My Attention Span is Less than a Middle Schooler’s…

…Or I’m too old to fully get into tween novels. This is a problem that’s been plaguing me for a while now: whenever I read a middle grade novel on the subway I get so distracted by stops and people getting off the subway and a girl’s pretty shoes that all of a sudden I’m three pages into Chapter 5 and can’t remember what happened during Chapter 4! For some reason I just can’t concentrate fully on the text of tween novels when other things are going on. Has my attention span failed me? Am I too old to relate to the text? Are middle grade novels written poorly? To the last point—of course not! I love tween books: Savvy, When You Reach Me, The Benedict Society are all some of my all time favorite books. Not to mention classics like Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie. And yet, I don’t have a similar problem reading teen books on the subway. I get so lost in the world and characters that, at times, I’ve almost missed my stop! So what is it about middle grade novels? I don’t have an answer—does anyone have the same problem as I do? A theory? Or, best yet, a solution? I need to reclaim my reading time!

Reading Roundup

Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

To put it simply, I adored this book. It’s the second by contemporary romance author Stephanie Perkins and it’s even better than Anna and the French Kiss. She completely nailed the quirky main character, Lola, and her love interest is so swoony. What girl doesn’t want to fall in love with her next door neighbor? I actually loved Lola and the San Francisco world Perkins created so much that I missed when Anna and St. Clair from the previous book first made an appearance, and that’s saying something since I loved the first book, too. But what I look away from Anna and the French Kiss was a desire to return to Paris, Lola and the Boy Next Door made me want to be Lola. And my goodness—her clothes! A highly recommended read; actually, it's my favorite for the whole month!

Our Own May Amelia by Jennifer Holm

This book continues my goal to read a Harper award-winning backlist title a month. And I was pleased with this selection; not only is it my beloved historical fiction, but it also takes place in nascent Washington state, an area I’m becoming increasingly interested in. May Amelia was a strong but relatable heroine and I loved the refrain “our only May Amelia” that her family would say both when they were proud of her and exasperated with her! This tween novel, published in 2001, felt old to me, though. The writing style, the episodic nature, the little lessons along the way. I don’t mean to imply that it isn’t a good book—it was a Newbery Honor book, for Pete’s sake!—but I had a hard time loving it compared to many more commercial contemporary middle grade. (Historical Book Challenge #7)

The Cabinet of Earths (ARC 1/3/12) by Anne Nesbet        

This interesting book starts when the main character moves to France—and quickly is intriguing by a man who has purple eyes and lives in a house with a salamander door handle—and things get quirkier from there as Maya unravels her family’s secrets. This is a quieter tween novel—but there are delightful hints of action, romance, and lovely family dynamics.

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

I posted a much longer review of this book, but to sum up quickly: this is a magical and beautifully written fantasy novel. Although I would have liked it to be set up a little different as I found the beginning to be mostly set up and the end to be mostly back story, the characters and world are so rich I just want to know more about them!

Plus, quite a few picture books. (The delightful things you get to do while waiting at a bookstore for an hour!)

Ladybug Girl by Jacky Davis, illustrated by David Soman

Olivia by Ian Falconer

Silverlicious by Victoria Kann

Grandpa Green by Lane Smith

A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead, illustrated by Erin Stead

YOU WILL BE MY FRIEND! by Peter Brown

Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Full Manuscripts: 5

To-Do Lists

Today’s Question from YA Highway: In honor of NaNoWriMo: What kind of writing coach do you need? When you have to coach friends, what kind of coach are you?

The kind of coach I need and the kind of coach I am are the same thing and boils down to one word: deadlines. I often write to-do lists and if something is on the list and has to get done by a certain date IT WILL GET DONE. That’s just how I work. So, if my “writing coach” tells me to write 1,000 words by Tuesday, I’ll write it on my to-do list and get it done by the deadline. Maybe even earlier! And now, as I’m writing this post I’m realizing that I should write everything down on a to-do list. It always feels great to cross it off: “complete!”

Good luck with everyone doing NaNoWriMo. I did it for about half the month last year, with some success (talk about having a deadline!), and I’m sure I’ll try it again in the future. 

Dream Library

I moved this weekend! It’s very exciting; this is my first apartment that I can really make my ‘own.’ That’s why I’m looking to these creative bookcases and home libraries for inspiration as I begin to set up and decorate. Of course, my real ‘library’ is most likely going to be a few of these  set in a corner of my living room, but a girl can dream, right?

Book Club: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

I finished a novel for a book club this month! Hooray! This shouldn’t seem like a big accomplishment, but after my book club failure last month, finishing any book by a set deadline feels impressive. So, for Fall Book Club we read Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.

I’m not quite sure what to say about this book, so I’ll start at the beginning—the way beginning, long before I had a copy of the novel in my hands. Last May at BEA I attended a panel with five editors talking about five of the most buzzed about books for the upcoming fall season. Alvina Ling, the editor at Little, Brown who worked on Daughter of Smoke and Bone was there. I don’t remember much about the panel other than I was kind of underwhelmed by the editors’ presentations; none of the books seemed to stand out when the editor was talking about the acquisition and editing process or the fantastic world that the author created. And that’s because what makes books really special is not the plot or characters; it’s the writing, and that’s nearly impossible to convey in a presentation that doesn’t include reading an excerpt from the book. The one thing that did make Daughter of Smoke and Bone stand out for me, though, was that one of the last things Alvina mentioned: it was set in Prague. I perked up in my seat. This is something that intrigued me beyond the paranormal and fantasy elements that, when summarized, this book seemed to share with all the other highlighted novels. I adore Prague!

And that, I guess, is where I should start my review of the book. The setting, the world, the magic—breathtaking. And the novel isn’t just set in the seemingly magical Prague; much of it takes place in Marrakesh and otherworldly places. The various settings and the way Laini describes them is the gem of this novel. Fantasy novels are generally so Euro-centric and moving away from traditional Northern-European medieval villages and castles to rich, lush, different settings was so refreshing. And the way in which Laini throws in terms that refers to everyday objects found in Marrakesh that weren’t familiar to me made the scope of her novel so much broader than typical YA. It’s wonderful to see a novel do new things and push the boundaries of what readers expect. The lushness and complexity will appeal to readers of all ages, not just teens.

That being said, I didn’t love the novel. I wanted to so badly and thought for the majority of the book that it was better than average bordering on really good. But there wasn’t much of an actual plot; there was beautiful world building and I was intrigued to find out more about Karou…but what actually happened during the course of the novel? Three or four things, that’s it. There needed to be more action leading to an understandable if not foreseeable point. Perhaps there will be direction in the sequel.

This next point contains major spoilers. Stop reading now if you haven’t read the novel yet. My larger concern and reason for not loving Daughter of Smoke and Bone is from the last quarter where we finally find out who Karou is. I wanted to know. I was intrigued, but not interested enough to have a 75-page tangent about Karou’s past life as Madrigal. It was too much and I ended up not caring, even when it came to the steamy romance between her and Akiva. I wanted to know about present-day Karou in Marrakesh trying to find Brimestone and her family, not Madrigal who only had been barely mentioned by Akiva once or twice before. As I got closer and closer to the end of the novel and realized that the conclusion was basically just the reveal of who Karou was and wouldn’t get to the action I was sorely disappointed.

And, unrelated to the text, I despise the cover. Anyone else with me? Although it definitely hints to the mystery of the novel I find it dull and misrepresentative of the overall story. Karou is the girl with blue hair, not the girl who wears a feathery mask! And yes—I understand that the image might be of Madrigal at the ball, but once again, I care about Karou, not Madrigal!

So, to wrap up this long review, I’m torn. Some aspects I really loved, some I was disappointed in. I’ll definitely read the sequel—but I won’t preorder it the way I did this novel.

What are your thoughts?

Three Cheers

Today's RTW Question from YA Highway is: What was the best book you read in October?

So give three cheers...

For LOLA, LOLA, LOLA! Without a doubt, Lola and the Boy Next Door was my favorite read this month. Set in San Francisco, eclectic Lola thinks she has it all—a hot rocker boyfriend, loving parents, a plan to make the most gorgeous Marie Antoinette dress for the school dance. But when Calliope and Cricket Bell move back in next door, Lola has to face the truth of what happened between her and Cricket a few summers earlier. Luckily, the boy next door is a creative genius and dreamy…really, the perfect complement to Lola.

This is Stephanie Perkin’s second contemporary romance and her first book, Anna and the French Kiss, was my favorite read a few months ago. But Lola and the Boy Next Door was even better. In Anna and the French Kiss I fell in love with Paris: the sights, the sounds, and the idea of falling in love in the world’s most romantic city. In Lola and the Boy Next Door I fell in love with Lola herself—her spunk, her eccentricities, her talent for costume that I wish I had. I wanted to be Lola—wanted to have what Lola had by the end of the novel (okay, I do have what Lola has…but my teen self would have wanted it!). Not only does she get the (right) boy, but she also becomes a fuller person. I even—gasp—missed when Anna and St. Clair made their first appearance in Lola and the Boy Next Door because I was so enraptured by Lola and her world! Lola is fabulous! 

Stay tuned for a review of Daughter of Smoke and Bone on Friday as part of Fall Book Club, and mini-reviews next week of all my October reads.

Science Fiction? Find a Thesaurus!

In the world of publishing we always want to find the next big thing: the next Harry Potter, Twilight, or Hunger Games. There’s this little word, or rather, two words that keep on cropping up during these discussion: science fiction.

Is it back? Do teens want to read it?

Or does it still have a stigma? Is it too associated with nerds and video games? Trekkies and sci-fi conventions? Unpromising 20-something year old men still living at home in the basement?

I think it’s somewhere in between. The popularity of dystopian literature is really just another manifestation of a subgenre of science fiction.  Dystopian literature incorporates a lot of themes or common plots illustrated in the most basic of definitions for science fiction: “fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes, frequently portraying space or time travel and life on other planets.” So if dystopian in hot, but readers might be ready for the next big thing, transitioning to straight science fiction seems natural, right?

Not so fast! Remember about that stigma? I’ll be the very first to admit that I don’t like sci fi. I don’t read it, watch it, think about it. And yet…I devoured all three books in the Hunger Games series one summer; Divergent left me dying to find out what would happen with Tris and the factions; some of the upcoming books I’m working on by Garth Nix have stunning world building; there is so much almost-science-fiction that is fantastic can’t-stop-turning-the-pages literature. But I don’t read sci fi.

And publishers have realized this conundrum. A reader who might love the world and action and characters of a novel set in a futuristic or alternative world might not pick the book up if it’s labeled as science fiction. Call it something else, and you have an audience: dystopian, futuristic, contemporary with a time travel twist, action adventure set in space. Readers will gobble these books up!

So whatever you call these trendy books, they’re not science fiction!