Saturday night book talk
Hi there, Livejournal. Please note that it is after midnight on Saturday night / Sunday morning and I am sitting here at home, alone for all "intensive purposes"* (don't you hate it when people write that?), since Adam and Gus are sleeping -- Adam because he has to get up at 4 for work, and Gus because he is a dog. I'm just noting this for posterity, because I'm quite glad to be here in the spare bedroom with only my computer and various small, desk-residing stuffed animals for company. I'm having a four-day weekend! Friday morning dawned as the fifth day I woke up feeling run-down and lousy, and since I finally got put on salary and now have sick days and paid vacation like everybody else, I decided to take the day to put an end the string of lousy mornings. And on Monday I will sit at home and quietly reflect on our U.S. Presidents.
--
Here's what I've read so far this year:
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - Haruki Murakami
The Boyfriend List - E. Lockhart
I Am The Messenger - Markus Zuzak
It's Kind of a Funny Story - Ned Vizzini
Staying Fat For Sarah Byrnes - Chris Crutcher
I'm finding I have little interest in YA "girl books," even though The Boyfriend List was pretty good. I'm sure I've missed a number of fantastic ones, and one day I swear I'm going to remedy that... but for now, I feel like I'd have a better chance of enjoying a randomly chosen boy-focused book than a randomly chosen girl-focused book. Much like jeans and hoodie sweatshirts, they have a better chance of appealing across gender lines. I'm going to take a YA respite soon, but today I picked up another Chris Crutcher book from the library, and I've promised myself that the respite won't truly begin until I've read Markus Zuzak's The Book Thief. I've heard nothing but glowing praise for it, and I can heartily recommend his I Am The Messenger as well, even if you make a point of never wandering into the YA section at the library or bookstore. For one thing, it's NOT ABOUT HIGH SCHOOOL, thank goodness, but rather about a 19-year-old cab driver who lives in a less than ideal neighborhood on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia. He somewhat accidentally foils a bank robbery, finds himself in the local spotlight, and, soon after, begins receiving playing cards that direct him to various places and people who need his help, though it's up to him to spend time observing each situation long enough to figure out what his deed should entail. The cab driver, Ed, becomes more and more of a mystical figure as the story goes on. It's a book that made me want to smile at strangers and hug all my friends, and it even kept my Monday Morning Nihilism at bay for a couple of weeks.
I have to admit, despite my wish to push my own entry into the genre, sometimes I feel dismal about the state of YA literature. The books themselves are wonderful; I just worry that the intended age group isn't reading them. Whenever I'm poking around the "teen" section in B&N or Borders, I'm either a.) the only one there, or b.) accompanied by one girl who's invariably looking at Gossip Girl or The It-Girl or some other bastion of bitch lit. Today at the library, there was someone in the YA section with me for the first time ever. It was a mother on the phone with her daughter, asking which Judy Blume books she'd already read. I love Judy Blume so much that I subjected myself to the wretched Summer Sisters a few years ago, but there's more to the YA lit section these days than Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself (and I think that should have been shelved in middle grade, anyway). Okay, so maybe my own handful of experiences in teen lit sections shouldn't be viewed as a representative sample of who's reading those books. Obviously someone is, or I would have been able to borrow The Book Thief (and Twilight and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist) from the library with no problem. But sometimes the Amazon reviews for these books aren't particularly heartening, either. So many of them start with, "Well, I'm not a young adult, but...," and then when you finally do find a real teen's review, he or she says that the book wasn't realistic or was condescending or something along those lines. I think I'm probably totally wrong in my suspicion that actual YAs aren't reading and enjoying YA books, but I just need some proof, you know? Maybe I'll pop into the next Sarah Dessen reading that comes to town.
I was going to write a bit about the gigantic revision triage process for my own novel, but there's no reason to depress myself this late at night.
* = "For All Intensive Purposes" would be a great short story title, don't you think? I'll add it to my title holding tank, which also includes [Secret Title #1] and [Secret Title #2].
A comment I read on the NaNoWriMo forums the other day - "If the title comes to you first, then write it as a short story. If the plot comes to you first, then it's a novel." I'm inclined to dismiss this, as I do with a lot of the stuff on those forums, but do you think there's any truth to it?
edit, during Sunday morning coffee: Yes, I intentionally made the "for all intensive purposes" / "for all intents and purposes" error. That's why I wrote (don't you hate it when people write that?).
--
Here's what I've read so far this year:
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - Haruki Murakami
The Boyfriend List - E. Lockhart
I Am The Messenger - Markus Zuzak
It's Kind of a Funny Story - Ned Vizzini
Staying Fat For Sarah Byrnes - Chris Crutcher
I'm finding I have little interest in YA "girl books," even though The Boyfriend List was pretty good. I'm sure I've missed a number of fantastic ones, and one day I swear I'm going to remedy that... but for now, I feel like I'd have a better chance of enjoying a randomly chosen boy-focused book than a randomly chosen girl-focused book. Much like jeans and hoodie sweatshirts, they have a better chance of appealing across gender lines. I'm going to take a YA respite soon, but today I picked up another Chris Crutcher book from the library, and I've promised myself that the respite won't truly begin until I've read Markus Zuzak's The Book Thief. I've heard nothing but glowing praise for it, and I can heartily recommend his I Am The Messenger as well, even if you make a point of never wandering into the YA section at the library or bookstore. For one thing, it's NOT ABOUT HIGH SCHOOOL, thank goodness, but rather about a 19-year-old cab driver who lives in a less than ideal neighborhood on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia. He somewhat accidentally foils a bank robbery, finds himself in the local spotlight, and, soon after, begins receiving playing cards that direct him to various places and people who need his help, though it's up to him to spend time observing each situation long enough to figure out what his deed should entail. The cab driver, Ed, becomes more and more of a mystical figure as the story goes on. It's a book that made me want to smile at strangers and hug all my friends, and it even kept my Monday Morning Nihilism at bay for a couple of weeks.
I have to admit, despite my wish to push my own entry into the genre, sometimes I feel dismal about the state of YA literature. The books themselves are wonderful; I just worry that the intended age group isn't reading them. Whenever I'm poking around the "teen" section in B&N or Borders, I'm either a.) the only one there, or b.) accompanied by one girl who's invariably looking at Gossip Girl or The It-Girl or some other bastion of bitch lit. Today at the library, there was someone in the YA section with me for the first time ever. It was a mother on the phone with her daughter, asking which Judy Blume books she'd already read. I love Judy Blume so much that I subjected myself to the wretched Summer Sisters a few years ago, but there's more to the YA lit section these days than Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself (and I think that should have been shelved in middle grade, anyway). Okay, so maybe my own handful of experiences in teen lit sections shouldn't be viewed as a representative sample of who's reading those books. Obviously someone is, or I would have been able to borrow The Book Thief (and Twilight and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist) from the library with no problem. But sometimes the Amazon reviews for these books aren't particularly heartening, either. So many of them start with, "Well, I'm not a young adult, but...," and then when you finally do find a real teen's review, he or she says that the book wasn't realistic or was condescending or something along those lines. I think I'm probably totally wrong in my suspicion that actual YAs aren't reading and enjoying YA books, but I just need some proof, you know? Maybe I'll pop into the next Sarah Dessen reading that comes to town.
I was going to write a bit about the gigantic revision triage process for my own novel, but there's no reason to depress myself this late at night.
* = "For All Intensive Purposes" would be a great short story title, don't you think? I'll add it to my title holding tank, which also includes [Secret Title #1] and [Secret Title #2].
A comment I read on the NaNoWriMo forums the other day - "If the title comes to you first, then write it as a short story. If the plot comes to you first, then it's a novel." I'm inclined to dismiss this, as I do with a lot of the stuff on those forums, but do you think there's any truth to it?
edit, during Sunday morning coffee: Yes, I intentionally made the "for all intensive purposes" / "for all intents and purposes" error. That's why I wrote (don't you hate it when people write that?).