whispering Corridors — there are many similar elements about social status and death, though, as well as revenge. I think fans of J-horror would dig this because of the ghosts seeking revenge (and the brilliant prose in this book — there is a moment when a character off-handedly asks if there are ghosts in Japan and if they were the nice or not nice kind, which anyone who has ever seen J-horror knows the answer to). How scary is it to think about your body being inhabited by a ghost? How scary is it to think that something outside ourselves could be determining the course of our future?

This book, of course, is about how we are entirely in control of determining our future. But oh, how it gets there is so savvy, so slick, and so twisted. Absent takes what Williams did so well with building a mystery and a set of questionable characters in The Space Between Trees and imbues it with the sort of ghost story I love so much. Even though this is a short novel, it is not fast-paced nor should it be read that way. Take your time with this one because there is a lot to absorb.

Absent is available now from Chronicle Books. Review copy received from the publisher. 

So You Want to Read YA?: Guest Post from Daisy Whitney (author of When You Were Here)

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Today’s guest post for our “So you want to read YA?” series comes from author Daisy Whitney!

Daisy Whitney reports on television, media and advertising for a range of news outlets. She graduated from Brown University and lives in San Francisco, California, with her fabulous husband, fantastic kids, and adorable dogs. Daisy believes in karma and that nearly every outfit is improved with a splash of color. She is the author of The Mockingbirds novels, and is also the author of Starry Nights, coming in Fall 2013. Daisy invites you to follow her online at DaisyWhitney.com.

The big blockbuster teen series have lured millions of new readers to young adult literature, but if you’re new to the genre, it can be daunting to know what to read beyond The Hunger Games, Beautiful Creatures and, of course, Twilight.

Especially because young adult literature is all that and a whole lot more. 

Many of my mom friends — gasp, they’re not teens! — have read these series and are eager for more young adult books, so have turned to me for recommendations. 

My “gateway drug” to the bounties of teen lit for anyone who has devoured the big series is Gayle Forman’s If I Stay.

Fine, fine. Everyone loves that book, and everyone recommends it. That’s because it’s amazing and crosses over from teens to adults. Its sequel, Where She Went is as heart-wrenchingly beautiful and hopeful as the first story.

Beyond that, several other titles that I lean on to lure new readers to YA include Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Dana Reinhardt’s The Things a Brother Knows, E Lockhart’s Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau Banks, Trish Doller’s Something Like Normal, Melissa Walker’s Unbreak My Heart, Stephanie Perkins’ Anna and The French Kiss, Holly Black’s Curse Workers trilogy, Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Amy Plum’s Die For Me, Barry Lyga’s Boy Toy, Kendare Blake’s Anna Dressed in Blood, Chris Lynch’s Inexcusable, Cynthia Omolulu’s Dirty Little Secrets, Jandy Nelson’s The Sky is Everywhere and anything by Courtney Summers.

But I wouldn’t recommend all these books to every reader. 

For starters, a book like Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is the sort of coming-of-age with humor-and-pathos story that you can put in anyone’s hands. 

Daughter of Smoke & Bone is an exquisite novel and a masterfully wrought tale of love and war, and everyone I have recommended that book to from my mother-in-law to friends to my age to teens has adored it.

For smart girls, and the boys who love them, I like to recommend E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. Witty, clever and anthemic, I haven’t met a reader of this book who doesn’t count it as tops on their list of best books.

Then there is Holly Black’s Curse Workers trio. It is quite sophisticated and is usually a hit with readers who enjoy mysteries, plot twists, and heist-style stories. If your new YA reader is an Ocean’s Eleven fan — give them Curse Workers!

For readers who want an intense, literary story, that’s when I’d hand them a Dana Reinhardt book, Barry Lyga’s Boy Toy or Chris Lynch’s Inexcusable, which packs such a punch, but is also a gorgeously written story and a wonderful example of an unreliable narrator. 

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake combines mystery, a touch of romance, and a whole lot of suspense, along with gore and ghosts. Make sure the reader likes blood and guts with their stories, but if they do give them this book. On a side note, I’m a complete scaredy-cat, but I devoured this novel and its sequel.

I would easily talk up Courtney Summers to any teen. Her novels are all hard-hitting, and they are all amazing. I am continually awed by her mastery of subtlety and intensity at once. Another edgy novel — and this one works for 12 and up readers — is Cynthia Omolulu’s Dirty Little Secrets, a fast-paced story about a girl whose mother is a hoarder. For a bit of hard-won truth and romance in the same place, turn to Trish Doller’s Something Like Normal. 

Now, if you haven’t read a Stephanie Perkins romance, you are missing out because she is the Princess of YA romance. Her novels are deep, rich and achingly romantic. Likewise, give Melissa Walker’s books to Stephanie Perkins’ fans, and for readers who want a bit of the supernatural, add in Amy Plum’s Die For Me. I simply adored that book. Last but not least, I don’t know a single girl or woman who hasn’t fallen in love with Jandy Nelson’s The Sky is Everywhere.

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Daisy Whitney’s When You Were Here comes out tomorrow.

BEA Part 1: Blogger Con

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I’m going to break up my BEA posts a little and share them throughout the week, but I do want to start at the beginning with Blogger Con. As you might remember, I was invited to speak on a panel called “Book Blogging and the Big ‘Niches'”, which was an honor.

The day began with a little bit of a travel problem — the shuttle supposedly going to Grand Central Station never showed up — and then when I got to the place I was to report, no one was there to meet me. After both of those things were taken care of, I met up with Leila and we grabbed spots for the opening keynote speaker, Will Schwalbe. After we stood in line for getting “stuff.” Maybe it’s just me, but beginning the blogging con with “grab stuff you want,” sends an interesting message.

What began as a sort of bland talk about how much book bloggers have saved the book industry (which I don’t know I agree with) actually became a very frustrating keynote to listen to, as Schwalbe suggested that the role of book bloggers is to play the role of cheerleader. We’re to think of the people behind the books — the writers, the editors, the publishers — and in doing so, be careful what it is we choose to say because our words have power. While he called out snarky reviews as problematic, he never once broached the topic of critical reviews, choosing instead to talk about the value of being positive and cheering books and their creators.

This to me is exceptionally problematic, especially as a way to tie into the con more broadly. I think it’s very important to talk about the things you love, but I also think it’s important to remain true to yourself and what it is your goals are as a blogger. Me? I love being critical. I don’t use my platform as a means of being a cheerleader. I use it to talk both about the things I like and the things that make me go hmm.

Of course, part of Schwalbe’s talk circled back to his own book, and he made some interesting parallels between book blogging and book clubs, which to me don’t equate. It felt in many ways that blogging was reduced to one purpose, which was to continue helping the industry (remember his talk began with the grand statement about how bloggers have saved publishing). While I appreciated that Schwalbe talked with three bloggers to inform his talk, he didn’t really offer much more than to say we’re cheerleaders and that left a sour taste in my mouth. I wondered then and still wonder how this talk would have been structured had it come from a blogger who completely gets what bloggers set out to do (spoiler: bloggers do a lot of neat, different, various things — some cheerlead, some criticize, and there is room in this world for all of our unique interests and passions).

So to say things started off disappointing is an understatement. The take away of “be nice” doesn’t sit well with me. “Be respectful?” That would have been a much different — and worthwhile — takeaway for me. You don’t automatically get nice, but you do automatically get respect.

Following the keynote, I attended a session called “YA Editor Insights,” which featured three YA editors — Cheryl Klein of Scholastic, Deb Noyes of Candlewick, Emily Meehan of Disney-Hyperion, and Jen Doll of the “YA for Grownups” series in The Atlantic (long time readers know my thoughts on this series). While I like Buzz sessions, this panel was not billed as that, even though that is all it became. There was nothing about blogging and the impact it has had on editing or acquisitions or on publicity — anything relevant. It was about what books were coming out, and it even included a cover reveal. So while that was interesting, it was incredibly disappointing to be sold books, rather than sold the value of book blogging. And what a missed opportunity, too, since Cheryl is a huge blogger and could have offered so much in that regard.

Again, it felt like what bloggers can do for the industry. And in this case, it was what they can talk about in the coming months.

I should note I don’t blame the panelists for this. I suspect they were told this was what the topic was and this was how they approached it. More on that shortly.

The following panel I attended was “YA Book Blogging Pros: Successes, Struggles, and Insider Secrets,” which featured Cindy Minnich of the Nerdy Book Club, Thea James of The Book Smugglers, Danielle Smith of There’s a Book, and Kristina Radke of Netgalley. For the most part, there wasn’t a whole lot said here I didn’t know, but I suspect there was some value for newbie bloggers. I especially liked Thea’s repetition that being critical is okay and doing your own thing . . . is okay. That there is a difference between critical and negative reviews — I am so glad she said that because it was the first time during the day I’d heard it.

What I didn’t like about this panel was that it came off at times like an opportunity for Netgalley to advertise. And while yes, Netgalley IS a good tool for bloggers, I didn’t need to know that they were doing a “wellness check” and could help us make our profiles most appealing to publishers.

This is where I say again, it felt very much like what bloggers can do for the industry, rather than what we are doing for ourselves.

There was a lunch break after this panel, and it ended up being a not-free lunch since I never got my free lunch ticket. I should have when I picked up my badge but did not. And I’m sad it didn’t happen. So I paid way too much for a half-burned hot dog in the Javitz cafeteria and tried to regroup before the afternoon sessions.

Immediately after the lunch was an ethics panel, featuring Jane Litte of Dear Author (with a law background), Richard Newman (a lawyer), and Geanne Rosenburg (journalism professor who works with the Student Press Law Center, which was an invaluable resource to me — when I was working in journalism). The session began with talking about FTC compliance, and it was probably where I took away the one valuable nugget from this entire conference. Apparently, if you write negative reviews (and they said negative, not critical, since no one seems to understand those are two different things), you don’t need to disclose your free product receipt.

Which.

Why is it everyone conflates ARCs with free products? ARCs have no value; their purpose is for reviewing. I don’t understand why there needs to be an obsession with those being freebies. They aren’t. They’re valueless. I think there’s a difference if you get a finished copy of a book, but even then, since you’re under no obligation to review it, why do you need to disclose it?

Obviously, we disclose everything here at STACKED: where we got our books, who sent them to us, if we have a relationship with an author we’re reviewing a book from. But I like to think readers understand we’re under no obligation to review anything and getting anything or having a relationship with someone in no way influences our opinions.

That said, the ethics panel then devolved into something ridiculous: whether or not we could use cover images on our posts. I can’t believe that in 2013, this is even a topic of discussion, especially at a blogger convention. I cannot believe that the discussion went on for nearly 20 minutes, and that people suggested a way around this issue could be taking a photo of the cover image since you own the copyright to the image you took.

People.

Covers are part of the marketing of a book. As long as you are not claiming you are the creator of the cover nor are remixing it without permission of the copyright holder (the publisher in many cases), then you can post it. You may even be ENCOURAGED to post cover images. It spreads the word about the book. It is the biggest piece of the selling puzzle of a book.

There was essentially no talk about things like censorship or about libel. Those are important ethical topics and instead, time was wasted talking about book covers. I point you to Leila’s post about blogger con, too, since she talked about an interesting series of thoughts we were having at our table between ourselves on ethical issues. Something else I’m curious about and wish had been talked about: what is a relationship with an author? It was sort of broached but never explored — if you’re friendly with someone on Twitter, is that a relationship you need to disclose? When does a relationship go from casual on social media to something deeper? I know where my lines are, but I’m curious where other people draw their own. And what then blog readers expect in terms of disclosure, since it seems silly to say “I talk with so and so on Twitter” as a relationship, even though that could influence a book review or impression.

In short, the ethics panel didn’t deliver anything new or groundbreaking, nor did it address some really thought-provoking topics on the ethics of book blogging. I do think some of that has to do with the fact this was a law-driven panel, rather than one driven by bloggers (aside from Jane, who moderated more than spoke) or critics themselves.

I didn’t actually attend a panel after the ethics conversation, since I met with my own panel co-presenters to go over what it was we wanted to talk about. I presented with Chelsy Hall of Big Honcho Media (who we’ve worked with before here), David Gutowski (of the blog/site Largehearted Boy), and Sarah Dickman (of Odyl, which created the book discovery website Riffle you may have heard about). Our topic, “Book Blogging and the Big ‘Niches'” had us all confused from the start. What did it even mean? We made it our own thing.

We had 5 points we wanted to cover specifically and then we opened it up for questions — and David and I took on the bulk of talking on these topics, since we were the two bloggers represented on the panel, with Chelsy talking a bit about working with bloggers and Sarah talking about how bloggers can use sites like Riffle to bolster their expertise and reach. To say it was a weird mix of people on the panel would be an understatement.

The five points we hit were:

  • Using your professional background and experience to inform your writing. I talked about how being a librarian meant I focused my reviews on reader appeal factors and potential audience, even for those books I don’t like myself. 
  • When and how to reach beyond your own blog for a bigger platform. I talked about how sometimes you need to know what other bloggers have passion for and collaborate with them in order to make a bigger impact. I talked a bit about series posts and how those have a bigger and different reach in a way that builds community among bloggers of all sorts.
  • Interacting with readers, publishers, authors, and local communities helps you. David talked about the series he does with local bookstores, and I talked about how, being rural and without access to a local bookstore, I use my blog as a means of connecting people with people and people with books. We don’t all have access to a big book world and that that digital space is a legitimate and valuable space. 
  • It’s important to be willing to be available for others via blogging and social media. I talked about how I love helping other people, and I hit the fact that sometimes, a non-answer comes from the fact it’s something I’ve blogged about before extensively and therefore can be answered with a quick search of the blog OR that sometimes, time really is a factor in responding to everything. I do read every single email or comment I get; sometimes, I just cannot respond though. And it is never, ever personal. 
  • We then talked a bit about how the niche has changed and where we think blogging is headed. I talked about one of the interesting trends I’ve seen and like to take part in, which is talking about backlist titles. Apparently this was….a surprise. I talked about the success of The Chocolate War read and blog along, and about how many of the bloggers I read and respect have been implementing projects to highlight backlist books (Jennie is an excellent example of a blogger who is creating daily book lists talking up YA backlist titles). 
We then opened it up to questions, the bulk directed at David and I because . . . we were the bloggers. And here is where I am going to be a bit critical.
Almost all of the questions we got came from industry professionals. I was asked how I am best pitched to. I was asked how to structure the materials that accompany unsolicited review copies so that those books catch my attention. I was asked if I really would consider reviewing backlist titles from a publisher. And while I think they’re valid questions, it really struck me as proving the point I’d been seeing all day: this wasn’t a convention for bloggers about bloggers. It was a convention about how bloggers can serve the industry. How the industry can make sure they’re getting on blogger radars. 
This was not the forum for that. 
I made sure to bring up a couple other important points that I think newbie and seasoned bloggers needed to know, like the fact you don’t need to be everywhere and do everything. There ARE a million book discovery websites and a ton of social media outlets. But if you try to keep up with everything, you will burn out and lose passion for blogging for you. You are no one’s tool. You do this because you want to do it. I emphasized you can and should say no. 
Then I was asked how many review copies I get a week. Which…
It’s interesting to me this comes up at all. And it’s interesting to me this is such a secretive thing in the blogging world. I was asked from someone representing the publishing side, as they noted that many bloggers claim they get overwhelmed on a daily basis, and I do believe that many bloggers do. But I wonder at times how much of that is exaggeration. 
Because I get maybe 3 or 4 unsolicited AND accepted review copies a week. Yes, that’s a lot, but it’s not the 10-15 a day many do say they receive.
But the kicker on my panel was the question which came near the end and I really needed to do a double take on.
He asked me how I felt library users were being “screwed” by the Big 6 publishers in their ability to access ebooks. While he didn’t use “screwed,” he did phrase it very slantedly in the first wording of the question. When I asked him to repeat, he toned it down a bit. But I sat there and had a moment — here I was on a panel about blogging, and I’m being asked to answer a question about libraries, ebooks, the Big 6, and I’m meant to represent the answer for all of these industries at once? 
I said I couldn’t answer that and that it’s a topic that merits entire conferences in and of themselves.
It was that moment, though, it really nailed home how this conference was not about bloggers or blogging. It was about the publishing industry and the fears all over it. Bloggers play in as cheerleaders and tools of the industry, rather than out to do this because they want to do it for themselves or love talking about and thinking critically about books.
My panel concluded and we all made our way for the final keynote, Randi Zuckerberg. Yes, it’s the sister of THAT Zuckerberg. Her talk began 20 minutes late, partially because there was no computer for her powerpoint presentation so they had to borrow one from the audience.
I can’t even go into how bad the presentation was. I can’t talk about how it was not in any way tailored to an audience of bloggers. I can’t even talk about how it was about how great and privileged Randi was and how she had no idea what it is we really do as bloggers. 
In many ways, I don’t even know who her talk was for.
She had 10 tips for successful social media use, but none of it was tailored for bloggers. In fact, I have never been to a keynote where I have so vehemently disagreed with every point that at the end, I walked away feeling depressed and down about what it was I do and think myself. I don’t have the energy to rehash it, and neither did Leila, but in short, there are right ways to do social media, and no matter what you do, you’re never going to be doing it as good or as well as Big Name Companies who Pay People Money to Do These Things.
This keynote was much more about privilege and business than it was about people who blog because they enjoy blogging. There were topics brought up which made no sense at all — Zuckerberg talked about an app that stops people from drinking and driving and how apps were the new way to gain audience, as were taking photos of the events you want to talk about (because we all know that taking photos of my on the couch in my pajamas reading is going to bring interest to my BOOK REVIEWS) — and in many ways, it was a clear sign that this industry just does not get what book bloggers do. That maybe this entire conference missed the point.
Take Aways

I think it’s clear that this conference was not for bloggers by bloggers. Yes, they had an advisory board but I think much of the power of that advisory board didn’t shine through (in fact, I mentioned my panel didn’t understand our charge to talk about big niches, and the person who proposed the panel told us what she’d envisioned and that it didn’t come out that way when described to us). Neither of the keynotes were there to talk about blogging and its richness and diversity. 
There was a real emphasis on what it is bloggers are doing for the industry and many in attendance were eager to swallow up the knowledge of how they can get a piece of the pie. I was pitched many books while there, and it left a sour taste in my mouth.
I’m in blogging for the love of blogging.
I’m in blogging to meet other bloggers and to have enlightening, engaging conversations about blogging and about books. I want to be critical.
I’m in this for selfish reasons and I’m in this for community reasons.
I’m not in this to be a service to publishers. I am not in this for free stuff because I don’t think I’m getting anything out of blogging except the rewards I assign to blogging for myself. The emphasis on free stuff, the emphasis on getting my attention, the emphasis on how books and publishers can get on my radar? It was weird and uncomfortable. 
Part of why I love and adore Kid Lit Con so much is that the entire conference is for book bloggers BY book bloggers. There is virtually no swag. Virtually no freebies. It’s about the community and the diverse voices, energies, and insights garnered therein. It’s not about what I can do for the industry because what I do is not influenced by the industry. 
What I do is influenced only by what it is that interests and ignites me.
I wouldn’t recommend BEA Blogger Con for those looking to learn about blogging or those looking to grow their readership, audience, to expand their knowledge of ethics or become more savvy on the world of blogging. It wasn’t that. I have been to Blogger Con before, when it was run by and for bloggers, and the tone was much different. The goals much different. 
Why is it the keynotes weren’t bloggers? Why were a few of the panels covered entirely with bloggers? Why did some seem like giant advertisements for products or services? 
I love blogging and I LOVE the community herein. I have made some of my closest friends through this activity, and I have found some of my favorite books and authors through this.
I have not sold books doing this. I have not made it my goal to be an advocate of the publishing industry or to be a cheerleader for it. 
I’ve gone on for a long time here, and I could go on twice as long with how disappointing and disheartening this conference was. I’m sure many will walk away feeling it was successful and that they learned a lot. I’m sure in many ways they did learn a lot. I know I draw from a well of experience and program attendances to compare, but I also know that this wasn’t what it advertised itself to be, either. 
I hope that other bloggers find those right niches for them and that they learn there is a huge, rich, wonderfully complicated and exciting world of blogging out there. That what they’re told at a conference like this isn’t the be-all, end-all. That they can choose to do things on their own terms with their own goals and passions and interests in mind, whether that’s being a non-stop cheerleader OR being a snarky reviewer OR being critical OR being a little bit of everything.
There is no one right way, even if that’s what the take away may have been. 

30 Days of Awesome: The Wrap-up

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Artwork by John LeMasey

I’m indulging in one more post for Show Me the Awesome.


While at BEA this week, School Library Journal picked up the project and wrote this really wonderful piece, spotlighting it on their home page.

What started as a project we began as a means of letting people show off what it is they’re good at and what it is they’re passionate about grew beyond our expectations in the best possible way. The posts in this series highlight not only the smart, savvy, and talented individuals who make up this profession, but it highlights, too, just how wide-ranging librarianship is. There are beginners sharing their new ideas and there are seasoned pros talking about their favorite, most proud moments. These posts are for fresh out of library school grads and those who have been serving as librarians for a long time.

There is something for everyone in this series.

I’m exceptionally proud of what Liz, Sophie, and myself did with #30Awesome. It might be the project I am most proud of at this point in my career.

Why is that?

The project stemmed from a place of conversation that’s been happening for a long time now, and that’s about gender and recognition. It’s about respect for and with our fellow librarians and what it is they do and are passionate about.

The project was our means of letting people talk about the things that fire them up and do so in a way that could reach a wide audience and that would remind those within and outside librarianship how dynamic this field really is.

We have posts about gender here. We have posts about children’s librarianship, about technology, about teen reading programs, service learning, being an expert inside and outside the classroom, about the value of speaking up and out. We have posts that are practical how-tos because as a profession, we pride ourselves in not just talking about what our own achievements are, but we thrive on sharing those insider tips with others.

We are a profession of sharing, of engaging, and of encouraging one another to become better and better.

Rather than spend our time as a profession throwing barbs at one another and cutting one another down, this project was meant to unify librarians. It’s easy to take the other route — it is much easier to cut someone down or denigrate their passions than it is to stand up and not only own your awesome but to celebrate and share the awesome of other people. Even if we’re all serving different communities in different environments, we’re all reaching for the same thing: a little recognition for our hard and selfless work of serving other people.

This project was meant to serve us. To show off just what it is that makes us individuals and to be celebrated and shared and encouraged for that very thing.

Thank you to everyone who took part, either by writing a post or sharing a post. I hope that you’ve been as inspired and motivated to try things as I have been. I hope you’ve discovered a ton of new voices and blogs and people to keep you thinking and you’ve found a network of intelligent, eager librarians to learn from.

For me, the ultimate outcome of this project is the simplest one: it’s about sharing. Rather than worry about who is getting what, it’s a reminder of how awesome it is to share not only what it is that makes other people awesome, but how awesome it feels to share these things because it makes me feel good.

I’ll end with a link that caught my eyes this week, and it’s one that sort of sums up a lot of what I’ve learned in the last month (and beyond): it’s about shine theory and why it’s so valuable to lift other women up, rather than to cut them down. It’s applicable across the gender spectrum, since the point is we further ourselves and become more awesome only when we’re willing to encourage other people.

Get Genrefied: Contemporary Realistic Fiction

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Every month, we’re highlighting one genre within YA fiction as part of Angela’s reader’s advisory challenge. We’ve talked about horror, science fiction, high fantasy, mysteries and thrillers, and verse novels.  This month, it’s my favorite genre: contemporary realistic fiction. 

Since this is a topic I talk pretty extensively about already, I’m going to be a little self-indulgent and link to some of the stuff I’ve written on this topic. 

First, what is contemporary realistic fiction? I wrote about defining contemporary, realistic, and historical fiction last year. I still stand by what I said, even if I’m a little wild in delineating a time frame that distinguished “contemporary” from “realistic.” In short: contemporary fiction takes place in the recognizable world during the present time. Realistic is a little broader, in that it takes place in the recognizable world but may show elements of aging — think things like pay phones, MySpace appearances, a lack of cell phones, and references to older bands or television shows. I like to think of contemporary as a subdivision of realistic fiction, much as there are contemporary fantasies, contemporary romances, and other “contemporary” genres. 

Novelist doesn’t divide contemporary from realistic in its definition. Their official definition of realistic fiction is “real life set to fiction. It’s about anything that can happen in real life — good, bad, and in-between. It’s real emotions and behaviors in real settings and encompasses the experiences of characters from all different backgrounds. It can also include extremes, both positive and negative, from high living with a focus on wealth, designer clothes, and private schools to the darker extremes of drug use, family breakdowns, and sexual assault. The only limit is reality, which, depending on one’s point of view, is either a jump-off point into the fantastical or just where it starts to get interesting all on its own.” 

Realistic fiction can encompass other genres — plenty of mysteries and romances are perfectly realistic and/or contemporary in their own right. The topics explored with realistic/contemporary YA span from the dark to the light and humorous. It’s a genre that has a book for all kinds of readers, and it takes reading a wide range of books to understand how diverse and rich it is. These aren’t all sad stories. They’re not all stories rife with pain and angst. They’re not all “fluffy romances.” There is a range of voices, stories, storytelling styles, and more within contemporary/realistic. 
Over the last couple of years, I’ve made it my goal to highlight the exciting and interesting aspects of contemporary fiction. I put together a contemporary YA week in 2011, and I revisited this with another series on contemporary YA in 2012. Both series included extensive reading lists and suggestions, arranged thematically. I’ve blogged about contemporary series books, with extensive additional suggestions in the comments. I am in the midst of writing a book for VOYA press on contemporary/realistic YA fiction, too — I could talk over 200 pages worth of thoughts on the genre, which is why I wanted to have it put on paper. I also have an annotated book list in the June 2013 issue of VOYA magazine covering some recent contemporary/realistic titles that are more than worth reading. 
I’m going to try to highlight some of the titles out in the last year, as well as a handful of forthcoming titles and hit on those which I haven’t talked a whole lot about either here or in other venues. I’m also not including the obvious titles here — though I have included the new Sarah Dessen. These are very current books. I want to showcase the range of stories within the genre, so these cover a little bit of everything — family relationships, friendship, survival, grief, mental illness, and more. A number of these are books I’ve read already, and I’ve included relevant links. All descriptions are from WorldCat or Goodreads. 
These are separated out, so these first books are out now (or coming out this month) and the second batch are titles coming out later this year. I’ve also included a handful of 2014 titles I am looking forward to, and I’ve noted where authors included in list have titles coming out in the next year. 

The Book of Broken Hearts by Sarah Ockler: Jude has learned a lot from her older sisters, but the most important thing is this: The Vargas brothers are notorious heartbreakers. But as Jude begins to fall for Emilio Vargas, she begins to wonder if her sisters were wrong. 

Bruised by Sarah Skilton: When she freezes during a hold-up at the local diner, sixteen-year-old Imogen, a black belt in Tae Kwan Do, has to rebuild her life, including her relationship with her family and with the boy who was with her during the shoot-out.

Burning Blue by Paul Griffin: When beautiful, smart Nicole, disfigured by acid thrown in her face, and computer hacker Jay meet in the school psychologist’s office, they become friends and Jay resolves to find her attacker.

Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn (available this month): A lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy must either surrender his sanity to the wild wolves inside his mind or learn that surviving means more than not dying.

Criminal by Terra Elan McVoy: Eighteen-year-old Nikki’s unconditional love for Dee helps her escape from her problems, but when he involves her in a murder Nikki winds up in prison, confronted with hard facts that challenge whether Dee ever loved her, and she can only save herself by telling the truth about Dee.

Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets by Evan Roskos: A sixteen-year-old boy wrestling with depression and anxiety tries to cope by writing poems, reciting Walt Whitman, hugging trees, and figuring out why his sister has been kicked out of the house. Reviewed here. 

Golden by Jessi Kirby: Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap–one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery–she decides to take a chance. 

Falling for You by Lisa Schroeder: Very good friends, her poetry notebooks, and a mysterious “ninja of nice” give seventeen-year-old Rae the strength to face her mother’s neglect, her stepfather’s increasing abuse, and a new boyfriend’s obsessiveness.

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley: Told in alternating voices, an all-night adventure featuring Lucy, who is determined to find an elusive graffiti artist named Shadow, and Ed, the last person Lucy wants to spend time with, except for the fact that he may know how to find Shadow.

If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin: A love story spanning the history of two teenagers’ lives and all the moments when if one little thing had been different, their futures would have been together instead of apart.

The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr: Sixteen-year-old San Franciscan Lucy Beck-Moreau once had a promising future as a concert pianist. Her chance at a career has passed, and she decides to help her ten-year-old piano prodigy brother, Gus, map out his own future, even as she explores why she enjoyed piano in the first place. Reviewed here. 

The Milk of Birds by Sylvia Whitman: When a nonprofit organization called Save the Girls pairs a fourteen-year-old Sudanese refugee with an American teenager from Richmond, Virginia, the pen pals teach each other compassion and share a bond that bridges two continents.

Over You by Amy Reed: A novel about two girls on the run from their problems, their pasts, and themselves. Max and Sadie are escaping to Nebraska, but they’ll soon learn they can’t escape the truth. 

Permanent Record by Leslie Stella: Being yourself can be such a bad idea. For sixteen-year-old Badi Hessamizadeh, life is a series of humiliations. After withdrawing from public school under mysterious circumstances, Badi enters Magnificat Academy. To make things “easier,” his dad has even given him a new name: Bud Hess. Grappling with his Iranian-American identity, clinical depression, bullying, and a barely bottled rage, Bud is an outcast who copes by resorting to small revenges and covert acts of defiance, but the pressures of his home life, plummeting grades, and the unrequited affection of his new friend, Nikki, prime him for a more dangerous revolution. Strange letters to the editor begin to appear in Magnificat’s newspaper, hinting that some tragedy will befall the school. Suspicion falls on Bud, and he and Nikki struggle to uncover the real culprit and clear Bud’s name. Permanent Record explodes with dark humor, emotional depth, and a powerful look at the ways the bullied fight back. 

The Reece Malcolm List by Amy Spalding: When her father dies suddenly, Devan is shipped off to Los Angeles to live with her estranged mother, Reece Malcolm, a bestselling novelist with little time for a daughter, and Devan navigates her way through her new performing arts school. Reviewed here.  
Spalding’s second contemporary book, titled Ink is Thicker Than Water will be available in December. 

The Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality by Elizabeth Eulberg: Sick of living in the shadow of her seven-year-old pageant queen sister who is praised for her looks, Lexi resolves to get a makeover when she determines her personality just isn’t enough to garner the attentions of boys.

Rotten by Michael Northrop: When troubled sixteen-year-old Jimmer “JD” Dobbs returns from a mysterious summer “upstate” he finds that his mother has adopted an abused Rottweiler that JD names Johnny Rotten, but soon his tenuous relationship with the dog is threatened. Reviewed here. 

Send Me A Sign by Tiffany Schmidt: Superstitious before being diagnosed with leukemia, high school senior Mia becomes irrationally dependent on horoscopes, good luck charms, and the like when her life shifts from cheerleading and parties to chemotherapy and platelets, while her parents obsess and lifelong friend Gyver worries. Reviewed here. 
Schmidt’s second contemporary book, Bright Before Sunrise, will be out in February 2014. 

The Space Between Us by Jessica Martinez: Seventeen-year-old Amelia feels like her life might be getting back on track after a bad break-up when her younger sister’s pregnancy gets them both banished to Canada, where new relationships are forged, giving Amelia a new perspective.

Starting From Here by Lisa Jenn Bigelow: Sixteen-year-old Colby is barely hanging on with her mother dead, her long-haul trucker father often away, her almost-girlfriend dumping her for a boy, and her failing grades, when a stray dog appears and helps her find hope.

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen: During her last summer at home before leaving for college, Emaline begins a whirlwind romance with Theo, an assistant documentary filmmaker who is in town to make a movie.

The Storyteller by Antonia Michaelis: Wealthy, seventeen-year-old Anna begins to fall in love with her classmate, Abel, a drug dealer from the wrong side of town, when she hears him tell a story to his six-year-old sister, but when his enemies begin turning up dead, Anna fears she has fallen for a murderer. Reviewed here. 

This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith: Perfect strangers Graham Larkin and Ellie O’Neill meet online when Graham accidentally sends Ellie an e-mail about his pet pig, Wilbur. The two 17-year-olds strike up an e-mail relationship from opposite sides of the country and don’t even know each other’s first names. What’s more, Ellie doesn’t know Graham is a famous actor, and Graham doesn’t know about the big secret in Ellie’s family tree. When the relationship goes from online to in-person, they find out whether their relationship can be the real thing.

Thousand Words by Jennifer Brown: Talked into sending a nude picture of herself to her boyfriend while she was drunk, Ashleigh became the center of a sexting scandal and is now in court-ordered community service, where she finds an unlikely ally, Mack.


Unbreak My Heart by Melissa Walker: Taking the family sailboat on a summer-long trip excites everyone except sixteen-year-old Clementine, who feels stranded with her parents and younger sister and guilty over a falling-out with her best friend.

Wanted by Heidi Ayarbe: Seventeen-year-old Michal Garcia, a bookie at Carson City High School, raises the stakes in her illegal activities after she meets wealthy, risk-taking Josh Ellison.

Way to Go by Tom Ryan: Danny is pretty sure he’s gay, but he spends his summer trying to prove otherwise.  

What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton: The stress of hiding a horrific incident that she can neither remember nor completely forget leads sixteen-year-old Cassidy “Sid” Murphy to become alienated from her friends, obsess about weight loss, and draw close to Corey “The Living Stoner” Livingston.

When You Were Here by Daisy Whitney: When his mother dies three weeks before his high school graduation, Danny goes to Tokyo, where his mother had been going for cancer treatments, to learn about the city his mother loved and, with the help of his friends, come to terms with her death.

Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith: The discovery of a startling family secret leads seventeen-year-old Kiri Byrd from a protected and naive life into a summer of mental illness, first love, and profound self-discovery. 

Winger by Andrew Smith: Two years younger than his classmates at a prestigious boarding school, fourteen-year-old Ryan Dean West grapples with living in the dorm for troublemakers, falling for his female best friend who thinks of him as just a kid, and playing wing on the Varsity rugby team with some of his frightening new dorm-mates.

Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina: One morning before school, some girl tells Piddy Sanchez that Yaqui Delgado hates her and wants to kick her ass. Piddy doesn’t even know who Yaqui is, never mind what she’s done to piss her off. Word is that Yaqui thinks Piddy is stuck-up, shakes her stuff when she walks, and isn’t Latin enough with her white skin, good grades, and no accent. And Yaqui isn’t kidding around, so Piddy better watch her back. At first Piddy is more concerned with trying to find out more about the father she’s never met and how to balance honors courses with her weekend job at the neighborhood hair salon. But as the harassment escalates, avoiding Yaqui and her gang starts to take over Piddy’s life. Is there any way for Piddy to survive without closing herself off or running away?” — from publisher’s web site.

Freaks Like Us by Susan Vaught: A mentally ill teenager who rides the “short bus” to school investigates the sudden disappearance of his best friend.

Forthcoming Contemporary Realistic Titles

All of these are coming out between July and December of this year. 

Dead Ends by Erin Jade Lange: When Dane, a bully, refuses to hit Billy D because he has Down Syndrome, Billy takes that as a sign of friendship and enlists Dane’s help in solving riddles left in an atlas by his missing father, sending the pair on a risky adventure.

The Distance Between Us by Kasie West: Seventeen-year-old Caymen Meyers studies the rich like her own personal science experiment, and after years of observation she’s pretty sure they’re only good for one thing—spending money on useless stuff, like the porcelain dolls in her mother’s shop. So when Xander Spence walks into the store to pick up a doll for his grandmother, it only takes one glance for Caymen to figure out he’s oozing rich. Despite his charming ways and that he’s one of the first people who actually gets her, she’s smart enough to know his interest won’t last. Because if there’s one thing she’s learned from her mother’s warnings, it’s that the rich have a short attention span. But Xander keeps coming around, despite her best efforts to scare him off. And much to her dismay, she’s beginning to enjoy his company. She knows her mom can’t find out—she wouldn’t approve. She’d much rather Caymen hang out with the local rocker who hasn’t been raised by money. But just when Xander’s attention and loyalty are about to convince Caymen that being rich isn’t a character flaw, she finds out that money is a much bigger part of their relationship than she’d ever realized. And that Xander’s not the only one she should’ve been worried about.

Fault Line by Christa Desir: After his gilfriend, Ani, is assaulted at a party, Ben must figure out how he can help her to heal, if he can help her at all. 

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick: A day in the life of a suicidal teen boy saying good-bye to the four people who matter most to him.

Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Clark: Told from three viewpoints, seventeen-year-old Brendan, a wrestler, struggles to come to terms with his place on the transgender spectrum while Vanessa, the girl he loves, and Angel, a transgender acquaintance, try to help.

If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan: In Iran, where homosexuality is punishable by death, seventeen-year-olds Sahar and Nasrin love each other in secret until Nasrin’s parents announce their daughter’s arranged marriage and Sahar proposes a drastic solution.

Sex & Violence by Carrie Mesrobian: Sex has always come without consequences for Evan. Until the night when all the consequences land at once, leaving him scarred inside and out. 
Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller: Abducted at age five, Callie, now seventeen, has spent her life on the run but when her mother is finally arrested and she is returned to her father in small-town Florida, Callie must find a way to leave her past behind, become part of a family again, and learn that love is more than just a possibility.





This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales: Nearly a year after a failed suicide attempt, sixteen-year-old Elise discovers that she has the passion, and the talent, to be a disc jockey.

Takedown by Allison van Diepen: After years in “juvie,” Darren cooperates with the police to infiltrate a drug ring to settle a vendetta, but sweet, innocent Jessica is now in his life so when a deadly turf war erupts, Darren must protect not only his own life, but Jessica’s as well. 

A Few More Forthcoming Contemporary/Realistic  

These titles will hit shelves in 2014 — I don’t have exact release dates, nor do I have covers for these yet, but they’re on my radar and should be on yours, too.
Pointe by Brandy Colbert: A ballet prodigy’s life begins to unravel when she is forced to admit to the role she played in her childhood friend’s abduction.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters. 
Goldfish by Kody Keplinger: About a teen dealing with the fallout from her failed suicide attempt and her romance with a boy with secrets of his own.
All the Rage by Courtney Summers: A 17-year-old girl’s attempt to blackmail her rich classmates results in her waking up on a dirt road with no money, no memory of how she got there and a semi-erased message she left for herself the only clue as to why. When she tries to piece together the evening before and all the events leading up to it, a dark and sinister game is revealed.