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yoramkelmer · 6 years ago

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The decline and death of YA Dystopia

I remember the spring of 2012, me and my friend where going in to watch the first movie of The Hunger Games. Although the storyline reminded me a lot of Battle Royal, from what I had read back then, I was really looking forward to watching it.

I loved it! And I think it is one of the best dystopian movies that have been made in the past 10 years.

Two years before, the Twilight craze had already died out with Eclipse - I know this because after the release of that movie, there were less and less Twilight references in media, and I also think that most people were already fed up with it.

And with that, the Vampire craze it brought died out too.

It was only a matter of time before the next big craze was coming.

And I pretty much knew after watching The Hunger Games that that would be the next big craze. And in a way, I actually welcomed it.

Katniss was not an obnoxious selfish Mary Sue like Bella Swan was, and although there was a love triangle in the books, there was just so much more to this series than the Twilight Saga had to offer: instead of a shallow, forced supernatural romance we get a dystopian world where basically the entire premise is a nightmare fuel, and it was all written out greatly by Suzanne Collins.

Though there was one thing I did not see coming - that the craze would not only be about the Hunger Games franchise itself, but YA Dystopia in itself.

I first noticed it when I whent to see Hunger Games: Catching Fire the day after the premiere in Berlin in the winter of 2013. The first trailer was of a series I had not heard of until that day - Divergent. While the vague premise the trailer showed seemed very interesting, what remained in my memory was that Kate Winslet played against the type here, and that was a thing I really looked forward to.

Flash forward to a year later, in the spring of 2014 - and I got one of the last tickets to a Pre-Premiere of Divergent at the local cinema (I was still living on the danish countryside back then), and I was excited.

And I really loved it - the movie was very good, and I was really stunned by Kate Winslets performance. But I must say, that although I really love Shailene Woodleys performance in the movie, I was very undecided whether Tris was a Mary Sue or not. I realised later that she was. It was also later that I realised that Kate Winslet was the only thing I remember from it in a good way, and from what I read then online about the series was very cringey, Besides the fact that Tris was a gigantic and whiny Mary Sue I realised that Veronica Roth isnt that good a writer, especially in her world building, and that the villains are mustache twirling carboard villains.

Then, much later that year, it´s september, and I have already moved to Copenhagen. A friend and I go in to see The Maze Runner, and although the trailer wasnt too interesting, we were still kinda excited to see it. The movie was...meh.

I think this basically marked the point where the end of the YA Dystopia genre started to die.

It was at that point just way too obvious that they in style tried way too hard to be the next Hunger Games. And failed, basically.

I still actually had some hopes for Insurgent, the following spring. But although I enjoyed the movie when I saw it, in hinsight...it was shit. And even here it became too obvious that Tris was a Mary Sue, despite Shailene Woodleys good performance. And yet again, Kate Winslet was easily the best part of the movie. And then her role died.

And as I already saw coming, it really dragged the sequel, which thanks to Harry Potter, Twilight and the Hunger Games was split in two.

Or, that was how it was planned.

But first to the Scorch Trials - that movie sucked. It was probably not only the worst of the Maze Runner movies, but probably also the worst YA Dystopia film adaptation I´ve ever seen. The entire dialogue was so clicheéd that it hurts, and the entire anti-science sentiment was even worse than in the Divergent series.

But yeah. Then we all had the grand finale of The Hunger Games movies, and despite the uncanny valley CGI!Philip Seymour Hoffman in the background, it was still an amazing end to a series.

The following year, in the spring, we got - or were supposed to, at least - to see the start of the grand finale of the Divergent series, Allegiant, which was as I mentioned split into two, with the second part having a original title and storyline.

That was a mistake.

First off, even though I haven´t read the books, I know from what I read online of all the changes, and therefore it all felt so strange.

But yeah. Much of the plot was clicheéd, and much didnt make any sense.

It bombed. So hard that they cancelled a sequel for the big screen to make the finale a TV movie - both Shailene Woodley and Toby James refused to participate in it, and I don´t blame them, to be honest.

But alas - 3 years after basically everyone forgot about the Maze Runner, the Death Cure was released. Almost no one noticed, including me - and I was only reminded of it´s existence yesterday when I saw the Cinema Sins video of it. And it looks even worse than I expected - it also confirmed to me that the entire YA-Dystopia craze now finally has died, and the movie didn´t notice that somehow.

I think when someone in the future will make a retroactive look at the 2010s, the YA-Dystopia craze will be one of the central pop cultue phaenomenons that will be featured.

It´s actually totally strange to think that the decade is almost over....

And I wonder what will be the big craze of the coming twenties?

So, what franchise do you think marked the end of the YA-Dystopia craze?

Divergent or The Maze Runner?

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princess-of-embarrassment · 5 years ago

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Some 3 am realizations about life, relationships and maybe more?? idk whatever have fun.

Ok before i start on this shit I am going to say it is 3 am and i am just dumping some thoughts like i usually do. Sorry for the shit grammar, disorganized thoughts and all that jazz... In a sense i feel like this is a letter to myself and what i have been trying so damn hard to understand so yeah i am talking to myself and to this website. I think. Idk. i will probably delete this in the morning when i am back on bad bitch mode and go back to posting memes pero por ahora vamos a ver como nos va. Mayb ei will leave it up bc i forget or because i dont care who sees it. sorry for the shitshow of a post you are about to read but you probably already kinda know me so yay! I debated posting this shit because the internet is a wildin place but oh well!!1!!11

ok tumblr it is 3 in the morning and i have 100% regressed into being a 15 years old on this damn website shitposting and reblogging some corny ass posts but it feels right, so here i am attempting to process it through the only form i know how to actually know how to cope with things. I mean memes are cool and all but lets be real, they don’t address the problems. this is the one place i can brain dump all of my thoughts and not really care about where they go because they will eventually disappear in the tumblr algorithm.

My old blog was often the only separation I had between my reality and the life i really wished i had, but now I have that life that I always wanted so why the hell am i back at square one? To be fair, the life that i have right now may not be envied by many but its a pretty darn good life to me. Im safe 99.9% of the time. The other .1% is a story for another day. I have been trying to figure out for months as to why i’m back to being so active on here and now that it’s 3:00am I realize it’s because of self isolation (thanks corona!).

Let me start off by saying this; my reality is not something I am going to be able to escape. Ever. It has brought me to where i am today, allowed me to meet some really incredible people and i am so so grateful. I have learned so much in the past few years. i am grateful what happened happened. Wild, i know. I escaped it physically but i cannot escape it mentally, at least for now. School, work, writing, dealing with my freshmen’s problems was what kept my brain occupied and away from having to face the part of my life that I really just want to forget. To be fait my trauma response has taken pretty good care of fucking up my memory and all of those fun things but ironically the things i want to forget about so badly are the things i think about every single day without skipping a beat. brains are weird like that.

I am ok now but sometimes i forget and fall back into my new reality. That is ok. People that know my story ask me why i don’t write about it on a public platform because it’s inspiring?? or hopeful?? or whatever cliche people want to use when addressing a topic that makes them uncomfortable and they want to feel better about the life they live. 21 year old latina girl faces adversity and lives the american dream (barely)..i mean, i did run a whole ass magazine and wrote a piece for graduation including some details of my story but that was like the rated g version with only the little sad parts that people are able to handle without feeling like their comfort zone is being violated. MEdia is a wonderful place isnt it??? so i get where they are coming from, but what they dont understand is that an international platform is not where i can share any of these thoughts... Listen, I know this is cryptic and confusing and you are probably really curious about what the hell happened to me but i don’t feel safe to type it out on international platforms with public access. I don’t know if i ever will... Yeah i can talk to people i trust about it because i am in control of the space and the situation and who is obtaining that information but you never really know with the internet.

maybe in the future i’ll write a book on it. even then i will probably use my alias make it a YA fiction with an added love story that ends in a happy ending. Maybe one day one of the school girl crushes I have will turn into that YA story and i dont have to make any of it up.

If i am honest...this blog is the only safe place i will probably ever have where he wont find me. He can find my school and my address and phone number and work and everything in between because that is just the way things work. Yeah yeah i get it stop posting shit on social media that is how he finds you whatever. What people dont understand is that I cant stop living my life again. I already started so i cant go back to giving him that power. It makes no sense. Also, his family is too confused by all of the ups and downs of the last year that they dont really know where i am going or what i am doing. So anyways, long story short - That’s why i am back on here, because it has become the same written safe haven I had when i was 15 and tried to escape my physical reality. Only difference is that i am trying to manage the mental reality of it all...

I also have so many questions about what to do next. Like i mentioned in another post, i didnt think i would make it to 21 but i did. I didnt think this far ahead so i guess i will just figure it out along the way but hear me out. How do i face a new reality that no one can relate to. At least not the people around me. How do i make friends and know when the “right time” is to tell them hey btw if this happens lmk lol. Even more importantly (because it relates to my future as world famous YA novelist.. lol sure grace...) How do I even date someone??? many questions are tied to that. like... I know theyre going to ask. “what happened?” “who is it?” “how can i help?” “Isnt there something we can do?”. i am more than willing to answer these questions because fuck, if im dating someone i would be curious too.. but do i even answer those questions. How do i know they are ready to handle that kind of information? how can i guarantee theyre not going to leave. How can i know that they arent going to be frightened by what has happened. how do i know they are not going to think differently of me. How do i explain to this person “yeah i have stress nightmares about what happened and when i wake up i think i am back in that situation and not where i live and i have to remind myself i am in a whole different area code but then its fine lol so if we share a bed at any point in time dont be alarmed if i wake up in a panic.” or how do i explain to them when something triggers me and all i can do is freeze because maybe it is him. Maybe he finally found me. but then i am back to reality and move on with my day because that is the only thing left to do. I cant throw myself a shitty pity party thats generic as fuck and i dont have time for it but whatever. moving on. next question. How do i know theyre not gonna walk away because they have the misconception so many people have?? Just because i went through some shit doesnt mean i am unstable or unloveable or whatever bs people think. This isnt going to go away. This shit is a aprt of me but it doesn not define me. it is not who i am.I dont have the option to make it go away but people have the option to pick up their things and go. seems unfair to me sometimes. It seems unfair to generalize people like that. I am always open to a new relationship but people expect me to be sitting at home scared to go out into the world and live my life. I have a life to live and i am so ready to explore it by myself or with someone by my side but quarantine has brought me back on here to deal with the fact that i am back to being stuck inside. Mentally and physically. One sucks less than the other.

I have so many other questions but i am feeling tired again and its almost 4am so maybe i should go to bed. Y’all dont know how happy i am to have this trash site to vent to in the middle of the night. theres some relly judgy people on here but at least i know my feed wont judge me or try to fix what has happened. it will just listen.

Anyways, i doubt anyone will read this because this post got long as fuck but if you did i give you a high five and a virtual hug for getting through the clusterfuck of sentences. Thanks tumblr. If i ever go viral again on this shitshow of a website i may have to bring back my studyblr and go underground lmfao jk maybe. I cant wait to hug my friends and the people i have met that have become a part of my daily routine (yes even during social isolation, get off my ass I am still socially isolating). All i can do for now is wait for someone who cares about me for me and isn’t scared of my past or the pieces of it that linger in my present. I deserve nothing less. if they cant do that they are not worth my time and i hope they drop their keys every single time they go to open their front door. oh... they also better be ready for the hours i spend typing away my thoughts on my computer. Maybe one day they will be allowed to read them too... lol maybe not. whatever who knows. Peace out kiddos stay healthy xoxo.

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couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name · 8 years ago

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I mean tbh I'm not much of a john green fan (Idk why, I think it's just that the writing style and my reading style don't mesh) but also like HIS STORIES ARE LITERALLY BREAKING DOWN THE MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL FANTASY WTF ARE PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT "boy gets girl" UM BASICALLY BOY HAS TO DEAL WITH THE FACT THAT GIRL ISNT ACTUALLY HIS PERFECTLY SCRIPTED DOLL OR SOMEONE DIES????? OR BOTH??? I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO USES THAT AS AN EXCUSE TO HATE ON HIM

THANK YOU!!

Like I totally 100% get if people don’t like the books because of the genre or his personal writing style- but manic pixie dream girls? boy gets girl? Pick up the book or check your reading comprehension oh my God.

Like? Just? Stories breaking down awful tropes like that are so important? Stories about seeing people as actual complex human beings are important? Especially since humans do tend to lean toward self-absorbed tendencies (which isn’t necessarily always a bad thing) but it forces you to look outside yourself and see people not just as who they are to you, but who they are to themselves?

Paper Towns isn’t “boy gets his manic pixie”, it’s “Girl is deeply uncomfortable and unhappy with the life she’s been living and puts herself first, taking a leap of faith to find her own inner peace even if it means having to leave behind people she cares about; Boy, who’s been crushing on her since they were children, is deeply worried about this and wants to find her. Over the course of his search, he starts to understand and face the fact that he doesn’t actually know her enough to be in love with her, and starts to see her less as an enigma in tight jeans and more as a confusing, complex, actual human being. He still wants to find her because he’s worried about whether or not she’s just run away or if she plans to harm herself. His friends help him out because they aren’t shitty people and they end up helping each other understand some things. Upon finally finding her, they talk things out. Girl does in fact have somewhat unidentified feelings for Boy, but she’s acknowledged from the very first chapter that his view of her isn’t the most healthy and that’s why he didn’t hold her back from leaving in the first place. Boy is no longer worried for Girl and wants to get to know her better as she is and not as the character he had invented in his head. They part ways on good terms and we’re never quite sure if they actually keep in touch.”

Looking For Alaska isn’t “boy gets his manic pixie”, it’s “Boy who’s felt alienated his whole life decides a change of environment will help him find some happiness in life, and to his surprise he actually ends up falling in with a tight-nit group of friends. He develops feelings for Girl, and while Girl definitely thinks he’s cute she’s very much in love with her boyfriend, and actively tries to set Boy up with another girl in an attempt for him to see his romantic feelings for her are just superficial and then he can move on and they can just be good friends. Girl struggles a lot with her mental health and self worth because of a childhood trauma, and while all of her friends love her, none of them really understand the problems and therefore she doesn’t open up to them that much. After a tragic accident, Boy and his friends are left to grieve alone and try to put the pieces together, trying to understand what happened, trying to see Girl for who she was as human other than a hot prankster. They all deal with guilt and grief in their own personal ways, grapple with religious beliefs, and desperately try to understand what Girl had running through her head on a daily basis, which they come to deal with is impossible, because no one can really know another person inside and out to the fullest extent, especially when one person doesn’t open up too much. They band together to honor her memory and you’re left not knowing exactly if things will ever be okay for them again but knowing that they did grow in how they act, view and treat other people.” (also, Pudge had more chemistry with the Colonel than anyone else lmao)

Will Grayson, will grayson is “Boy starts to fall for a Girl but the romance is put on the back burner to him realizing relationships are a give-and-take thing and that his best friend will always be there for him no matter what happens, and he should act more appreciative and give him the same effort and attention he receives from him”

I know a lot of the complaints for Fault in Our Stars was that people started romanticizing illness, but that wasn’t his intent and that’s not how he wrote it? He was inspired to write the book after working in a children’s cancer hospital and after a fan-turned-friend died of thyroid cancer at just 15 or 16 years old? It was written as a tribute? And the plot isn’t the beauty of illness? It’s that life gives you shitty things but it also gives you good things and you need to appreciate every moment you get in this life? It’s about dealing with fear of the unknown and confronting the fact that nothing lasts forever? It’s dealing with the fact you can’t know everything and letting yourself love someone even though you know you’re going to loose them?

I also remember when I was in high school I loved that he didn’t write down to his readers- even though they’re YA Novels he didn’t shy away from ~big~ words or storylines like he writes- and that’s why a lot of his characters get labeled “pretentious”, and like, they totally are, but in a very believable way. Like, I definitely related to some of his characters when I was in high school. And I also liked that he still made them kids, like they’d be spouting pretentious or fake-deep shit and they’d get it wrong, because not everyone gets it right. Not everyone remembers or interprets quotes correctly, not everyone understands everything, not everyone gets the math right. Hazel’s speech at Gus’ funeral? The whole infinities spiel? Like, that’s not right, and that was done on purpose because she’s 16 and emotional, so she doesn’t have to remember it or understand it correctly. I liked that. It was also good for me when I was young and still like, impressionable and shit, to actually see something that wasn’t screaming manic pixies in my face??? Obviously???? Like none of the girls have to be fun or quirky, they’re also bitchy and emotional and have real thoughts and problems and make sure they get treated correctly. They don’t let themselves get turned into manic pixies by the boys in their lives, they tell them off- like that was so good for me? And also reading from the POV who goes from point A to point B in trying to understand the people around him, it makes you start to realize whether or not you’re doing that to people in your life, it makes you aware of that and you’re able to deal with that.

So like…the fact that like 99% of the complaints I see against John Green don’t add up with anything he’s ever written? Is just ridiculous? It makes literally no sense? Why is it trendy to hate on anybody? Let alone a man who writes decent books about treating people decently, does a lot for charity, dedicates time to educating people on world problems and overall just enjoys helping and teaching? Like? You can’t find anything better to do with your time?

#psa I haven't read Katherines or LIS but I've heard good reviews and that they basically fall in with his other books #john green #nerdfighteria #tfios #paper towns #asks #molly mumbles

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suchagiantnerd · 6 years ago

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54 Books, 1 Year

2018 was my first full year back at work after my mat leave, and thanks to all the time I spend on the subway, my yearly reading total is back up to over 50 books!

2018 was a dark year, and I made a conscious effort to read more books from authors on the margins of society. The more those of us with privilege take the time to listen to and learn from these voices, the better we’ll be as friends, colleagues and citizens.

You’ll also notice a lot of books about witchcraft and witches in this year’s list. What can I say? Dark times call for resorting to ANYTHING that can help dig us out of our current reality, including putting a hex on Donald Trump.

Trigger Warning: Some of the books reviewed below are about mental illness, suicide, domestic violence, sexual assault, and violence against people of colour, Indigenous people and people in the LGBTQ community.

Here are this year’s mini reviews:

1. The Lottery and Other Stories / Shirley Jackson

Jackson’s short stories were published in the late forties and fifties, but their slow-burning creep factor holds up today. The stories involve normal people doing normal things until something small gives, and we realize something is really wrong here. As you read through the collection, take note of the mysterious man in blue. He appears in about half of the stories, always in the margins of the action. Who is he? I read him as a bit of a trickster figure, bringing chaos and mayhem with him wherever he goes. Other people have read him as the devil himself. Let me know what you think!

2. The Ship / Antonia Honeywell

I was excited to read this YA novel about a giant cruise ship-turned-ark, designed and captained by the protagonist Lalla’s father in a dystopic near future. The premise of the book is great and brings up lots of juicy questions – where is the ship going? How long can the passengers survive together in a confined space? How did Lalla’s father choose who got to board the ship? But the author’s execution was a disappointment and focused far too much on Lalla’s inner turmoil and immaturity.

3. The Hot One: A Memoir of Friendship, Sex and Murder / Carolyn Murnick

My book club read this true crime memoir detailing the intense, adolescent friendship between Carolyn, the author, and Ashley, who was murdered in her home in her early 20s a few years after the girls’ friendship fizzled. Murnick is understandably destroyed by the murder and obsessed with the killer’s trial. The narrative loops back and forth between the trial and the girls’ paths, which diverged sharply after Ashley moved away in high school. Murnick (the self-proclaimed nerdy one) muses on the intricacies of female friendship, growing up under the microscope of the male gaze, and the last weekend she ever spent with Ashley (the hot one). This is an emotional, detailed account of a woman trying her best to bear witness to her friend’s horrific death and to honour who she was in life.

4. The Break / Katherena Vermette

Somebody is brutally attacked on a cold winter night in Winnipeg, and Stella, a young Métis woman and tired new mother is the only witness – and even she isn’t sure what she saw. The police investigation into the attack puts a series of events in motion that make long-buried emotions bubble to the surface and ripple outwards to touch a number of people in the community, including an Indigenous teenager recently released from a youth detention center, one of the investigating officers (a Métis man walking a fine line between two worlds), and an artist. This is a tough read, especially in the era of #MMIW and #MeToo, but all the more important because of it.

5. So You Want to Talk About Race / Ijeoma Oluo

Probably the most important book I read this year, I will never stop recommending this read to anyone and everyone. This is your Allyship 101 syllabus right here, folks. Do you really want to do better and be better as an ally? Then you need to read every chapter closely and start implementing the lessons learned right away. This book will teach you about tone policing, microaggressions and privilege, and how all of those things are harmful to people of colour and other marginalized communities.

6. The Accusation / Bandi

This is a collection of short stories by a North Korean man (written under a pseudonym for his protection as he still lives there). The stories were actually smuggled out of the country for publication by a family friend. The characters in these stories are regular people living regular lives (as much as that is possible in North Korea). What really comes across is the fine line between laughter and tears while living under the scrutiny of a dangerous regime. There are several scenes where people laugh uncontrollably because they can’t cry, and where people start to cry because they can’t laugh. This book offers a rare perspective into a hidden world.

7. Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen / Jazz Jennings

Some of you will be familiar with Jazz via the TLC show about her and her family, “I Am Jazz”. I’d never seen it but was inspired to read the book to gain a better understanding about what coming out as trans as a child is like. Jazz came out to her family at 5 years old (!) and her parents and siblings have had her back from the beginning. If you are still having a tough time understanding that trans women are women, full stop, this book will help get you there.

8. A Field Guide to Getting Lost / Rebecca Solnit

When it comes to the books that gave me “all the feels”, this one tops the 2018 list. Solnit is everything - historian, writer, philosopher, culture lover, explorer. Her mind is always making connections and as you follow her through her labyrinthine thoughts you start to feel connected too. Her words on loss, nostalgia and missing a person/place/time actually made me cry, they were so true. For me, an agnostic leaning towards atheism, she illuminated the magic in the everyday that made me feel more spiritually rooted to life than I have in a long time.

9. I Found You / Lisa Jewell

Lots of weird and bad things seem to happen in British seaside towns, don’t they? This is another psychological thriller, à la “The Girl on the Train” and “Gone Girl”. One woman finds a man sitting on the beach one morning. He has no idea who he is or how he got there. Miles away, another woman wakes up one morning to find her husband has vanished. Is the mystery man on the beach the missing husband? Dive into this page-turner and find out!

10. The Midnight Sun / Cecilia Ekbäck

This novel is the sequel to a historical Swedish noir book I read a few years ago. Though it’s not so much a sequel, as it is a novel taking place in the same setting – Blackasen Mountain in Lapland. This story actually takes place about a hundred years after the first novel does, so it can be read on its own. Ekbäck’s stories dive into the effect of place on people – whether it’s the isolation of a harsh and long winter or the mental havoc caused by the midnight sun on sleep patterns, the people on Blackasen Mountain are always strained and ready to explode. (Oh, and there’s also a bit of the supernatural happening on this mountain too – but just a bit!)

11. After the Bloom / Leslie Shimotakahara

Strained mother-daughter relationships. The PTSD caused by immigration and then being detained in camps in your new home. Fraught romances. Shimotakahara’s novel tackles all of this and more. Taking place in two times – 1980s Toronto and a WWII Japanese internment camp in the California desert – this story of loss, hardship, betrayal and family is both tragic and hopeful.

12. Company Town / Madeline Ashby

In this Canadian dystopian tale, thousands of people live in little cities built on the oil rigs off the coast of Newfoundland. Hwa works as a bodyguard for the family that owns the rigs and is simultaneously trying to protect the family’s youngest child from threats, find out who is killing her sex-worker friends, mourn her brother (who died in a rig explosion), and work through her own self-esteem issues. Phew! If it sounds like too much, it is. I really did like this book, but I think it needed tighter editing and focus.

13. The Power / Naomi Alderman

In the near-future, women and girls all over the world develop the ability to send electrical shocks out of their hands. With this newfound power, society’s gender power imbalance starts to flip. The U.S. military scrambles to try and work this to their advantage. A new religious movement starts to grow. And Tunde, a Nigerian photographer (and a dude!) travels the world, trying to document it all. This is an exciting novel that seriously asks, “what if?” in which many of the key characters cross paths.

14. Milk and Honey / Rupi Kaur

Everyone’s reading it, so I had to too! Kaur’s poems are refreshing and healing, and definitely accessible. This is poetry for the people, for women, for daughters, mothers and sisters. These are poems about how women make themselves small and quiet, about our inner anger, about sacrifice, longing and love.

15. Tell It to the Trees / Anita Rau Badami

In the dead of winter in small-town B.C., the body of big-city writer Anu is found outside of the Dharmas’ house, frozen to death. Anu had been renting their renovated shed, working on a novel in seclusion. As we get to know the Dharmas – angry and controlling Vikram, his quiet and frightened wife Suman, the two children, and the ghost of Vikram’s first wife, Helen, we feel more and more uneasy. Was Anu’s death just a tragic accident, or something else entirely? There is a touch of “The Good Son” in this novel…

16. You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life / Jen Sincero

This book was huge last year and my curiosity got the better of me. But I can’t, I just can’t subscribe to this advice! All of this stuff about manifesting whatever you want reeks of privilege and is just “The Secret” repackaged for millennials and Gen-Z. Thank u, next!

17. All the Things We Never Knew: Chasing the Chaos of Mental Illness / Sheila Hamilton

Shortly after a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, Hamilton’s husband, David, took his own life after years of little signs and indicators that something wasn’t right. Her memoir, in the aftermath of his death, is a reckoning, a tribute, and a warning to others. In it, she details the fairy tale beginning of their relationship (but even then, there were signs), the birth of their only child, and the rocky path that led to his final choice. Hamilton’s story doesn’t feel exploitative to me. It’s an important piece in the global conversation about mental health and includes lots of facts and statistics too.

18. This Is How It Always Is / Laurie Frankel

This is a beautiful novel about loving your family members for who they are and about the tough choices parents have to make when it comes to protecting their children. Rosie and Penn have five boys (that this modern couple has five children is the most unbelievable part of the plot, frankly), but at five years old, their youngest, Claude, tells the family that he is a girl. Claude changes her name to Poppy, and Rosie and Penn decide to move the whole family to more inclusive Seattle to give Poppy a fresh start in life. Of course, the move has consequences on the other four children as well, and we follow everybody’s ups and downs over the years as they adjust and adapt to their new reality.

19. Dumplin’ / Julie Murphy

While I didn’t love the writing or any of the characters, I do need to acknowledge the importance of this YA novel in showing a fat teenager as happy and confident in who she is. Willowdean Dickson has a job, a best friend and a passion for Dolly Parton. She also catches the attention of cute new kid, Bo, and a sweet summer romance develops between the two (with all of the miscommunications and misunderstandings you’d expect in a YA plot). This is an important book in the #RepresentationMatters movement, and is now a Netflix film if you want to skip the read!

20. Kintu / Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

This was touted as “the great Ugandan novel” and it did not disappoint! The first part of the novel takes place in 1754, as Kintu Kidda, leader of a clan, travels to the capital of Buganda (modern day Kampala) with his entourage to pledge allegiance to the new Kabaka. During the journey, tragedy strikes, unleashing a curse on Kintu’s descendants. The rest of the novel follows five modern-day Ugandans who are descended from Kintu’s bloodline and find themselves invited to a massive family reunion. As their paths cross and family histories unfold, will the curse be broken?

21. The Child Finder / Rene Denfeld

I bought this at the airport as a quick and thrilling travel read, and that’s exactly what it was. Naomi is a private investigator with a knack for finding missing and kidnapped children. This is because she was once a kidnapped child herself. The plot moves back and forth in time between Naomi’s current case and her own escape and recovery. There was nothing exceptional about this book, but it’s definitely a page-turner.

22. Difficult Women / Roxane Gay

Are the women in Gay’s short stories actually difficult? Or has a sexist, racist world made things difficult for them? I think you know what my answer is. The stories are at times beautiful - like the fairy tale about a woman made of glass, and at times violent and visceral – like a number of stories about hunting and butchering. Women are everything and more.

23. My Education / Susan Choi

I suggested this novel to my book club and I will always regret it. This was my least favourite read of the year. I thought it was going to be about a sexy and inappropriate threesome or love triangle between a student, her professor, and his wife. Instead it had a few very unsexy sex scenes and hundreds and hundreds of pages about the minutiae of academic life. I can’t see anyone enjoying this book except English professors and grad students.

24. Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities / Rebecca Solnit

This series of essays was a balm to my soul after Ford won the provincial election. It reminded me that history is full of steps forward and steps back, and though things look bleak right now, there are millions of us around the world trying to make positive changes in big and little ways as we speak.

25. The Woman in Cabin 10 / Ruth Ware

Another novel in the vein of “The Woman on the Train”, that is, a book featuring a young, female, unreliable narrator. Lo knows what she saw – or does she? There was a woman in the now empty Cabin 10 – or was there? And also, Lo hasn’t been eating or sleeping. But she’s been drinking a lot and not taking her medication. I’m kind of done with this genre – anyone else?

26. My Brilliant Friend / Elena Ferrante

After hearing many intelligent women praise this novel (the first in a four-part series), my book club decided to give it a try. I didn’t fall in love with it, but I was sufficiently intrigued by the intense and passionate friendship between Lila and Lenu, two young girls growing up in post-war Naples, that I will likely read the whole series. Many claim that no writer has managed to capture the intricacy of female friendship the way that Ferrante has.

27. The Turquoise Table: Finding Community and Connection in Your Own Front Yard / Kristin Schell

This is Schell’s non-fiction account of how she started Austin’s turquoise table movement (which has now spread further into other communities). Schell was feeling disconnected from her immediate community, so she painted an old picnic table a bright turquoise, moved it into her front yard, and started sitting out there some mornings, evenings and weekends - sometimes alone, and sometimes with her family. Neighbours started to gather for chats, snacks, card games, and more. People got to know each other on a deeper level and friendships bloomed. This book is a nice reminder that small actions matter. A small warning though – Schell is an evangelical Christian, and I didn’t know this before diving in. There is a focus on Christianity in the book, and though it’s not quite preachy, it’s very in-your-face.

28. Sing, Unburied, Sing / Jesmyn Ward

This was hands-down my favourite novel of the year. It’s a lingering and haunting look at the generational trauma carried by the descendants of those who were enslaved and lived during the Jim Crow era. One part road trip novel, one part ghost story, the plot follows a fractured, multi-racial family as they head into the broken heart of Mississippi to pick up the protagonist’s father, who has just been released from prison.

29. Full Disclosure / Beverley McLachlin

This is the first novel by Canada’s former Chief Justice, Beverley McLachlin. As someone who works in the legal industry and has heard her speak, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this. But, with all due respect to one of the queens, the book was very ‘meh’. The plot was a little over the top, the characters weren’t sufficiently fleshed out, and I felt that the backdrop of the Robert Pickton murders was somewhat exploitative and not done respectfully. Am I being more critical of this novel than I might otherwise be because the author is so intelligent? Likely yes, so you can take this review with a grain of salt.

30. The Long Way Home / Louise Penny

This is the 10th novel in Penny’s Inspector Gamache mystery series. As ever, I fell in love with her descriptions of Quebec’s beauty, the small town of Three Pines, and the delicious food the characters are always eating. Penny’s books are the definition of cozy.

31. In the Skin of a Lion / Michael Ondaatje

Ondaatje has the gift of writing novels that read like poetry, and this story is no exception. Taking place in Toronto during construction of the Don Valley bridge and the RC Harris water treatment plant, the plot follows a construction worker, a young nun, an explosives expert, a business magnate and an actress as they maneuver making a life for themselves in the big city and changing ideas about class and gender.

32. The Story of a New Name / Elena Ferrante

This is the second novel in Ferrante’s four-part series about the complicated life-long friendship between Lila and Lenu. In this installment, the women navigate first love, marriage, post-secondary education, first jobs and new motherhood.

33. The Happiness Project / Gretchen Rubin

In this memoir / self-help book, Rubin studies the concept of happiness and implements a new action or practice each month of the year that is designed to increase her happiness levels. Examples include practicing gratitude, going to bed earlier, making time for fun and learning something new. Her journey inspired me to make a few tweaks to my life during a difficult time, and I do think they’ve made me more appreciative of what I have (which I think is a form of happiness?)

34. The Virgin Suicides / Jeffrey Eugenides

I loved the film adaptation of this novel when I was a teenager, but I’d never actually read it until my book club selected it. Eugenides paints a glimmering, ethereal portrait of the five teenaged Lisbon sisters living a suffocating half-life at the hands of their overly protective and religious parents. The story is told through the eyes of the neighbourhood boys who longed for them from a distance and learned about who they were through snatched telephone calls, passed notes and one tragic suburban basement party.

35. Time’s Convert / Deborah Harkness

This is a supernatural fantasy novel that takes place in the same universe of witches, vampires and daemons as Harkness’ All Souls trilogy. The plot follows the romance between centuries-old vampire Marcus, who came of age during the American Civil War, and human Phoebe, who begins her own transformation into a vampire so that she and Marcus can be together forever.

36. The Saturday Night Ghost Club / Craig Davidson

Were you a fan of the TV show “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” If yes, this novel is for you. Davidson explores the blurred line between real-life tragedy and ghost story over the course of one summer in 1980s Niagara Falls. A coming-of-age novel that’s somehow sweet, funny and sad all at once, this story delves into the aftershocks of trauma and the way we heal the cracks in families.

37. Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right / Jamie Glowacki

I hoped this was the book for us, but I don’t think it was. Some of the tips were great, but others really didn’t work for us. The other issue is that the technique in this book is much better suited to kids staying at home with a caregiver, not kids in daycare.

38. The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One / Amanda Lovelace

This is a collection of poetry about women’s anger, women’s long memories and strength in sisterhood. It’s accessible, emotional and a bit of a feminist rallying cry. As someone who is obsessed with the Salem witch trials, I also loved the historical backdrop to the poems.

39. The Rules of Magic / Alice Hoffman

I love to read seasonally, and this prequel to “Practical Magic” was a perfect October book. Remember Jet and Franny, the old, quirky aunts from the movie? This novel describes their upbringing, along with that of their brother Vincent, as the three siblings discover their powers and try to out-maneuver the Owens family curse.

40. Witch: Unleased. Untamed. Unapologetic. / Lisa Lister

This book has a very sleek, appealing cover. Holding it made me feel magical. Reading it really disappointed me. From Lister’s almost outright transphobia to her unedited, repetitive style, this was a huge disappointment and I don’t recommend it.

41. The Death of Mrs. Westaway / Ruth Ware

I liked this novel a lot more than Ware’s other novel, “The Woman in Cabin 10”. Crumbling English manor homes, long-buried family evils and people trapped together by snowstorms are my jam.

42. Weirdo / Cathi Unsworth

Another British seaside town, another grisly murder. Jumping back and forth between a modern-day private investigation and the parental panic around cults and Satanism in the 1980s, Unsworth unpacks the darkness lurking within a small community and the way society’s outcasts are often used as scapegoats. The creep factor grows as the story unfolds.

43. Mabon: Rituals, Recipes and Lore for the Autumn Equinox / Diana Rajchel

And so begins my witchy education. I have to admit, I really liked learning about the historical pagan celebrations and superstitions surrounding harvest time. I also liked reading about spells and incantations… ooooOOOOoooo!

44. From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find the Good Death / Caitlin Doughty

In North America, we are so removed from death that we are unequipped to process it when someone close to us dies. But this doesn’t have to be the case. In this non-fiction account, Doughty, a mortician based in L.A., travels the world learning about the business of death, the cultural customs around mortality, and the rituals of care and compassion for the deceased in ten different places. It seems that the closer we are to death, the less we’ll fear it, and the better-equipped we’ll be to process loss and grief in healthy ways.

45. Samhain: Rituals, Recipes and Lore for Halloween / Diana Rajchel

Did you know that Samhain is actually pronounced “Sow-en”? I didn’t until I read this book, and felt very intelligent indeed, when later, while watching “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” on Netflix, the head witch pronounced the word as “Sam-hain”, destroying the writers’ credibility in one instant. I am a witch now.

46. See What I Have Done / Sarah Schmidt

This novel is a retelling of the Lizzie Borden murders, illuminated through four characters – Lizzie herself, the Borden’s maid Bridget, Lizzie’s sister, and a mysterious man hired the day before the murders by Lizzie’s uncle to intimidate Mr. Borden (one of the murder victims). I knew very little about the murders before reading this book, but this version of the tale strongly suggests that Lizzie really is the murderer. Unhinged, childlike, selfish and manipulative, I hated her so much and felt awful for everyone that had to live in her orbit.

47. The Nature of the Beast / Louise Penny

In the 11th installment of Penny’s Inspector Gamache mystery series, she sets the story up with a parallel to the boy who cried wolf and introduces us to her first killer without a soul. Crimes of passion and greed abound in Penny’s universe, but a crime of pure, cold evil? This is a first.

48. How Are You Going to Save Yourself? / J.M. Holmes

This is a powerful collection of short stories about what it’s like to be a Black man in America right now. It’s about Black male friendship, fathers and sons, outright racism and dealing with a lifetime of microaggressions. Holmes makes some risky and bold decisions with his characters, even playing into some of the harmful stereotypes about Black men while subverting some of the others. This book really stayed with me. One disturbing story in particular I kept turning around and around in my mind for days afterward.

49. Split Tooth / Tanya Tagaq

This is a beautiful story about a young Inuit girl growing up in Nunavut in the 1970s, combining gritty anecdotes about bullying, friendship, family and addiction with Inuit myth, legend, and the magic of the Arctic. The most evocative and otherworldly scenes in the novel took place under the Northern Lights and left me kind of mesmerized.

50. Motherhood / Sheila Heti

Heti’s book is a work of fiction styled as a memoir, during which the protagonist, nearing her 40s, weighs the pros and cons of having a baby. I’ve maybe never felt so “seen” by an author before. I agonized over the decision about whether to have a baby for years before finally making a decision. The unsatisfying, but freeing conclusion that both the author and I came to is that for many of us there is no right choice (but no wrong choice either).

51. The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories / P.D. James

This is a short collection of James’ four “Christmas-y” mysteries published over the course of a number of years. It was a perfect cozy read to welcome the holiday season.

52. The Christmas Sisters / Sarah Morgan

Morgan’s story is a Hallmark holiday movie in book form. A family experiencing emotional turmoil at Christmas? Check. Predictable romances, old and new? Check. A beautiful, festive setting? Check. (In this case, it’s a rustic inn nestled in the Scottish Highlands). This novel is fluff, but the most delightful kind.

53. Jonny Appleseed / Joshua Whitehead

Jonny is a Two-Spirit Ojibway-Cree person who leaves the reservation in his early 20s to escape his community’s homophobia and make it in the city. Making ends meet as a cybersex worker, the action begins when he has to scrape together enough cash to make it home to the “rez” (and all the loose ends he left behind there) for a funeral. The emotional heart of the novel are Jonny’s relationships with his kokum (grandmother) and his best friend / part-time lover Tias.

54. Yule: Rituals, Recipes and Lore for the Winter Solstice / Susan Pesznecker

Do you folks believe that I’m a witch now? I am, okay? I even spoke an incantation to Old Mother Winter while staring into the flame of a candle after reading this book.

55. Half Spent Was the Night: A Witches’ Yuletide / Ami McKay

Old-timey witches? At Christmas time? At an elaborate New Year’s Eve masked ball? Be still my heart. This novella was just what I wanted to read in those lost days between Christmas and New Year’s. You’ll appreciate it even more if you’ve already read Ami McKay’s previous novel “The Witches of New York”, as it features the same characters.

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claeriekavanaugh · 7 years ago

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Intro: What is your name, what do you write, and where can readers find you on social media? And just for fun, if you could be any mythical being or creature, who or what would you be?

Hello, I’m M. K. Wiseman and I’ve found my groove penning YA historical fantasy (a short hop over from my steampunk entry into the publishing world.) Social-wise, I positively live over on Twitter but also have more recently discovered the fun that is Instagram and Pinterest. My handle on all three is @FaublesFables – come say “hi!”

As for a mythical being or creature: dragon all the way! (Closer to the Japanese concept of the beast, however, than the European idea.)

In the past, you’ve written steampunk and your most recent release is a Christian fantasy. Which do you like more and what drew you to each genre?

The kind of historical fantasy I write and steampunk are, for me, sort of one and the same…? (Is that a cheat answer?) Clearing that up a bit: for my fantasies, I simply adore writing from the corner where the premise is that maybe maybe history, as written, has simply erased the magical side of the story. That’s a pretty ‘steampunk’ way to see things, I think. Overall, what I write is largely similar in flavor due to it coming from ‘reader me’ + my particular world view. I like to read “clean” fiction—a.k.a. anything 9-year-old me would have read without blushing. And a part of me has always burned with the desire to use my writing to do “good” in the world.

More pointedly to your question, the Christian fantasy genre is an interesting demographic of stories. It’s a very wide, if sometimes very specific, genre. For example, in “Bookminder” there is no Christ allegory (a la C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books.) But I have made a concentrated effort to put a Catholic priest as a character in books 1 and 2 of the trilogy, simply because that is a part of my life and I want it “in” my world building—specifically as the story occurs in a real time and place where religion would have impacted the lives of wizards such as Nagarath and Liara.

YA is such a wide-open category. What type of YA do you enjoy the most and why?

I love good, clean, (old fashioned?) YA fantasy. Give me a story between 80-120K words where I can escape from Here and Now but still get a relevant message to take “home” with me when I close the cover and I am so there. I prefer an omni narrator. (Yep, this reader is out of fashion and I don’t care!) I like puzzles, riddles, and songs so long as they aren’t ‘check the box’ included into the story. Also, I want a magic system that checks out. (Tolkien, you get a ‘Pass’ on this last, because you are a class unto yourself).

Le Guin’s Earthsea books, L’Engle’s Wrinkle in Time, any of Brian Jacques’ Redwall stories—all are swoon-worthy reads over and over for me.

Do you find there are central themes or elements that are unique to your books? (For example, are you drawn to anti-heroes, antagonists, certain settings etc.) Why do those things stand out to you?

Character-wise, I absolutely adore a broken hero. I still wish Hamlet had found a happy end, you know? (Watch this space, wink wink.)

But, per my love of alternate history or, more specifically, ‘hidden histories,’ I really like to write about places you can actually go visit. Which makes research a beast, more often than not. The moon phases in The Bookminder? They’re accurate as I can make them. My Google search history is the typical author landmine of discovery to the unwary.

What inspired your book?

In 2004 I just so happened to have a very vivid splash of a dream. Just one scene. Short, but poignant and mysterious. I was recovering from a major surgery at that time, so I had a lot of down time to ponder a.) who the girl was in my dream, b.) what she was doing . . . Something clicked in my head as “this is important” and that’s essentially where I began writing The Bookminder from. Just one little scene; one odd thought. The “books/library” through line actually comes from my job in collection preservation at the time. The real history and places all crept in later.

What is the book about?

Ah, The Question; every author’s nightmare. (Does it show that I am currently working on cover copy for the blurb of Book 2?) Totally kidding, here goes:

The Bookminder is, at its heart, the story of Liara of Dvigrad (town in 17th century Istria) who was conceived via magick when the town is attacked, casualty of a larger conflict. Nearly 17 years later, she’s kicked out of the village (ostensibly for thieving but actually due to her magickal tendencies) and immediately takes up with the local wizard, Nagarath. He, of course, has publicly promised not to apprentice her—having reasons of his own for such an edict. Needless to say, this does not sit well with Liara and, well, the rest you just have to read for yourself, yes?

What are the characters like?

I’ve had folks say Liara acts every inch a petulant teenager. To which I say “thank you!” Because she absolutely is. And she believes herself entitled to all the grand plans she’s formed in her head.

In contrast, we have Nagarath. Self-hermited away to the quiet Limska Draga valley, he just wants to retire (at the grand old age of 28) in peace and work whatever magicks he feels like doing at whatever pace he wants. He is, in effect, hiding from the world that Liara wants to conquer. And he’s a huge bookworm. And a bit absentminded.

These two . . . I’m still not sure if I intended for them to drive each other bonkers but I have grand fun orchestrating their interactions. In the end, each is quite good for the other, though.

What is/are one or two pieces of advice that you learned from publishing your earlier books that you wish you had known before you started?

Editing is hard. Don’t fall in love with your words, a specific turn of phrase here and there. But absolutely fight for what you know deep down you must keep. The give and take line? Where that lies is a bit tougher to explain. It’s an instinct you develop, especially if you’re lucky enough to work with the same team each time around.

Publishing is a long game. Years. Thousands upon thousands of words—many of which get tossed in the putting-to-print of the “good stuff” (see editing comment above). You hear it over and over, come in prepared for the long haul and yet it still comes as a surprise how long things can take.

Traditional or self-publishing? Why?

For me, traditional. I’ve landed with an exceptional publisher who has great instinct and wonderful folks. They get me out of my head when I’m too close to a project, something I’d have a hard time doing on my own. And, on my gosh, considering how much non-writing takes up my time already, I’d not want to have more on my plate. But I know both are great options for authors. The benefits and drawbacks of each are really dependent on one’s work style/process.

What do you think authors can do to help make editors and publishers interested in their manuscripts?

Keep writing. Don’t rush it. Be patient with your story. Your characters are people, treat them as such. (Okay, that is quite possibly the oddest thing I have said with regards writing. You’re welcome?) Be authentic. Be available. Be open to critique but also have that backbone when your instinct kicks in. Gosh this is getting advice-y, isn’t it? But I cannot leave off without adding: Read. Read widely.

This is random but fun one, if you could pick any time period to live in, when would you live and why?

This is actually a tough question because I tend to be hyper practical when it comes to such things. (And am a Whovian who has dreamed widely on this very topic.) While living further back in time would be interesting, I don’t know how I’d do without indoor plumbing at the least. I’ve said recently that far far distant future might be interesting. Kinda goes with my tendency to read ahead.

What is one book you think every YA writer should read at least once?

I’d say Katherine Paterson’s “Bridge to Terabithia” is a must.

If you can read it young, let it sit for years and then go back to it, even better!

Thanks for the great interview M.K! Check out her books and don’t forget to say hi on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest @FaublesFables!

If you liked this post, please scroll to the top of the page and type in your email to follow my blog and get an update every time I post new content. I have authors of all genres coming on my blog to interview in the coming weeks! Don’t miss it!

As always, keep making magic, word weavers!