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literaticat · 2 years

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I'd like to hear your thoughts on the types of picture books that are selling now and how they compare to the types that were selling when you first started agenting. Thanks!

Well, as I said a couple posts ago, when I started, it was the DARK AGES for picture books. We were selling them, as an agency, but they were not EASY to sell by any stretch, and when I started, I didn't even accept picture book author or illustrator queries at all, because I fancied myself a "YA & MG exclusively" agent. I did sell some, but only for authors that I already repped for novels. But I just didn't even TRY to sell enough of them to really have good data -- So my VERY early years can kinda be discounted.

(I do think the first ones I sold would still sell today, though. I know that because, well, they are books like OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW by Kate Messner, which I sold in 2008 and came out in 2009-10-ish, and I still am selling sequels to that book as recently as last month, it's going strong 10+ years later.)

But anyway -- I'll take a stab at, say, 10 years ago compared to today. 10 years ago it was really the "short - no SHORTER!!!" era. Which, yes, we still like short books, but at that time it felt virtually impossible to sell fiction picture books that were longer than like, 200 words. I had to explain that to authors A LOT. Now, authors are kinda used to that, so it's less jarring. . . and now, we sometimes DO see picture books that are longer, because publishers realized they were leaning TOO far in the short direction. Books like LITTLE WITCH HAZEL, which is quite a robust storybook, probably would not have sold ten years earlier.

10 years ago, graphic novels were not a huge thing for kids. ("That's not a picture book, JENN!", you exclaim -- Yeah I know, hear me out!)

So SMILE came out in 2010, and really introduced that as a viable kind of book for MG, but it took years for the category to truly gain a foothold and creep younger. There were no picture book graphic novels or early reader graphic novels back then. Now there are both, and hybrids, and they do well. I'm thinking of books like FOX + CHICK and its sequels -- it's packaged like a picture book, but is told in panels, and could be an early reader too. NARWHAL AND JELLY, which is an early reader / graphic novel / good for PB age kiddos. etc. Publishers are more open to sort of blending categories in this way for this age kid.

10 years ago, the "meta" and "interactive" picture books were taking off. By "meta" I mean, books where the character addresses the reader directly, and either knows they are in a book (so it's kind of a book about the book itself) or the reader is invited to interact with the character -- the classic examples are THERE'S A MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK and DON'T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS, both of which came out earlier of course, but in the early-mid 2010s, there was a rash of these kinds of books. Other examples of interactive books are like PRESS HERE, which came out in 2011 or so -- these books encouraged kids to turn the book upside down, touch things, say magic words for things to happen on the page, etc. And there were many sequels and copycats in the following years. For both these kinds of books, I think the market is pretty saturated, and unless it was bringing something WILDLY cool to the table, would be a tough sell.

On the nonfiction side, because "common core" was a new thing in 2010, books met common core standards started to be talked about a lot. I feel like we sold A LOT of picture book biographies and such. At this point, though publishers still theoretically like bios, most acquired SO MANY that their lists became overloaded with them, and now they may not even want to look at them unless they are SUPER special.

(Another category like that really blew up maybe ... um... around the mid-20-teens, like post-Obama administration -- for some reason... *cough*... was a rash of "GIRLS CAN DO IT! YOU ARE AMAZING!!!! DON'T LET BULLIES GET TO YOU!!!" kinda books - which, yes, they are still coming out -- but again, that is something publishers have seen A LOT of and probably not going to sell unless it's doing something spectacular and new.)

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rigelmejo · 3 years

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Re-reading hanshe with less word lookup is going well. I'm in section 10 already. I mean that's a long way to go with 209 sections. But if I'm doing 5 a day like rn that's 40 days to read instead of months like before, so with for increased reading speed. If I get up to 10 chapters a day that's 20 days to finish reading this fic which is under a month. Anyway we'll see.

Mostly I'm curious if when I hit 1/3 in, which is where I've read to before, if extensive reading no longer becomes possible because I don't have enough already-studied words for those parts afterward.

It’s interesting rereading because I can also start to tell which words/hanzi throw me off the most. There’s a number of new words I guess/remember quite easily, due to hanzi I remember easily. There’s also a number of 4-hanzi phrases I figure out easily because their hanzi are familiar and similar phrases I’ve already learned. however, STILL the words for suspicious, doubt, hesitate ALL trip me up! If I want to read fast I just guess which one the word means based on context! The hanzi for those 3 words just looks TOO similar to me especially with meanings that to me are also quite similar (if you doubt something you may be suspicious, if you doubt something or are suspicious you may hesitate, so the words are quite similar in meaning in my head).

怀疑 Huáiyí - doubt, suspect, be skeptical

犹豫 yóuyù - to hesitate

犹疑 yóuyí - to hesitate

(you will notice the bottom word uses a hanzi from hesitate, then a second hanzi from doubt, and it makes me confused as all hell as a result whenever I see any of these 3 words because I see hanzi from another similar word and then get lost about which means which).

Anyway, the hanzi I confuse for other hanzi/being part of other words, seem to be the ‘already learned’ words I am clicking the most. Because I’ve seen the word or hanzi many times but STILL the sound has not stuck in my mind so yet again I’m looking up the pronunciation. Like 绸缎 chouduan (silk) and chan (getting tangled/wrapped/involved with with someone/thing) 缠. I see the silk side radical and the enclosure on both (though the enclosures are different), and because they look pretty similar EVERY time I see chou as in silk I want to read it as ‘chan’. About 80% of the time I see that word I have to re-check the pronunciation. Reading extensively is actually helping slightly, in that I think my brain is making more of an effort to remember the pronunciation since I’m trying to be less likely to look something up again so its just got less chances to retain the info. This is the first time in like 6+ months of encountering the word chouduan that the pronunciation is FINALLY sticking in my brain.

Words that have familiar hanzi are much less of a struggle, even when new, and I wonder if my comprehension really is close to 98%? I didn’t measure this fic hanshe, just some novels I had (zhenhun was 95%, dmbj 1 and saye were 98%). But I can tell that if I don’t care about sound, I’m not running into many ‘incomprehensible in context’ words at all, and usually a word or less per paragraph that I full on can’t pronounce or make a good guess for a pronunciation I remember (and those words aren’t necessarily the new ones - so fucking often that word is just youyi huaiyi or youyu ToT lol). My point is... my ability to read aloud has improved, I can actually read quite a bit more hanzi aloud on sight than several months ago. I am practicing reading aloud a little since I have terrible ‘read aloud flow’ right now lol.

Also? Realizing if I read aloud I am almost guaranteed to say every 了 as de by instinct first. I bet thats 1 part that pleco app always reads 的 as di, so I overcorrected in my head with ‘it actually sounds like de in many situations BE aware’ and then now when I see le I just automatically switch into ‘overcorrect di mode’ lol. Another part is I think it might reflect my speaking comfort level a little. Le is not terribly difficult to use for beginner appropriate conversation tasks (like saying “i went to the store” etc) but in conversations idk why I rarely use it or rarely make a mental note when i do use it, so like when I type i am well aware its something i write without then realize i skipped and put back in. So its interesting to me when reading and inner-vocalizing or speaking aloud, my brain is actually still doing the same thing as my writing pattern - skipping the word then only adding it back in if i realize i skipped it.

---

Hanshe getting easier over time also speaks to the difficulty of priest novels like? While i love them and will trudge through? The language in hanshe used to be peak too much for me it would take me 1.5 to 2 hours to finish a chapter. And priest wasn't even doable. Then eventually I could read tianyake in 1-2 hour chapters then eventually in 20-30 min. Eventually I could read hanshe again in 10-20 minute chapters. But like - however difficult hanshe is, priests writing is harder to read. Priest just has more unknown words per page for me.

I am wondering when priest’s writing will go from doable to a bit easier than just doable, the way hanshe did. Probably a long way off (and I’m aiming for zhenhun and modu, I suspect sha po lang and can ci pin will take much longer as they’re genres I don’t read).

On the topic of genres: I may read tangstory’s 2 novels that are sequels - one historical court, one republican era. Those are two genres I don’t read, but I do watch shows in those genres so learning some of the genre words would fall in line with things I would LIKE to eventually read. Tangstory’s stories are on the shorter side (much shorter than hanshe or zhenhun dang) and show as like 35 sections in my reader app (compared to 209 ToT). They have lovely english translations if I do need clarification or just want to read them later, and again those genres are ones I should get more familiar with.

Other options for reading for more genres: Qi Ye for more historical/court vibe language, and Tian Ya Ke when I’m ready again for its wuxia language - but both of these require me braving a full priest story which. I don’t want to start anything right now that will take more than 2 months to read. Upside is these both have nice translations to refer to, downside is I need to be able to read priest easier to tackle them. And if I’m reading priest easier I may go right for Zhenhun (both because its a goal novel of mine to read and because I know a lot more supernatural/modern words).

For detective novels, I’d like to branch out into maybe SCI Mystery (seems closer to my reading level except for the detective terms which I should learn), Ding Mo novels (like the one Love me if You Dare is based on) since Ding Mo has been recced to me and the reading level isn’t too high, PoYun (but the reading level IS around MoDu and I can TELL - but I think it opens with more vocabulary I should learn and am unfamiliar with as far as detective stories/police/action and weaponry words).

I want to branch into something easier as a first sci fi novel, but I can’t think of any I want to read except C语言修仙 and 残次品. On a guess, I’d say the first novel is probably easier if ONLY because its 2 print books instead of 4 ToT. Also Can Ci Pin has gratuitous variety of names and I think as a cultivator novel maybe Cyuyanxiuxian will have more of a modern-like one country setting with less new terms to learn (versus Can Ci Pin with new planets, names, spaceships and tech, mech suits, mutant and disease terminology, govt terms, etc).

#september #september progress #if u read the rant notes like this and u are not me then congrats ur ability to sift through a mess is <3 #these are mostly notes on the learning process #in case one day into japanese i wonder how reading skills progress #i'll be encouraged knowing this is how the process went before in another language #or if i hit another plateau in chinese. these kinds of posts help me figure out #what worked last time or what weak spots i neglected that i could work on still

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soracities · 4 years

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Hi! This is so random, but quarantine has made me start reading for fun again... But I'm starting to see that I'm losing my ability to focus and retain what I'm reading? Or I feel like I'm approaching what I'm reading from too much of an academic perspective :( Also, is it normal to find it difficult to visualize descriptions? Often times, descriptions in my head look like collages of stock images (unless I've seen a movie or drawing of the book) or aren't as beautiful as how the words describe.

(cont.) Does that make me dumb? I've always loved reading (and I would consider myself a creative/visual person), but my inability to create these beautiful, cohesive images in my head always makes long descriptions (for example, the opening of East of Eden ) just fly across my head. Also, what are your tips for approaching books with more challenging vocabulary/prose (ex. Lolita -- a book that has been in my TBR list for forever). I hope you are staying safe and healthy! Your blog has inspired me so (2/3) so much. Everything about your blog is just beautiful, and your blog has really helped me get back into the groove of reading and seeing its beauty. Thank you! (3/3)

I accidentally buried this in my drafts so I’m so so so sorry for how late this is!

I don’t think lack of focus is uncommon, but I do think it will help if, before anything, you take the time to figure out if it’s mental exhaustion or something mental health related (in which case the best thing to do is to take a break and allow your mind to relax a little--even if that means not reading) or if your attention is compromised because of other things like social media (this happens a lot for me). In any case I think that what might help more if you’re going back into reading is to just pace yourself and ease yourself into the habit by focusing on shorter, lighter works that are a lot easier to read and aren’t likely to trigger a need for analysis or overly in-depth thinking--instead of the big classics and the “Must Reads” (which will always carry some kind of ridiculous pressure) try revisiting your favourite childhood books or others you’ve read previously and enjoyed. You can also venture in YA or graphic novels (I recommend Persepolis!) and make a point of reading a little bit every day -- you don’t need to finish it all in one go, especially if your brain is already taxed enough as it is: the point is to train your mind into a more relaxed state so that it can approach books a lot more openly and eventually you’ll be able to move up to more intense reads. If you find that a lot of the distraction is coming from social media then it may be a good idea to set some kind of schedule for yourself where you limit how much time you spend on it and slowly get your brain re-accustomed to focusing on things that aren’t easily grasped sound-bites.

I think the more difficult books will probably tie into this, too -- challenging reads will definitely require more time and effort and I do think that before you tackle them you should make sure your brain is back in a generally more relaxed place where it can accommodate a more prolonged and intensive approach. I think the main thing is to allow the book in question to set its own rhythm in this instead of imposing a target on yourself for the sake of it that may only increase the pressure and make it harder to get through, which in turn will make it harder for you to retain what you read and may just put you off the process entirely. If it takes you two weeks to get through one chapter then that’s okay--it may only be one chapter, but it will be a chapter you’ve taken your time with and that you’ve read well, whatever that means for you -- and in this regard, I think it counts for more than a book you’ve suffered through and then forget in a week. It may also help to keep a notebook or some post-its with you as you read and jot down any difficult words and take the time to look them up and understand them, or make brief summations for yourself about what has just happened at the end of each section. I think it’s also important to remember that whatever shape your reading takes over this period, the main thing is that you don’t pressure yourself to delve into things if it isn’t the right time. It should remain fun and engaging and what’s important is that, if you are challenging yourself, you do it at the pace that best suits you, whatever it is that you’re able to maintain.

Also in terms of the visuals, I don’t think it makes you dumb at all, and I don’t believe there’s such a thing anyway. Everyone responds and visualizes their reading differently and the only ‘normal’ as such is whatever is normal for you. I’m in the same boat as you for descriptions even though I also learn in a very visual and tactile way, but thinking visually and engaging visually aren’t always the same thing, I don’t think. For me what works best (and I don’t know if this helps you but I hope it will) is that I don’t worry too much about picturing the scene exactly as it’s described and just follow the flow and the rhythm of the sentences instead. Usually, the further along the book goes, the more its environment develops, the more the images build up in my mind by a kind of osmosis through the mood it all creates--it’s a rough and hazy idea but the moods and the characters that arise from the book, as well as the pace of the writing as I read it, seep into that hazy image and fill it out--it all becomes one world, in a way, where all the elements interact with one another and my being able to visualise them then depends entirely on that interaction and not so much the separate elements, if that makes sense. I may not be able to picture the whole landscape exactly as the passages describe it on its own, but I am able to build up snapshots of that river at x point in the plot, or this field at y point in the plot, or that valley as a particular character sits and thinks in it, and because it’s all tied in to the workings of the story itself it makes it a lot easier in a way, and also allows me to relax because I don’t have to worry if I’m “seeing it right”. It becomes less about a consistent and cohesive flow and more about certain sensations in the text that arise moment by moment and they make the story for me.

I know that this is a very particular way of visualising things, and it may not work for you at all, but you can also -- if you’re still struggling -- allow yourself to take some time to sketch out the scene according to the description (or, if it’s a real place, find pictures of it online or through Google Maps). The extra engagement might help to make it a lot clearer for you and might also allow you to remember the scene a lot better because you’re now actively involved in it, even if only a little bit.

All of this feels like a bit of a ramble and I don’t know if it will help you but I hope you find something in it. I wish you all the best, lovely, and I’m so sorry for the delay again x

#ask #ssongpyeon #book talks

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bemused-writer · 4 years

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I miss Vnc so much that I re read previous chapter a lot because I miss ma boys noe and Roland 😭😭. I hope they resume soon.

Oh, I totally feel this pain. XD I miss them, too! And the suffering is real...

I’ve been thinking I might reread the whole series as well, partially because we’re in quarantine and I have time, but partially so I can make sure I’ve picked up on as many tiny details as possible. I still want to write my Roland comparison and I am still haunted by numerous unfinished fanfic, so... Rereading never hurt. 8D

But, uh, if anyone wants my personal suggestions for stuff they can check out while they wait for more VNC (Yes, I absolutely am trying to get more people invested in my personal obsessions) here are a few!

Manga

1. Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama- If you like magic, witches, worldbuilding, and a plot that gets more complex over time, you will like this. A current obsession.

2. The Girl from the Other Side by Nagabe - Has a dreamy (or nightmarish?) quality. Uses simple language that ends up more powerful because of it. Haunting and elegant.

3. A Bride’s Story by Kaoru Mori- Incredibly detailed art and incredibly well researched, this one is awesome. It really speaks to the kid in me that loved the Little House books, but this is told in a more complex, adult manner and also takes place across the Silk Road.

4. The Poe Clan by Moto Hagio - It’s a classic for a reason! I just started reading this and I’m already hooked. If you need a vampire fix and a story that spans the years, this is a good one.

Graphic Novels

1. Loki: Agent of Asgard by Al Ewing and Jason Aaron - Actually deals with the idea of what a trickster god is, what stories are, and has a fantastic friendship.

2. Bird Boy by Anne Szabla - I believe you can also find this as an online Web comic. Beautiful art and vibes similar to ATLA.

3. Cucumber Quest by Gigi D.G. - This one is just a lot of fun. Lots of great humor and tropes turned on their head.

4. The Electric State by Simon Stålenhag- Kind of a cross between a graphic novel and a book. Deals with a woman trying to restore her robot brother in a ruined world.

Books

1. Uprooted and Spinning Silver - These are both standalone books, but they’re both by Naomi Novik and have a similar vibe. They both deal with magic, folklore, and they go in directions you might not expect. Highly recommend.

2. Brandon Sanderson - No, not a book, but an author who writes so many good books you may as well read all of them. 8D However, if you want something shorter, I would recommend starting with either Legion or Skyward. The former is a novella and the latter is a YA series. Both are sci-fi, both are awesome. If you want something longer, I would recommend Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive, which are so ridiculously good I can’t even begin.

3. Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente - If you want a book that feels like a silent film and has purposefully old-school sci-fi settings that also feels a little unreal, this is an excellent pick.

4. The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells - If you want some sci-fi novellas that feel like really good movies with witty dialogue and a sympathetic robot protagonist, this is your series.

Television

1. What We Do In the Shadows - Superb comedy and it features vampires. I just love this series.

2. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency - The first season is so good that I have watched it numerous times, sometimes in a row. Everything you expect will be turned on its head.

3. Good Omens - Decent chance you’ve already watched or read this, but if you hadn’t, it’s very timely and is just a feel-good show despite the forces of Heaven and Hell trying to destroy the planet.

4. Over the Garden Wall - Has a delightfully surreal vibe set in an autumn wood where two boys try to figure out how to get home. Witty and thought provoking.

Video Games

1. Finding Teddy 2 AKA Chronicles of Teddy by Storybird - Super cute, great puzzles, and an excellent metroidvania. Way too much fun.

2. Anything by Frictional Games (Penumbra, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, SOMA). You will feel existential for days and be glad for it.

3. Anything by Wadjet Eye Games (Blackwell series, Technobabylon, Unavowed, etc.). They make fantastic point-and-click adventures with excellent plots and characters. Rosa is extremely relatable.

4. INSIDE by Playdead - A short game featuring a boy trying to escape unknown assailants trying to bring him back to a lab. Haunting, disturbing, and the story is told without a word of dialogue. Love this one.

Anyway, I could go on, but I’ll leave it there for now. 8D If anyone wants more suggestions, I’m happy to give them though. You can find all this stuff online, through streaming services, etc., but if all else fails your library probably has OverDrive and/or Hoopla where you can ask them to get said goods if they don’t have it already (except for the video games, but that’s a given).

I’m definitely looking forward to VNC’s return, but we can get through this! ^^

#vanitas no carte #Bemused's post #reference #suggestions #Anonymous

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haveamagicalday · 5 years

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My 2019 reads

My top ten reads can be found here

4 Stars

All the Bad Apples by Moria Fowley-Doyle

Deena’s family is cursed. Any “rotten apple” in the family is doomed for a a tragic end. When Deena’s sister Mandy goes in search of the cause of the curse, Deena and friends go after her. This book alternates with stories from the past and present dealing with strong feminist themes throughout.

House of Salt and Sorrow by Eria A. Craig

A darker more horror story retelling of the 12 Dancing Princesses. Personally, I felt that connection to the original fairy tale was kinda weak and this could have been pitched as its own fairy tale. It was definitely creepy and kept you on your toes throughout.

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

Riley Sager is becoming one of my favorite thriller authors but this one was probably my least favorite of his 3 books so far. Don’t get me wrong, it was still really good but while the twist was good, I figured it out fairly early on. I kept waiting for another twist that would blow me away but it never happened. Still, this was fun to read and I still stand by the 4 star rating.

Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly

After Cinderella leaves with her prince, her stepsisters are left in shame. This story covers the stepsisters lives after happily ever after, and maybe they will get their happily ever after too. This book was sweet and creative. Isabelle, are evil stepsister, was a flawed character but still deeply likable. There was some magic and greek mythology woven in that really made this story stand out for me.

The Rest of the Story by Sarah Dessen

Sarah Dessen does it again in this heartfelt tale of a teenager trying to find her place in the world. Emma Saylor’s mother was an addict and now that she’s gone, Emma only has her stories to remember her by. So where does Emma’s life fit in to these stories and how does the story end?

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

A non witch detective is called in to a high school for the magically gifted to solve a gruesome murder. This was a fun and unique read. It plays out like a typical mystery but the added element of a modern day world with mages and a magic boarding school made it it's own thing. I would actually love to read a series in this world as it was well built and intriguing. A big strength of this novel was I actually was interested in the main character's storyline as I was with the mystery. Sometimes with mysteries, the main character is just there to solve the mystery and nothing more. This was not the case for this book.

The Window by Amelia Brunskill

Jess’s twin sister is dead. She fell out their window one tragic night. But what was Anna doing sneaking out of their window? In this thrilling and emotional book, Jess discovers some of her twin’s secrets and sets out to learn what really happened that fateful night.

The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm by Christopher Paolini

A fun short read that brought me back to my middle school years. Eragon holds a special place in my heart and this was a welcome return to the world. It hints at more in the future and I'm excited to see were this story will continue to go. I will admit though that I preferred the in between chapters with Eragon than the short stories themselves. The Urgal story was probably the best but it seems like Paolini is setting up for another full sized novel in the series and it really had nothing to do with the story at all. Still, it was enjoyable!

The Dark Days Deceit by Alison Goodman

A satisfying ending to the Lady Helen trilogy. There was a twist about the main villain that I honestly would have hated in any other book but it worked so well in this one. I’m going to miss this fun series.

3.5 Stars

Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer

Echo North is a retelling of East of the Sun and West of the Moon. This one had its deviations but was more of straight retelling of the fairytale. There are two parts to this book. The first one is about 280 pages and the last part is the last 120 pages. I think I would have preferred if they were an equal length. The first part could have been shorter and the second part could have been longer. There was a lot of interesting content in the second part that I would have loved to explore more. Still, this was a lovely read and a good retelling of the popular fairytale

Here There Are Monsters by Amelinda Berube

Skye is our main character. A high school girl that moved to a new town and just wants to be normal, maybe even date her cute neighbor? What stands in her way is her 13 year old sister Dierdre. Deirdre is weird, she’s creepy and she refuses to grow up. And now she is missing. All in all, I thought this was a worthwhile and exciting read. While I was personally left a tad disappointed in the direction it took, I know there are a lot of others that will absolutely love it. And the strength of the first half and the themes it deals with, is enough for me to recommend it! Read my full review here.

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

Based on Russian mythology and lore. This is a perfect fairy tale to read on a cold winter night. The characters are well developed and the conflict is subtle. It's a slow build up but never felt boring at all.

Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus

For the most part, I really enjoyed this book! It was quick paced and kept you guessing. However, while I didn't think the ending was predictable, I did think it was a bit cliched. I was surprised by the twist but but it still felt cheesy. The rest of the book was really solid though. There were plenty of red herrings that kept you guessing and it was an enjoyable read with good characters. I liked that this one only had two main characters as opposed to One of Us Is Lying had the four but if I had to pick one though I would say One of Us Is Lying is the stronger book.

3 Stars

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

A retelling of the fairytale of the same name. It was such a sweet story! I thought that Ani/Isi's transformation and growth throughout the story was very well done. The romance was put on the back burner but I didn't mind. It was cute but a little rushed too. It was also very obvious who Geric really was but I don't think it was suppose to be this amazing twist or anything so I didn't mind. I liked the added elements that Hale put into the fairytale. Ani's wind talking ability was a great addition whereas in the fairy tale, she just talks to the wind and it’s never explained why. It stuck to the fairy tale very closely and I really enjoyed reading it.

Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

Chloe lives with her older sister Ruby, the girl everybody wants to be. But when a night of fun with Ruby goes wrong, Chloe is taken to live with her father, leaving Ruby behind. But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back and make things right for her. This was a strange book. I read it quickly because I wanted to know what was going on but the ending just left me more confused. I don't understand what the point of any of this was? However, the writing was beautiful and I loved the creepy and hazy atmosphere.

Teeth in the Mist by Dawn Kurtagich

This was pitched as a Faust retelling but I found little connection between it? I loved the Dead House by Kurtagich but her next book was a disappointment for me. While this one was better, I was still left wanting more. It’s strange that the story in the past is the main one, whereas the one in the present is done through transcribed video recordings and journal entries. Honestly, she probably could have done away with the story set in the present. I think many would like this book but it just wasn’t for me.

Twice Dead by Caitlin Seal

Naya lives in a world where necromancy is common, but the wraiths they come back are treated as second class citizens. When a solo trading mission goes wrong, Naya awakens to find herself the very thing she always found disgust in. Wholly creative with lots of twists, this was a strong debut novel.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

I read Bardugo’s series of short stories A Language of Thorns last year and absolutely loved it. I was...surprised this was written by the same person. It was a very basic YA novel with a love triangle and super special main character. I think I would have enjoyed this a lot more if I had read it as a younger teen.

Truly Devious/The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson

I went into this book expecting a lot of murder and creepy riddles left behind. That's not exactly what I got though. This book was just a tad bit too slowly paced. The murder doesn't happen until a little after the half way mark so the first half of the book felt unnecessary. I feel like 100 pages or so could have been chopped. What I really liked was the mystery behind the school that happened in the 1930s. For me that was the strongest part and I'm more interested in that than the modern day mystery. Which was sort of solved by the end anyway? I think there's more to it but if not it's rather underwhelming. Overall though, I enjoyed the book and the sequel was enjoyable too. Oh, and I need to set the record straight, there's a line in the sequel where someone mentions that the country bear jamboree doesn't have a movie based on it... but it does!!!

Hidden Pieces by Paula Stokes

Embry is the town hero for saving a homeless guy from a fire at an abandoned hotel late one night. But what would the town think if they knew she was the one who started the fire in the first place? Now Embry is receiving notes from someone who knows what she did. Now she must choose between letting the truth get out or given in to her mysterious tormentor’s demands. Hidden Pieces was a fairly solid mystery but it bordered on unrealistic at most times. Still, it was definitely a page turner.

Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy

This is one of those rare cases where I found that the movie was better than the book. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a good book but the movie fine tuned it a lot. The book was surprisingly long and the movie cut out some unnecessary stuff. I was surprised that there was two love interests in the book and I honestly preferred the one that was cut from the film. He was a much better fit for Willowdean and Bo in the book was much more of a jerk who was initially put off by being seen with Willowdean. The fight that Willowdean and her best friend have was much bigger and more dramatic and Ellen was actually pretty nasty throughout it. The movie definitely fleshed out these characters in a much softer light. The relationship with her mother was also much sweeter in the movie than in the book. It felt kind of emotionless and less inspirational here.

Pretty Dead Girls by Monica Murphy

Popular girls are turning up dead and our main character, Penelope, fears she may be next. I went into this expecting more serious take on Scream Queens. I read this back in September and I honestly don’t remember much other than the characters barely reacted to their classmates/friends deaths and the murderer was impossible to guess and was utterly lame. If the killer has to explain their motives with brand new information that was not found anywhere else in the book, it’s not a good twist.

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher

This had a lot of potential and I know a lot of people have loved it but it fell flat for me in some places. The book is based on and sort of a sequel to the short story The White People. You definitely need to have read the short story first or this will make zero sense to you. Our main character, Mouse, spends much of the first third of the book cleaning out a hoarder’s house. It gets very tedious but picks up pace when the Twisted Ones are introduced. There are some good moments of tension but Mouse tends to ruin these moments attempting to be funny (which she’s not). The White People works best as a type of horror that is never truly explained but this book does just that. It’s at this point that the book lost me again. I think it’s mostly a matter of taste but I just wasn’t in to it.

Five Dark Fates by Kendare Blake

I loved this series as a whole but I did not like the ending. Mostly because my least favorite characters ended up as the “winners”. That’s all I’ll say about that.

The Invited by Jennifer McMahon

Helen and Nate decide to leave their cozy life behind to build (literally build) their own little house in a small superstitious town. Problem is, the land they’ve bought is where Hattie Breckenridge a women accused and murdered for witchcraft, lived a hundred years ago. This reads more like a murder thriller that just happens to have ghosts in it than a true ghost story. There were some great twists but it was slow in some places. Like learning about all the ins and outs of what goes into constructing your own house from scratch. Helen and Nate also suffer some martial problems, brought on by the ghost, that just made me anxious and probably wasn’t necessary. I know it adds to the drama and suspense but ugh.

The Best Lies by Sarah Lyu

There’s a murder. There’s a mystery. But that’s not really what this book is about. Remy’s boyfriend is dead and her best friend Elise is the one who killed him. But it was self defense. Probably. The majority of the book takes place in flashbacks starting with Remy and Elise meeting and becoming friends. What starts as a normal friendship slowly turns into a toxic and emotionally abusive codependent relationship. Ultimately, that’s what the book is about. It’s honestly a fantastic portrayal. It’s toxic on both sides but you understand why they care about each other and stay friends. Not all toxic relationships end with a death though and perhaps this would have packed more of a punch had our main character came to some conclusions about her best friend in another way.

Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw

Nora is a Walker and Walkers are witches. How do I know this? Because she mentions it every other page. For the most part this book was enjoyable but extremely predictable. I would still pick up the next book this author writes though.

2 Stars

The Dead Queens Club by Hannah Capin

A modern day retelling about Henry and his 6 wives but this time they are high schoolers. The story is narrated by Annie “Cleaves” Marek, Henry’s fourth wife girlfriend. I'm pretty much assuming everybody knows about Henry and his 6 wives at this point. So where the book really lost me was at the half way point where it turns into a murder mystery type book. If you know your history, you know who did the murder in this book. So the murder mystery angle doesn't work here, The characters don't know for sure, but we the readers do. It becomes somewhat tedious honestly. Our main character also sucked. Cleves was your typical quirky girl. She says witty things that really aren't witty. She claims to be a hardcore feminist but demonstrates this by kind scolding Henry when he says something sexist...and that's about it. This book was entertaining enough to keep me reading but I had my problems with it. Especially the second half. I think there are some people that will really like this spoofy tongue in check retelling but it just wasn't for me. You can read my full review here.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Let me just start by saying that I don't get the hype for this book. It’s an interesting concept but this book just did not work for me. It's somehow not long enough but nothing really happens throughout. The girls were not very "wild" and I don't know what the point of any of this was. This book has been called "feminist horror" and I don't understand that at all. The tox didn't empower them in any way and there wasn't any feminist themes throughout. The gore/body horror was minimal and not very creepy or disgusting at all. Overall, this book was not for me.

The Missing Season by Gillian French

Our lead character moves to a small town where kids go missing every year. The adults find logical reasons for these disappearances but the children of the town believe it is a monster named The Mumbler taking them. Interesting concept that wasn't fully realized. Nothing happens in this book until the last 20 pages. there's no build up or clues that led up to the big twist in the end. When the climax finally happens, it's over within ten pages and then the book ends another ten pages later. Minor plot points lead to nothing and the mumbler was barely played up to make this book suspenseful.

The Babysitter’s Coven by Kate Williams

Adventures in babysitting meets Buffy. Sorta. I went into this super excited and was hoping for something akin to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. I did not get that. This reads more like a middle school book and was overly cheesy. I think younger teens would enjoy but I wasn’t a fan.

How She Died, How I Lived by Mary Crockett

Kyle texted five girls one night. Only one responded and met up with him. He killed her that night. Our unnamed narrator was one of the girls who didn’t answer his text and now she’s dealing with the aftermath of knowing it could have been her. f this book had ended differently, I would have rated it higher. I had major issues with the romance. The narrator starts a relationship with the slain girl’s boyfriend and it was so insanely toxic though it was written to be romantic.

Rereads

Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen (5 stars)

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen (5 Stars)

Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray (5 Stars)

Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins (5 Stars)

Heartless by Marissa Meyer (4 Stars)

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (5 Stars)

The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente (5 Stars)

Short Stories

The White People by Arthur Machen (2 stars)

I like the story itself but the way it was written was horrendous and hard to follow. It was a huge rambling block of text.

Bridal Boot Camp by Meg Cabot (4 Stars)

The Grownup by Gillian Flynn (5 Stars)

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mimzy-writing-online · 5 years

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How Observant Are Your Characters?

Similar to the concept that all your characters should be different from each other in personality, they should also be different in regards to skills. One skill your characters will always have is observational skills. Even D&D and video games agree that your characters all have a certain level of observation or perception skill, whether it’s high or low.

You have your Sherlocks (hyper observant) and your Simon Spiers (surprisingly oblivious) of the world, and you have everyone in between.

For story telling purposes, you need to know exactly how observant your character is or needs to be for your plot development, and how to use it.

Observation skills will affect the pacing of the book, how complex your plot needs to be, and how apparent or effective your subplots are. You should also be aware that Critical Thinking skills and Observational skills are two separate things, and that you can have an observant character who doesn’t have the critical thinking skills to understand what they’re seeing.

Disclaimer: I feel a little bad that I’ll pick on Simon (Simon vs. the Homo Sapien’s Agenda) for not being overly observant through the book. I do believe that from a story telling and plot development stand point it was probably for the best that his observation skills were lacking. He’s also one of my favorite characters.

Through observation skills your character will pick up plot points and clues, but the problem is how many of those clues you want your character to see. Would your Sherlock character solve the mystery in two chapters and have the story be over? Would your Simon not notice the note stuffed into the t-shirt he slept with for two weeks and not have Blue’s phone number to text, or guess that Blue was someone completely different, unintentionally hurting Blue’s feelings.

(I have feelings about that book, lots of feelings. Feel free to ask me about it, my ask box is open.)

How Observation Skills Affect Pacing:

Because Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as short stories rather than novels, it makes a lot of sense that Sherlock could solve cases in as few pages as he did. Sherlock’s observation skills kept the stories fast paced, and as long as Conan Doyle had enough of a complex mystery for Sherlock to solve, it could go on as long as he wanted his story to go.

Note: there are four published Sherlock Holmes novels, but there are almost sixty short stories. Like many writers of his time, Conan Doyle published many of his stories through a monthly magazine called the Strand, where stories were kept shorter for the sake of a magazine not having the same space for content as a novel. Notable writers who also published through The Strand include Agatha Christie and H.G. Wells.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is a YA contemporary novel with a word count of 60,965, which fits perfectly within the expected length of its genre. YA contemporary novels are expected to be between 60,000 and 80,000 words. Simon’s level of observational skills helped keep the pacing of the novel a bit slower while still being interesting. Simon’s primary focus through the novel was to one day meet Blue, and to come out before Martin could out him. Simon didn’t meet Blue until the end of the novel largely because Simon was not a very observant person and Blue was trying to not be found.

Observational Skills Affect How Complicated Your Plot Is (or at least it should)

If you are writing a Sherlock type character and you want your story to be novel length rather than short story length, then your plot must be complicated enough that even with a fast pace it takes a while for your characters to solve their problems. Part of the way to complicate a plot is misdirection and subplots.

On the flip side, if your character has average or lower observation skills, you will benefit from keeping your plots a little more simple.

Sub-plots: Does your character (and reader) know a sub-plot when they see one?

There are many types of subplots to include to your story to add complexity to it. One of the best sub-plots can be stories that happen to your secondary characters that are just outside of your main character’s radar. If that is the case, your character’s observation skills will determine how much of the sub-plot they see.

Your character’s best friend is secretly in love with someone or secretly dating someone? Is your main character observant enough to see the signs that their best friend is in love? (Long gazes as someone specific, listening to love songs all the time, being moody if that person doesn’t seem to return their affection) And is your character willing to ask about it or are they willing to stay in the dark for the sake of their friend’s privacy?

Your main character’s love interest is having a problem outside of their relationship? Will your character be able to pick up the signs that something’s wrong (even if their love interest is good at hiding things?)

A secondary or background character is somehow involved with the antagonist and preventing your main character from achieving their goals/harming the main character? Is your character observant enough to see that this person is sabotaging them?

You antagonist is someone close or highly involved in your main character’s life? Can your character see that this person is bad news?

How Does Your Character Observe Things?

This is especially important, because certain people are observant about different things.

Some people are emotionally (people) observant: They see and understand body language, vocal tone, and word choice. They can tell when something’s wrong even when the character is trying their hardest to hide their problems. They notice changes in other’s routines or behaviors, (like taking off work early or staying longer, eating more or less, smoking or drinking more, being more outgoing or more shy, being uncomfortable in certain environments that never bothered them before.)

Some people are environment observant: These characters notice when things in their surroundings aren’t quite right. It’s too quiet/too busy for this place at this time. There’s a shadow disappearing down a corner. There’s a drip of something suspicious by the door. A book in a room has been recently moved. This is an especially great sort of observation skill to give your characters in horror or suspense stories where creepy or changing environments are used to increase tension.

Some people are information observant: This is actually more of a critical thinking skill, which I will get into in a moment. Some characters might not have the skills to see the signs that indicate something’s wrong with their environment or with their loved ones, but when faced with large amounts of information to take in, they’ll pick up information and analyze it in a way others might not be capable of.

Your Five Senses will help a great deal with this, especially in the case of environmental observation skills. It will also help with showing instead of telling.

What your characters hear/smell/taste/touch are just as important as what they see. Make sure to include those senses in what they observe.

Observation isn’t always enough. Does your character have the critical thinking skills to see the signs and problems for what they are?

Observation and Critical Thinking are a bit of a package deal, and lacking one or the other can make it harder for your characters to see what’s really going on.

Maybe Watson can see those smaller details on a body or crime scene, but it’s Sherlock that has the critical thinking skills to realize how those details relate to each other and what it means.

Your character might also see those small details in their life and be able to sense that something is off or wrong without understanding the full reason why it’s wrong.

Your character might see the children’s toys in the yard when they visit someone’s house, and they might realize that this person doesn’t actually have kids living with them, and may see that the toys are old and beat up. But are their critical thinking skills trained enough to realize how off-putting that is, that there may be something wrong with what they see.

Your character may see that their best friend seems to be tired all the time, and may see that the character has been a bit irritable, and they may notice that their grades are slipping or their work ethic is slipping, but are their critical thinking skills enough to tell them that there’s something more serious that’s wrong with your character, like depression or PTSD or drug use?

A Comment On Critical Thinking: your readers will definitely have the critical thinking skills to see what all these clues mean, because they developed their critical thinking through reading. As long as your characters share what they’re experiencing and observing, you readers can come up with an understanding of what’s going on and then eventually your character can catch up.

Observation Skills In Ensemble Casts:

With stories involving multiple points of view, it would be ideal that your character all have different levels of observational skills. It’s not realistic that all seven of your characters have the same observation skills, (high, low, average.) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes are made all the better for the fact that John Watson doesn’t have Sherlock’s level of observation skills and admires Sherlock for it, and that doesn’t mean John has any less value than Sherlock, because John has plenty of skills and abilities that Sherlock will never have a talent for.

I’ll use my WIP as an example for different observational and critical thinking skills between characters:

My work in progress has three main characters: Anna, Felix, and Ulric. Anna is someone who has above average observational skills and reasonable critical thinking skills. She sees when things are off and with enough time she’s able to solve the mystery in front of her. Ulric is legally blind, but before vision loss he had great observation skills. Because he no longer has sight as his primary sensory imput, he relies more on what he hears and what his other senses tell him. His critical thinking skills are great and even with less information than Anna, he’s still able to keep up with her. Felix is a little more on the oblivious side. He’s book smart, but not life smart. His critical thinking skills go into information, but not people or environment. They all have their individual levels of observational and critical thinking skills, and it helps them work better as a team to solve their problems.

What’s what I got for you on observational skills. If you have any questions (about writing advice or my wip) my ask box is open.

Follow this blog for more writing advice

#writing advice #writing #writing tips #writeblr #writing community #character traits #my advice #mine

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brynwrites · 5 years

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Last week I posted about @byjillianmaria’s new book, The Songbird’s Refrain.

Click the link or read below!

Last Tuesday was the book birthday of Jillian Maria’s debut, the stunning supernatural suspense The Songbird’s Refrain!

I had the privilege of reading this story while it was still in its earlier beta stages, and it’s been a joy to watch it grow from a not-so-shitty rough draft to an absolute piece of art.

So if you’re looking for an awesome, creepy YA with some good old fashion gal pals growing magical life-stealing feathers, you’re in for a treat!

PURCHASE THE SONGBIRD’S REFRAIN

ADD THE SONGBIRD’S REFRAIN ON GOODREADS

ABOUT THE BOOK

When a mysterious show arrives in town, seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Brighton is both intrigued and unsettled. But none of the acts capture her attention quite like the blue-eyed woman. Locked in a birdcage and covered in feathers, the anguish in her voice sounds just a little too real to be an act—because it isn’t. The show’s owner, a sadistic witch known only as the Mistress, is holding her captive.

And she’s chosen Elizabeth as her next victim.

After watching the blue-eyed woman die, Elizabeth is placed under the same curse. She clings to what little hope she can find in the words of a fortune teller and in her own strange dreams. The more she learns, the more she suspects that the Mistress isn’t as invulnerable as she appears. But time is against her, and every feather that sprouts brings her closer to meeting the blue-eyed woman’s fate. Can Elizabeth unlock the secret to flying free, or will the Mistress’s curse kill her and cage its next victim?

MY PERSONAL REVIEW

This book is a blast, with a hint of creepy, a dose of suspense, and a nice dollop of fluffy wlw.

Despite nearly the entire story taking place in the same basic location, the plot never feels slow or aimless. The mystery is engaging, constantly pulling the reader forward with new hints. The MC goes through a wonderful character arc and is very easy to root for, the villain is just as easy to love to hate, and all the side characters have interesting personalities and impact the plot. The prose is generally simplistic, with some minor disruptions like repeated words, but holds great, impactful lines as well.

Overall, a wonderful fall read, with a heavy focus on healthy relationships, believing in one’s self, and choosing love.

INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

Jillian was awesome enough to answer a few questions for me…

Where did you first get the idea or inspiration for this novel?

The earliest version of this novel was actually a fanfiction! But it’s changed a lot since then–the entire bird/feather motif didn’t exist, there were a lot more characters who didn’t really contribute anything, the love stories were less fleshed out. I think the biggest changes happened from around the 70% mark onward, but everything’s changed a little bit.

Where and when do you typically write? Do you have any pre-writing exercises or habits that help you get into the mood?

I tend to write after dinner, but lately I’ve been sneaking in more writing on my lunch break, too. I don’t really have any habits or exercises, but I do tend to schedule my day in advance, so I always know exactly when I’m writing. Generally I dedicate the 7:30-8:30 block to writing, although sometimes it gets moved around. And on weekends, I’ll schedule more writing time.

Who was your favorite side character to write in The Songbird’s Refrain?

It’s really hard to pick a favorite! They were all super fun in their own way. Maybe Violet, though. She probably had the easiest voice out all of them to write, and required very little editing. Just deleting an f-word here and there when she decided she needed to use three in one sentence.

If you had to set The Songbird’s Refrain in a popular alternate universe (like the world of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the Hunger Games, etc), which would you choose and how would your characters fit in there?

Oh, gosh, what a great question! I definitely know my character’s Hogwarts Houses, so… let’s go with that. Elizabeth is a tiny shy hufflepuff with a crush on the cute Ravenclaw girl who is always reading romance novels and doting on her cat, but doesn’t get the courage to talk to her until a mysterious threat arrives, wearing a dark mark and a red dress… I don’t know, something like that!

What’s something (or multiple somethings) you wish you’d known about writing before you’d started The Songbird’s Refrain?

You’re going to wind up changing lots of things during the drafting process, so don’t worry so much about sentence structure until you’re relatively certain you’re going to keep that chapter the way that it is! Seriously, I could have saved so much time..

Do you have a new project you’re working on now that The Songbird’s Refrain is approaching publication?

There is, but I’m not sure if I’m going to publish it under the Jillian Maria name, so I’m keeping it a secret 😉 But my next big Jillian Maria project is going to be another f/f YA novel about two girls hunting treasure in a small town forest! Technically this is a second draft, but I’m changing some pretty major plot elements and it’s got me really excited. I’ve got it outlined and about one-and-a-half chapters properly drafted right now, and am hoping it’ll be ready for its first round of beta readers after that!

What are you most proud of in regards to The Songbird’s Refrain, whether that be a skill you picked up while writing it or a scene you didn’t think you could conquer, etc?

I think that the themes of the book are really solid. I’m really proud of how everything sort of ties together in the end, because that’s something I really admire in other writers but always have a hard time replicating. It took several drafts, but I think it got there! Also, Chapter 28 always makes me cry. I think that’s a pretty big accomplishment.

While The Songbird’s Refrain is an amazing book, there’s always more to be learned as a writer! Is there something you’re working on improving in your writing right now?

Pacing is always a struggle of mine, so that’s something I think I’ll be working on indefinitely, from now until the end of time. I’d also like to make my writing process a little shorter–it took many, many drafts to get The Songbird’s Refrain to where it is now, and I’d like to improve as a writer so that I can get more polished drafts on the first or second try.

Can we get a picture of you and your writing buddy Sadie? 🙂

Of course! As you can see, she is very helpful.

Jillian Maria enjoys tea, pretty dresses, and ripping out pieces of herself to put in her novels. She writes the books she wants to read, prominently featuring women who are like her in some way or another. A great lover of horror, thriller and mystery novels, most of her stories have some of her own fears lurking in the margins. When she isn’t willing imaginary people into existence, she’s pursuing a career in public relations and content marketing. A Michigan native, Jillian spends what little free time she has hanging out with her friends, reading too much, singing along to musical numbers, and doting on her cat.

You can find her on goodreads and her website.

#the songbird's refrain #new books #ya fantasy #Book Recommendations #author interview #book review

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toomuchtimenerd · 5 years

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Reviews for 3 New Adult Novels

So I got a little bored and decided to take a short break from YA fantasy. I spent a good amount of time browsing the Kindle Unlimited catalog (I very recently found out that even if you don’t pay for Kindle Unlimited these books are still much cheaper than others. It’s like $3-4 for a book compared to the usual 9.99. Incredible). During my search, I came across the New Adult genre (seriously - why is Kindle Unlimited FILLED with NA books?) and because I’ve been needing to obsess over some steamy romance lately I picked up two of the most angsty NA books I could find plus one that simply had stellar reviews on Goodreads. And then I proceeded to finish all three books within about a week. To top it off, two of these books are like 700-page novels. It’s amazing how much one can accomplish when you have literally nothing better to do with your life, isn’t it? Yes, I am poking fun at myself. But it’s all temporary. I’m going to actually try my best to keep these three reviews as spoiler-free as possible, for once.

I’m going to start with Devious Lies by Parker Huntington, as that is the first NA book I finished reading this week. So this 700 page behemoth of a book features your standard enemies-to-lovers with a little bit of suspense/mystery added in for flavor. Oh, and sprinkled with some SERIOUS angst and brooding on top. It also features an age-gap romance, and is slow-burn. Devious Lies is basically about rich girl Emery Winthrop who, at 18 years old, is forced to forgo her rich girl life when her father goes under investigation for embezzlement and subsequently goes in hiding. When the embezzlement is leaked, this basically screws over everyone who’s employed by Emery’s father and everyone who invested stocks in his company. This includes a HUGE amount of people in the southern town Emery grew up in. This also includes the Prescott brothers, Reed and Nash. Reed is the boy that Emery had the biggest crush on her entire life, but Nash is ultimately the main love interest and POV that we see aside from Emery’s.

After the whole embezzlement thing which is a huge factor leading to Nash’s father’s death, Nash is pretty much hellbent on seeking revenge on the Winthrops. By the time the story really gets going, Nash is in his 30s and has essentially built a multi-billion dollar enterprise and of course is one hell of an angsty playboy. Emery is around 22 years old, fresh out of college (paid for by herself) and gets hooked up with a job working for Nash. Nash finds out, and makes it his life goal to make Emery’s life as difficult as possible while trying to find out where her dad is hiding. The entire story is about the progression of their relationship and the secrets surrounding the embezzlement.

So this is probably one of the better angsty love stories I’ve ever read. And that’s saying a lot because I’ve never liked angst all that much (tried it with The Cruel Prince and although I really didn’t like it I actually have been considering giving that trilogy another chance). Angst is usually so... unbelievably NOT well written at all b/c I feel like angsty characters are just angsty without a good enough backstory to defend it. This tends to be more so prominent in contemporary romance novels, or maybe that’s just because I’m a lot pickier when it comes to contemporary romance. But for Devious Lies, I think Huntington does a pretty good job at charging the main characters with believable and understandable angst. Nash grew up almost in poverty and his dad literally worked himself to death while watching trust-fund baby Emery grow up like a southern princess. The embezzlement destroyed Nash’s dad, so I can see why he blames the entirety of the Winthrop family for the hardships he faced growing up. Not to mention, Nash’s life story is the embodiment of a rags-to-riches story so of course he’s going to look down on Emery who supposedly gets millions of dollars per month just from her trust fund.

Devious Lies is told from two alternating POVS, Emery & Nash, and I think the scene I anticipated the most was when Nash found out that Emery isn’t getting a single penny out of her trust fund and that Emery is actually living in poverty and working to survive, not out of boredom. We know that Emery’s life is incredibly tough from the very beginning, considering her family name is tainted and she owes student loans on top of helping fund someone else’s college tuition. Nash doesn’t find out about this until maybe past the halfway point of the book, and for me that was probably my favorite part of the entire book - the realization of how much of a complete ass he’s been to her and how she really is the last person who deserved to be targeted by his thirst for vengeance. This is also when their relationship hits a major turning point and finally dips out of the ‘enemies’ part of enemies-to-lovers.

I think my biggest issue with Devious Lies is how unnecessarily long it is. I think it could absolutely be cut down to around 400 pages, since there were a lot of chapters (especially in the very beginning) that could’ve been very easily abridged or completely left out. The first several chapters covers major events from before Emery goes to college and Nash strikes rich, and from what I can tell these chapters are there to lay out character foundations. But Huntington really could have made these SO MUCH shorter and gotten to the actual story way quicker without sacrificing any character building. Just my two cents, although it seems like most reviewers on Goodreads agree with me over this regard. So despite some unnecessary chapters or parts that could have been left out, I think I’d still give this book a solid 4/5 simply because the author managed to write contemporary romantic angst without making me want to die of second-hand embarrassment. Not to mention, the big plot twists near the end of the story were quite well written and totally worth sticking around for in my opinion.

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Second book is The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata. Apparently Zapata is like a god at writing sports romance, and this book was rated #1 on some kind of Goodreads list plus it was like 4 bucks or something so of course I had to check it out. This large book is around 600+ pages, but out of the three books that I’m reviewing in this post today this is DEFINITELY my favorite one of the three. I haven’t read a sports romance since I was 15 and obsessed with the Escape to New Zealand series, so I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this outside of mega muscle dudes and steamy sex scenes with said mega muscle dudes. But this book managed to exceed whatever I was expecting AND to my surprise only had one actual full-blown sex scene. Which was very tactfully placed and made for a beautiful end to a truly slow-burn romance. And by truly, I mean seriously truly slow-burn. My god, I don’t think I’ve ever read a slow-burn as freaking slow as this one. But wow it was so worth the snail pacing of their relationship. Speaking of the relationship, I need to talk about our two main characters.

We’ve got Vanessa who is super in debt and has been working as a famous football player’s (Aiden) assistant in every way possible for two years by the start of the story. She finally has enough in her savings to quit and focus on her graphic design freelance career, so she leaves and over a month later her boss is at her door asking her to marry him so he could get his US citizenship. The rest of the story is about the progression of their relationship after they get married and move in with each other. Unfortunately this book was written solely in Vanessa’s POV, and I say unfortunately because I would’ve really loved to have some Aiden POV chapters too. He’s not exactly a hardcore brooder, but he’s also not super open about himself either so at times it was REALLY hard to gauge what was going on in his brain. Despite this fact, it became really obvious that he was falling for Vanessa because he started doing more and more stuff for her as their relationship progressed. There were so two scenes in particular where all he did was just show up and be endearingly supportive and I was ready to bawl my eyes out over how uplifting it all was.

The Wall of Winnipeg and Me is just one hell of an uplifting and puts-a-smile-on-your-face type of romance. It’s incredibly slow, and at some parts you may be like “oh my god jUST KISS ALREADY!” but when it all inevitably falls in place by the end you will realize just how worth it the ride was. Zapata does an amazing job of portraying a really healthy loving relationship where both members are just so supportive of each other and genuinely want the best for each other. They are actually relationship goals!! I was actually kind of SAD when I finished this book because despite the happy ending I just needed more wholesomeness. And even more unfortunately, there is no sequel and there is no add-on telling the story from Aiden’s POV. So for anyone who’s looking for a healthy dose of wholesomeness, wants something to tug at their heartstrings, and doesn’t mind just a little bit of sex, this book is 5/5 perfection.

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Last book will be one that I just finished reading about an hour ago, The Kiss Thief by L.J. Shen. Now this one I kind of had to debate on for a little bit before I ultimately decided to read it. I found it on Goodreads around the same time I found The Wall of Winnipeg and Me, but after reading its synopsis the first time I got a little bit turned off by it. Not sure why, and I’m not sure what changed my mind but I ended up giving it a try earlier this afternoon and well well well what do you know I ended up reading it all in almost one sitting. The Kiss Thief, like the previous two books I reviewed in this post, is also a New Adult book (with more graphic scenes than Deviant Lies actually) featuring an enemies-to-lovers relationship between a 19-year-old daughter of a mobster and a 30-year-old US senator. Yep, that’s an 11-year age gap right there. Probably one of the most drastic age gaps I’ve seen in a book, but hey I guess some people are into those. The Chicago mobster’s daughter is named Francesca, and her dad gives her away to Wolfe Keaton for marriage due to reasons that become apparent much later on in the book. This book not only depicts the progression of Francesca and Wolfe’s relationship, but also of Francesca’s growth from a sheltered child into a woman.

Francesca pretty much grew up as a princess, went to an elite boarding school in Europe for most of her life, and was super sheltered. To top it all off, she belonged to an incredibly old-fashioned “traditional” family where women were not expected to go to college but instead stayed at home and pumped out heirs while their husbands told them what to do. Francesca basically grew up her whole life thinking this was her destiny, along with marrying her childhood crush Angelo. But she gets thrown into Wolfe’s arms pretty quickly and early on in the book, and all hell breaks loose as these two absolutely chaotic crackheads go head-to-head with each other. Wolfe is seeking vengeance (why are all the angsty romance novels always centered around seeking revenge?) over something Francesca’s father did, while Francesca just wants to go home and be with Angelo. But things start to change when Francesca realizes Wolfe is actually willing to offer her certain freedoms that her father would never allow. Some of these freedoms include learning how to drive and going to college.

While Wolfe is ultimately the hero to our heroine, he’s such an asshat for maybe the first 50% of the book. He’s broken (just like every single male love interest in every single book ever) for reasons that occurred in his past, he’s hell bent on revenge, and he’s vowed to never take a wife or fall in love. Obviously this all changes once he is engaged to Francesca, whose own stubbornness, willpower, and innocence takes him on one hell of a roller coaster of emotions. These two, and their relationship, are incredibly explosive but good god half the time they are SO toxic for each other. Their relationship is like the epitome of that one couple you know where they keep breaking up and getting back together again, or they keep getting into fights due to miscommunication, or they keep cheating on each other because the other did it first. When their relationship is good it’s pretty dang good, but when it goes south everything just turns into a living nightmare. I definitely wouldn’t recommend this book to people who are easily triggered by toxic relationships (and I mean truly emotionally toxic relationships), but outside of that it’s definitely not a bad read at all. The progression of Francesca and Wolfe’s relationship is actually relatively unique because it’s anything but linear. There are so many ups and so many downs, which makes the peaking points even more heart-wrenching in my opinion. Especially towards the end, the scene between Wolfe and Francesca’s father. Oh god, my heart couldn’t take it anymore. After this book I’m going to need to find a nice YA fantasy book that tones down the romance. And the steaminess, because The Kiss Thief definitely had PLENTY of those. I think of the three books I reviewed in this post, The Kiss Thief is the most graphic (although tbh I think its sex scenes are the most well written of the three). I’m thinking this book gets a 4/5 from me because while it’s good, I didn’t think there was anything about it that made it really special for me. It simply told an entertaining story, it had a unique progression of enemies-to-lovers, and the character progression of the heroine was fairly believable.

In conclusion I recommend Devious Lies and The Kiss Thief for those looking for an angsty romance, and The Wall of Winnipeg and Me for those looking for wholesome slow-burn that will leave your heart feeling kinda fuzzy.

#book reviews #new adult #devious lies #parker huntington #the wall of winnipeg and me #mariana zapata #the kiss thief #lj shen #contemporary romance #romance #slow burn romance #enemies-to-lovers

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reading-with-nixie · 7 years

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Top 11(ish) Books of 2017

This was a weird year for me reading-wise in a lot of ways. For one - I didn’t just fail my 100 book challenge, I basically turbo-failed it: I only read about 44 books (I’m on 45 now). Like last year, this year was not conducive to reading for many reasons. As most of you know, this year was pretty shit for me until about late September, and then in early October I switched to full-time employment and needed to chop my long commute into three much shorter parts - meaning that reading on my commute became harder.

All that said, I actually read more books that I actually liked this year than I have previously, because I started being less strict about my rules for putting down books. I used to only stop reading books if I had a major ideological difference with the text (not the story, the text - if this confuses you, talk to me). But this year I also stopped reading books if I noticed that I wasn’t inclined to read them. I finally settled into the fact that there are enough books out there that I’d love to waste my time on ones I don’t. So instead of 10 or 9 favorites this year - I have 11 or 12 (I lumped two books together; I’ll explain why when I get there).

So here we go, in no particular order:

1) Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

You’ll probably notice a trend for this year, which is that I read a lot of horror/thriller novels - Elizabeth is Missing falls into the thriller category, but only because of the point of the view in which it is written. Namely, the protagonist is an elderly woman named Maud who struggles with dementia.

She is convinced that her friend Elizabeth has gone missing and that her older sister Sukey (who disappeared herself after World War II) was murdered by her husband. But no one is listening to her about Elizabeth, nor did anyone listen to her about Sukey - so Maud decides to solve both mysteries by herself.

This book was memorable for me, again, because of the POV. The book portrays exactly how terrifying it is to feel with all your might that something is true, only to have everyone around you be dismissive. The reader also gets a glimpse into Maud forgetting things that her daughter, caretaker, and other people surrounding her say. So what happened to Sukey? What happened to Elizabeth? Is Elizabeth even missing in the first place?

All in all a very interesting read, but if you’re already terrified of aging, I’d maybe pass.

2) The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley

Kameron Hurley is a Hugo award winner and a woman...which means she’s needed to deal with a lot of shitty nerd boys. This (pretty inclusive) book discusses feminist sff, misogyny in nerd culture, and (most prominently) what it’s like trying to thrive in sff as a woman. Especially a woman who writes diverse books.

This book is great for feminists and nerds - but above all I recommend it for my woman writerly friends. I really enjoyed her snark, but the main thing I got out of this book was an extreme increase in my desire to create.

3) The Girl with All the Gifts by MR Carey

This was definitely one of the more inventive books I’ve read this year or possibly ever. I’ve described it to people as being a zombie book that reads (at least in part) like a fairy tale; it’s been compared to Matilda a lot -- which I think makes sense.

The narrator for much (though not all) of the novel is Melanie, who is a child zombie who “grew up” in an army base/school for child zombies. Then one day the school is attacked and Melanie, her favorite teacher (their relationship is really fucking touching), and some military folks escape and must try to survive out in the world.

The book switches narrators, which allows for some interesting shifts in perspective. Some parts feel more like a typical horror novel than others, but all in all I would highly recommend this to someone who is interested in seeing a unique approach to zombies or horror. Or just people who like horror novels and also like Matilda.

4) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Another really unique one -- but very, very different from the last. This one won the Pulitzer Prize and pretty much all the awards in 2014 and goddamn if there isn’t a reason.

This one is less unique for the way it tells its story (it’s very lyrical, but not particularly groundbreaking in that regard as far as I remember), but for the content of the story itself. It’s a story set during WWII in Europe...but not the sort of story you’d expect. The main characters of the story are a young blind girl living in Nazi-occupied France and a German kid who ends up (obviously) working with Nazis. Neither of them ends up in a concentration camp or anything like that. Rather, Marie-Laure must deal with the social and economic everyday consequences of the occupation and Werner sees terrible shit happening around him all the time and doesn’t interfere despite having an increasingly bad feeling about what the German army is doing.

Obviously, the novel is heavy as fuck, so definitely proceed with tissues.

5) Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire and The Diviners by Libba Bray

These two go together in my head, so I’m also putting them together here. They have completely different premises, but I read them at the same time and there are some weird similarities. Most notably, both books have serial killer antagonists who remove body parts from their victims - and the same body parts at that.

Every Heart a Doorway is a really interesting novella which explores the idea what happens to children once they return from magical worlds (a la Alice in Wonderland and The Chronicles of Narnia). Nancy is a newcomer to a boarding school for these kids who makes fast friends with a couple of her classmates. When someone starts killing them, Nancy and her new pals come under suspicion and need to prove their innocence, and in so doing save the school from being shut down. It’s actually a novella, so it’s fairly easy to read in a short period of time. And gets a TON of brownie points for having a CANONICALLY ASEXUAL MAIN CHARACTER.

The Diviners is set in the Roaring 20s and features a cast of teens with various and sundry magical powers that have to deal with shutting down a ghost that some dumbass rich kids unleash with a luigi board in the first scene. I was kind of pissed that there’s a scene early on in which sexual assault occurs and the narrative never addresses it as such - but aside from that major qualm I have with it, it’s solid. Also, totally spooky.

I recommend both of these books - just maybe not the same time? Don’t repeat my mistakes.

6) The Secret History by Donna Tartt

If you know me more than just in passing, you know that I love me some Dark Shit™ in my literature. The Secret History more than satisfied that craving. The story, set in a rural Vermont college (apparently a Bennington expy...which I’m gonna go ahead and say is NOT a complement to Bennington), is one of pretentious classics students who are basically a cult. A new kid comes to the school, gets indoctrinated into said basically-cult’s bullshit, and gets fully entrenched into their bullshit when they semi-accidentally kill a guy and THEN kill one of the basically-cult-members (this is not a spoiler - the book literally opens with them killing the dude).

It’s definitely not for everybody, but if you are also Team Dark Shit™ and like gorgeous writing - it’s probably for you. You’ll probably get even more out of it if you A) went to college in rural New England or B) were a classics student.

7) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Hate U Give is another book that got a LOT of hype and 100% deserves every amount of praise it received.

Sixteen year old Staff is one of few Black kids at a private school and still lives in a poor neighborhood, thus she divides herself up into two versions of herself to fit who those two communities expect her to be. One night, she’s being driven home from a party by an old friend (Khalil) they get pulled over and Khalil is fatally shot by an officer.

Both the media at large, at least one of Starr’s white friends, and a local drug lord try to paint Khalil as a thug. Thus Starr has to decide whether to stay quiet and keep her life in tact or to speak up and upend everything about her life.

Highly recommend, especially for other White folks.

8) Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Another thing to know about my reading habits: I really love mixed media and weird layout/typographical decisions.

Give me maps, photographs, whole pages with only one word, transcripts, just ALL the variety of ways of telling -- and I’m a happy camper. Like, go to a bookstore and flip through a copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. There is a reason its my favorite.

Illuminae has an interesting story and all of these things.

It’s sci-fi YA told from multiple POVs - the main characters are two halves of a couple that breaks up on the day that their home planet is destroyed, but there’s also an AI who becomes progressively more and more of an interesting character as it goes along.

On top of a conspiracy, there’s a lot of action, potentially evil tech, and a scary af plague. It’s a little much for some readers, but I think it works - and it’s interesting to see several genres intersect.

I highly recommend this for other mixed media loving folks and people who want to see how many tropes can interact with each other at once.

9) Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Unlike most of the books I have on this list - I would actually recommend this to VERY FEW PEOPLE. It has aspects that could be triggering (namely, there’s a lot of suicide and some child abuse), it has multiple dog deaths (one of which is probably the saddest I’ve ever read; it had me crying on the bus), and is fucking TERRIFYING...but I loved it, so here it is.

In the world of Bird Box, something weird started happening - people started seeing something which launched them into a violent frenzy, causing them to sometimes kill those around them and always kill themselves. The book follows two stories - one is set five years after people started seeing whatever it is that’s driving them to madness, when Malorie and her two children need to leave their safe haven and travel down a river to a safe location that may or may not exist any longer; the other is set when Malorie is pregnant, people are just starting to see the thing, and Malorie finds (and loses) a chosen family in a sort of “how we got here” situation.

I love this one for two main reasons: 1) It addresses things in a really interesting, vaguely Lovecraftian way because, by the very nature of the crisis, NO ONE has seen the thing (or even spoken to someone who has seen the thing) and lived to talk about it - so the characters spend the whole time wearing blindfolds, covering their eyes, or inside with things to block any windows and the readers spend the entire book having NO IDEA what the thing is. And that makes pretty much everything more terrifying. One of the most nerve-wracking moments in the novel is when a LEAF falls on someone’s shoulder and there’s the question of “OH SHIT WHAT IF IT WASN’T A LEAF” but the person obviously can’t just check. There are also several times when whatever the heck this thing is is in the same space as Malorie (in one of them it actually plays around with her goddamn blindfold) and obviously she wants to see what it is, but she can’t or she and her kids will die. Both Malorie and the reader also need to trust that her kids won’t look. 2) It addresses the sorts of questions that would occur in that situation. What if you view whatever the thing is indirectly? Are animals immune to the insanity? Couldn’t blind people just go about their lives more or less normally, provided they don’t end up around someone who saw the thing?

You can judge for yourself (or ask more questions), to figure out if this would be a good or safe read for you.

10) Uprooted by Naomi Novik

To say that I enjoyed the experience of reading Uprooted would be completely incorrect. Anyone who was around me when I read it can tell you about the pained noises I was making most of the time. Most of the book was a conga of backfiring plans, terrifying bullshit, and the protagonist being thrown into generally unpleasant and/or bleak-looking situations. At one point I actually told Lauren “I...I don’t think I would ever say this...but it might be too depressing for me?”

That being said, it’s actually really good - which is why I kept reading through the pain. All of the characters were really engaging, even the ones I didn’t like; I wanted to know what happened plot-wise; there’s a really interesting magic system; and so much fae nonsense.

Agnieszka lives in a small village located near malevolent woods,a wizard takes her away from the village....and basically the entire rest of the plot is spoilers. But you should read it if you’re into fae nonsense.

11) The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

I haven’t finished this book yet, but I’m close enough to the end that I feel comfortable recommending it.

This is another ensemble cast book featuring a spaceship full of compelling characters (one of whom is basically an alien cultural anthropologist - which is neat) that form an amazing little chosen family.

It has a cool plot, too, but let’s be real - this book is about the characters and their relationships. Insofar as it’s possible to have representation in a book with mostly alien characters, this book pulls it off pretty well. There’s at least one lesbian couple, an essentially chronically ill character, an alien/AI relationship, and an alien who’s basically autistic. A fabulous people who like the ideas inherent in science fiction but are bored of pew-pew action crap.

I also have one anti-recommendation to close this out, because I feel the need to warn people away from this book.

DO NOT READ BOY, SNOW, BIRD by Helen Oyeyemi. It’s a transphobic piece of shit.

It starts off gorgeous, has some nice magical realism, involves some really good discussion of racism and what it means to be biracial...and then gets WILDLY transphobic very suddenly in the last twenty pages or so. I’ve heard people say “OH, but it’s actually a METAPHOR, you see!” but here’s the thing, you can’t use real marginalized groups as your goddamn metaphors. NOPE. Stay away from this piece of garbage, or at least don’t give Oyeyemi your money and everything except the last two chapters out of a library copy.

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unapologeticallya · 7 years

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Review: Zero Repeat Forever by G.S. Prendergast

Stars: 4/5

Okay so I was really interested in the book because the description sounded like The 5th Wave and I did enjoy Zero Repeat Forever a lot, but it was pretty similar to T5W. Don't get me wrong-- this book could stand on its own and it really is a riveting YA sci-fi novel... but as someone who has read and loved T5W series, it's almost impossible to not make comparisons. I'm going to try not to in this review though. Just know that this is a YA books about alien invasions and, at least from my experience, there aren't a whole lot of them out there, except for T5W which happens to be addicting and popular and sets a high bar for alien YA novels, at least for me. Let's start with the good! I was so into this book. I read it in one morning and just did not put it down the entire time. And that's sort of weird because the pace is on the slower side and the book itself is almost 500 pages. So I'm not entirely sure why I found it so interesting... but it does have that X factor of hmm-this-is-fun-why-don't-I-spend-five-hours-out-of-my-day-unable-to-peel-my-eyes-from-these-pages. I thought the whole idea of the aliens was really cool and original. I don't want to spoil the specifics, but I love when an author can come up with something that's so intricate and unusual that I'm just sitting here like what kind of twisted mind came up with this??? Overall, I liked the writing and the creative ideas. I'm going to get into my complaints and it'll look like I didn't like this book that much, but I really did enjoy it. I'm not going to lie-- this wasn't groundbreaking fiction. I just thought it was fun-- I'd probably recommend it to a friend, but I wouldn't consider it one of my favorite books. Now for the elements that I wasn't such a fan of... I know it's strange to like a novel, but just not like almost any of the characters, but that's how I felt. I didn't care for Raven (the main character). I thought she was sort of textbook angsty YA narrator. And I get why-- she's in a really rough situation. And maybe I could have accepted that she is just sort of an unlikable character. BUT then when the love interest(s) describe her it's like she is this sweet, delicate angel. AND THAT IS JUST INACCURATE. I understand that their perspectives were biased based on their own feelings towards her (Eighth's especially, because of his backstory), but I just saw the contrast as more inconsistent and a way of the author trying to make Raven more relatable and likable to the reader, than her making some grand statement about manic pixie dream girls. This also definitely impacted my feelings on the romance aspect of the novel. There was quite a bit of emphasis on it and I just really preferred the whole alien-world-domination plot over the romance bit. I liked Eighth and I liked how he was portrayed as a second main character (even though his chapters were generally much shorter than Raven's). I also liked reading about the scenes when Raven and Eighth were together because they were filled with awkwardness and irony, but I didn't necessarily ship them at all. I plan on continuing on with this series. I'm not quite sure how long it will be, since Goodreads doesn't have the rest of the books in the series up yet, but I'm guessing it will be either a duology or a trilogy. I think this story works well as a series, because there is just no way any part of a worldwide alien invasion could have been resolved in just one book. There are some things I would be especially interesting in seeing Prendergast explore in the next book(s). I'm curious to see the international impact of the invasion. Raven even mentions some of the other characters she interacts with who traveled from different countries and can't return home, so how is everyone else handling it?? The novel takes place in Canada and the characters are in a pretty isolated location. BUT when they do get wifi, I was pretty shocked to see that everyone would just watch gory, alien-murder propaganda. I get that the whole situation is hella traumatic, but why wouldn't they try to reach out to more people?? Anyway, try out this novel if you're looking for a fun yet frightening story about killer (and cuddly?) aliens wiping out the human race. Despite my nitpicking, I really did enjoy this novel and am excited for the next one. Current release date: August 29, 2017 ***I received a free e-ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

***My review is also posted on Goodreads

#book reviews #My Reviews #zero repeat forever #ya lit #g.s. prendergast #gabrielle prendergast

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literaticat · 2 years

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Regarding another question where a poster asked you to rank which age groups are easier to sell in kid lit, what do you define as easier? Are these rankings still the same if you looked at it in terms of more profitable? Typical advance numbers?

I mean did you.... did you read the answer? I'm pretty sure I said some versions of:

"I don't think about it like that" - "this is not a question I CAN answer" - "no category is "easy" to sell" - "ALL these categories could be ranked LAST in a list of easiest to hardest, this is a pointless endeavor" - and perhaps I didn't explicitly say "this is a bad question" -- but you understand that the entire post was about how it's a BAD QUESTION, right????

How would I define "easier"? Well -- I wouldn't, right? Based on those answers, it seems I don't define ANY of them as 'easier' -- rather, if I'm evaluating if I think I can sell a book, I'm evaluating the book on its own specific merits, understanding that ALL categories are hard.

I think I've also talked AT LENGTH on here about how uncomfy it makes me to try and give "typical" advance numbers because they can really be all over the shop depending on MYRIAD factors. But whatever, here's a stab at your also-terrible "profitability" rank:

YA & MG fiction - obviously (???) novels usually make more money than much shorter books. Advances COULD be anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000 [to much more, and sometimes less, depending on size of the publisher, author track record, etc etc.] -- USUALLY YA advances are a bit higher than MG advances - like I'd say a median for normal YA from a good-sized publisher might be 30/35 while MG might be 20/25 (unless it's one of the thousand examples one could give where the opposite is true) (it's silly to compare books to one another omg)

GN author-illustrator - Again, these are all over the map depending on size of the publisher and so much more - 5k to 50k (unless it's a lot more, or indeed, less.)

PB Author-Illustrator or illustrator-only - Author-illustrators and illustrator-only usually make more $ than Author-Only (unless that author is famous) - oh wait it's also 5k to 50k [unless it's much more, or sometimes less]

PB text-only - 3k to 20k [unless the person is famous or something obvs]

Chapter books - 3k - 15k each for a new author (but also these would be in multi-book deals generally) - for an established author possibly 25k each - these are unlikely to go VERY high unless it's a famous author or something

Early Reader text - 3k-15k probably? Unlikely to go VERY high

Board book / Novelty book - 3k-15k probably? Unlikely to go VERY high

But of course -- none of this means anything, YOUR book might be very different indeed, I'm not a fortune teller - and the goal of selling a book isn't just the advance, but also hopefully the ROYALTIES that you will be earning for the rest of your life if the book does well, regardless of what your advance was. And no, I can't tell you which category of books are most likely to earn royalties! I have had great royalties earned in every category - -and also a whole lot of books that never earn out in every category.

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reading-with-nixie · 8 years

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Top Books of 2016

Hi Y’all,

This has been a HORRIBLE reading year for me. I had a lot of (mostly bad) Life Events and therefore spent a lot of year having neither the time nor the concentration to read. So I only ended up reading about 25 books. But the good news is that I didn’t have a quantity goal this year. Rather, I decided to only read books with queer characters (LGBTQ+, which in practice unfortunately ended up mostly LGT -- though a lot of polysexual characters came up toward the end!). And a bunch of them were either badly-written or included pretty bad representation. But I managed to pick a surprisingly large number of books that were actually worth recommending. So here’s my top NINE of this year, in basically no particular order, except for my top two.

Hero by Perry Moore.

This one has a gay protagonist, and that’s certainly a part of the story - but our Thom has a lot more going on in his life than just coming to terms with his sexuality. Mainly the fact that he has superpowers and has become buddy-buddy with an elite superhero team that his dad (a former hero) used to be part of and now has negative feelings toward. There’s also the fact that Thom’s mom left he and his dad.

I enjoyed this book partially because there’s a lot more to it than just a coming out narrative and also because it doesn’t shy away from other huge issues. Racism is a large part of one character’s backstory, another character has cancer and both are treated seriously but without being used in a way that feels exploitative. Rather, these characters issues are used to contrast Thom’s and put his own situation into perspective.

Recommended for: Social justice clerics and MCU fans.

Own Voices?: Yes. Perry Moore was openly gay.

George by Alex Gino

George has been talked about a lot in certain corners of the internet, and it’s really no wonder why. The book’s a middle-grade book with a trans protagonist. Seriously, George (who has spent her first day out as Melissa by the end of the novel) is a 10-year-old trans girl. It’s just about as heart-breaking as you can imagine, with our elementary schooler protagonist encountering issues with gender roles, most prominently that she wants the part of Charlotte in her school’s production of Charlotte’s Web but is denied the part for unfortunately obvious reasons.

But it’s also really optimistic. Melissa’s mom and brother don’t really get her dysphoria, but they’re earnestly trying to, which is a great first step. And her best friend is wonderful. While some bad things happen to Melissa over the course of the book, the end makes it seem like her story is set to continue in an upward trajectory.

Recommended for: Miniature humans confused about their gender and people who love them.

Own Voices?: Alex Gino is genderqueer and uses they/them pronouns whereas Melissa uses she/hers. So both are trans, just different variations thereof. So I’m gonna go with yes again here.

Saving Hamlet by Molly Booth

Full disclosure: This book was written by a friend from college. But know that I wouldn’t put it on this list if it wasn’t genuinely great. Sometimes I legitimately forgot that it was written by someone I know because it was so polished (as it should have been, it was published by Disney Hyperion) and just GOOD in a way that feels removed from anybody I know personally, if that makes any sense. ANYWAY.

Saving Hamlet tells the story of a girl who falls through a trapdoor and ends up in Elizabethan London during the first production of Hamlet while stage managing her high school’s production of the same play. She needs to deal with all sorts of changes in her life while putting on two productions of Hamlet at once and dealing with TimeTravel!Jetlag.

Our protagonist, Emma, isn’t queer (presumably. She expresses romantic/sexual feelings for several people, all of whom are dudes) - but her best friend is bisexual and actually uses the term. There is also a minor character who turns out to be gay in a minor reveal. The queerness of these characters isn’t really part of Emma’s adventure, but does factor in a way that makes sense. Doubly so because theatre.

Recommended for: Shakespeare geeks and people who would like to see a fresh approach to time travel.

Own Voices?: Molly is a GREAT ally, but as far as I know she’s straight.

Simon VS the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Speaking of queer high schoolers and theatre, there’s also this marvelous book. I FLEW through it, having read the vast majority of it on Christmas and staying up all night on 27th to finish it.

The premise is that Simon, a high school junior, has been having an email courtship with a anonymous guy who also goes to his school. Then he forgets to log out of his email in one of the school library’s computers and someone takes a screenshot of them. Said dude then blackmails Simon. It seems like it could be REALLY deep and dark based on the description. But it’s actually pretty light-hearted and fluffy. Though Simon (and his email not-quite-boyfriend-but-basically-boyfriend) faces anxiety about coming out and gets bullied slightly after, there isn’t any violence against him and his family is pretty damn great.

The email exchanges were all so cute and good to read, and all the teenage characters actually think and talk like teenagers. Several of the characters fuck up in pretty big ways (sexism and racism are also themes in the books), which the narrative takes an understanding but firmly negative attitude toward -- which is exactly what YA should involve, in my honest opinion.

Recommended for: David Levithan fans and people-people.

Own Voices?: Becky Albertalli is married to a dude, which doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but means that if she’s queer it’s not immediately evident if she’s queer. Regardless,she seems like a pretty kickass ally based off her work with LGBTQIA folks as an adolescent psychologist. Also, this interview with her is pretty great and makes me want to be her friend.

Luna by Julie Anne Peters

I’d been meaning to read this book for a while and finally got around to it this year. It’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it really exceeded my expectations.

Luna is incredibly interesting for a lot of reasons.For starters, the protagonist is the sister of a trans woman dealing with being her sister’s only confidante while trying to navigate normal high schooler problems. Then there’s the fact that ALL the characters in the novel are flawed; the protagonist isn’t perfect, neither is her sister, and her parents are such complicated people. They all take turns being really selfish. But all of them are rendered sympathetic to varying degrees despite being flawed.

Another really cool thing about Luna is that its message is really different from a lot of other earlier LGBT novels (and being published in 2006, it’s definitely on the older side of literature about trans characters). A lot of older stuff tells readers that if people come out and/or transition bad things will happen to them. Whereas in Luna, bad things happen to the eponymous trans character, but the narrative makes it clear that NOT coming out and transitioning is the WORSE option for her.

Recommended for: Close friends and family members of trans folks (though probably not trans folks themselves; this book would make an excellent 101 course, but lacks a lot of nuance). Also, people who want to read about complex familial relationships.

Own Voices?: Julie Anne Peters has a wife, and judging by her work she’s probably a lesbian (though I guess she could be bi? Who knows? If you do tell me?). But she’s not trans.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

This book is so long; it clocks in at almost 900 pages, but it’s so, so worth it.

In case you don’t know about Cloud Atlas, it’s basically a series of interwoven short stories that take place over a freakishly long span of time. Reincarnation is involved and some really cool aspects thread their way through all or some of the stories. There’s some really cool thriller and dystopian stuff and a lot of good characters...one of whom is bisexual (and maybe what we would consider poly?) and whose lover appears in another story much older. Neither of the characters have their queerness at the center of their stories, but it’s still undeniable there.

Recommended for: People who aren’t intimidated and/or enjoy long, era-sprawling narratives. Fans of Margaret Atwood and/or Agatha Christie would enjoy some elements for sure.

Own Voices?: Mitchell is married to a women, so it’s unclear.

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

This is maybe probably the trippiest thing I’ve ever read. The basic premise of the book is that we follow four protagonists, each of which gain access to a sexually-transmitted fantastical world. Yes, really. If you have sex with someone who has a map on their skin, you go to this world which has a very Lotus Eater effect on a lot of people. It is in turns beautiful and creepy.

Sex being the main driving force behind the plot, there are a wide variety of sexual orientations presented here. We have lesbians, bisexuals, and a wonderful poly triad among other things. I mean, people also have sex with humanized trains and bees (again, yes, really) - but that doesn’t operate in such a way as to minimize the queerness. It won a Lambda, so that’s pretty rad.

That said, please be aware that the book deals with rape and there is a suicide attempt.

Recommended for: Sense8 fans and people who enjoyed The Night Circus.

Own Voices?: Probably? All of Valente’s bios state that she lives with her “partner” specifically, so that to me points to her likely being queer. I’m not 100% sure of that though.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

This book was given to me by a friend a while ago and had been languishing on my bookshelf for a long time. Had I known more about it, it would have been there for a much shorter period of time. It was my second favorite of 2016.

Kavalier and Clay tells the story of two cousins coming of age in the WWII era and becoming comicbook industry icons. The story has some really interesting magical elements that blend brilliantly with the gritty realities of Kavalier and Clay.

Josef Kavalier is sixteen when he leaves his Jewish family behind in Prague and lives with the weight of worrying about their fates for the majority of the novel. Samuel Clay, on the other hand, must deal with the issues inherent in being gay in 1940s America. The novel is written like a biographical text, so we get to know both these characters (both their lovers) fairly well.

Recommended for: Fans of comic books, history, or comic book history. Also, Jewish folks.

Own Voices?: Michael Chabon is married to a woman, but as previously stated that doesn’t prove or disprove anything - it only means that nothing is conclusive. However, Chabon is Jewish.

Everything Leads to You by Nina Lacour

If you’ve seen me at basically any point in 2016, I raved to you about Everything Leads to You. It’s the best. It doesn’t really have any merit as Literature™, but it’s about girls who like girls getting to be HAPPY and there’s more to the book than just the romance. It’s a goddamn miracle. Everything got a lot of hype and it’s really, really well-deserved. It was my favorite of 2016.

Emi has a really rad internship helping design movie sets, and she’s doing her first solo set when she encounters a mystery. And a really pretty lady. Both the mystery and her feelings about the girl in question are both focal points of the book, with the plots twining together and being pretty evenly balanced.

There is no coming out story, since Emi already knows she’s into girls (there’s actually a subplot in which she needs to deal with lingering feelings for her ex). Emi’s experience with being queer is largely positive, but that can’t be said for all the queer characters in the book. The book examines racism (Emi is biracial) and class issues while not making the book ABOUT its social justice dealings.

Recommended for: Girls who desperately want a w/w beach read and art students.

Own Voices?: Yup! Nina Lacour has a wife!

#lgbtq books #own voices #queer representation

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