I probably could have posted this earlier in the week and closer to the announcements on Monday, but I had a bunch of posts already scheduled and hate posting twice in one day. So I’m doing it now.
I’m thrilled to have been selected to be a Round 1 judge in the YA Fiction category of the Cybils this year. For more information about what the Cybils are, be sure to check out their website here.
Nominations don’t open until October 1st, but it’s definitely time for you to start thinking about what books (released in the last year) you’d like to nominate.
I can’t wait to get started reading and talking about books with my fellow judges:
Kirstin Fearnley Sprite Writes @spritewrites
What YA fiction books do you think should be nominated this year? Start thinking about it, and get ready to get busy nominating on October 1st. I’m so excited!
The video for this acoustic version of “Starring Role” by Marina and the Diamonds is pretty captivating. It’s just her singing with the band, but it’s damn near impossible to take your eyes off her. I’ve had a love affair with Marina and the Diamonds for a good long while now, but the release of their new album “Electra Heart” has made my life much more full. The entire thing is great. Also, I really, really want that dress in the video.
2. Scandal on ABC
I was skeptical about Scandal from the start. Shonda Rhimes (the woman behind Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice) was taking on law and Washington, D.C. in her newest network drama. I’m not big on procedurals in general, and I haven’t watched Grey’s anatomy since the third season (which was a season too long, in my opinion). But I heard some good things about it, and I’m almost out of TV shows to marathon now that the season is coming to an end, and I needed something to soothe my mind in the post-finals week. Scandal seemed like as good an option as anything. I like Kerry Washington, after all.
The result? I’m totally into the show now, but I’ve felt uneasy about it without being able to articulate it. Rhimes is the only successful, high-profile African American woman running a show on U.S. television right now, and her tendency to do color-blind casting is both admirable and indicative of how white our TV shows are. However, I stumbled across this piece by Alyssa Rosenberg at Think Progress the other day, and she manages to get across my biggest issues with the show. This girl and I could totally hang out.
3. Jenna Marbles scaring her dogs with a fart machine
You guys, sometimes the lowest common denominator is actually really funny. In this case, it’s YouTube sensation and (very funny) blogger Jenna Marbles using a fart machine to scare her two dogs. I was raised by a mother who thinks that farts are really funny, and as a result, I think they are, too. This video is worth it for the dogs’ reactions alone. Watch it and enjoy it. I’m sorry I’m so sophomoric.
4. The L.A. Complex (Season 1)
Okay, this is a Canadian soap–but let me finish! The show is kind of like Melrose Place, only actually interesting. It focuses on an apartment complex in Los Angeles full of artists trying to make it in the city that seems to spit out more and more hopefuls every day. The reason I started watching it was because I love Jewel Staite (who was excellent on Firefly), but I’ve kept watching it because the show is doing some risky, awesome things. It’s not perfect–and it’s not, by any means, a really great show–but it’s completely entertaining, and that’s enough for me.
Okay, you guys. Buzo’s first novel–Good Oil–is finally being published in the United States under the title Love and Other Perishable Items. I loved this novel so, so much. Buzo is definitely an author to watch. Recently, I discovered that she has another book out. This one, called Holier Than Thou, is firmly in the “new adult” camp, and I could not be more excited about it. It looks so good. Unfortunately, it’s not available in the United States yet. While I can purchase it online, it’s not cheap. I have to figure out a way to justify the cost, because I MUST HAVE THIS BOOK.
If you’re a nerd like me, the end of the year means one thing: Best of Lists. I love these lists so dearly. I eagerly anticipate their arrival and then pour over them, comparing what I’ve seen/read/heard and what I haven’t, what I loved and what I hated. For years, it’s been movies and books and maybe music. This year, I had a sort of falling out with movies, and fell back in love with music (and by “fell back in love” I mean “became obsessive-compulsive about collecting”). For the first time in a while, I’ve heard almost every album that’s making the best of music lists. Even the really obscure ones. Amazing? Yes.
But I digress.
This post isn’t about the best of music (although I will be doing a post on that–so brace yourselves!). This is a post about other dorks just like me who love to compile best of lists. Like Kelly Jenson at The Hub, who has taken a look at the best of lists for YA books and done some hardcore awesome analysis. It is amazing.
Combining all four lists, a total of 63 titles appeared, written by 69 authors and illustrators.
The gender breakdown was 42% male, 58% female.
4 books–Chime, Anya’s Ghost, The Scorpio Races, and Blink & Caution–made all four lists.
3 books–A Monster Calls, Between Shades of Gray, and Daughter of Smoke and Bone–made three of the lists.
8 books featured a main character of color
2 had LGBTQ teens.
You should really go check out Jenson’s research–because it’s really interesting and has a lot of shiny graphs. What’s most disconcerting to me is the lack of LGBTQ representation in books, as well as the relatively small number of books featuring characters of color.
Also, it would be interesting to compare the genders of authors making the list for children’s/YA with those on the best of adult fiction lists. I have a feeling it would be very, very different.
Happy Friday, y’all. The blog’s content has been on the light side this week because I’m enjoying my last week of freedom before summer classes start. I hope to have more reviews done and ready to be posted soon, but in the meantime, enjoy these links I found entertaining over the past week.
The purpose of young adult literature is often twofold: to tell a story, and to send a message, usually in the form of a much-needed lesson.
Um, what? Where, exactly, in the definition of young adult novels does it say that YA fiction has to teach a lesson? YA novels are not inherently didactic. As Sarah Ockler says on her blog (in response to this same article), “Learning lessons and adjusting moral compasses might be an outcome of the reading, but that’s entirely up to the reader. If it’s going to happen it all, it will happen organically as she’s experiencing the journey of the story along with the characters.” This idea that because a book is published as YA makes it automatically an after-school-special-in-book-form is total crap. Of course, anyone who continued to read Belkin’s review of the two books covered in the article (Deb Caletti’s Stay, which I have read, and Jennifer Brown’s Bitter End, which I have not) realizes that not only is Belkin getting her facts about YA wrong, but she doesn’t understand young adult fiction in general. What’s more, it’s clear that she doesn’t really care about it, let alone respect it. Besides entirely dismissing the concept of adults reading YA (she says it doesn’t appeal to them; the internet’s plethora of blogs devoted to the YA book universe written by adults says otherwise) Belkin writes:
But offering a lesson to teenagers is less graceful, less subtle, than conveying an idea or theme, and these books can feel like after-school specials. Where “Bitter End” and “Stay” fall short is more a reflection of the pitfalls of the genre than the talents of their authors…Any girl who needs guidance navigating a threatening relationship will probably not find it here. But this assumes teenagers are more interested in morals than in sex and drama; if that’s not so, the muddiness of the message matters less than the mediocrity of the tale.
It’s not just Belkin’s misrepresentation of the entire YA category that I take issue with. Her tone throughout the piece is condescending and a little snide, which is both irritating and completely inappropriate. Like Ockler, I don’t have a problem with critical reviews and thoughtful discussion. I actually encourage it and hope for more of it to take place. But that’s not what Belkin is doing in her article. She’s taking an entire category of books (a category of books that has continued to sell well, both to teens and adults, despite the flagging economy) and making grossly misinformed generalizations about it. Ockler says it best at the end of her post, taking just as much issue with the phase “pitfalls of the genre” that I did:
More like pitfalls of adulthood, particularly when adults don’t remember what it’s like to be a teen. I’m all for debate and critical reviews, especially when those reviews are thoughtful and engaging. What I’m not for is unilaterally dismissing YA novels based on ridiculous and outdated expectations of what young adult literature is supposed to be or do. Every novel is unique, and each deserves to be read and reviewed for its individual storytelling merit, not for its ability to spin the “proper” cautionary tale.
Just something to think about. Next time, why don’t you hire someone who actually respects YA to write a piece about YA? There’s plenty of us out there.
So I don’t know if you heard, gentle readers, but fiction writer Jennifer Egan recently won the Pulizter Prize for her novel A Visit from the Goon Squad. In the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t read it. However, I have read The Keep, which was very good (and terrifying), and Look at Me, which wasn’t so good. It’s awesome that a lady won the Pulitzer for fiction, and I’m glad that she’s finding success in the literary world. However, she made some comments in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that I take issue with, and that is what I’m here to talk about with you all today.
In the brief interview, Egan talks about her reaction to finding out that she’s won and talks a bit about how her book is being considered post-post-modern (I’m not touching that one). Then this happens:
Over the past year, there’s been a debate about female and male writers and how they come off in the press. Franzen made clear that “Freedom” was going to be important, while others say that Allegra Goodman was too quiet about “The Cookbook Collector.” Do you think female writers have to start proclaiming, “OK, my book is going to be the book of the century”?
Anyone can say anything, that’s easy. My focus is less on the need for women to trumpet their own achievements than to shoot high and achieve a lot. What I want to see is young, ambitious writers. And there are tons of them. Look at “The Tiger’s Wife.” There was that scandal with the Harvard student who was found to have plagiarized. But she had plagiarized very derivative, banal stuff. This is your big first move? These are your models? I’m not saying you should say you’ve never done anything good, but I don’t go around saying I’ve written the book of the century. My advice for young female writers would be to shoot high and not cower.
The emphasis in her answer is mine, of course. this is problematic for several reasons, Gentle Readers. Let’s talk about it like a lot!
The Harvard student that Egan is referring to is Kaavya Viswanathan, author of the novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life.* Viswanathan wrote the novel right after graduating from high school, and shortly after it was published, some claims about her having plagiarized parts of the novel surfaced. The authors whose work was plagiarized included Megan McCafferty, Sophie Kinsella, Salman Rushdie, Meg Cabot, and Tanuja Desai Hidier.
What I take issue with, of course, is Egan’s disparaging tone about the authors Viswanathan plagiarized from. She seems to be taking on these incredibly successful female writers and saying that because they write books about women and friendship and love, their work is somehow less important or less valid than the work that she herself does. Calling these authors “derivative and banal” isn’t even fair, because it isn’t remotely true. The women she’s describing as “derivative” are the pioneers of the chick lit and YA genres, and they deserve to be given accolades for their accomplishments, not sneering condescension.
Maybe Egan wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe she was still really flustered about winning the prize when she gave the interview. Maybe that isn’t what she meant–maybe she meant that women should aim high and not shy away from dark, difficult topics. That’s certainly a hypothesis that The Signature muses over on her blog post about this same issue. Even if that’s the case, though, she’s caused some hurt feelings and indignation.
The fact of the matter is, it’s much harder to be a successful female writer than it is to be a successful male writer. There are depressing statistics about the number of female writers working for the New Yorker and for late-night shows. On International Women’s Day, Pajiba published a run-down of the number of females writing and directing projects for movies and television, and…it was not good, you guys. What is needed, then is for female writers to stand up for other female writers and not tear them down because of what they choose to write about.
Talk back, readers. What do you think? Am I blowing this way out of proportion?
*That link takes you to the Wikipedia page about the book. I encourage you to look at the comparisons between Viswanathan’s book and the other authors’ work in question.
Adele is an Australian blogger who has been living abroad in Japan for the past year. She reads a lot of YA, but tends to focus on contemporary, fantasy, and dystopian, and is partial to stories with some elements of romance. Her reviews are honest and constructive, and if she didn’t care for a title, she’ll explain why in a manner that is fair and balanced. Her reviews are really accessible and well-structured. In addition to her reviews, Adele will occasionally do discussion posts where she poses thought-provoking questions.
I read all of her entries because I find her writing honest, funny, and accessible. She and I often see eye-to-eye on books, and when I read one of her reviews, I will sometimes nod along in agreement about a particular point she makes. I have a lot of subscriptions in my google reader, and I scan a lot of them, but Adele’s blog posts always get my full attention.
Jordyn’s blog focuses almost exclusively on contemporary YA, but she also reads dystopian fiction. Jordyn’s reviews are very good, and she assigns a letter grade to the books she reviews, but my favorite posts on her blog are the discussion posts. Jordyn is a good writer with a sharp wit, and I feel like we have a lot of similar interests. She is one of the bloggers that I trust most when it comes to recommendations.
Recently, she did a short series called Contemporary YA Lit 101 that was so much fun to read. Virtually all of the titles listed that I hadn’t read have gone on my to-read list. When it comes to contemporary YA fiction, Jordyn knows what she’s talking about.
Steph is a blogger I just recently discovered, but I’m already loving her reviews. She’s a great writer who presents balanced reviews, excellent discussion posts, and other little gems like posts about her life. She’s well-respected in the blogging world, and I can see why. Plus, her posts are often really pretty.
MissAttitude started her blog because she loved reading YA blogs but was frustrated with the lack of blogs that focused on books featuring people of color. Her blog aims to review and promote YA/MG books featuring POC, and she does a lovely job of doing so. There’s a lot of great content to be found on the blog, but the Reading, POC, & Me section is particularly worth checking out. Her discussion posts are awesome and thought-provoking, and her coverage of POC books can’t be beat.
Sarah is a tween and teen librarian who maintains her blog as well as providing reviews for Teensreadtoo.com. In addition to providing quality reviews, participating in memes, and posting about YA movie news, Sarah also shares her exploits as a librarian. She recently posted a holiday gift guide that was totally boss. Sarah also posts flash reviews which are quick reviews of books she’s read for the reader in a hurry.
These are just some of the blogs that I read on a daily basis. I’m always looking for quality book blogs, so if you think you’ve got one I might like, let me know.
Since I’ve all but abandoned the Library Finds meme (I haven’t really, I just got behind in my reading), here are some pop-culture-ish links from the week that are worth sharing:
These 
