The Weekly Wanting (9)

Sorry for forgetting to do a Wanting post last week, I was still recovering from my Book Expo America adventure. While I do want all of these books, I have to admit - now that I'm currently swimming (drowning?) in ARCs from the Expo, it will be a while before I walk into a bookstore or a library.

As it is, today is a very special day - because as of today, my precious little blog is eight years old! I started it upon graduating from high school, and who knew it would last this long? I'll be posting some retrospectives throughout the week, with some of the funniest (or most embarrassing) things I posted in the eight years I've been blogging. Yes, I've been blogging for eight years, but I've only been book blogging for about five. Three of those years were spent whining. But there are a few gems! So stay tuned for that.

Days of Blood and Starlight, by Laini Taylor 

 Genre: YA, Fantasy.

Cover Snark: Maybe she's born with it ... maybe she's Maybelline! ...or a resurrected Chimera warrior. Whichever.

The Story: The continuing adventures of Karou, a gifted teenager involved in a centuries-old war between angels and chimera. 

Why Do I Want It? Have you read my review of the prequel, Daughter of Smoke and Bone? It cannot come out soon enough!

 The Boneshaker, by Kate Milford
Genre: YA, Steampunk (ish), Historical(ish)
Cover Snark: This dude looks like an Irish Super-Saiyan.
The Story: A 13-year-old girl with an interest in automatons in 1914 Missouri suspects a travelling medicine show of nefarious deeds.
Why Do I Want It? The Book Smugglers gave it a positive recommendation, and I love me some period pieces.

Shadows Cast by Stars, by Catherine Knuttson
 Genre: Fantasy, Futuristic.
Cover Snark: Painting with all the dark, pretty, colours of the wind.
The Story: In a plague-ridden future, people of aboriginal descent are hunted for their valuable antibodies, so our heroine is forced to flee to a protected island where the native spirits are allowed to roam free.
Why Do I Want It? Again, another book I heard of from The Book Smugglers. On top of it having a bee-yoo-tee-full cover, the story is intriguing, and sounds like a great mixture of fantasy and science fiction.

 Second Chance Summer, by Morgan Matson
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Cover Snark: Man, I would kill to be at that lake right now.
The Story: When her father is diagnosed with terminal cancer, our heroine goes with him and the rest of her family to share his final days at their lakeside cottage - where she must also face her past with two of the residents.
Why Do I Want It? The story sounds tragic but also dramatic and interesting, and I've read a lot of excellent reviews of this book.

The Dark Unwinding, by Sharon Cameron
Genre: YA, Steampunk
Cover Snark: Um, pretty dress?
The Story: A girl in Victorian London goes to investigate her uncle for squandering her inheritance, only to discover he's an eccentric but brilliant inventor.
Why Do I Want It? Man, The Booksmugglers are all over my book recs these days. I'm not usually too interested in steampunk, to be honest, but this one (of a mad inventor who's the leader of a secret community of inventors) sounded different. In the good way.

  Teeth, by Hannah Moskowitz
Genre: YA, Fantasy.
Cover Snark: Something smells fishy...
The Story: Two boys in love. One of them is part fish. And may eat people. Sold!
Why Do I Want It? I met Hannah Moskowitz at the Teen Author Carnival in New York last week and she is AMAZEBALLS. She is equally amazeballs on Twitter. But it doesn't come out until 2013! *sad face*

"Motherland," by Amy Sohn

The Primary Cast:

Rebecca: A well-off Park Slope mother with a successful husband and two children - only one of whom's her husband's. Keeping the secret is slowly unravelling her, and the reappearance of her celebrity lover doesn't help things.

Gottlieb: The director of a film school who worries his failures as a filmmaker and screenwriter are affecting how he's raising his sons and interacting with his wife. When he gets the chance to go to Hollywood to pitch a screenplay, he leaps at the chance.

Marco: A gay dad in Park Slope who never wanted to be a parent,  whose partner, Todd, pressures him into adopting a second baby. The stress of being the unwilling primary caregiver to two young boys leads him into an addiction to booze and anonymous gay hookups on Grindr.

Karen: A former pampered stay-at-home mom, she struggles to regain her life and independence after her husband leaves her for a transsexual prostitute, but she's been out of work her entire child's life and her money situation is uncertain.

Melora: A Hollywood actress back in New York to try theatre after her last film bombed - she's at odds with her combative director and smartass costars, but an encounter with a strange, harsh artist on a plane gives her a new inspiration - and obsession.

The Secondary Cast:

Theo: Rebecca's husband. Kind of clueless - but may have a surprising secret life.

CC: Rebecca's best friend and Gottlieb's wife - also rather unsatisfied in her marriage.


Todd: Marco's inconsiderate ass of a boyfriend who pressures Marco to adopt another child, only to spend several months away at work.

Ray Hiss: An odd, borderline cruel man whose negative treatment of Melora makes him her latest obsession.

The Word: I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I picked up this book by Amy Sohn at the BEA Book Blogger con. The author had pitched at my table during the Networking Breakfast and she made it sound like a soapy read about pretentious, unhappy rich parents.

And, essentially, it is. Motherland follows five loosely-connected protagonists (Rebecca, Gottlieb, Marco, Karen and Melora),  all of them parents from the privileged New York City neighbourhood of Park Slope. All of them are unsatisfied in some way, most of them make numerous expensive, selfish, strange, and disturbing attempts to escape from the misery of being pretentious, bored, and wealthy (although not as wealthy as they'd like to be - they have to simply scrape by to afford forty thousand dollars a year for the nanny!), and few of them exhibit much empathy for anyone else.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to review this novel. Ultimately, for this sort of book, I must rely on the basics: did this novel entertain and satisfy me? To that, I reply sort of and not quite. Motherland entertains on a voyeuristic level - on being able to peek into the lives of privileged people and the details of their clothes, lifestyles, and personal problems. However, I only found it entertaining in a very superficial way. It was very difficult to become invested in the storyline or connect with the characters because none of them seem capable of healthily connecting with anyone else, including their kids.

They're all quite isolated in their pursuit of satisfaction, and perhaps that was the novel's point. Honestly, Karen was the only character I felt any attachment to. I could understand her loneliness and living under the stigma of being a single parent in a neighbourhood full of smug marrieds, trying to figure out what the hell she's supposed to do if her husband decides to stop paying child and spousal support. I understood her feelings and her motivations, and I appreciated her attempts to find herself and what she's good at - even when the story takes a bizarre turn and she starts pimping out a toe-sucking masseuse/prostitute in her co-op building (don't ask).

If I feel distanced from the characters, I can usually at least take some enjoyment from the events in their storylines, the progression of the characters' mindsets, and the satisfying conclusions to some if not all of their problems - however, Motherland doesn't provide that, which leads to my second biggest problem with the novel. Most of the storylines either a) go nowhere and are ignored or else remain unresolved or b) end with a sudden, unforeseen and random conclusion that feels unearned. I suppose that's meant to invoke the "it's just like real life" voyeuristic appeal, but to me, stories need to be told for a reason - there is a reason we're seeing these people at this particular stage in their lives right now - which usually means that something has to be achieved at the end of the novel. Instead, the narrative kind of peters out as if bored with itself and none of the characters (save perhaps Karen and Melora) have changed or grown in any way. This left me feeling cheated - particularly in regards to a surprisingly disturbing storyline hidden in the spoilers:

In the storyline where Gottlieb goes to Hollywood to pitch his screenplay, he has a fantastic one-night stand with a mysterious and much-younger woman at around the same time he gets an E-mail from a sperm bank he used in college to say that he has a child. Yes, it turns out to be exactly as awful as you're thinking: he discovers he's had sex with his own daughter. Bizarrely, after the initial shock, he simply takes the news as a sign from the universe that he's a luckless schlub just like everyone else, and he should just start over. Except - sleeping with your daughter isn't an ordinary Everyman screw up. It's horrifying and almost made me dry heave while reading - even worse, his narrative fades out after that, although he does move to L.A. to "keep in touch with his daughter." GROSS.

As well, there is a lot of name-dropping in this novel, and certain real-life people are brought into the fictional narrative and given dialogue - a technique which gave me pause. Fictional cameos of Sacha Baron Cohen and Gwyneth Paltrow seen in passing seem harmless enough and appropriate to the Hollywood and Broadway settings but in Melora's storyline, Jon Hamm (of Mad Men fame) is given several nasty scenes and lines where he comes off as a smarmy jackass. Why do that with a person who actually exists (and can sue you)? Why not invent a character? I found myself feeling uncomfortable and a little sorry for Jon Hamm.

As it is, Motherland went down easy - too easy. I read this novel with an increasing detachment and nothing stuck in my consciousness as being particularly memorable (except the nasty storyline in the spoilers that I would really care never to remember ever again). 

C-

Motherland will be available August 14 - you can preorder here.

The Importance of Being Nice

One thing I noticed being discussed at BEA Book Blogger Convention this year was keynote speaker Jennifer Weiner's statement that bloggers should focus our energies on "sprinkling fairy dust" on what we do like instead of blogging about what we don't like.

Given all the spats and arguments on GoodReads and Amazon, and the flamboyant author accusations of the existence of a YA Mafia or YA Opus Dei or the secret secret cliques of "Mean Girl" Bloggers ("her swag bag is so big because it's full of SECRETS"), a lot of people have been given to wonder about the relevance of everyone's mother's favourite saying, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."

Should bloggers all take a deep breath and just focus on being nice?

To that, I have to say: no. If as a blogger, you personally choose to only publish reviews of books you enjoyed, that's definitely your call, but I don't believe that's the mindset all bloggers should have to work by.

1. Book Bloggers are Critics, Not Promoters
This fact was definitely on my mind for much of the blogger convention, since a lot of what was presented in the speeches and panels I was present for dealt with how bloggers can serve publishers. Two of the authors who came to my table at the Networking Breakfast acted under the impression that if we liked how they pitched their books, we'd put them up on our websites. Amy Sohn (whose book I will, amusingly, be reviewing next) actually ranted about those "damn reviewers getting her book wrong" - entirely oblivious to the fact that she was speaking to a table of reviewers.

Because that's what book bloggers are. The cost-effective, positive promotion that publishers want from bloggers is only a by-product of what we actually do. If we like a book, we'll say so - and people will read that and take our recommendations accordingly (by the by, have you read anything by Cecilia Grant or Rose Lerner lately? Please do!). But I don't blog to promote books. I blog to read and review books - and if my positive reviews serve as free publicity, than it's a delightful happenstance! 

I know there are other book bloggers out there who do cover reveals and contests and memes now for books, even ones they haven't read, which can explain the confusion. There probably are bloggers out there who feel they are book promoters rather than critics. I can only say that from my personal experience as a blogger, who reads other book blogs, and who's discussed this matter with a fair number of other book bloggers, that the majority of us got into blogging to review and discuss books, not promote them. And honest reviews and discussions will naturally produce reactions both positive and negative.

2. Honesty Trumps Positivity
One concern I've heard come up in discussions with book bloggers is the notion of integrity and honesty. There was that whole kerfuffle in the U.S. a couple of years ago about whether bloggers should explicitly mention in their book reviews where and how they received the book - based on the readers' worry that a blogger would be more inclined to write a positive review of a book they received for free than a book they paid for themselves.

Now there's an interesting situation - readers distrusting a positive review! But shouldn't all bloggers just want to bake a cake with rainbows and sunshine in it so that we can all eat it and be happy? What about Jennifer Weiner's fairy dust?

Authors and publishers may worry about negative reviews, but to bloggers and, more importantly, to readers, their main worry is dishonest reviews. Did this blogger really like this book, or are they being paid to like it?

While I've read and enjoyed some "positive reviews only" publications (Locus magazine is one), I've noticed that readers and other bloggers tend to distrust them unless the blogger explicitly mentions that they choose not to review books they didn't like. I like to call this the "Paula Adbul Effect." That delightfully kooky former American Idol judge couldn't give a coherently negative critique to save her life - she was always sunshiney and supportive of all the performers. But because of that, her positive critiques had no impact on the audience or the voters. You could never tell if she really was physically incapable of disliking something, or if she was just too afraid of audience censure to really admit what she felt.

Simon Cowell, on the other hand, despite being kind of a prick, always gave really detailed critiques of the singers - so on those occasions when he did give an effusive response, you could tell that he meant it. Viewers felt they could trust that his opinions were honest.

That's not to say you have to be cruel to be kind - after all, Randy Jackson was far less of an ass than Simon Cowell, but his remarks still carried weight because he pointed out both the positive and the negative aspects of a competitor's performance.

What I'm saying is, positive promotion only works if the readers trust the source. There's a reason people fast-forward through the commercials on their DVRs - commercials and advertisements are nothing but positive. However, they're made by people with a financial stake in the product's success, and viewers know that. No one in the world likes every book they've ever read. Just like every contestant on American Idol isn't going to be a shining beacon of musical enlightenment. If you want to promote your book effectively, it's better to gamble on a positive review from a blogger known for their honest reactions to what they read than to hedge your bets with a literary cheerleader.

Well, then, you may ask, what's wrong with every blogger simply being transparent about only writing reviews of books they like? Why not just not post reviews of books you don't like, and let the utter lack of press speak for itself? See my final point:

3. There's No Such Thing As Bad Press
This is the kicker - even if someone is giving your book a negative review, they are also reminding people that your book exists. Its name gets brought up, its cover is revealed, it sticks in the human memory and consciousness, which translates to what jumps out at you when you go to bookstores. If no one is talking about your book at all, and no one knows about it, good or bad, how is anyone supposed to find it?

I can also ask you, as a fellow writer, which is better after submitting something to a publisher - a rejection in the form of absolutely no response, a standard "not for us" rejection letter, or a detailed letter explaining what didn't work for them? I can tell you I would rather have people telling me what they didn't like about my book than not talking about it at all and leaving me wondering whether they received it or even read it.

One of my personal rules of Blogger Etiquette is that if I accept an offer of a free ARC, I will review the book. Even if it's negative - because it demonstrates that I took the time to read the book cover to cover, took the time to analyze it, and spend hours thinking about it and writing about it. Even if I dislike the book, I respect the work that went into making that book, and I demonstrate that by crafting a detailed review of it.

It takes time and effort to write a review, even a negative one. It takes no effort at all to say nothing. So really, which response is less respectful?

This is my take on it. I'm not going to stop writing negative reviews, and I don't think you should, either. We blog because we like expressing how we feel about books. And some books are going to make us screaming, hopping, hair-pullingly mad - so we're going to express that. To Snark or Not To Snark is a different argument for a different time, but for now, let your Lit-Nit-Picking Freak Flag fly.

"Where It Began," by Ann Redisch Stampler

I thought I'd point out that this was my *first* eBook read - I purchased it for the Kobo my mother generously lent to me so that I could read it on the way to New York without taking up valuable room in my luggage. All in all, a good reading experience!
 
The Protagonist: Gabriella Gardiner. Formally a high school nobody, a strenuous summer of make overs allows her to catch the eye of golden boy Billy Nash.
Her Angst: Until she apparently crashes his car while drunk. As her future becoming increasingly uncertain, she'll have to decide how much she's willing to give up to ensure Billy Nash's love.

The Secondary Cast:

Vivian: Gabby's mother - incredibly vain and image-oriented. Drags Gabby along for a summer of hair treatments and clothing shopping in an attempt to create the perfect daughter.

John: Gabby's reclusive, alcoholic father whose repeated business failures keep the Gardiners at the bottom of the totem pole in their swanky neighbourhood.

Billy Nash: Insanely popular and wealthy, the undisputed king of the high school social scene can do anything, get anything, and get away with anything.

Lisa: Gabby's friend, from an incredibly religious family who restricts her social activities.

Anita: Gabby's other and equally concerned friend. Her Indian family only wants her to date nice Indian boys.

Huey: A talented if oddball photographer for the high school yearbook and friends with Gabby, Lisa, and Anita.

Angst Checklist:

• Amnesia
• Underage Drinking
• Drunk Driving
• Pretentious Yet Adorable Photographers
• My Parents Are Idiots
• Low Self-Esteem
• White Male Privilege
• Unhealthy Relationships

The Word: The novel opens as seventeen-year-old Gabriella Gardiner wakes up drunk, clutching the keys to her boyfriend's car - which she has apparently reduced to a smoking wreck around a eucalyptus tree. She wakes up later in a hospital with her face horribly damaged, the police asking questions, and a giant gap in her memory where the particulars of her car accident ought to be. As the cherry on top of the sundae of suck, her wealthy, popular boyfriend Billy Nash is nowhere to be found.

Billy's absence hurts Gabby more than anything - as she heals in the novel's first half, she recalls how she first won the attention of the most popular boy in school, despite being an underachieving sub-regular nobody in a prep school full of the rich and brilliant. She loves Billy, and constantly strives to please him in order to keep him from finding out how truly average and unremarkable a nobody she truly is.

Once she's released from the hospital in the novel's second half, she realizes she's become worse than a nobody: now she's a teenage delinquent who stole and crashed her boyfriend's car. Amazingly, however, Billy Nash comes back into the picture, and, desperate to hold on to him, Gabby's willing to do anything he says, anything he asks, even as the consequences of her actions tighten around her.

As you can probably tell, Gabby is a real piece of work - raised by vain, vapid parents who constantly aspire to wealth and status without ever actually possessing it, she has no self-esteem to speak of. If this book had a Drinking Game, the only rule would be to take a shot every time Gabby describes herself as "sub-regular": she truly believes she's less than average. So it's no surprise how she becomes fixated on her miraculous relationship with the uber-popular Billy Nash, to the point where it seems her entire self-worth hangs on whether he stays with her or not. 

In the wrong hands, a character like this could have been a doormat. However, Stampler gives Gabby a cutting, observant and hilarious voice. While she's got serious blinders on when it comes to what's important about herself, her satirical observations of the hypocrisy of the people and the situations around her are hilarious. She's flawed and funny and human - however, even in her own story, she is little more than an observer, so I had trouble considering her an actual heroine.

That, ultimately, is the largest problem I had with Where It Began - while I felt for Gabby and liked her voice, her character had no agency and makes almost no decisions for herself in the course of the entire novel. She's an utterly passive character. She's told what to do for most of the story - by her mother, by Billy, by the various therapists and doctors and care workers - and then she does it. Things just happen, and Gabby reacts to them - with occasionally hilarious snark, but she doesn't actually influence or impact any of the events in the story.

This never changes, even by the novel's end. While she comes to a few long-awaited realizations, she doesn't act or take initiative on her own. Even the glorious All Is Revealed moment at the end is orchestrated by someone else. In the end, Gabby is still being told what to do - only this time she's, um, allowing herself to be told what to do by the right people? To me, a heroine impacts her story with her specific actions and decisions, so that the conclusion to her story occurs as a result of her choices. In Where It Began, Gabby doesn't make any real choices, she just gets lucky - which weakens an otherwise entertaining story.

B

You can purchase Where It Began here.

And Now, the Obligatory BEA Swag Post!

Soooo.... I got a lot of books at Book Expo America. I really did try to only pick up books that I actually wanted or sounded interesting, and I think I was mostly successful. Mostly. Either way, I managed to successfully pack everything into my two pieces of luggage without incurring overweight fees so I'm good on that score. Here's the list:

• The Vicious Deep, by Zoraida Cordova. YA. Swag bag at Book Bloggers Con. I've wanted this one for a while, so I was excited to find a copy of this at the convention!
• Origin, by Jessica Khoury. YA. Penguin Booth. The bioengineered-girl-escapes-into-the-Amazon plot intrigued me.
• The Darkest Minds, by Alexandra Bracken. YA. Hyperion/Disney Booth. Honestly, this was one of those "well it sounds vaguely interesting and it's free" picks. The back cover blurb is super-vague, yo.
• The Killing Moon, by N.K. Jemisin. Fantasy. Signed at the Orbit Booth. It was super lovely to meet N.K. Jemisin, and I'm over the top excited for The Killing Moon. I also got to tell her that I think she writes the best immortal characters.
• Kiss the Morning Star, by Elissa Hoole. YA. Picked up at the Amazon Children's Publishing booth. This story, about a teenage girl who discovers her sexuality while on a Kerouac-inspired roadtrick, has been at the edge of my radar for a while so it was lovely to find this copy!
• Moo, by Matthew Van Fleet. Baby Book. Book Blogger Con Swag Bag. A lovely baby book with fuzzy things to pet and pop up pictures - and guess whose BFF's little boy is having a birthday in a week!
• Kiss and Make Up, by Katie D. Anderson. YA. Picked up at the Amazon Children's Publishing Booth. Another interesting story - a girl discovers she can read the minds of any boy she kisses. So naturally she uses it to cheat on tests.
• Wake, by Amanda Hocking. YA. Honestly, I've forgotten. It has a lovely cover, plus I've always been interested in stories about sirens.
• Every Day, by David Levithan. YA. Signed at the Random House Booth. David Levithan is one of those writers I've heard hyped to the skies so much that I'll suggest him even though I haven't read any of his books yet. This one (about a nameless being who's a different person every day who falls in love with a girl) sounds like a good place to start actually reading him!
• Eve and Adam, by Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant. YA. Signed at the MacMillan Booth. This sounded interesting but also hella confusing (girl gets sent to lab, girl starts making boy in same lab, girl falls in love with another boy in the lab?). But it was fun to chat with Jessica in the line to get it! 
• The Wrap-Up List, by Steven Arntson. YA. Amazon Children's Publishing Booth (seriously, a lot of good stuff there). Sounded good - a girl gets a magical notification that she's going to die soon, so she works to get her affairs in order.
• Me Before You, by JoJo Moyes. Literary Fiction. Picked up at the Penguin Booth. Sounded like a legitimately sweet romantic story.
• Fathomless, by Jackson Pierce. YA. Signed at the author's Autographing Table. The idea of a darker, nastier Little Mermaid retelling definitely caught my eye, and the excerpt I read in Little, Brown's catalog looked amazing.
• An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green. YA. Signed copy given out at the Penguin Booth. It's John Green - and I'd like to try and enjoy more of his work.
• Son, by Lois Lowry. YA. In the Children's Book and Author Breakfast Swag Bag. I was only faintly aware that The Giver had continued as a series, but this book makes me want to read the other books in between.
• Cracked, by K.M. Walton. YA. Won in the Meet the Apocalypsies event. This novel, about a bully and his tormenter in the same psych ward, sounds a little dark and bleak for my tastes, but I decided to give it a try.
• Crewel, by Gennifer Albin. YA. Received last copy at the MacMillan Booth. This book was hyped UP AND DOWN Book Expo, y'all, but I have to say - the story (about a girl who can weave time and fate) sounded legitimately cool.
• The Miseducation of Cameron Post, by Emily Danforth. YA. Won in the Meet the Apocalypsies event. I've wanted to read this since forever, so I was super psyched to win a free copy!
• Starting from Here, by Lisa Jenn Bigelow. YA. Picked up at the Amazon Children's Booth. Sounded like an interesting romantic YA with a lesbian protagonist.
• Summer and Bird, by Katherine Catmull. YA (I think). Picked up at the Penguin Booth. Two sisters go on a mystical journey - it sounds freakin' weird, but in the best possible way.
• The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, by Cathrynne M. Valente. Middle Grade (sort of). Signed copy from the author's Autographing Table. Loved the first book - so of course I lusted after the second and waited in line for 45 minutes to meet the author.
• Mistress of My Fate, by Hallie Rubenhold. Literary Fiction. Picked up from the Grand Central Publishing Booth. A lush period piece about a possible courtesan? Sign me up!
• The Blessed, by Tonya Hurley. YA. Picked up from the Simon and Schuster Booth. I'm Catholic, born and raised, so the idea of three girls embodying three martyred saints? Kick ass! Had to have it!
• The Light Between Oceans, by M.L. Stedman. Literary Fiction. Picked up at a booth - forgot where! Firstly - pretty pretty cover. Secondly, intriguing story about a couple on an isolated Australian island who adopt an infant. Thirdly, upon opening it to a random page, the writing sounded great.
• Carnival of Souls, by Melissa Marr. YA. Picked up at the HarperCollins Booth. Another much-hyped book - I picked it up because the story sounded interesting, and also because my sister is a huge Melissa Marr fan.
• Colin Fischer, by Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stenz. YA. Signed at the Penguin Booth. I'd heard both authors speak on one of the YA Buzz Panels, and I liked the idea of a kid with Asperger's who has to clear the name of his biggest high school tormenter when a gun goes off at school, resulting in said bully becoming a friend.
• Time Between Us, by Tamara Ireland Stone. YA. Won at the Apocalypsies event. It sounds like a YA take on The Lake House. Plus, pretty cover!
• The Sweet Dead Life, by Joy Preble. YA. Picked up at the Soho Booth. A publisher I'd never heard of, but an interesting YA story about a girl who has to pre-emptively solve her own murder with the help of her dead-brother-turned-angel!
• What We Saw At Night, by Jacqueline Mitchard. YA. Picked up at the Soho Booth. Another interesting title about three kids who are allergic to sunlight and also common sense who practice nighttime parkour and witness a murder while doing it.
• More Than One Night, by Sarah Mayberry. Romance. Picked up at the Harlequin Booth. Everyone in Romancelandia has gushed about Mayberry at one point or another, and I felt it was time to see what all the fuss was about. 
• Darker Still, by Leanna Renee Hieber. YA. Won at the Apocalypsies event. I love LRH to pieces, yo, plus this book has a hot dude in an enchanted painting in it!
• Level 2, by Lenore Appelhans. YA. Won at the Apocalypsies event. Her book was much spoken of at the Expo for being the literary work of a former blogger.
• The Diviners, by Libba Bray. YA. Picked up at the Little, Brown Booth. Magical kids in the roaring twenties!
• She Only Wore White, by Dorthe Blinkert and Mel Foster. Translated literary fiction. Picked up at the Amazon Booth. Not sure why I picked this up - I think because it's a period piece that takes place on a boat. No way that can go wrong!
• Beta, by Rachel Cohn. YA. Picked up at the Disney/Hyperion Booth. Sexy clones as servants - could it be like The Island meets Downton Abbey? Or is that the book that I should write?
• What's Left of Me, by Kat Zhang. YA. Picked up at the HarperCollins Booth. I liked the idea of a body being born with two souls - most especially if they are played by Lily Tomlin and Steve Martin.
• Iron-Hearted Violet, by Kelly Barnhill and Iacupo Bruno. Middle Grade. Picked up at the Little, Brown Booth. You had me at the title! Yowza!
• The Land of Stories, by Chris Colfer. Middle Grade. Found in the Children's Book and Author Breakfast Swag bag, later signed. It sounds amazing - I'm a huge fan of fractured fairy tales and this sounds like a real labour of love for the Glee star.
• The Dirty Streets of Heaven, by Tad Williams. Fantasy. Found at the Penguin Booth. TAD WILLIAMS WROTE ANOTHER URBAN FANTASY! I had absolutely NO IDEA his book would be at Book Expo! He hasn't written anything contemporary since The War of the Flowers. Grabbed it!
• Hemingway's Girl, by Ericka Robuck. Historical Fiction. Found in the Book Blogger Con Swag Bag. Historical period, cocktail parties? Scandally scandal? Sounded vaguely good.
• Throne of Glass, by Sarah Maas. YA. Picked up one of the last copies at the Bloomsbury Booth on the last day of BEA. Sounded like a Cinderella-story mixed with The Hunger Games. Could be awesome, or awesomely bad.
• Then Came You, by Jennifer Weiner. Literary Fiction. In my Book Blogger Con Swag Bag. Sue me - I want to see if she writes better than she gives blogger speeches.
• Motherland, by Amy Sohn. Fiction. I got this in my Swag Bag from the Book Bloggers Convention, and even though the author ranted about "damn reviewers," she sold me on her pitch about frustrated wealthy New York moms and their exploits. I just finished reading it, and boy, let me tell you, it's going to make for an interesting review.
• Altered, by Jennifer Rush. YA. Picked up at the Little, Brown Booth. Girl's dad raises hot genetically-altered boys in her barn. Who WOULDN'T want to read this?

BEA Day Three: And Now We Say Goodbye

For the last day of Book Expo, I started it out with breakfast with my blogger friends Ana and Katiebabs. The place Katiebabs had suggested wasn't open yet, so we stopped in at a bakery instead, where Ana enjoyed her first soft boiled egg! Poor Katiebabs was so excited about the cover reveal for the next J.R. Ward book, but she didn't have internet access!

After that, we all cabbed to the Javits Center and parted ways. I, myself, was unsure of what to do at the Javits. If things were quieter on Wednesday than on Tuesday, things were downright silent on Thursday, and there was really only one book I was interested in, so I contemplated just skipping out and going sightseeing.

But as you can tell - I'm so weak.

I stayed until about 1:00 so that I could get David Levithan's Every Day, but also managed a few other finds - a Sarah Mayberry romance, Carnival of Souls, and Fathomless (which sounds like a really interesting and dark retelling of The Little Mermaid).

EDIT EDIT EDIT*** Ah! Mea culpa! There is more - I wrote this rather late at night and totally forgot - but there was a little more to my BEA tale. Due to pure luck and not actually knowing what was planned, I ran into a line of people at the Penguin booth in the afternoon who said they were waiting for John Green, so I got in line. As it turns out, John Green showed up to unveil the newest cover for An Abundance of Katherines, whose new design was chosen from a contest. The winner was there (she was from New Jersey, and it was also the day of her prom) and John Green handed out copies of the new edition, signed by himself. I proceeded to record the whole thing only to realize after he'd disappeared behind a curtain that I'd neglected to press the "Record" button. Ah well! END OF EDIT.

After that I went sightseeing - I decided to walk from my hotel all the way down Fifth Avenue and windowshop like no tomorrow. Didn't buy anything - not only because everything was astronomically expensive, but also because with all the books I'd grabbed I knew I had no room left in my luggage. But I took lots of pictures!

And after hoofin' it all the way down Fifth, I explored the glorious main branch of the New York Public Library.

I limped back to the hotel after that, but not before getting rained on and finding out that one should never take the availability of a New York cab for granted. I flew out the next day, but not before exploring Central Park and discovering that Children's Day is the absolute worst day to visit Central Park's tiny, rather sad zoo. 

And that was basically my Book Expo New York adventure! Would I go again? Um ... I'm not sure. Probably not, actually.

I mean, it was fun to get lots of free books - but I live near a library. I can get free books anytime I want. Honestly, I was looking for more of a social experience, the kind I got from going to writers' conventions like RWA National. I got a little of that from the BEA Book Blogger Con, but I was sick for half of that. BEA itself wasn't very social, in fact. It was a little isolating, particularly for a blogger. I think if I went as a publisher or a librarian or an author, I would be able to take something other than books away from the event, but as a blogger, I felt like a spectator.

But maybe I'll go looking for other conventions to go to. Ones that are closer to what I'm doing now (writing and blogging YA, romance, and fantasy), that aren't quite as expensive as RWA National, that have a great social element and opportunities for meeting new people. 

For now, I'll go back to my regular job (vacation's over, sob!) and start E-mailing the people whose business cards I received!

How were your experiences at BEA?

BEA Day Three: Fifty Shades of Green

Now with pictures! (Spoiler alert: I arrived home alive!)

So after a very satisfying sleep, I woke up bright and early on Wednesday Morning for the Children's Book and Author Breakfast. But first! I had to get in line for autograph tickets, since John Green was also signing that day and was a ticketed author!

Don't be fooled - I'm at the back of this line, which went beyond the camera frame and doubled back. Thankfully, I still got a ticket in time. Then I rushed to the event center for the breakfast. When I first learned who was speaking at this breakfast, I used some money I'd saved to buy a Reserved Premium Round Table Seating ticket. I'm a Gleek, and I'm becoming a bigger fan of John Green with every vlogbrothers post. And of course Lois Lowry's The Giver made me cry.

When I arrived at the center, I showed my ticket, and one of the organizers personally led me to the very front of the center, to one of the five red-tableclothed tables directly in front of the stage. AWESOME! Also, there was very impressive swag on all of the chairs:

 A special boxed copy of Chris Colfer's The Land of Stories...

...accompanied by a handwritten (albeit many-times photocopied) note from Chris Colfer...

...and a gorgeous totebag!

It also came with a Land of Stories poster, a copy of John Green's The Fault In Our Stars (which I gave away to another attendee as I already had a lovely copy) and an ARC of Lois Lowry's Son, the last book in the Giver series (which wasn't even present at her later signing - people who lined up for that got a signed cover flat).

After that came the speeches. 

Chris Colfer emceed the event and he was very charming. Through his speech, he related how The Land of Stories was very much a labour of love, not a ghost-written "celebrity novel." It was actually a project on which he's worked on since he was ten (he joked that reporters responded, "So you've been working on this for five whole years!"). He showed us a picture he'd drawn of the Land of Stories in third grade as well as a map he'd designed in junior high.

Next was John Green, who started in by saying he'd looked up the "Chris Colfer" tag on Tumblr to find something silly to embarrass him with ..."only I found fanfiction..." *awkward pause* "Of the two us."

After that, however, he gave a truly inspiring speech about how books don't need to be enhanced or have funny videos or "behind the scenes" details. He stated how reading takes focus and contemplation, and how everyone here is already doing what they're good at doing, and that we don't need to try and copy the techniques of people who work in other entertainment mediums because books engage the attention span in a fundamentally different way.

After that, Chris Colfer came up and jokingly apologized, admitting that he had written the nefarious John Green/Chris Colfer fanfic, and had titled it "50 Shades of Green."

After that came Lois Lowry, who made me cry again when she revealed that a lot of her relationship with her (now tragically deceased) soldier son inspired The Giver and most especially, the final book, Son. She got a standing ovation, and boy did she deserve it!

And then there was a final speech by artist and children's book author Kadir Nelson who painted the glorious illustrations for I Have a Dream, a children's book recreation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech.

After that came more BEA and MORE BOOKS! I made it back to the Simon and Schuster booth just in time to snag an ARC of The Blessed, which has been on my radar since Kirkus' Big BEA Book review thingie arrived in my inbox. I'm a born and raised Catholic, and I've always loved the saints (even though my particular patron, St. Paul [writers, journalists, and bloggers] can be a mite creepy), and the story of three girls who embody three martyred saints, including St. Cecelia (patron saint of music), one of my personal faves? Yes!

As well, I actually ran into John Green in person on the BEA floor. I got to shake his hand and tell him how much I liked The Fault In Our Stars and even sniffled over it ("Ah, the single tear," he said). I sincerely hope I came across as a Mature, Composed Fan and not a very silly and loud fan.

Then I got in line for John Green's signing, when a woman came up behind me and put an envelope in my hand. She said it was her 15-year-old daughter's fan letter that she'd wanted to deliver to John Green. The woman said she'd also wanted to get John Green to sign a book for her daughter, since her daughter is an enormous fan who's read all of his work. Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to get a ticket. John Green was a ticketed author because he is understandably very popular and there was a limited amount of books - so only the people who waited in line for a ticket would get a signed book.

Now, I figured - I'd gotten to see him at the breakfast. And I'd actually gotten to meet him in person and tell him how much I liked his work (with photographic evidence), which was what I'd been looking to do when I went to the signing anyway. So I gave her my ticket.

And as it turns out, Karma paid me back twofold - firstly, because as I'll relate tomorrow, I managed to be at the right place and time for the unveiling of the new cover for An Abundance of Katherines and received a signed copy of it then, and secondly, because skipping the line for John Green's signing gave me time to get in line for Chris Colfer's signing.

Even though I arrived half an hour early, I was 104th in line! Crazy! Once it got moving, though, it really got moving. In the five seconds I was face to face with him, I told him I'd loved his breakfast speech and he said thank you.

After that, I pretty much just wandered around for a while more. It's interesting - Book Expo America doesn't really have that big of a social element. I mean, it's fun to talk to people in line and exchange business cards (and I'll definitely be revisiting and e-mailing the people I met), but I felt I spent a lot of time by myself. I mean, it's so big and there are so many people, that a lot of the social meet ups are sort of "ships passing in the night" stuff. Most of the socializing came from the Blogger conference, and I'd missed half of that. 

Although I did spend some quality time discussing just that with Jessica from Read React Review while in the line at MacMillan for Eve and Adam. She said that she'd heard the reason there was so much YA stuff at Book Expo is that the YA genre doesn't have its own major conference yet. There are writers' cons for Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Romance, Mystery - and yet not for YA. There's a lot of cross-promoting because YA can fall into the categories of sci-fi and romance, for instance, but no conference specifically for that genre. 

We also both expressed our disappointment in the BEA Book Bloggers conference. If I decide to go next year (and that's still a big, major if), I might go to the UnCon instead. 

All in all, Wednesday was a much lower-key day. All the frenetic running around, gawking, networking (giving my card and introducing myself as a blogger to publishers) and discovery happened on Tuesday. I felt separated from a lot of it - I'm not really in the industry, so I felt like more of a spectator. I left early to rest up before my Broadway show.

My total Wednesday swag:

While I wanted to join Katiebabs and Jessica for dinner, the insane New York traffic wouldn't allow it - I needed to have supper and get back in time to see the show, so I had the cute, flirty concierge suggest an Italian restaurant, which I ended up walking to after my (violent, profanity-spewing) cab driver landed us in a traffic gridlock.

It was called Becco, and it was a lovely restaurant. It was cozy, with warm colours, gold and red wall paper, well-lit without being too bright, with very friendly and attentive waiters. They set me up at a table for one, with a bread basket and a bowl of olives, and another bowl of olive oil-drizzled vegetable mash that was astonishingly good. I had a delicious Caesar salad and ordered the lamb - I wasn't able to finish all of it but I just wanted to mention it because while I was there, I had such a great time. Everything was delicious and all the staff were so attentive. It was nice to just sit there and people watch.

Then off I went to see Nice Work If You Can Get It - starring Matthew Broderick! It was wonderful and cheered me up immensely - although it was no Book of Mormon. The live performance and the jokes and physical comedy made this show - but the songs, while toe-tapping, well-performed, and appropriate for the show, were not at all memorable despite being apparently timeless Gershwin numbers

And then more sleep! More to come later!

BEA Day Two: Books, Books, Books

Day Two went much better - I went against my instinctual resistance against taking Pills For No Reason and swallowed two Benadryl the night before to ensure a good night's sleep, and woke up feeling much better.

So today was the Book Expo itself, and I was prepared. I took my purse, my water bottle, and the smaller, empty rolling suitcase I'd packed inside my larger rolling suitcase and took the shuttle to the Javits Center.

The place was enormous and they had special designated areas where you could check your suitcase for $3 and come back to refill it as much as you wanted.

There were two entrances to the Exposition Center - one had an enormous long line of people waiting until the doors opened at nine, and the other only had about a dozen people. I choose the shorter one - which really didn't make much difference. Apparently the right-hand entrance was more popular because it opened closer to the Big Six publishers' booths, but it was faster be the twelfth one in left-hand entrance and just walk over to the Big Six then wait around at the back of the right-hand line. And while I waited, I had a lovely chat with some librarians from Canton, Maine - one of whom got her Master's at my hometown university and was inspired by our School of Library Sciences to become a librarian.

But back to Book Expo! The librarian (whose name I shall remember once I paw through all my business cards at the end of this trip) gave me a lot of good tips - like how most of the free piles of ARCs are put out in the morning and how the Expo really calms down in the afternoon, which is a good time for socializing and networking.

So when those doors opened, I took off like a rocket! I found out the map I made was less than helpful in nearly all respects but it was really easy to find the bigger publishers because of their large banners and displays.

I have to admit, before BEA, I searched for pictures of the exposition center and never could find very many that weren't "official." I wondered if cameras weren't allowed on the exposition floor. Nope - rather, I found out that, at least on the first day, you'll spend too much time running around and dodging people and standing in line and looking at everything to even think about taking your camera out of your purse.

There is seriously SO MUCH to look at. The Big Six publishers (MacMillan, Penguin, Random House, Simon and Schuster, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins) all had enormous booths and lots of giveaways. I stuck mainly to YA but there were a lot of lit fic titles that looked excellent, too. Pretty soon, I definitely needed to secure my swag in my checked luggage - twice!

I also stood in line for about forty-five minutes to get an autographed copy of Cathrynne M. Valente's The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There! Definitely one of my must-have ARCs! And Cathrynne Valente was so nice!

Lunch was a hideously expensive and greasy pizza - not the wisest choice, I suppose, but it was delicious. Had a headache sometime after lunch, so I decided to head back with a cab - but I was in a much better mood. I was productive, I'd networked (I passed my card out to a lot of different publishers, saying I was a blogger who was interested in YA, fantasy, romance and literary fiction), and I'd gotten lots of free books.

After another nap, I felt well enough to return to the Javits for the Meet the Apocalypsies panel - where several authors whose debut novels came out this year assembled in one room to talk and sign swag for fans, while cookies and promotional doodads (bracelets, bookmarks, etc.) were served. And every fifteen or so minutes they'd hold a draw for prize packs of their books. Met Ana from the Booksmugglers there, and Janicu, and Jessica from Read React Review - and fangirled over two of the ladies from Forever Young Adult.

The panel was interesting - a good idea, and well-executed - except it might have gone better in a room without quite so many chairs. People had to squeeze around them and twist around while sitting in them and all in all it was very cramped and hot. At the same time, it was a great idea and I talked to a lot of cool authors - including Leanna Renee Hieber, who has ESCAPED THE DEBT-RIDDEN CLUTCHES OF DORCHESTER, PRAISE JESUS! She's now got new books with a far better publisher, even though Dorchester still hasn't fully paid up for her other ones!

And finally - I won one of the prize packs! Which included Hieber's Darker Still and Emily Danforth's The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which has been on my wishlist since forever. After lots of chatting, it was back to the hotel room for a delicious supper of Backpack Granola Bar, after which I cabbed it out to the Jefferson Market Library for the Teen Author Carnival.

The Teen Author Carnival was a fantastic event. While I'm sure the Book Expo facilitated the ENORMOUS number of YA Authors being all in the same vicinity, it was a separate event. Lots of cool YA authors were there - the fabulous Hannah Moskowitz, Tom Pollock, Kody Keplinger - I mean, hot damn, some of those authors are young. I need to step up my game with my novel already! There were a couple of very interesting panels and some nice prizes, and the Jefferson Market Library, in the Village, is gorgeous.

More posts to come!

BEA Day One: A Head Full of Pain and Ideas

At least, after months of waiting, I'm in New York! And because my schedule is (briefly) clear and I have free internet at my hotel, I can regale you with some of my adventures from Book Expo America! Pictures will come later!

Day One was June 3rd, where I flew to Chicago and from there to New York. United Airlines has a surprisingly backward way of doing things: for the three-hour flight to Chicago, we had to board a cramped, uncomfortable little plane with only two seats on each side - and I only occupied about 75% of my seat as the other 25% was hogged by the very large (to be fair, large as is built rather than as fat) man next to me.

The one and a half hour flight to New York took up a spacious aircraft with three comfy seats a side with squishy headrests that could be bent to fit the shape of your head! What gives? Why save that plane for the short ride?

I arrived in New York at around 11:30 pm, their time, and had to spend another thirty minutes in the trailing Cab Line of Doom. Lots of people needing cabs, with the occasional sleazy, unlicensed taxi/town car driver circling around trying to scam the most impatient-looking of us into their vehicles.

After that came the Hotel. I went up to my hotel room and. Found. A. BUG. INMYBED. Needless to say, I freaked out. Just a bit. I mean you hear all these rumours about New York hotels and bedbugs. So I trapped it under a glass and called the front desk. While they quickly changed my room, I wasn't appeased, nor convinced that there weren't hordes of creepy, crawling things in the shadows, waiting to devour me once I turned off the light (a la flesh-eating beetles in The Mummy). Even when I looked up bedbugs and realized, rather shamefacedly, that what I found a) looked nothing like a bedbug and b) was actually far smaller than a bedbug (smaller even than a no-see-um), and c) that I'd only found the one, my primitive lizard-brain was still screaming, bugs bugs bugs bugs!

So I couldn't sleep at all - which was convenient, because it meant I was awake to experience a sudden onset of a gastrointestinal Ailment which I shall not name for the benefit of my delicate-minded readers, followed by CHILLS, which required me to try and cover myself up with (possibly-only-in-my-mind) bug-infested blankets.

NOT FUN.

NOT FUN was also getting out of bed at an unseemly hour to get ready for the BEA Book Bloggers convention. I was so wobbly and dehydrated I nearly gagged in the middle of the hallway trying to dry-swallow the hastily-bought pills for my Ailment. BUT STILL. I persevered. Moving very slowly and taking tiny sips from a water-bottle, I took the shuttle to BEA, got my tickets, and waited in line.

At first, the convention was great - lovely, interesting books of all different types and genres, and a wicked-cool coffee mug from Kobo that you can draw on with chalk! Excellent! Also excellent was FINALLY meeting ALL my blogger friends in person! I met Ana and Thea from The Book Smugglers, Katiebabs from Babbling About Books, Jessica from Read, React, Review, Janicu from Janicu's Book Blog, and Jane Litte from Dear Author!

We all got to share a table with them, which was excellent, because we were all present to commiserate on the less-than-good aspects of the convention.

First off, the Networking Breakfast - this was where the authors all switched tables every fifteen minutes to talk to the bloggers while we ate coffee and muffins (or in my case, tiny sips of water with tiny bites of banana). Some of the writers were excellent - Justin Cronin was very personable and answered questions and put forward good discussion. I definitely want to read The Twelve now. But the other writers we got didn't seem to quite understand what bloggers did. Both of them seemed to think that we were more promoters than critics. That if we liked what they pitched us about their books, we'd put their book on our websites with hearts and rainbows attached.

Second Most Awkward Moment of the Conference: When the author of Motherland ranted about "those damn reviewers" to a table FULL OF REVIEWERS.

Then came a rather laughably self-aggrandizing keynote speech from Jennifer Weiner - a speech that was mostly about how awesome she is and how she helps other authors and how her type of writing is so misunderstood and underestimated - gosh, just like Book Bloggers. It's like we're all sisters! She did have some valid things to say, but I think everyone at our table rolled our eyes at the same time and chalked snarky silent comments onto our Kobo Coffee Mugs when she stated how we should all focus on sprinkling fairy dust (her words) on the stuff we like instead of blogging about what we don't like.

After that came an interminably long question-and-answer period - with a very suspicious number of questions focusing on When Jennifer Weiner's Next Book is Coming Out and What Jennifer Weiner's Working On Next, rather than, um, Blogging and What It's All About. I was sincerely starting to wonder if there were plants in the audience.

I finally got up and asked what she thought about negative Author Reactions to Negative Reviews - and she immediately caught on to that whole GoodReads scandal about that insane self-published author who tried to "revenge" herself against a reviewer by posting all of her personal contact information online. She said that authors need to calm down, adding that she never reads any of her reviews, good or bad, because she doesn't want to obsess about them and have them affect how she writes. She also stated that reviewers should just politely say "thanks for reading my review" to negative author rants, stating "don't poke the crazy." Which makes sense.

Most Awkward Moment of the Conference: This happened during the next panel (which started half an hour late because Jennifer Weiner went ten minutes late answering questions and then held an impromptu book signing) with some HarperCollins Representatives and one of the managers from GoodReads. I was sitting at another table by that time (next to Tom Pollock, who wrote The City's Son!), and Katiebabs stood up and asked what they thought about plagiarism, and how that should affect a blogger when bloggers are trying to be seen as professionals.

I almost cheered - but holy cow, the whole room went quiet. A couple of the bloggers at my new table blushed and hid their faces with their hands. It was pretty obvious whom Katiebabs was talking about - it was also discovered that the Plagiarist Blogger Who Shall Not Be Named was in the same room.

HarperCollins immediately replied that they didn't respect plagiarists, that they wouldn't do business with a plagiarist, and that they wouldn't want to trust their books to be promoted by a plagiarist - man, you could have heard a pin drop.

After that awkwardness came lunch, which I ate outside the convention room with my blogger friends. Good discussion, good food (which I found I could eat) - the only problem was my increasingly-murderous headache. I decided to head back to my hotel room to lie miserably in the dark and missed the rest of the convention.

It was not a good day, overall. The blogger convention (the half I was present for) was disappointing, and I wasn't the only one who thought that, either. I asked Thea about the panels I missed and she replied that I didn't miss much. A lot of bloggers felt misunderstood and dissatisfied that most of the conference was spent with publishers telling us what they wanted from us, rather than talking about more blogger-focused topic like a Blogging Etiquette or Ethics.

I was sorry about missing the social aspect, however. As you will see later in my posts for BEA, the Book Expo itself isn't very social, and so I'd really been looking forward to seeing and chatting with all my friends at the BEA. But health comes first, I suppose. Getting sick is one thing, but getting sick on your vacation which leads you to miss your most-anticipated events? Really sucks.

"Darkfever," by Karen Marie Moning

The Chick: MacKayla "Mac" Lane. A bubbly, blond Georgia bartender who goes to Ireland to find out how her sister died while studying abroad.
The Rub: Once there, she discovers the answers are weirder than she thinks - her sister might have been able to see the magical sidhe that have begun infesting Dublin's darker neighbourhoods. And now Mac can see them, too.
Dream Casting: Revenge's Emily VanCamp, slightly dumber.


The Dude: Jericho Barrons. Asshole extraordinaire and all-round waste of character development and fictional oxygen. Has a bookstore, lots of money, and a dark, mysterious past.
The Rub: TOO BAD HE'S A COMPLETE JACKASS.
Dream Casting: Keanu Reeves.


Urban Fantasy Convention Checklist:

• 1 Inconveniently Dead Relative
• 1 Untested, Just-Discovered Magical Power that Is Way More Magical Than Regular Magical Powers
• Several Ugly Fairies
• 1 Intentionally Stereotypical Vampire
• 1 Magical Spear
• NO Magical Power Training Montages (for SHAME!)

The Word: Thanks to lovely Commenter Suggestions, I Storify'd my LiveTweets here. 

I came across this book at my second RWA - it came in a lovely package that included a free book and a soundtrack. And several friends of mine enjoyed the book. Sadly, I did not.

MacKayla is a sweet-natured Georgia peach chilling by the pool when she receives a phone call on her parents' landline that informs her that her beloved sister Alina, who had been studying abroad in Ireland, has been murdered. MacKayla is further shocked when she replaces her old phone (which she'd dropped in the pool a few days prior to Alina's murder) and finds a host of confusing, frantic voicemails from her sister about how the world's in danger and they have to find something called the Shi-shadu.

Against her protective parents' wishes, MacKayla flies to Ireland, determined to find Alina's killer. Unsurprisingly, this goes nowhere, and soon MacKayla finds herself having creepy visions - where beautiful people suddenly appear ugly and inhuman.

Her quest for justice eventually brings her to Barrons Books and Baubles - a mysterious bookstore run by a particularly nasty individual masquerading as a hero, Jericho Barrons. He's violent, callous, manipulative, misogynist, and cruel - but hey! He's hot! So that makes everything okay.

He identifies MacKayla as a sidhe-seer, a rare human capable of seeing through a fairy's glamour. This puts MacKayla in more danger, since fairies take serious umbrage with buzz-killing humans who can warn people of their tricks. As a bonus, MacKayla's new power also extends into detecting magical objects, which Barrons hopes can prove useful in finding the Sinsar Dubh, a powerful spellbook and the same thing Alina warned MacKayla about in her last voicemail message.

MacKayla responds to this exposition with a violent denial and flees, nearly killing herself several times in a whirlwind of Too Stupid To Live decisions.

Once she's tired herself out Almost Getting Killed For a Really Stupid Reason, she returns to Barrons, who promptly holds her hostage and drags her (all but on a leash) to the homes of various Shady Paranormal Criminals in order to see if she can detect if they're hiding the Sinsar Dubh.

I really just did not like the protagonists of this novel at all. MacKayla, in particular, is a borderline-infantalized character - an immature, thoughtless girl who goes out investigating the paranormal in overly-described "cute" outfits, spouting "cute" swearwords (she says "petunia" instead of ass) and "cute" Southern wisdom - only to get into not-so-cute scrapes.

I get that Moning was trying to write Mac as a bit of a departure from the standard UF heroines (who tend to be described by most or all of these words: hardbitten, bad ass, no friends, leather jacket, dress in black, foster kid past, sullen demeanour). However, in this novel, Mac just came across as shallow and frequently TSTL. There's nothing inherently stupid about liking fashion or make up or blond hair - but there is if that's what you think about first when you're in mortal danger, to the detriment of your personal safety.

As for Barrons, I don't want to dwell on him too much because, frankly, he's a terribly written character. He controls and harasses the helpless and hapless Mac for much of the novel, often violently, with no discernible character traits or motivations beyond Whatevah, Whatevah, I Get What I Want.

I understand the whole "anti-hero" attraction, but in such cases, the author usually gives the character understandable flaws, background, and actions to humanize them, so that our understanding of them as a person helps us like them despite their flaws. Barrons remains completely opaque - in saving his actual motivations, heritage, and backstory to try and get people to read future books, the author left too little actual development in this book to make him anywhere near appealing enough for me to care about how he does in future books.

As for the writing, the author employs a very irritating Future-Narrator technique. Darkfever is told in the first person by Mac - but by a Mac in the future who already knows everything that's going to happen. In an increasingly-frustrating habit, the Future-Narrator will drop irritatingly obvious hints, often giving away the ending of a scene before the scene even starts:

[Barrons] "I'd rather you screw up while I'm with you, so I can manage the situation, than have you attempt your first kill on your own and get yourself killed instead." I had no idea how prophetic his word would prove (p.259).

Or:

In retrospect, I'm still stunned that I went into the abandoned neighborhood alone that day. It's a wonder I survived. [This is written BEFORE SHE GOES INTO THE NEIGHBORHOOD] (p.298).

Wow, way to completely suck the suspense out of a scene. Way to make the writing even more hamfisted. Because Heaven knows we wouldn't be able to figure it out on our own just by reading the damn scene!

Or else she will hint at something that is not explained or doesn't happen in this book:

Something nagged at me, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. It was a thing that I would stupidly fail to put my finger on until it was too late. Before long, I would understand that nothing had been what it seemed that night, and the reason Barrons had faced-off so coolly with the blood-sucking Master was because he'd gone in with the quiet assurance that, no matter what, he would walk out alive, and not because he had Malluce [the vampire] by the proverbial fiscal balls. (p.155-156)

Or how about:

One day I would stop taking off my clothes in V'lane's [hot fairy prince who induces uncontrollable horniness] presence, but the cost of that resistance would be a piece of my soul. Today, here and now, strolling through the National Museum of Archaeology and History ... I had no idea that pieces of one's soul could be lost.

I have honestly no idea what these excerpts mean, because they're not explained in this book - clearly, they're meant to hint at future books. It's simply confusing and annoying. It's understandable for some sequel-baiting to occur in the first book of an intended series, but the best type of sequel-baiting is to write a coherent and creative first book. If the first book isn't good, I don't care how many "secrets and answers" you promise me will be in later books. And if your first book spends more time hinting at cool stuff to come then writing an understandable and cool story happening right now, then you've failed.

And in that scene, Darkfever fails, because not only does it sequel-bait like it's going out of style, but there's no solid conclusion to the book at hand. Do we find out who Barrons is? Nope. Do we find out, definitively, who Alina's killer is? Nope. Do we find out Mac's true heritage? NOPE. None of the plot threads started in this book have a conclusion. I finished this book with almost no answers at all. I'm sorry, but even a first book in a series is still a book. A story. And stories require a beginning, a middle, and an end. Concluding the initial plot doesn't mean you can't continue into the next book with new plots that cropped up along the way, but every book needs a payoff.

I'm sorry, but I did not enjoy Darkfever, on any level. I'm off to go read books that live in the now.

D+

Disagree? Purchase Darkfever here.

The May Round-Up!

Hey y'all! Currently chillin' in my apartment, feet propped up with a heating pad. My feet, which have so far carried me everywhere my entire life without a single complaint, have suddenly decided they are shy, fragile, retiring creatures. So I am indulging them for the nonce, because I will be an absolute slave driver come BEA - which I am leaving for THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW! Whoo! Anyhoo, my May has gone thusly:

A Gentleman Undone, by Cecilia Grant. Romance, Historical. A+
Pros: Beautiful writing, superbly detailed and sexually-experienced heroine with math skills, realism, grit, and passion. Cons: I got nuthin'.
 
Delicious, by Sherry Thomas. Romance, Historical. A+
Pros:  Gorgeous, gorgeous writing. Mouthwatering descriptions of food. Lots of historical detail and drama! Interesting secondary romance. Cons: The whole plot point where the hero never sees the heroine's face until the end gets a little tiresome.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor. YA, Fantasy. A+
Pros: Breathtaking writing, highly original story, great heroine, lovely romance. Cons: Um, the sequel's not out yet?

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart. YA, Contemporary. A
Pros: Bitchin' heroine, creative feminist commentary, no obvious love triangle, unconventional ending. Cons: Plot kind of jumps all over the place. Heroine, while bitchin', is also occasionally kind of a bitch, too. 

The River King, by Alice Hoffman. Fiction, Contemporary. B+
Pros: Alice Hoffman is da bomb, yo. Cons: Not her best - meandering storyline, little payoff. 

Catch and Release, by Blythe Woolston. YA, Contemporary. B-
Pros: Excellent writing, subtle characterization. Cons: Unsettling and unsympathetic male protagonist, directionless ending.

Never Love a Lawman, by Jo Goodman. Romance, Historical. C+
Pros: Detailed setting, excellent Western-style action scenes. Cons: Evasive characters, slack pacing.
 
Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher. YA, Contemporary. C
Pros: Fascinating look at how a myriad of small actions beget large consequences. Cons: Ugly central concept and the suspense aspect is wasted with a cheap cop-out on the part of the male protagonist.