Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Second-Chance Authors

So a few years back, after Nathan Bransford blogged about how people don't really buy or read than many debut novels and come on we want to be writers so we should be buying them, I decided to ONLY BUY DEBUTS for a while. This led to me finding a few really great books, but also led to this book:
Bloom, by Elizabeth Scott. It looked so pretty and the summary was so good and I bought it. And I read it. And I didn't like it. Bloom was one of those books that just hit me the wrong way. The main character's decisions annoyed me, the secondary characters couldn't save it, and though I kept reading waiting for the ending to pay off, it never did.

So later, when I saw other Elizabeth Scott books in stores, I never picked them up. No, thank you, I thought. One was enough. I didn't read Perfect You, Stealing Heaven, or Something, Maybe.


And then I heard about this book.
 The Unwritten Rule. I wanted to read it before I knew who the author was just because it sounded like exactly the sort of book I was looking for. The title was amazing, the premise was intriguing, and I wanted to see how the subject was handled. When I (surprise!) got a review copy in the mail, I was ecstatic. To be completely honest I was a little wary of reading something by the same person who wrote Bloom, but mostly I was excited to read the book.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I loved that book. Not only did I write a completely glowing review, but I also emailed the author -- which I rarely do -- to tell her how much I loved the book and to thank her for writing it. I'm so glad that I gave E. Scott's writing another try because The Unwritten Rule is seriously one of the best books I've read.

And the point of this is that even if you don't like one book by a writer you might like -- you might love -- another book they wrote. So I challenge you to give an author whose books you don't think you like a second chance. Read their book that sounds the best, or the one everyone else has been recommending to you, or, heck, maybe just the one with the best cover.    

5 comments:

  1. This happened to me when I read Jaclyn Moriarty's "The Spellbook of Listen Taylor" and then, about a year later, picked up "Feeling Sorry for Celia."

    The funny thing is, I just picked up "Perfect You" by Elizabeth Scott last night for the second time, after starting it and abandoning it a few months ago. This time, I'm really enjoying it.

    I like the idea of trying another title by an author who didn't wow you the first time around. I'd also like to add that sometimes it's about the personal place that you're in when you read it, and revisiting it (or another book by the same author) at a later time might mean a completely different reading experience.

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  2. I started Stealing Heaven, couldn't get into it, and stopped. I read all of Love You, Hate You, Miss You, but was kind of meh on it. Maybe I should give her one last try with The Unwritten Rule, hmm...

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  3. Have you joined the Story Siren's debut author challenge? It's a great way to intentionally read through MG and YA debuts.

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  4. Clementine Bojangles
    I looove a couple of Jaclyn Moriarty's books - Feeling Sorry for Celia was the first one I read and I adore it totally.

    Erin
    The Unwritten Rule is absolutely fantastic IMO.

    Caroline Starr Rose
    I've actually been thinking about it, but I'm not so good at challenges. I'm thinking I'll sort of "unofficially" participate.

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  5. haha I totally hated bloom, but i tried Living Dead Girl and really loved it.. im probably staying away from Perfect You, but i might try this one :)

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