Review: Paper Towns by John Green

Surely fans of young adult literature who do not live under rocks know John Green, and most probably love his books, so expectations for his latest, Paper Towns, will certainly be high. I adored Looking For Alaska and loved An Abundance of Katherines almost as much. So I was a little uncertain about reading this book, because I’d be seriously disappointed with anything less than totally brilliant with John Green’s name on it.

But Paper Towns does not disappoint! It reminded me of both of John Green’s previous books, and I know there are people who loved one and not the other, so everyone should find this book to be amazing (as it is).

In Paper Towns, Quentin Jacobsen has lived next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman in the same Orlando subdivision since they were two years old. As children, they played together, until one day when they were nine. That day, Margo and Quentin discovered a body in a nearby park. Neither of them knew this man, Robert Joyner, who killed himself in a public park leaving a body for two children to find, but this discovery changed their relationship. That night, Margo came to Quentin’s window, and they stood there for a long time. After that night, though, they took divergent paths in life.

Now Margo and Quentin are high school seniors. They still live next door to each other, and Quentin still thinks Margo is amazing and gorgeous, but they don’t speak. Their lives do not overlap. Margo is beautiful and popular and impulsive and adventurous. Quentin is something of a nerd, too analytical to be spontaneous or adventurous, and he continues to love Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So many crazy stories are told about Margo, too crazy to be true–but with Margo, they all turn out to be real.

One night, a few weeks before their high school graduation, Margo shows up at Quentin’s window again, and before he knows it, they’re off on a crazy night of revenge and adventure that involves dead fish, blue spray paint, blackmail, and breaking into Sea World, among other things. (Fun fact: I was actually reading this book (rather obsessively) on the night that these events supposedly happened!) It’s certainly a night to remember, and Quentin is certain that things between him and Margo will be different now–but when he gets to school the next day, Margo is gone. Nobody knows where she is. But all hope is not lost–Margo has left clues for Quentin, and he hopes they’ll lead him to her. In the process of searching for Margo, though, Quentin realizes that she wasn’t who he always though she was–and maybe he’s not who he thought he was, either.

It’s kind of hard to summarize this book, because, really, there’s little else like it and it doesn’t follow a prescribed formula for plot or anything, but Paper Towns is nothing short of brilliant. The only thing I didn’t like were the covers, but that’s hardly John Green’s fault, is it? There are two covers for this book, and they do reflect both sides of Margo’s personality, I guess, but I just don’t love them. I also don’t think they really reflect the whole story. But, other than that, I completely adored this book. It’s an intelligent, interesting novel that I literally could not put down. Oh, I forgot to mention–there is also a road trip! A crazy, intense road trip! I love books with road trips.

I couldn’t get enough of these fantastic, often quirky characters. They were real and three dimensional and diverse and fascinating, from Radar, an obsessive editor of Omnictionary whose parents own the world’s largest collection of black Santas, to Lacey, who turns out to be far more than she first appears to be. I wanted to spend more time with all of them than these 300 or so pages.

Paper Towns is a smart, thoughtful, funny, and hopeful novel that really epitomizes John Green’s brilliance. It has razor-sharp wit, fantastic writing, originality in spades, truth, and, well, everything that makes for a truly unbelievably wonderful novel. It will be out in October, at which point you must do everything in your power to get a copy immediately.

 

Review: Generation Dead by Daniel Waters

Generation Dead is a book you should not judge by its cover. I hate the cover; it makes the book seem like stupid meaningless zombie fluff about dead cheerleaders. First of all, as far as I could tell, none of the main characters were cheerleaders in life or death, only a tiny insignificant alive character. Second of all, this is not meaningless fluff! It’s seriously awesome. But, yes, there are zombies.

In this book, there is a strange new phenomenon discovered in American teenagers. Some of them have started to come back to life after dying. Not all, and only Americans, and only teenagers. These “differently biotic” people (as is the politically correct term) are slower to move or speak than they were in life, but they’re still sort of alive. They don’t need to eat and their organs don’t work, and they are officially dead (and therefore not able to have library cards or driver’s licenses or vote or anything). Nobody knows why this is happening, but these kids, as anyone does who is in some way different, face a lot of prejudice, everything from being called names like “corpsicle” to being burned alive–or undead, as the case may be–something there are no laws in place to prevent.

Phoebe Kendall is a living student at a school with a comparatively high number of differently biotic students. Some of them can hardly walk and function, while others could practically pass for living, but no one knows why these disparities exist. As with everything else about the differently biotic, it’s a mystery. Anyway, Tommy Williams is something of a leader among the dead kids, or zombies as they sometimes call themselves, and when Phoebe starts to notice Tommy, to dare to speak to him and then tell him he’s brave when he goes out for the football team alongside all the living kids, she has really opened a can of worms. Her friends Margi and Adam can hardly believe it. Phoebe, with her goth wardrobe and tendency to be a little anti-social, was already on the outskirts of her high school’s social order, but she’s seriously becoming a target if she keeps hanging out with the zombies. Because of her, Phoebe and her friends get involved with an organization whose purpose is to help integrate the differently biotic into society, as well as with many of the dead kids themselves. This organization might be a little fishy, though, and hanging out with a bunch of zombies could get them into more trouble than they bargained for…

Okay, that might not be the best summary ever. But I think it’s better than the summary on the back of the book, which is nearly as bad as the cover. Anyway, I adored this book! It’s really original and witty and interesting, and seriously unputdownable. I loved the characters, living and undead. This book is quite thought-provoking, too; it brings up some serious issues about the treatment of minorities. Daniel Waters‘ first novel is funny, smart, and just plain awesome. It’s got romance and zombies and great writing and fantastic characters and, best of all, it seems like it’s set up to have a sequel! Read this book as soon as possible. It’s available in bookstores near you right now.

 

Guest Blog: Paula Yoo

This week’s guest blogger is Paula Yoo, whose first novel, Good Enough, is something of a must-read and available now. Paula is also the author of a picture book and writes for television. In this fascinating blog post, Paula talks about writing for television and writing novels, and how the two compare. For those of you who haven’t yet read it, Paula is also giving away a signed copy of Good Enough to one commenter below! You have until next Wednesday to enter. Last week’s guest blogger, Tara Altebrando, gave away a copy of her book What Happens Here to a random commenter as well! The winner of that contest, chosen by a random number generator, is Steph (Reviewer X). Steph, please email me your mailing address at teenbookreview@gmail.com and I’ll forward it to Tara! Without further ado, now, Paula’s post. Enjoy!

By night, I’m a children’s book writer of YA novels and picture books.

By day, I’m a TV screenwriter.

So? you ask. What’s the difference?

Good question. Sometimes, there’s no difference at all. In both genres, you are simply trying to tell an original story with interesting characters. Other times, the difference between screenwriting versus novel writing is so wide that I have trouble bridging the gap when I’m working simultaneously on a novel and screenplay deadline.

Like right now. Tonight, I’m preparing to embark on a ten-day book tour through Seattle, WA,  Cinncinati and Dayton, OH, and Ft. Thomas, KY. Aside from packing dilemmas (yes, yours truly INSISTS on bringing five, FIVE pairs of shoes for 9 1/2 days!)… I’ve also had to juggle a book project and a script deadline.

My book project is a new YA Novel that I’ve been doing a ton of research on. I finally started writing it and have been pleased with the 30 pages I’ve produced so far. But I’m also frustrated because I know I have at least another 200 pages to fill…

But as I work on this novel, I also have a script deadline looming in the near future. This script requires me to switch gears and think about how to cram several characters and storylines into a mere 50 pages.

So that’s one difference between novels and screenplays: LENGTH.

I’d say that’s the biggest difference, and the most important one. See, in a novel, you can meander and go off course for a bit. You can take more time in letting a character reveal himself or herself to the reader. The story unfolds gradually, revealing layer upon layer, like peeling an onion, until you reach its core.

Of course you can’t meander too much - you have to make sure the reader never loses track of who the main character is, what  he/she wants, and what obstacles they have to overcome in order to get what they want in the end.

With a screenplay, specifically hour-long TV dramas, you have a fixed amount of pages - between 45 and 60 pages, tops - to tell a story that has compelling and interesting characters and an interesting plot where the stakes keep increasing.

Story in TV form is often told and shown through dialogue and characters’ reactions. Everything else - wardrobe, scenery, etc. - is often decided upon by committee. TV Screenwriting is a very collaborative format where the props and art department and director and a whole CREW of people interpret your words. For example, you could write that a character lives in a “rundown bungalow in a tough neighborhood.” In a novel, I’d expand upon that description and show what it’s like to live there. But on a TV show, the location director and art department interpret your basic description and bring that setting to life. As a TV writer, your job is to concentrate on what the characters are saying and doing.

The best part about being a TV writer is that it teaches you the economy of language because you don’t have a lot of time to tell a story. It also teaches you how to structure a plot so there is not one wasted scene - everything happens for a reason - one action causes a reaction which causes another action which in turn causes a reaction… before you even write a script, you MUST write an outline which lists the main “story beats” for each scene of each act.

That skill has helped me immensely when I get stuck writing a novel. For example, this new YA novel I’m writing has been difficult because it has a more complicated storyline with more characters than my first novel, Good Enough. I found myself using TV writing techniques to plot out the new novel, figuring out what the basic story beats were for each act.

That, in turn, helped me finally write those first 30 pages. Only 200 or so left to go! :)

I’ve also been asked what it’s like to write for TV versus writing a novel.

For novel writing, in a nutshell, it’s a lonely life. You’re mostly by yourself, sitting in front of your computer, writing. Sometimes you socialize with writers’ groups and have friends read and critique your work, but for the most part, being a novelist is lonely, lonely work.

For TV writing, you are in what they call a “Writer’s Room.” It consists of anywhere between three to 12 people. The hierarchy is Staff Writer, Story Editor, Executive Story Editor, Co Producer, Producer, Supervising Producer, Consulting Producer, Co-Executive Producer, and Executive Producer. The person who created the show is known as the “Showrunner.”

No two shows are alike but most shows tend to follow this general pattern:

1. The writers sit in a big room and eat a lot of junk food and gossip and eventually figure out what’s going to happen to the characters every week. This includes funny minor storylines, often called “runners,” to the big main plot of the week, to figuring out what serialized elements need to be updated every week (for example, if two characters are dating, you have to figure out the natural progression of their love story for the entire season etc.).

2. Once ideas are pitched and accepted or rejected, the writers summarize these ideas on a dry erase board.

3. These ideas are pitched to the Showrunner who either approves or rejects or revises these general ideas.

4. Once the ideas are given the greenlight, the writers then “beat” out the story by listing the order of events for each act. Most TV dramas have a teaser and four acts (that’s the traditional format). The latest trend has been anywhere from five to six acts! But basically, a TV show is divided up into several act breaks. Each act break has to have some sort of cliffhanger, and each cliffhanger gets more “dangerous” as you get closer to the final act.

5. Once the story beats are figured out, then the producers pitch this to the network. The network execs give their opinions, the writers tweak/revise their pitch, and then finally the writer of this episode is given permission to write a detailed outline explaining each scene of the show.

6. Once the outline is written, it goes through another lengthy revision process with approval or rejection from the network. Once the outline is finally approved, the writer has a certain amount of time to write a full script.

7. When the script is written, it goes through many more revisions until the episode is scheduled to shoot. There are still more revisions throughout filming, and even in the editing room after everything has been filmed!  (I haven’t even described all the pre-production work that goes into preparing a script for the shoot - from the props and art department figuring out the look of the episode to the casting of the actors in the minor roles etc.)

8. And then the show airs! But the writers are huddled back in the writers’ room, eating more junk food and figuring out next week’s episode.

Please note, this is a very, very simplified and rough version of what happens in TV. Not all shows work this way, and I’ve left out a ton of details. But at least you have a basic idea of how much work and revision goes into the writing of a TV show… and how collaborative it is!

I love doing both jobs. I started out as a novelist and I still think of myself primarily as a novelist. But I can’t imagine not working in TV - it’s a fun and exciting world and I’m a very social person, so I appreciate the escape from my lonely novel writing batcave. I feel very lucky and honored to have the privilege of working in both worlds, and even though it’s twice as much work, it’s worth it. I’ve learned and grown so much as a writer, thanks to my experiences in both worlds.

Now, time to see if I can actually shut my suitcase with all those shoes inside it! :)

 

Review: How I Found the Perfect Dress by Maryrose Wood

How I Found the Perfect Dress is the equally fantastic sequel to Maryrose Wood’s Why I Let My Hair Grow Out. In this book, Morgan is back to her normal life, an ocean away from the faeries and her newly discovered identity as the half-goddess Morganne in Ireland–and away from Colin, the guy she fell for on her bike tour of the Emerald Isle last summer. They’ve exchanged the occasional email, but she hasn’t heard from him for awhile when, rather out-of-the-blue, she gets a message saying that he’s coming to America, and they’ll see each other very soon!

This is not as perfect and wonderful as it at first sounds. Colin has been forced to dance with the faeries every night in his dreams, and he’s exhausted from the lack of sleep, as well as incredibly confused by the cryptic messages he finds in his pockets in the mornings. Even worse? It’s Morgan’s fault, for stamping him with her half-goddess seal of approval. Every night, the fairies dance the night away with her guy–and she can’t even get him to kiss her!

Now Morgan has to save Colin, find a great dress, make her junior prom as awesome as possible (despite the fact that Colin has to leave before that night), and–this one’s really impossible–find a female leprechaun!

I literally could not stop reading this book. It had me in its clutches from the moment I opened it and started reading the first page! I was thrilled to see the return of one of my favorite heroines, and Maryrose Wood’s talent at writing is always a pleasure to read. Even more exciting: there’s going to be a third book about Morgan! I adore all of these characters, and the magical element of this book. Maryrose Wood’s writing is hilariously entertaining, and I certainly had a good number of laugh-out-loud moments while reading this How I Found The Perfect Dress. This is a seriously fantastic book, and I recommend you all read it right away (or as soon as you’ve read the first book about Morgan, if you’ve not already done so).

 

Challenge Wrap-Ups

The Royalty Rules challenge and the Twisted Fairytale Challenge are now over, and I’ll be taking down those pages on the sidebar.

For the Royalty Rules challenge, I read five eligible books, and reviewed three so far, and the goal was 2-4 books read & reviewed, so I successfully completed this challenge. I read Song of the Sparrow by Lisa Ann Sandell, Princess on the Brink by Meg Cabot, Princess Mia by Meg Cabot, The Bonemender’s Choice by Holly Bennett, and Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock.

For the Twisted Fairytale Challenge, I most pathetically only completed one book, Haunted Waters by Mary Pope Osborne. I do have good excuses, but, still, it is rather pathetic.

 

Interview: Maryrose Wood

Maryrose Wood is the fantastic author of Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall In Love, My Life: The Musical, Why I Let My Hair Grow Out, and How I Found the Perfect Dress, all of which are absolutely fantastic books that you all must read as soon as possible. I was lucky enough to get the chance to interview her, and, wow, are her answers awesome! Some of my favorites, ever. So go on, what are you waiting for? Read it!

What’s your favorite Broadway musical? Why?

I admit to preferring the brainy dark ones over the Cats and Les Mizzes of the world, so you won’t be surprised to hear that Sweeney Todd is my all-time favorite. It’s just the nearest thing to flawless – perfectly structured plot, gorgeous music, brilliant lyrics, unforgettable characters. Tragedy and comedy, mystery and horror! It’s got everything.

And Merrily We Roll Along is the sentimental favorite, because I was in it! When I was eighteen I was in the chorus of the original Broadway cast of this show, and it will always have a very special place in my heart.

Emily and Philip in My Life: The Musical are hugely dedicated fans of the musical Aurora, and of Broadway in general. Have you ever been such a dedicated fan? Of what?

Umm, okay. I think I have never said this in an interview before, but let it be known now and forevermore – I was a MAJOR Star Trek geek as a kid. MAJOR. Like, not quite to the point where I walked around in a Star Fleet uniform, but I watched the show religiously and knew every line of every episode.

I was an ardent Beatles fan, too, and later, Sondheim musicals. I still love Star Trek, Beatles songs and Sondheim musicals, by the way, so my taste hasn’t changed much! Now I love them like everyone else loves them. But I remember very well what it was like to have fandom slip from a reasonable to somewhat unreasonable level, when the object of your obsession becomes the magic portal to all meaning in life, and that’s where Emily and Philip are in the book.

You have a background in theatre yourself. Do you think that telling stories on a stage helped or prepared you for telling stories in the form of novels? How?

Oh, yes yes yes. This is such a good question. Of course, writing plays makes you very practiced at writing dialogue, which comes in handy in novels as well.

But the main thing, as noted in your question, is the insight you get into how to tell a story. When you write for the stage or for a movie, telling the story is your number one job — not crafting fancy language or elaborate descriptions or any extraneous stuff like that.

You have to focus on plot and structure because plays and movies are watched in real time. The audience is trapped in their seats, looking at their watches. It’s not like a novel where you can put it down and come back to it later, or even skip ahead if you get to a boring bit.

So, if you stray too far or too long from the main plot, or if you fail to keep developing tension and making the story move forward at a good pace, the audience gets bored and soon, furious. There is nothing so excruciating as sitting trapped in the audience at a terrible play, and there’s an hour left to go and you know you can never get that hour of your life back again. It’s agony.

The other incredible lesson you learn as a playwright is that the audience does not lie. If you think something is funny, and the audience does not laugh, it is not funny. You are wrong, and you must change what you wrote and make it funny. If you think what you wrote makes sense, and the audience is sitting there scratching its collective head because they can’t figure out what’s going on or why, you are wrong, and must fix things.

It’s the most extraordinary discipline. I really do try to keep myself honest as a novelist, in terms of making funny bits funny and the story clipping along in a coherent and engaging way, and I feel totally schooled by my many years writing (and performing) for live audiences.

Also, I always read my books aloud as part of the editing process, just to make sure the language sounds good to the ear. It’s an old habit from playwriting but one I don’t intend to break. Even when we read silently to ourselves, we “hear” the language in our heads. I think consciously crafting the cadence of language is an essential part of writing well.

In Why I Let My Hair Grow Out, Morgan goes on a bike tour in Ireland. That’s quite an interesting vacation for her! What was your most interesting or memorable trip?

Many years ago, when I was still acting professionally, I did an international tour of a musical called Once Upon a Mattress. We toured five cities in India and two in Sri Lanka. It was an amazing experience. I got to see the Taj Majal, ride elephants, and sing showtunes!

One fun bit of trivia about that tour – I had a small part in the chorus of the show and understudied the lead, which was played by the marvelous Jodi Benson. Not long after we got back to the States Jodi was cast as the voice of Ariel in the Disney animated film, The Little Mermaid. How cool is that? I was so glad when my daughter (now a teen!) went through her Mermaid phase as a little girl and watched the movie a zillion times; having Jodi’s voice singing in my house all day was like having a friend over.

How long have you wanted to be a writer? What was your path to publication like?

See, my mom would say since I was in second grade, because it was then that I wrote the first piece that earned me some notoriety as a writer. It was a short story about a Christmas tree, and ended sadly, with the dried-out tree out on the curb waiting to be picked up by the garbage truck, reflecting on its brief but glorious career. It was all very existential! Not bad for a seven year old.

But the success of the piece backfired, because I’d simply written a story that had occurred to me, and all of a sudden teachers were asking me questions about where I might have copied it from and so forth. I think an IQ test was administered. Anyway, all the attention made me feel like I’d done something wrong. So, though I kept writing bits and pieces of things and always wrote very well for school, I didn’t entertain the notion of writing as a career until I was almost thirty.

Before then, of course, I was totally involved in theatre! I was an actor from my late teens until mid-twenties, and then I directed and did comedy improv and all kinds of performance-related things. Finally I sucked it up and admitted I just wanted to write. But I spent another decade writing plays and screenplays, many of which, coincidentally, featured teens or kids in prominent roles.

My good buddy E. Lockhart helpfully pointed this out to me, and introduced me to the world of YA fiction, and the rest, as they say, is history. I pitched the idea for Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love to an agent, who pitched it to Delacorte, and all of a sudden I had a book deal. That novel, my first, came out in 2006, and I’ve been writing full time ever since. In fact, I’m just starting what will be my sixth book! No wonder I’m tired.

Will there be more books about Morgan, from Why I Let My Hair Grow Out and How I Found The Perfect Dress? What about your other books–any planned sequels?

A timely question! I’ve just committed to writing a third and (I’m pretty sure) final book about Morgan, and I’m so excited. I love her and her world, and of course I adore Colin, her irresistible Irish hottie. I get e-mails from girls wanting to know if Colin is real. I wish, girls! I wish he were real and my age and lived next door!

I have a working title for the book but I’m not sure it’s the right one, so I won’t say it yet. But in this book, basically the whole future of the faery realm gets dumped in Morgan’s lap. And Colin finally finds out about Morgan’s half-goddess nature. Ooh, I can’t wait to write it!

No sequel plans yet for Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love or My Life: The Musical, but I never say never. I certainly get requests from readers. One girl already asked me if I would write a sequel to My Life: The Musical in which Emily and Philip really get together. I was like, hmmm, I think you might read the last few chapters a bit more carefully…

What book do you wish you had written?

I’ll pick three. Jane Eyre, because it’s a timeless classic. Harry Potter, because I would be rich. Feed, because it’s so cool and good.

Who are some of your favorite books or authors?

So many! I’ll just pick a couple of things I’ve read and loved recently. In the classic tome category, Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare. In the adult book category, On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan and Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. In the YA author category, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart is superb. Am gnawing on the edge of my desk for the sequel to Octavian Nothing too, by M.T. Anderson. Somebody send me an ARC, please!

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

My advice shifts depending on what you mean by aspiring. For people who long to write but find themselves not knowing how to begin, or who begin things and never finish — remember that writing is nothing like reading. When you read a book, it is the end result of many, many drafts, and the earliest drafts are often closer to notes and stream of consciousness than actual paragraphs and chapters.

Writing accrues, like a painting or sculpture. First you whack the piece of rock into the right size and shape, then you kind of rough out the basic proportions of what you’re trying to represent, and then you go back a million times and work each little bit into shape. When it’s done you step back to judge the whole effect, and then you zoom into fix, step back to judge, zoom in, step back, repeat as needed.

I think the people who get stuck imagine that books come out whole, sentence by sentence from start to finish, the same way you read them. Then they get flummoxed and quit when it doesn’t happen that way.

For people who do finish and are struggling to figure out how to get an agent and get published, please follow all the good advice that’s out there. Join SCBWI. Joint a crit group. Make sure your work is ready. Learn to write a query letter. Find the agents that rep work like your book. It’s not rocket science.

Honestly, I don’t believe that brilliant books get ignored for very long. If you’re getting rejections and hearing a lot of the same feedback from a lot of smart people, be honest about whether you’re still writing the three or six books or fifteen books you might need to write to kick your work up to the next level, where you ARE ready to get published.

“But Maryrose! Your first book got sold on proposal! Why can’t that happen to me?” I can hear you screaming through the computer screen. Listen, before my “first book,” I’d written maybe seven full-length plays, two full-length screenplays, two full-length musicals, one-acts and short films and ten-minute plays and so many miscellaneous pieces of various kinds I can’t even remember them all…and we are talking many drafts of each of these. So yes, Kittens was my first book. It was also really something like my fifteenth book, in terms of writing mileage. Are you willing to write fifteen books before selling one? No? Hmmmm…

I think some people fall into the trap of saying, “well, my book is at least as good as a lot of the crap out there, why can’t I get published too?” The right question is: Is your book as good as the best book you’ve ever read? No? Then push yourself harder. Read excellent books and pay attention to why they’re so good. Then hold yourself to that high standard.

What are you writing now?

I just love my current project: it’s called A Beautiful Nothing, and will be my next book for Delacorte. It’s a retelling of the plot of “Much Ado About Nothing,” set in the Bronx’s Little Italy.

I’m having so much fun with this book! “Much Ado” is one of my favorite plays, and Italian is one of my favorite cuisines. It’s like Shakespeare with mozzarella. And baseball too! The Bronx without the Yankees is just not the Bronx, ya know? Fuhgeddaboutit!

Now, ask yourself a question (and answer it).

“Maryrose, you look incredible! How on earth did you lose ten pounds since yesterday? And get taller too? And noticeably younger?”

“No big deal, really! I just tapped my heels together three times! Wanna brownie? Want twelve? With ice cream? That’s all we eat around here now!”

Thanks so much!

 

Guest Blog: Tara Altebrando

The randomly chosen winner of Luisa Plaja’s book Split By A Kiss is Elaina! Elaina, please email Luisa at chicklish@googlemail.com. Thanks to all of you who entered!

This week’s guest blogger is Tara Altebrando, the author of What Happens Here and The Pursuit of Happiness. Tara has written about how she got into writing young adult books. Thanks to Tara for this awesome post, and thanks to all of you for reading! Without further ado:

Hey, Jocelyn. Thanks for having me! I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk a little bit about how I came to write for teens. Where better than Teen Book Review to do that, right?

Many moons ago now, I had a sort of permanent freelance job at a big publishing company, writing flap copy for books of the grown-up variety. I was pretty sure it was the best, most reliable freelance gig to ever exist. But then at the end of the year one year, the big boss said they’d run out of money in the budget to pay me and I was cut loose for the months of November and December. I was told I’d be hired back in January, but still…Merrrrry Christmas!

It would’ve been nice to just take off and spend a month on the Italian Riviera or carousing in Paris, but I needed money, so I started to put out some feelers. And as my father always says, “When God closes a door he opens a window.” Someone was going on maternity leave and a proofreader/copyeditor was needed in the production department of HarperCollins Children books.

So a photo badge was made and my commute changed by a few stops and there I was, spending my days reading proofs of children’s books and all sorts of marketing materials, too. One day, a young adult novel came across my desk and I read it with bated breath. It was a marvelous book, the very sort of book that I hoped The Pursuit of Happiness would be…only I hadn’t written it yet. I’d published a novel for grown-ups, and was supposed to be writing my second one, but suddenly, when I got to the last page of those proofs of that fantastic YA book, I thought, “THIS is what I should be doing.” Writing YA! I’d already written the first chapter of Pursuit. What was I WAITING for?

So now that Pursuit has been out in the world for a few years and my new YA book, What Happens Here, is being released, it’s sort of neat to start to contemplate an actual career in young adult fiction. There is, I think, a great fear among writers of being a one-trick pony so it’s nice to know that I’ve officially got two tricks. And I hope that readers will find in What Happens Here everything they liked about Pursuit-uh, if they did, that is-but with some new stuff, too. Like a bit of glitz and adventure! I’ve moved the action from the colonial village of Pursuit to Vegas, and even better…to Europe!

Oh, and that fantastic YA book that got me to thinking? It was The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson. Which is sort of funny because back then her name meant nothing to me. So little, in fact, that I completely forgot it. And once I started to get to know the YA world, her name kept coming up and we were even at a bunch of the same parties and I kept thinking, “You really need to read some Maureen Johnson,” not even realizing that I already had! And that it had made all the difference!

So big thanks to my ex big boss for giving me a most unexpected Christmas gift that year, to the woman at Harper for having a baby, and to Ms. Johnson for unwittingly handing me the key to my own future.

Oh, and I can’t forget. We’re giving a copy of What Happens Here away! Comment below to enter!

 

Review: Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer

Several people had recommended I read this book, but for some reason I’d never gotten around to it until this week. And I so wish I had picked it up sooner! I’m now on the second in the series.

When Mary Faber’s parents and sister all die one after the other, she is left with no one and nothing, and so falls into the life of a street urchin in London near the turn of the century (1800 or so). She grows tired of it all, though, of the death and danger and starvation, and when the leader of her little gang of orphans dies, Mary dresses in his clothes, adopts the name “Jack,” and sets off to make her own way in the world.

Dressed as a boy, she is able to get work on a ship, as a ship’s boy, and is clever enough to keep up the Deception, because she enjoys life at sea and the companionship of the other boys and some of the older sailors, and, really, could a street urchin say no to three square meals and a place to sleep at night?

And so begins the life of Bloody Jack, ship’s boy, adventurer, semi-reluctant pirate hunter, and world traveller.

Bloody Jack is, I believe, L.A. Meyer’s first novel, and the first in this series, which currently stands at five books with another on the way this fall. It is quite a captivating tale! There’s adventure and romance and interesting history and so much wonderfulness! I enjoyed the characters, the story itself, everything, really. I loved Jacky’s very distinctive voice, and Jacky herself was just so fantastic and bold and entertaining. L.A. Meyer is a talented author, and I expect to be devouring this entire series within a very short period of time. It’d be shorter if I didn’t keep getting distracted by things like studying for exams (which start May 5 and which explain my lack of recent posting). Anyway, I can’t recommend this book enough, so go and get a copy today!

 

Interview: Tara Altebrando

Tara Altebrando is the author of the fantastic YA titles What Happens Here and The Pursuit of Happiness, as well as adult novels under the name of Tara McCarthy. If you’ve not read her books, I really, really suggest you do so, and, if you can’t get to the bookstore at the moment, or, you’re already a fan, you can content yourself for the moment with reading her great interview question answers (and, soon, a guest blog).

There’s a lot of traveling in What Happens Here. Have you traveled a lot? What’s one of your most memorable trips, and why?

I would say that I’ve traveled a fair amount. Not compared to some people I know but I’ve been to a bunch of European countries a bunch of times and to Central America and then places like Canada and Mexico and a ton of U.S. states.

I’d have to put a week in Hawaii on the most memorable list. It’s seriously like going to another planet, the landscape is just so unreal. My husband and I splurged on a convertible rental and a helicopter ride and a sunset cruise and even massages on the beach…it was incredible. I’m not sure I’ve ever been as relaxed (as an adult, anyway). It’s a truly transporting place.

Where did you get your inspiration for writing What Happens Here?

If I answer this question too honestly, I give away a big part of the plot of the book. Suffice it to say that the summer before high school, my family took a trip to Europe (my first). When we came back, something bad had happened; actually it had happened before we left but no one told me until after the fact. I modified that experience-a lot-and gave it to the character of Chloe.

You have written two teen novels. You also write for adults under the name Tara McCarthy. What is the same and different about writing for different audiences?

My first response was going to be “the age of the main characters” but in my most recent McCarthy book, “Wouldn’t Miss It for the World,” one of the main characters is a sixteen-year-old who is on a trip to Belize for her rock star brother’s destination wedding. And in “Love Will Tear Us Apart” two of the main characters are seventeen-year-old Siamese twin pop stars. So hmmmn. What IS the difference? I do think the McCarthy books deal with slightly more “adult” concerns. What’s the same about them all is that they’re all stories I wanted to tell and tried very hard to tell well. I learn a lot with each book and bring all of it into the next project regardless of which audience it’s going to be marketed to.

What jobs have you had besides writing? If you weren’t a writer, what would your dream job be?

Well, I used to dress up as a farm girl at a colonial village like Betsy in The Pursuit of Happiness. I also used to work at the Museum of Television and Radio, cataloging TV shows (meaning I had to watch them, then write summaries). But most of the jobs I’ve had have been related to writing in some way. I used to be a music critic for a pop culture magazine in Ireland; I’ve written flap copy for a number of publishing houses; I used to write press materials for a small record label. The astonishing thing is that I’ve lived my entire adult life without ever having a full time job!

If I weren’t a writer, I think I’d like to be an event planner.

If you were stuck on a deserted island, what book would you have to have with you?

Right now I would have to say Don Delillo’s “Underworld.” Because I really really want to read it and haven’t had the time. My daughter has taken to crawling over to the book and pulling it off the shelf as if to taunt me. Surely on a deserted island, I could finally get to it.

Setting is a strong part of What Happens Here. Why did you choose to use the two settings of Europe and Las Vegas for the background of the story? Did you get to do any fun travelling research while writing the book?

I knew I wanted to send a teenager to Europe with her family. When I took that first trip with my family, it was a hugely eye-opening event for me and I feel especially grateful to my mother for being so determined to take us there. Even though I don’t think it would become obvious for a bunch of years, I think it significantly altered my view of the world and my place in it. So I wanted to explore all of that through a character.

Somewhere along the way I started to wonder what it would be like if you lived in Las Vegas and saw these casinos modeled after cities like New York and Paris but had never been to the actual places. I started playing around with the settings as sort of mirrors of each other and found that I liked the way it worked.
I took a research trip to Vegas at one point but was newly pregnant and not feeling so hot. So it wasn’t that fun. And right before I wrote the book I’d taken a big trip to Italy with my husband. So a lot of the Venice stuff in the book was very fresh in my mind. I also spent a lot of time looking at pictures of my post-eighth grade trip with my family, and a school trip to Europe I took when I was a senior in high school. Those were some bad hair days but it was neat to try to relive those early trips.

Chloe’s older sister, Zoe, dreams of joining the Cirque de Soleil. This is a rather offbeat ambition, and I was wondering where that idea came from? Are you a performer?

The last time I was in Las Vegas, I went to see Ka. I was already working on What Happens Here and struggling a little bit with the character of Zoe. She was just sort of…there. After seeing Ka, I knew that if I’d seen it as a teenager living in Vegas I would have wanted to be in it so I decided to turn Zoe into an aspiring circus performer.

I’m not a performer now, no. As a girl, I was really into dance and took lessons for years, and then I played the clarinet in concert bands for years, and was also the captain of a color guard in a competitive marching band in high school. So I’ve definitely got some showmanship in my blood. It just has no outlet in my adult life.

What are you writing now?

I am writing a new YA that is TOP SECRET. Mostly because it’s a bit different from my first two and I want to see it through to the end before I show it to anybody. I hope to be telling you and everyone about it in the not too distant future.

Now ask yourself a question (and answer it).

“Don’t you think it’s a little obnoxious to be all ‘top secret’ about your next book?”

Um, yes. Probably.

Thanks so much, Tara!

 

Guest Blog: Luisa Plaja

Today’s guest blogger is Luisa Plaja, author of Split By A Kiss. She’s written a fabulous post about YA books in the US and the UK, and I know you all will really enjoy it!

Travelling Trousers and Pants on Fire: When YA Titles Cross The Ocean

In suburban London, England, my friends and I grew up thinking we understood what it was to be an American teenager. Actually, I’d go further than that: we thought we were American teenagers. We had Stars and Stripes pens and NFL folders for our coursework. We watched John Hughes films and 90210, we read Sweet Valley High. We knew all about ‘lunch ladies’, ‘principals’, ‘proms’ and ‘graduating’ from high school in a big ceremony, as contrasted with the British experience of dinnerladies (or just vending machines), head teachers, and taking exams before slinking off quietly for the summer, waiting for a scrappy printout of our results to arrive in the post in August and certainly not a whiff of any mortarboards thrown in the air.

British teens of today might not have NFL emblazoned on their iPod skins, but many are just as well-versed in the ways of schools across the pond as I was. They watch films and television programmes set there, they devour books by American authors and they don’t need a glossary to understand that when Meg Cabot’s J.P. says he hates ‘corn’, he means ’sweetcorn’. (Or at least, I think he does. Someone correct me if I’m wrong!)

When I lived in the United States, I discovered that the same does not hold true the other way round. The teenagers I met in the States did not know very much about life in Britain. Well, why would they? They don’t watch hours of primetime telly programmes (er, television shows) set in Britain, or read masses of contemporary British teen fiction.

But some British fiction has made it to the USA. I’ve heard that Louise Rennison’s Georgia Nicolson comedy series, soon to be released as a film (er, movie), has brought the term ’snogging’ to the USA, as well as creating a generation of Brit-literate American teens. I believe the books are published with a glossary, but then so are the British versions. Nicolson-ese needs as much translation in Billy Shakespeare land as it does in Hamburger-a-go-go land.

I’ve always thought that you can tell a lot about a culture from their teen book titles. Jaclyn Moriarty (who is Australian, but that’s a whole other post) made me think of this. The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie (USA) is called Becoming Bindy Mackenzie in the UK, and The Year of Secret Assignments (USA) is Finding Cassie Crazy in the UK. I used to think this meant that the US audience demands more dramatic, thriller-ish titles while Brits prefer to ponder their identity and sanity. But perhaps not. After all, you only have to look at Louise Rennison titles to see a certain randomness: And That’s When It Fell Off In My Hand is called Away Laughing on a Fast Camel in the USA, and the USA’s On The Bright Side, I’m Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God is a translation of Britain’s It’s OK, I’m Wearing Really Big Knickers.

Well, I can see that ‘knickers’ and ‘pants’ might not cross the cultural divide, and I notice that Meg Cabot’s Pants on Fire became Tommy Sullivan is a Freak in the UK. But, confusingly, Sue Limb’s Girl 16: Pants on Fire is Girl Going on 17: Pants on Fire in the USA, so perhaps it’s not the pants that are at issue. After all, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants gained an ‘l’ in the UK but did not change its ‘pants’ to ‘trousers’, perhaps because ‘travelling trousers’ sounds faintly ridiculous, though possibly not as hilarious as the idea of travelling knickers. And, back to Louise Rennison, the latest Georgia book has been translated from Luuurve is a Many Trousered Thing to the plainer Love is a Many Trousered Thing, but fully retains its trousers. And both nations are awaiting the imminent release of the same title: Stop in the Name of Pants!

Putting pants, knickers and trousers aside, maybe the truth is that title changes don’t say very much about a culture after all. I recently heard that the prizewinning British novel Ways To Live Forever by Sally Nicholls will be issued in Dutch with a title that translates as “By The Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead”. I immediately scratched my chin wisely and thought, “Hmm, clearly a cultural difference in attitude to death.” But perhaps not. It seems that the second title just sounds better in Dutch.

If you have any theories on this matter, or know of any interesting UK/US book title changes, I’d love to hear them!

And if you’d like to read a novel about a British girl in a US high school, you could check out Split by a Kiss, available on Amazon UK, or here with free delivery to Hamburger-a-go-go land.

Plus I’m giving away one copy to a Teen Book Review reader. Please leave a comment below for a chance to win! You have until midnight EDT on Wednesday, April 30 to enter.

 

Review: My Life: The Musical by Maryrose Wood

Emily and Philip met at a performance of the Broadway show Aurora, and they’ve been best friends, and completely obsessed with the show, ever since. With loans from Emily’s grandmother, they’ve gone secretly to New York every Saturday since, to see the show, with its glorious story and music and Marlena Ortiz, the star of the show. Real life, when compared with the world of the theatre they inhabit every Saturday, is dull and consists almost entirely of obsessing over Broadway shows, reminiscing about past performances of Aurora, and looking forward to their Saturday in the city.

Emily and Philip are, therefore, devastated when they hear a new rumor: that Aurora is about to close. They’ve got to find out the truth! Another Broadway mystery that they, along with every other Aurora fan, would like to clear up? The identity of Aurora’s writer(s)! Nobody knows who wrote the show, or why.

In My Life: The Musical, Emily and Philip deal with problems in their families, figuring out their friendship and their own identities, and, of course, the possibility that their favorite show may close. It’s a hilarious, heartfelt novel about friendship, theatre, and, well, life, that is as wonderful as is to be expected from the fabulous Maryrose Wood. I laughed out loud when reading this smart, funny book that everyone will be able to relate to, whether or not you’re a Broadway fan, because we have all cared that much, irrationally, about something, be it a musical or a band or a book or a television show, and, as silly as we feel sometimes, it’s a pretty awesome feeling, too! I’m not sure this book will quite inspire JK-Rowling-type fandom, and, as many authors whose books are hailed as the “next Harry Potter,” no one can ever match that phenomenon–but it is a really fantastic and highly enjoyable book that I can’t recommend enough, especially to theatre fans!

 

Interview: Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

Tracie Vaughn Zimmer is the author of Reaching for Sun, which I read for the Cybils middle grade fiction panel last year, and other books which I very much want to read. She is a talented writer, a wonderful poet, and a great storyteller, so we’re very lucky to have her here today for an interview. Without further ado:

Reaching For Sun is novel in verse. What do you particularly like and what is particularly challenging about writing in that form?

Oh, I LOVE poetry. It is my most natural voice, my first voice. I have dozens of journals that go back to fourth grade and much of it was written in this form. Not every story should be told in this way though- it should feel justified, I think, by something in the character. Free verse is challenging because you must say so much with so few words. A few select images must stand up for so many left unsaid.

What inspired you to write about a main character with a disability?

I was inspired by the students I taught who had disabilities and who faced middle school (a nightmare without a disability, if you ask me) with such grace.

Josie is physically different from the other kids because of her cerebral palsy, but there are lots of kids who are alienated from their peers for one reason or another. Do you have any advice for them?

Hold On (like that wonderful U2 song) It gets BETTER, I promise.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Read and read widely. Eat books like buttered popcorn. Then, write for yourself first. Write the stories you yourself want to read, wish you could find but don’t set publication as your goal. Set pleasing yourself as your goal.

Have you always wanted to be a writer?

Yes. Always.

What are you writing now?

A poetry collection but it’s still hatching so I don’t want to crush the egg.

What are some of your favorite books and authors?

OHHHH, I love this question! Katherine Patterson, Linda Sue Park, Phillip Pullman, Sandra Cisneros, Valerie Worth, Kristine O’Connell George, Kate DiCamillo, Libba Bray, Sarah Dessen, Helen Frost, Joyce Sidman, Marilyn Nelson, Tobin Anderson, John Green, Ralph Fletcher, etc. etc.

Reaching For Sun won the middle grade Schneider Family Book Award, and is on the shortlist for the 2007 Middle Grade Fiction category for the Cybils. Congratulations! Is your reading influenced by book awards, and is there one you particularly like?

THANKS! I’m thrilled that SUN won the Schneider and I’m honored to have that sticker on my book! Yes, my reading is influenced by awards- the Newbery and ALA winners and I love the Cybils, Teacher’s Choice picks and the NBA for teens, especially.

I really appreciate being on your blog, Jocelyn. Thanks for having me!

Thank you so much for doing this, Tracie!

 

Review: On The Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Before you pick this book up, I’ve got to warn you: it is heartbreaking. There is beauty and hope there, too, but there is so much sadness in this story that begins with a car accident in which five people die on the Jellicoe Road. Three survive, though, and one saves them and the bodies of their loved ones. One more is added to their number, and those five friends are everything to each other.

Over two decades later, Taylor Markham is a student at the Jellicoe School. She becomes the leader of her school in the territory wars between the Jellicoe School students, the Townies, and the Cadets, who come in for six weeks from the city. The three factions fight and negotiate and bargain for territory, with an extensive set of rules and lots of tradition and history. That history is personal, too, when it comes to the relationship between Taylor and Jonah Griggs, the Cadets’ leader…

Read the rest of my review on Chicklish

This book will be released in the USA with the title “Jellicoe Road”, to be published by HarperTeen in September 2008.

Check out my review of Melina Marchetta’s Saving Francesca on Curled Up With A Good Kid’s Book.

 

Review: Gone by Michael Grant

Michael Grant’s Gone reminded me of an old favorite from about fourth grade, The Girl Who Owned A City, because this, too, is a strange new world free of adults. In Grant’s novel, everyone aged fourteen and above in the town of Perdido Beach (which, aptly, as you will later see, means Lost Beach) vanishes suddenly, just, poof, dropping whatever they were doing, their suddenly abandoned cars crashing. All of the kids are left alone, and there is almost immediate chaos.

Somehow, after taking control in a dangerous situation, Sam becomes a leader of sorts, though he is challenged by local bullies. Sam, Astrid, Little Pete, Quinn, and Edilio work together to survive inside what they discover is a ten-mile radius around the nuclear power plant that is bounded by a barrier they cannot see any end to, see through, or even touch without feeling quite a bit of pain.

That’s not the only strange thing, though. There are talking coyotes, seagulls with talons, and snakes with wings. Mutants–but not the only mutants around. Some of the kids may not be exactly normal themselves…

After a few days, the rich, troubled kids from Coates, a boarding school outside of town, come in and take control of the situation. At first, Sam might be glad to be relieved of the pressure of being the leader, but something is seriously wrong with the situation, and by the time he comes to realize it, it might be too late to save himself and the rest of the kids–especially if, as the others who turned fourteen have done, he vanishes on his birthday, which is a scant few days away.

Gone is a huge book, over 550 pages, but the time passed so quickly while I was reading it, and I just couldn’t put it down! Last night, taking a break from my history homework, I picked it up, intending to read a chapter or two and then get my brain back on track. Instead, I read two hundred pages. That’s how absolutely engrossing this book is! And as for the writing? The book is so fast-paced, and I don’t even need to add this qualifier to that statement: “for a 550 page book that takes place over the course of only a handful of days,” even though it’s true. I didn’t even notice the writing, except for a few mistakes that I’m sure will be corrected in the finished book (I read an ARC), so it flowed well.

For the most part, I quite enjoyed the characters, although they were a bit simplified for my taste–psychotic bully, leader who can do very little wrong, saintly girl caring for small children (although she did have issues of her own), etc. I also thought that the characters sometimes acted older than they were supposed to be (thirteen, for most of the main characters), but I guess that being stuck in that situation would make them grow up fast, out of necessity. Still, though, it bothered me a couple of times. And those cover models don’t look like thirteen-year-olds, either, do they?

Now, this is not a literary masterpiece or anything, but it’s certainly worth reading, especially for fans of apocalyptic sci-fi, or Lord of the Flies. Which, actually, I hated, but they both have groups of kids fending for themselves. Also, heads are smashed in both, and there are warring factions. Anyway, I certainly enjoyed the characters in this book, and the premise, but really, the best part was how it was just a pleasure to read, absent of any brain-rotting quality. Not to say that it was a difficult book, but it was for reasonably intelligent readers, even if they are reluctant to pick up a giant book, as many are, and actually helped me once on FreeRice (where my highest vocab level is now a 47!).

The ending disappointed me, though. Certainly, there was some semblance of an ending (that is, it didn’t just randomly stop), but absolutely no questions were answered, and the central dilemma of being stuck in the FAYZ was in no way resolved. I would imagine there is a sequel on the way, in which case this is annoying but forgivable, especially if the sequel is good, but if there is no sequel it is an absolute disaster. However, unless something dreadful happens to Michael Grant or HarperCollins, there’s got to be a sequel, with the way this ended. And I’ll definitely be reading it!

*Edits for those who don’t read the comments: This will be a six-part series, coming out every summer, so look forward to that! The characters’ ages have been changed to fourteen, so my comments about them acting too old are negated (even though it’s just one year, I feel like it makes a big difference).

 

Juno

Okay, so, yeah, Juno is a movie, not a book. But it’s a fantastic movie, and, well, a fantastic movie and a fantastic book have a lot in common. Great stories can be found on both screens and pages! This is my justification for talking about a movie on a book blog, but, in all honesty, I think it’s a movie that a lot of fans of YA books will love. As you probably know unless you live under a rock, Juno is a pregnant sixteen-year-old. She’s funny and smart and, like any sixteen-year-old, just working on figuring out the world and her place in it. I love the whole cast of characters here. The script is amazing, and the awesome actors really bring it to life. I love Ellen Page as Juno. And another YA connection: Michael Cera is Nick in the movie of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, a wonderful book written by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn. Anyway, the next paragraph contains spoilers. Just a warning, although most of you have probably already seen it. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for? It’s out on DVD now!

The issue I wanted to bring up, though, is the fact that Juno is sixteen years old and pregnant, but this is not a “lesson” movie. To me, this was a positive. To a friend of mine (who is very religious, Southern, and socially conservative), this was a negative. He said it didn’t teach the horror of an unwanted pregnancy as a teenager. And, yes, Juno didn’t die or anything. She turned out okay, her life turned out okay, and her relationship turned out okay. She gave the baby to a woman who really wanted a baby. Not that being a pregnant sixteen-year-old was a picnic for her; far from it. But she got through it okay, and, to me, that is the best kind of lesson.

The message I got out of Juno, if I were to search for one? That everything will be okay, no matter how much your life may suck, you can get through it and be stronger for it. I don’t think that’s a message anyone would disagree with, and my friend conceded my point there. My question for you all: in a book or movie for teens, what does having a good “message” mean to you? What importance do you place on it, positive or negative? I’m interested in hearing your thoughts, because I, personally, am not a big fan of message-heavy stories, but apparently some people (like my friend) are, and in fact put the whole value of a story on whether or not it teaches the right message (he hadn’t even seen the movie).