Reading Group

In this edition of YA Wednesday, we have questions! And the usual news recaps.

Beautiful, but disturbing: to read or not to read?

This week, I was pretty intrigued by the reviews popping up on various blogs of Elizabeth Scott's Living Dead Girl. It's told from the point of view of Alice, who was abducted when she was ten years old, and who is now 15 and still living with her abductor/abuser.

from Bookshelves of Doom...

"The most disturbing thing about the book, for me, was that it made me feel like a huge voyeur."

"Now I never want to let my future children go on field trips.  Or, you know, outside."

from The Book Muncher:

"While it’s not right to like a story such as this, I think Living Dead Girl should be read by everyone, if not for enjoyment then to inform readers. It is a short but fast read, beautifully written and impossible to ever forget."

The book sounded stylistically unique (a voice people haven't heard before, unusual point-of-view tricks, etc.) but I was worried that it might fall into the category of "great books I will never read" because the scenes are reputedly so disturbing that I would never be able to get them out of my head. (So far, Cormac McCarthy's The Road is the only other book in this category for me.) I guess I have to ask: how disturbing is it, and how great? 

Let's see: The book got starred reviews in both Booklist and Publisher's Weekly.

I read the excerpt, and it is beautiful and haunting and disturbing. I suspect that the "ick" factor of the book is part of its brilliance. Alice's voice is so matter of fact, and while the abuse isn't graphic, it isn't ambiguous either. You feel like you might know what it's like to be there. And that's pretty scary. And gross. 

The thing that finally sold me on the book, though, was this ALAN interview with Scott, which convinced me that it's way more interesting than just an abduction story for the sake of inducing fear and showing abuse:

"I think it’s easy to get outraged over a child’s abduction, but it’s also equally easy for us to see something--someone--that makes us uncomfortable, a moment or an expression that give us pause, and to do nothing. And that moment where we see and turn away is, I think, the heart of Living Dead Girl. Alice’s story isn’t just about what she endures with Ray. It’s what she endures at the hands of the world. How it doesn’t see her."

"...I am Bloodgarm, son of Ildred the beautiful..."

Christopher Paolini's Brisngr, the third book in the Inheritance Cycle, launched last week--with the popular-series-standard Friday night book launch parties--selling 550,000 copies in its first day. While this might seem a mere pittance compared to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (8.3 million) or Breaking Dawn (1.3 million), it is four times more than the series' second book, Eldest. Brisingr draws on a loyal fan following, which has been growing since the first book, Eragon, was published in 2003 then made into a movie in 2006.

If you're not familiar with the series, I highly recommend listening to Paolini read an excerpt.


YA for Obama: Social Networking or "Undue Influence"?

"Hi, I'm Maureen Johnson. I'm a YA author. I started this site because I realized a lot of my friends who are also YA authors were big Obama supporters. And I thought to myself, 'Wouldn't it be great if we all had a place where we could write about Obama? And if we invited everyone to join?'"

A number of YA-interest blogs have been buzzing this week about the new social-networking site, YA for Obama, founded by Johnson (Suite Scarlett) and other best-selling YA authors like Judy Bloom and Meg Cabot.

Most of the response has been positive, but Chasing Ray asks:

"Is it a good thing to present only one side of the story, on any subject, to teens?"

and suggests that teens need to learn about both candidates to truly learn about the political process. Her post was spurred by this post on Finding Wonderland questioning the potential for "undue influence" of writers on their fans:

"I know that this site intends to provide a place for people who aren't yet voting age to enter into the democratic process, and use their creativity to help Mr. Obama get elected, and a venue like that is certainly a good thing. The content of the site isn't what I wonder about. I do wonder whether we're using our position as storytellers inappropriately. I wonder if we're overstepping our role, and using that privilege as a platform from which to push political views."

(Obama photo posted by Beth, a YA for Obama member. McCain photo from johnmccain.com.)


Quick links:

Flux has a new editor.

Reviewer X asks "What makes the perfect YA guy?"

Authors Michael Grant (Gone) and K.A. Applegate (Remnants series) recently started a blog called Stupid Blog Name. The blog will eventually include posts from other writers, editors, agents, publicists, and teens, including The Book Muncher (featured above), who is currently "the *only* teen contributor."

The Guardian has posted four reviews written by recipients of their Young Critics award. Books reviewed include: Before I Die by Jenny Downham, The Goldsmith's Daughter by Tanya Landman, The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, Bad Blood by Rhiannon Lassiter. These talented reviewers have one thing in common: they're all 13 years old.--Heidi

In this edition of YA Wednesday (on Thursday), we talk about one new book, some old books made into a new TV show, and a couple of other things.

Stephen King likes The Hunger Games, too.
From this week's EW: King calls out the book for resembling "TV badlands" we've walked before (including two by "a guy named Bachman," The Running Man and The Long Walk), but he recognizes the appeal:

Reading The Hunger Games is as addictive (and as violently simple) as playing one of those shoot-it-if-it-moves videogames in the lobby of the local eightplex; you know it's not real, but you keep plugging in quarters anyway.

Although people have been writing about this book feverishly for the past couple of months, it officially comes out September 14.

Westside Books: All YA, for real
PW and Cynsations both reported this week on Westside Books, a new press dedicated to YA novels. Their focus: realistic stories about teens and real issues. In PW, the publisher describes it as:

“We’re not doing chick lit, we’re not doing fantasy. These are serious books. They’re fun to read and funny but they’re about real things.”

Their website includes a list of all their inaugural titles, due in spring 2009.

Fat-positive YA books
One of Westside's new titles is One Wish, by Leigh Brescia. From the book description: "Overweight Wrenn Scott desperately wants to be popular and snag a hot boyfriend." Apparently, Wrenn is lured into diet tricks and becomes a bit of a jerk, at least for a while.

This reminds me of an interesting post by children's book reviewer Rebecca Rabinowitz on a site called "Shapely Prose: LOL Your Fat." (found via Kristin Cashore's blog)

She recommends the following "fat-pol friendly" books (i.e., with "something to offer in terms of fat politics") for young adults: 

This Book Isn’t Fat, It’s Fabulous, by Nina Beck
Fat Kid Rules The World, by K.L. Going
The Earth, My Butt, And Other Big Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler
Fat Hoochie Prom Queen, by Nico Medina
Myrtle Of Willendorf, by Rebecca O’connell
Big Fat Manifesto, by Susan Vaught

Rabinowitz dissects each book, and illuminates instances of fat/skinny stereotypes (like equating emotional growth with weight loss) that seem worth calling out.

I have one more to possibly add (although I probably need Rabinowitz's help to give it a full fat-pol analysis): All About Vee, by C. Leigh Purtill, a light follow-your-dreams story about Veronica May, a 217-lb actress trying to make it in Hollywood. The main character is positive and tenacious, and refuses to let shallow execs make her feel badly about herself. She exercises, but it seems to be for health reasons. From teenbookreview:

C. Leigh Purtill does an awesome job of tackling the tough issue of body image and our culture’s idea of beautiful as unhealthily thin. Veronica is an awesome girl, someone I’d really like to know!

(Purtill also has a cute site, and she worked on The Gilmore Girls, so she's now my personal hero.)

Samurai Girl on TV!
On Friday, ABC Family premiered Samurai Girl, showing three episodes about the girl made famous by the book series.

Early reactions from fans...

omg jake is safe and hot and the dad is way scary

Please, you have to bring back Samurai Girl!! Its so addicting.

My boyfriend Brenden...He's perfect! I can't breathe...We need to PROTEST! I need to see my boyfriend WEEKLY!...DAILY!*Sigh*

Sign the petition to make Samurai Girl an ABC Family regular series!

Wait. All these posts are about the guy. What about the girl? According to the show's website, the next Samurai Girl marathon starts September 27.--Heidi

OK, so they've actually been around since 1990.  But 1,000 issues of any magazine is something to celebrate, and EW is doing it in style, with their trademark: lists, lists, and more lists. "The New Classics: The 1,000 Best Movies, TV Shows, Albums, Books & More of the Last 25 Years" is great fun, and ranks every form of media you can think of since 1983, with input from both editors and celebs. Where else could you find a magazine cover with Harry Potter, Maggie Simpson, Edward Scissorhands, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer?  And lists written by Jodie Foster, Neil Gaiman, and and Liz Phair? 

Here's a list from none other than Viggo Mortensen, who reveals his top 10 pieces of advice he's heard on movie sets.  There's something for everyone here, I think.  (True, I'm biased because I adore him. But I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.)

1. ''One job at a time, and each job a success.''

2. ''Whatever you are feeling at this moment can be useful, no matter how far removed or even distracting it may seem from the scene you are playing. That is as close to 'real' as you will ever get.''

3. ''There is no way in hell that's going to work. That is the worst idea I have heard today — perhaps ever. Are you trying to single-handedly ruin my movie?''

4. ''Try it — what's the harm? It's only film and time.''

5. ''No hay dolor.'' (''There is no pain.'')

6. ''All you really need to play the moment is air and water.''

7. ''When in doubt, admit it.''

8. ''Don't tell me; show me.''

9. ''Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: They confuse reality with illusion.''

10. ''I love you.''

Happy weekend, everyone!

Reading Firefly Lane will likely be a trip down memory lane for most readers out there. Kristin Hannah weaves great period moments of growing up during the '70s and '80s into the story, and in Kate and Tully she's also created a portrait of a real friends--ones who celebrates the good times but who also takes a hard look at love and loyalty when the chips are down--that will remind you of your own lifelong friendships. It's the kind of book you'll devour in one sitting and immediately want to share with your friends so you can dish about it. And speaking of dishing, that's exactly what we did over lunch last fall with the author here in her native Seattle. The city figures largely in Firefly Lane and it was fun to hear about how her own experiences growing up in the Northwest found expression in the book. She was gracious enough to catch up with me recently over e-mail--and to send us a snapshot of her fantastic book collection, which you'll see pictured above. --Anne

Amazon.com: Why did you choose Seattle as the backdrop for Firefly Lane? Is there something unique about growing up in the Northwest that helped you to define the kind of women Kate and Tully become?

Kristin Hannah: Quite simply, I chose Seattle as the backdrop for Firefly Lane because it's so much a part of who I am. I've lived in the Northwest for most of my life, and obviously, in all those years, I've seen this part of the country evolve from an undiscovered gem into the Emerald City. So many of the places from my youth are gone, or changed, or moved, and I guess I wanted to remember the physical reminders of those bygone days. And while Kate and Tully are absolutely Northwest girls, I like to think their story will speak to women who grew up in vastly different, more populated areas. After all, it's ultimately about friendship, and those seeds can be planted anywhere.

Amazon.com: While you were writing, at any point did you find yourself feeling more sympathetic to Kate or to Tully? How did you keep the weight of the plot balanced between them as their stories evolved?

KH: There's no way to avoid the truth that Kate is more than a little like me. Thus, I identified with her from the very beginning--she was the small town girl who had to get up in the pre-dawn hours to feed her horses, and read The Lord of the Rings during every family vacation, and felt lost in the first few months at the sprawling University of Washington. All of that was me, so naturally, the problem was not in feeling sympathetic toward Katie; it was much more about holding her at arm's length, seeing her not as an extension of myself, but as a completely fictional woman. Tully was a different story entirely. While many readers might be surprised by this, I really fell in love with Tully. In the final analysis, she's one of my favorite characters of all time. I know she's bold and selfish and myopic and ambitious to a fault, but she's also terribly broken, wounded by her parents, unable to believe in love, and ultimately very real. I think all of us know a "Tully" in our lives, and they bring a lot of drama...and a lot of fire and sparkle.

Amazon.com: You have a beautiful way of showing both the tension and tenderness between mothers and daughters. Was it a challenge to write Tully's painful history with her own mother, and later, the conflict that builds between Kate and her own daughter?

KH: Honestly, I believe that the mother-daughter relationship is magical, complex, potentially dangerous, profoundly powerful, and deeply transformative. To put it simply, all of us have this relationship, and in a very real way, "none of us comes out alive." We are all formed first as daughters and then tested as mothers. There's nothing like motherhood to make us reassess how we were as daughters. One of my favorite parts of Firefly Lane was the circle of Kate’s relationship with her mom. First we see her as an angry teen, slamming the door on her mother...and then later her own daughter does the same thing to her. There's a real symmetry in that, a truth that many of us have learned. I have often wished in the past few years that my mom were here to help me as I raised my own teenage son. As a girl, with my own mom, I thought I knew it all; now I know better. Somewhere, I know my mom is smiling.

Amazon.com: Throughout the novel, both Kate and Tully question the reliability of love. Is it that question that creates the rift between them and, ultimately, reunites them in friendship?

KH: You're right, they each do continually question the reliability of love. For Kate, it's a self-esteem issue. She absolutely believes in love--she's grown up surrounded by it--but she constantly questions Johnny's commitment to her. I always felt that was largely because she felt like a moon to Tully's bright and shining sun. For Tully, she honestly doesn’t believe that true romantic love exists, and for all of her overblown ambition and belief in herself, she has been wounded by her mother's repeated abandonment. The result is that she feels she's unlovable.

Amazon.com: Kate and Tully are each big personalities in their own way. Was it hard to create male characters who really understand them? 

KH:The challenge with regard to male characters was not so much creating men who understood Kate and Tully, it was rather to create love stories that equaled the power and emotional intensity of the friendship. After all, the men in the story were important--Johnny particularly--but it was really a story about the women.

Amazon.com: When Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone first came out, many readers were shocked that a man could write such an intimate portrait of a woman. Do you think women are in fact the best writers of women's fiction? Would you ever consider writing a novel where men take center stage? 

KH: One of the great things about being a writer is that we get the chance to inhabit the minds and souls of a variety of individuals. I really don't think male/female is the central question in terms of the viability of a voice and/or vision. We writers can "become" murderers, animals, psychopaths, vampires, lawyers, doctors, wizards, children. In short, our storytelling skills and character-building abilities are limited only by our own imaginations. Until recently, most of my novels--while female-centric in vision--were equally narrated by male characters, and one--Angel Falls—was primarily narrated by men. I didn't see the writing of that any different than anything else.

Amazon.com: Do you see yourself as a writer of romance or women's fiction? What do you see as the differences in these two genres--is one an evolution of the other, or is the label unimportant? 

KH: I began as a romance author and moved into women's fiction about ten years ago. While many definitions abound, mine is this: romance is a subsection of the broad, all-inclusive women's commercial fiction market. Women's fiction in general is not an evolution of romance; much of women's fiction is completely unrelated to any romantic elements. However, it is true that many current commercial women's fiction authors began in romance.

Amazon.com:Many women read fictional romance to escape the stress of everyday life and find inspiration in a happy ending. Is there a primary experience that you hope your readers will have after reading Firefly Lane?

KH: I am a sucker for a happy ending myself. In fact, my husband and I often go round and round about movies in which I hate the ending and he loves it. He always says I'm only comfortable with happy ever after, but that's not true. What I want is an emotionally satisfying, organic ending. I want to be totally engaged until the last page, and I want to believe every moment up until I close the book. Sometimes I want to laugh, sometimes I want to cry, and sometimes I want to scream that it can’t really be over. (Harry Potter comes to mind on this one). The point is, I want to be moved deeply. That's what I look for in other books and what I hope to deliver in my own.

Just FYI, here are some of my favorite endings:  Gone With the Wind, Middlemarch, Prince of Tides, An Inconvenient Wife, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, To Kill a Mockingbird, It, Shadow of the Wind.  Some are happy, some are sad, some are bittersweet. All are memorable. 

Amazon.com: If you could meet any writer, living or dead, who would it be, and what would you ask them?

KH: There are, of course, dozens of choices here, and I could certainly go through the classics and come up with many names and questions, but the truth is that I would love to sit down with Stephen King and listen to some rock and roll, and ask him how in the world he has stayed so good for so long.