Five Quick Book Reviews!

Hello, blogsphere! So, I know it's Tuesday, and I know you're expecting a teaser from me, but I finished the manuscript (wooooot!!!) on Sunday night, so I'm afraid that's it for the French Revolution, werewolfy teasers. At least for now. I might share some more bits once I'm working on edits.

For now, though, since I haven't started a new project yet, I've been reading a ridiculous amount. I read three books yesterday. It was fantastic.

Here are some quick little reviews of five of the books I've recently read.

BEAUTY QUEENS, Libba Bray - After having read much of Libba's livejournal and meeting her on Friday, I feel that I can safely say that BEAUTY QUEENS is rather like having her sit down and actually tell you a story. It is quirky, it is hilarious, it is occasionally just plain out there, it is fun, and it is also meaningful. I must admit that while Libba is one of my top-favorite authors, this isn't my favorite of her books - sometimes the ridiculousness felt like a bit much, simply because all of it was so fast-paced and hilarious and out there. But it would not have worked if it hadn't been on the same level of silliness (and the epilogue is forgiven because it reminded me of FAME in a way that was not, for once, unpleasant). I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I enjoyed much of her other work even more.

GRACELING, Kristin Cashore - I LOVED this. I've not read (or written) an epic fantasy in quite a while, and this was the perfect book to get me back into the genre that started it all for me. Tamora Pierce was one of the authors blurbing the book, and I can see why - both GRACELING and FIRE, the prequel, seem like the heirs to Tamora Pierce's "girls can save the day too" legacy. I loved the characters, I loved the setting, I loved the way the story unfolded. It made me want to whip out my many-times-trunked epic fantasy and see if I could whip it into shape. Both excellent, excellent books!

ABANDON, Meg Cabot - I got this, as well as BEAUTY QUEENS, at the This is Teen event on Friday. I was really looking forward to it, as AVALON HIGH is my favorite Meg Cabot book, and I know she can handle retellings well. But I must admit I was disappointed. To be fair, I wasn't aware that ABANDON was the first in a trilogy, but that is clearly all it is: the first in a trilogy. 300 pages of setup. The characters and the premise were enough to keep me reading through to the end, really interested to find out what happened - but I didn't. I would have to read the next two books to do that.

THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN, Sherman Alexie - I've been meaning to read this for a while, and I can see why it's so acclaimed - it's excellent. Junior (or Arnold) is such a great character, who portrays a really interesting view of his world through both the text and the cartoons he draws. The voice was spot on, as well - a smart, witty, but slightly lost and lonely fourteen year old boy. Definitely something worth reading!!

GOING BOVINE, Libba Bray - I was afraid to read this book. I was TERRIFIED to read this book. I've said that Libba Bray is one of my favorite authors, and she is, but THE SWEET FAR THING made me sob hysterically, and since this book features a main character with mad cow disease I figured it'd make me cry and I didn't want to do that. Well, I'll admit, I did get a little bit teary, but the thought at the forefront of my mind was "why did it take me so long to read this?!?!" I can see why this won the Printz award. I thought it was excellent. It featured my favorite thing in YA writing - saying big, meaningful things, exactly the way a teenager would say them. No one needs a fancy vocabulary or a fancy writing style - you don't need to be confusing to have real meaning. What Cameron has got to say, and the journey he goes on through the book - both literal and figurative - is definitely important. It definitely means a great deal. Definitely read this book!

New York, New York, a Helluva Town!

Guys, This is Teen last night was SO FANTASTIC. I had such a good time! I met awesome authors and got books signed and chatted with Scholastic people about upcoming books and it was SO MUCH FUN.

The first achievement of the day was that my friend Erin and I DID NOT GET LOST. Huzzah! This is an achievement for me because, although I live a mere hour's bus ride away from the city, I've never been there without someone who knows it far, far better than I do to lead me around. But with my slowly cementing knowledge of NYC and Erin's actually functioning sense of direction, we got on the subway and made our way down to SoHo and the Scholastic Store!

Let me just say, the Scholastic Store is a very, very dangerous place to be. SO MANY BOOKS. SO MANY SHINY HARDCOVERS WANTING ME TO TAKE THEM HOME. I bought the books that I wanted (a copy of Libba Bray's new book BEAUTY QUEENS, a copy of Meg Cabot's ABANDON, and, later, a paperback of Maggie Stiefvater's SHIVER for my sister) and then BACKED AWAY from the bookshelves.

And then! And then!



Apologies for the blurry photo. My camera is often uncooperative. But look! Awesome authors! Being awesome! And answering questions for us!

The Scholastic guy (whose name I have forgotten, sadly) asked each author a few questions (I think my favorite was when Maggie Stiefvater talked about werewolves stereotypically wearing a lot of leather and rivets and otherwise smelling like wet dog, and when Libba Bray named the microphone Fred) and then asked some questions from the crowd. He only took three - and I was one of them! Huzzah!

I asked how they go about doing the research for their books. It was a question I mostly wanted to ask Libba, because I love her GEMMA DOYLE books so so so much, but they all had great answers. Libba uses what she called the "six degrees to Kevin Bacon" approach - one thing leads to another which leads to another and so on. Meg Cabot said that, although she knows she's not supposed to, she uses Wikipedia, and also bloggers who are obsessed about the things she's writing about (Maggie and Libba then teased her a good deal about letting the internet do her work for her). And Maggie says that she uses a combination of those two approaches, and also likes hands-on research. She needed to research cliffs, so she went to a whole bunch of cliffs all over the place - and broke her tailbone on a cliff in the UK. Ouch! The lengths we go to, you know? ;)

And then there was the signing part! Of course, Erin and I ran to get on Libba Bray's line (and by the time we got off it there wasn't much of a line left anywhere else, hooray!). And we took pictures!



Since Libba Bray has been one of my very favorite authors for a long time now... that was brilliant. And she had buttons! I now have a purple button on my backpack that says "sparkle pony" on it. I haven't read BEAUTY QUEENS yet so I'm not entirely sure what that means, but... c'mon, sparkle pony just sounds hilarious and awesome!



Naturally, Meg Cabot had a very sparkly shirt on. :)



This one came with the question Erin and I ALWAYS get: "are you guys sisters?" Nope! Not related in any way whatsoever. She just lives down the street.

They also had giant cardboard standups of each author's book cover, with a hole cut out so you could stick your head in. Most of mine came out terrible, but I do like this one:



So, that was my adventure to This is Teen. My advice for author signings - come with questions prepared! They appreciate it greatly!

Have a good long weekend, all!