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.    

Favorite Titles

I'm nearing the end of edits for what I've been calling #thebandbook, a novel that has had umpteen thousand titles so far. As I near the possible end of this editing journey and start to think of what I'm going to call it when I query, I'm looking at my favorite YA titles for inspiration.

Looking at my shelves (both the literal shelves and Goodreads), I'm noticing a few definite trends in what I like:

• Cute titles that include the character's name.
• Titles that sound like they could very easily be for a self-help or other nonfiction work.

Here's a short list of my favorite titles for YA books. Unfortunately, the title I have in mind for my own book doesn't exactly follow either of the above favorite trends (although maybe, possibly, if I stretched my mind, it could be the title of a memoir).

The Year of Secret Assignments
The Unwritten Rule
The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May, and June
The Summer I Turned Pretty
Love You Hate You Miss You
Some Girls Are
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
The Boyfriend List
The Rules of Survival


So, with this in mind, a couple of questions. What are some of your favorite titles? And are there any particular trends you see in your favorites?

Formatting Problems

Has anyone noticed that the formatting on my last couple of posts has been pretty wonky? Like there'll be five spaces between lines or something ridiculous like that. Anyway, it's really bothering me but I'm not quite sure how to fix it... everything I'm doing seems to only make it work so LET'S HOPE IT RESOLVES ITSELF SOON.

2010 Survey

Started by THIS GIRL.

Note: I only started using Goodreads and keeping track of what I read in June or July, so this is really only the second half of 2010. But still.

Best Book of 2010:

Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins. There are some close seconds here, but Mockingjay just broke my brain in the best possible way. I could not stop reading it. I could not get over it. For the first time in the trilogy I kind of actually liked Katniss and I felt like it was really the only way this series could end. Absolutely loved it.

Worst Book of 2010:

For me personally it had to be Stalker Girl, by Rosemary Graham. 

Most Disappointing Book of 2010:

The Duff, by Kody Keplinger. I wanted to like this book so much, but I just really, really didn't. It was disappointing for me in a lot of ways.

Most Surprising (In A Good Way!) Book of 2010:

Tweet Heart, by Elizabeth Rudnick. Surprising because I was so amazed to find a twitter novel on the shelves, especially as I was right in the thick of writing my own Twitter-Facebook-Email story at the time (which, hello, still doing) and I loved that there was something out that was using a similar format. Plus, the book was absolutely adorable. I loved it.

Most Recommended-to-Others Book of 2010:

Probably Sea, by Heidi R. Kling, though I'm not sure anyone actually took my recommendation to heart and read it. Seriously though -- get going! It's wonderful.

Best Series You Discovered in 2010:

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, which I'm sure is on lots of lists. Right before I actually managed to buy the first book I wanted to read this series so much that I was for serious having dreams about it. Like, dreams where someone (Katniss, maybe?) was trying to kill my family and I had to go fight and... gahh, it was ridiculous and intense. And the only time a dream has convinced me to read a book.

Favorite New Authors Discovered in 2010:

Jenny Han, author of the Summer series, of which I've only read the first book but I really need the next two. Are they both out yet? And Suzanne Young, author of the Naughty List trilogy. Cheerleading has never been so espionage-filled. It made the spy girl in me geek out.

Most Hilarious Read of 2010:

Scarlett Fever, by Maureen Johnson, which just barely beats out two other hilarious books. But, come on, this one has SPENCER MARTIN so it has to win.

Most Thrilling, Unputdownable Book of 2010:

Again, Mockingjay takes this category by a landslide. Unbelievable.

Most Anticipated Book of 2010:

It sucks to write this one because the book didn't live up to my expectations, but Fixing Delilah, by Sarah Ockler. Her first novel was so incredibly incredible and this one sounded exactly like something I'd love. It had all the right components and I'm so thrilled that so many people love it (even if I didn't).

Favorite Cover of a Book You Read in 2010:

This one wins on "Beatles-references" alone.

Most Memorable Character in 2010:

Peeta Mellark.

I love him.

Most Beautifully-Written Book of 2010:

Fall For Anything, by Courtney Summers. This one's not out for another week or so but OH MY GOSH. Just.... love.... so much love.

Book That Had the Greatest Impact on You in 2010:

This is a difficult one because I connect on an emotional level to so many books. I've read things this year that were absolutely amazing, that helped me understand myself or the people around me a little better, that made something shift into place in my brain. But by far the book that's had the greatest impact on me is Some Girls Are, by Courtney Summers. I've had a love for "mean girl" type books for a long time and this is one that, despite being more intense by far than anything I've ever been though, I really connected to. It came at a time when I was going through a few toxic friendships of my own and because of that it hit close to home for me. THANK YOU COURTNEY.

Book You Can't Believe You Waited Until 2010 to Read:

Hm. Most of what I've read either came out this year or I just found out about it this year, so there's not much to choose from in this category but I'll go with Jodi Picoult's The Pact just because I'd been wanting to read it for quite a while and it was pretty amazing.

New Favorite Book Blog You Discovered in 2010:

Forever Young Adult.

Favorite Review That You Wrote in 2010:

I'm not that in love with any of my reviews, though I am proud of them. Choosing a favorite, though, I'd have to go with The Summer I Turned Pretty, by Jenny Han. It was hard to put my thoughts and feelings about this book into words but I think it turned out well.

Best Discussion On Your Blog in 2010:

I've had some really good discussions lately (all of you who comment are winfaces), but probably the best would have to be Please Be Nicer, the post I did about "weak" characters and "weak" people.

Most Thought-Provoking Review or Discussion On Another Blog in 2010:

I don't know, basically anything on Persnickety Snark?

Best Event You Participated In During 2010:

I went to Heidi R. Kling's informal little book signing/meetup at the bookstore in Downtown Disney this year and it was great. A huge long drive, but I got to meet and hang out with a fabulous author as well as some of my blogger friends (HELLO KHY) and got to meet new people. I love author events; they're my kind of social things. (Also, Comic-Con would TOTALLY WIN THIS CATEGORY except that it's not really book-oriented.)

Best Moment of Book Blogging in 2010:

Still loving it. There's no moment; just the fact that I enjoy this so much after doing it for so long (much longer than this particular blog has been up) is great to me.

Best Bookish Discovery of 2010:

The Bookswap on Goodreads.

No One Like Me

First! A note warning my mother not to read this post. Because it will probably make her sad. JUST SAYIN.

In reading a recent post by Cindy Pon, in honor of PoC (Persons of Color) Literature Days, something she said hit me despite the fact that I am definitely not what you would consider a person of color. She said,

As much as I loved books and stories [as a child], I don't recall ever reading one that had an Asian person in it. No one like me.

No one like me, that's the phrase that stuck with me, that jarred something loose inside of me. Because although I can't relate to the racial aspect of it, that feeling of no one like me is one that I know and remember all too well. It comes back to me - this feeling - every now and again. It's a recurring thought I have, a feeling like there's something missing from Children's and YA lit. Something I've been looking for as long as I can remember, something that I still haven't found.

And I don't know how to say it without sounding morbid, but I want books about sick children. I know. It's terrible. But growing up I was one of those kids; the ones you knew in school who had some something wrong with them but you didn't know quite what and you didn't really want to ask, they seemed okay enough. I had one of those diseases that I never knew how to explain. Heart problem I said, and people didn't understand and I didn't now how to bridge that gap. I didn't know how to explain what was wrong, even to my closest friends. It was just something. Some part of me that wasn't obvious and mostly you could ignore it except I never could. Even now, a mostly-healthy young adult, I'm acutely aware of things I shouldn't be and I don't go very long without thinking of it. It's a part of me so deeply ingrained that separating Jordyn from Sick-Jordyn is impossible. I have no idea who I would be if I didn't have that heart defect, if I hadn't gone through what I have because of it. I would be a different person. It's crazy to think that a health problem, something that I never knew how to explain, that bankrupt my parents, that almost killed me, could be such a part of my identity, but it is. And though I never wanted it to be, it always has been.


As a kid, just like now, I read books trying to find something to relate to within their pages. Looking for characters or situations that were like my life. And I found a lot. I found characters who were smart, were quiet, loved their family, fought with their mothers, etc etc etc. I found ones who lived in small towns, who liked a boy who liked someone else, who prayed every day, who had a younger sister. All of those characters were there. What I didn't find was the girl who got too worn out running around at recess, who sometimes went four hours away for a doctor's visit, who sometimes wasn't sure - in the most simple of terms - what the future held for her. Life or death? 


When I did, on rare occasions, find those books, those characters - guess what? More often than not the sickness they had was cancer. And it killed them. Newbery Syndrome aplenty for some of the few characters I related to most. It never seemed to happen that the kid actually got to live. What this means is that none of those books talked about what happens after all the doctors and the surgeries and what ifs? Though they often managed to be incredibly touching, they always ended the same way. The sick kid never got to be the lucky kid.

But guess what?

Sometimes you live. And years go by and you have different worries and things change and you're so glad to think about normal things, the way you never could as a kid. Except.
Except that it changes you. You don't get to be like everybody else, and I don't think I'm being overly dramatic when I say that. When most of the kids in my sixth-grade class were getting braces, I was having heart surgery. I was in a back brace. I am never going to get to redo those years, live them over again as a normal kid, and that makes me a little bit different than everyone else because so many of the things everyone else did were things I couldn't even think about.

I found a lot of my life, of myself, reflected back to me in books I read growing up. But there were other parts, bigger and more important pieces of the puzzle, that not even fiction knew what to say about. I kept looking for that books about someone like me, and I never found it. Now, as a young adult, I continue to look and wish for that book, despite how different my life is and how sometimes the constant doctor visits and surgeries feel a lifetime away, and other times they feel too close for comfort. I don't know why I keep looking. Maybe because Jordyn and Sick-Jordyn are the same person, maybe because I'd like to have someone else - even a fictional someone else - understand what it's like. For me now, too aware of everything my heart does and incredibly, incredibly lucky and overwhelmed at everything I've done and am doing and, with luck, will still get to do. At this life that I never quite imagined as a child. And also for me back then, so sick and so scared and so alone.

So I ask you: what experiences or pieces of yourself do you look for in literature? Or do you continue to look for despite never/rarely finding?

On Reading Reviews

(Part one of my series on reviews is here.)

Last time I talked about the type of reviews I write, but today I'm going to talk about the type of reviews that I read around the blogosphere. They fall into three basic categories.

Readers I Trust:
Of course there are a ton of blogs out there and even more reviews if you take into account Amazon, Goodreads, and, you know, professional reviews, but what I'm talking about here are the few people I know whose reading tastes are very similar to mine. There are some bloggers who, as much as I like them and as well-written as their reviews might be, they just don't enjoy the same type of books as I do. They talk about different genres, or enjoy darker, "edgier" books, or authors that I'm just not a big fan of. On the other side of that, however, are the bloggers who I can trust to recommend a book for me. The ones whose reviews I read because we have compatible reading tastes and I want to know what books I should be reading.

Objective & In-Depth Reviews:
More than anything I love reviews that are written well, that really get to the heart of a book. I tend to skip over the one-paragraph reviews to read ones that talk at length about a book. I might not always agree with the reviews, but I know that the blogger is being honest and really putting work into their review of a book. Synopsis that I find on Goodreads, Amazon, or the back of books can sometimes be misleading or leave big things out, so I like reading reviews that not only tell me what the book is about, but also what works and what doesn't. Whether negative or omg-love-it positive, these are the reviews that I look for and these are the types of blogs that I follow and read regularly.

Different Opinions:
It's strange, but I actually love reading reviews that disagree with my opinion. I like reading negative reviews of books that I loved and positive reviews for books I didn't like, just to see how different people are and how subjective reading is. It's always interesting to see that what works for one person can be a total mess for another, and to realize that people really are unique little snowflakes.

So, tell me, what types of reviews do you read? What is the "best" kind of review in your mind?

Review: Fixing Delilah

FIXING DELILAH
Sarah Ockler

Years ago, Delilah and her mother used to spend every summer in the small town of Red Falls, with her grandparents. That was before her mother's "perfect" job came along though, and before the fight that broke out eight years ago, sending Delilah and her mother away from Red Falls for good. Or at least, until her grandmother dies and the remaining family (Delilah, her mother, and her aunt Rachel) has to come together to plan a funeral and sell their childhood home. Along the way, Delilah finds herself falling for her childhood friend and digging into the mysteries her family has kept under wraps for years -- the fight that broke them apart, the aunt that died before she was born, and the grandmother she hardly remembers.

Honestly, I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. The premise here is absolutely amazing: a confused girl trying to fix her relationship with her mother while at the same time dealing with her grandmother's death and searching for answers to questions that have been buried for far too long. It's incredible. Sadly, other elements of the book didn't live up to this fantastic premise. The plot, though well-written, moved much too slow for me, and I was iffy about many of the characters. While Delilah's mother and aunt were definitely keeping things from her, Delilah often seemed melodramatic in how she handled things and looked at situations, which was never really addressed. And while many of the characters were likable, few of them truly stood out to me. While Delilah's relationship with her mother was the primary focus of this book, the relationship that I really enjoyed reading about was the romance that started up with Delilah's childhood friend, Patrick. Their scenes, especially the jokey dialogue, really added to the story and their relationship was a bright spot among the (understandably) heavy relationships in the book.

I loved the themes that Ockler explored in this book: family, history, and the secrets people keep. Delilah's need to uncover the truth about her family's history was understandable and relatable, though I often wanted more focus on this part of the story and less on the sale of her grandparents' house and the Delilah's new friendship with the girl at the coffee shop. Really there was a lot here that worked really well, and I know that many others will adore this book, but for me it lacked that something, that indefinable spark that makes me love a book.