Across the Universe ARC Giveaway

I want to begin by congratulating Michelle for winning my Where She Went ARC. I’ll pop your book in the mail today. If you didn’t win this ARC, I still recommend marking your calendars and running out to buy in on April 5th, because it’s awesome.

Now I have another ARC to give away. This one is Across the Universe by Beth Revis. I know that you are all screaming, Across the Universe was published back on January 11th, why are you giving away an Advance Reader Copy now? I know. I know. But I won an ARC of Across the Universe through a YA Highway contest after January 11th. And now I’m going to pay if forward and pass this great book onto someone else.

Here are the contest entry requirements.

1. Follow this blog.
2. Post a comment on today’s post before Monday, March 7th.
3. After you win it and read it, tell at least five other people how fabulous it is so they will go out and buy it.

It’s that simple. Good luck. But I do want to remind you all, this amazing book is already available in stores. So if you don’t want to wait until March 7th when I announce my winner, you can run over to your nearest bookstore and buy a copy today.

Goodreads describes this book:

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

My opinion:

Based solely on the cover, I expected Across the Universe by Beth Revis to be a YA Romance set in outer space. Of course I’d heard this book was YA Sci-Fi, a virtually non-existent genre. But since I’ve never read any other YA Sci-Fi books, I really just expected a YA Romance. This book has two POV characters, one male and one female. But it isn’t a romance.

Amy is a seventeen year old girl, born on Earth in the not too distant future. She is cryogenically frozen and loaded with her frozen parents into a space ship bound for a distant planet humans are hoping to repopulate. Elder is a sixteen year old boy, born on board the spaceship several centuries into its journey. Amy is mysteriously woken early. Someone is killing the other frozen humans. Amy and Elder have to band together to protect Amy’s parents, solve the mysterious murders, and stop the spaceships dystopian community from falling into civil war.

Needless to say, Across the Universe was better than I had expect. And I expected it to be good. Even though this book takes place on board a spaceship, it reads a lot like other dystopian YA. The 2000 people on board the ship are centuries from Earth and won’t reach their future planet until all the current ship inhabitants are dead or very old. Life on board the ship is nothing like life on earth. What makes this book more interesting than many other current dystopian books is that Amy is a normal American teenager randomly thrown into this futuristic nightmare.

If you like Sci-Fi, or Dystopia, or YA books that aren’t romances, I highly recommend reading Across the Universe by Beth Revis. If you want to win this ARC, simply leave a comment. Or if you want to run out and buy your own copy, you can do that too.

Final Day to Enter to Win Where She Went ARC

Today's post is going to be really short and sweet. I am drawing a name for who wins my Where She Went ARC tomorrow. So if you want to read this excellent book before it April 5th release date, you had better enter my contest now. The contest rules and a review of the book are here.



Best of luck.

Who were your peeps?

Every Wednesday, the good people over at YA Highway post a question and then all the rest of us post our answers on our blogs and pop around on a fun little virtual road trip reading each other’s answers. Well, this week, they changed the rules on us. We’re all supposed to come up with our own questions then pop around and give each other answers.

So here is my question: Who were your friends in high school?

When I was in high school I was a total nerd. We’re talking captain of the mathleates, on the chess team, took honors and AP everything, freaked out when I got a B in PE and it wrecked my GPA, NERD. This doesn’t mean I didn’t have friends, I had lots of friends, they were just all really nerdy too. We were very competitive about grades and extracurricular activities. We all wanted to build the perfect resume so we could get into the perfect college. Four of my good friends went to Stanford and two went to Princeton. We were all happy little nerds who enjoyed looking down at the cheerleaders and football players and their futures working in fast food.

In my current WIP, all of my characters are nerds. They aren’t all exactly the same, but they would all rather die than get elected homecoming queen. I recently gave my first three chapters to one of my alpha readers, and she commented, “I love your portrayal of high-school geek culture… the nerdy kids have their own thing going on, and the popular kids just happen to occupy the same real estate, occasionally. But there's no longing to join the populars and ditch their brainy friends.”

A lot of YA books and teen movies glamorize the popular life and encourage all other teens to try as hard as they can to join the cool kid ranks. I have NEVER been a cool kid and I’ve never wanted to be one. I really can’t imagine all that many authors are former head cheerleaders. But I’m still curious. Who were your friends in high school? And do they appear in the pages of your current writing?

The Future of Books Has Arrived

I’m talking about the bankruptcy of Boarders of course. The end of brick and mortar bookstores has been on the horizon for quite a while, but now the horizon doesn’t look quite as far away. As an aspiring writer, I hate the idea of Boarders going down. I want there to be lots of places for readers to buy my books once they come out, so having bookstores on every corner is definitely a good thing.

I read a LOT. Last year I read more than 160 books. Of those 160 books, I think I bought 3 at Borders and maybe one or two at Barns and Noble. Realizing this is making me feel a little bit guilty. Is it my fault that Borders went bankrupt?

I decided to look at the last 50 books I read (about the past four months) and tally where I received each book. I checked out 36 books from the library (72% of all books read). Eight were e-books that I purchased from Amazon and read on my Kindle (16% of all books read). Two I purchased for myself at an independent bookstore (4% of all books read). And four were given to me as gifts, I don’t know what store the giver purchased them from (8% of all books read). While these numbers look very small, I can attest that during the past four months I also purchased an additional 14 books that I gave away to other people as gifts (all from an independent bookstore).

I use the library a lot. I read a lot and have limited funds. Buying 25% of the books I read, and getting the other 75% from the library seems reasonable to me. I’m still buying about 40 books per year. But the majority of the books that I “buy” are e-books. Normally best sellers that have insanely long wait lists at the library. I rarely give any gift other than books purchased from a bookstore to other people. But the only time I buy paper books for myself is when I go to a book reading and want the author to sign a copy of their book for me. Having authors sign my kindle just seems weird.

I know that I’m not the average book consumer. I think the average American reads something like 3 books a year, all purchased at Wal-Mart. But there is a Border’s adjacent to the train station where I catch my train home at the end of each day. I walk past a Border’s at least twice every day. And I LOVE to read. I never go in there and buy books. It totally is my fault that they’re bankrupt. I’m feeling so bad, I think I’ll go visit my favorite library.

Alternative Thinking POV

The novel I’m currently attempting to write has a dyslexic point of view character. I feel like dyslexia is currently on the cusp of widespread understanding. Most people have a general idea of what it is, but very few people understand it fully. Dyslexic characters appear in books, movies, and TV shows, but the learning disability is often a subplot or only in backstory. I have never seen a portrayal of dyslexia in mainstream media that covered all the complexities of the disability. That is why I’m currently attempting to write such a book myself.

One of the reasons I think the world is ready to finally figure out what dyslexia is all about is the growing prevalence of other learning disabilities and cognitive disorders in the media. Every time I turn around, I stumble upon another brilliant portrayal of Asperger’s Syndrome. Today it came in the form of Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco Stork. I just started this book this morning and haven’t actually finished it yet, so I can’t give a complete review. But oh my god, I love this voice! I love Marcelo.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by MarK Haddon is easily in my top ten favorite books of all time. A murder mystery about a dead dog told from the POV of an autistic ten year old. Obviously, the book is AMAZING. Look Me In the Eye by John Elder Robinson and Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet are both amazing memoirs written by autistic authors. Reading stories told from the point of view of an autistic narrator always mesmerize me.

Marcelo in the Real World comes across as very authentic. Marcelo wants to be clear. He wants people to understand him. He wants to understand the things other people are saying. But people don’t always get what they want, and sometimes it’s difficult to comprehend the words and behaviors of others.

If you know someone with autism or Asperger’s Syndrome you should read all of these books. But more important than that, if you don’t know anyone with Asperger’s you should read these books. Because understanding other people is always good. If we as a collective society learn how to understand people with Asperger’s Syndrome, their difficulty communicating will greatly diminish.

I am not an expert on autism. I would never be able to write a book like Marcelo in the Real World. I am therefore grateful that Francisco Stork chose to tell this story. I hope when I finish the book about dyslexia I’m currently attempting it will contain a hint of the honesty trapped within these pages.

WHERE SHE WENT - Free ARC Giveaway

I won a free ARC of Where She Went by Gayle Forman through a contest on YA Highway. I just finished reading it and LOVED it. It releases to the general public on April 5th. Instead of marking your calendars and planning to hit the bookstore first thing on the morning of April 5th, you can read my copy. This book is so good, I’m going to pay it forward and give it to one of my lucky blog followers.

Here are the rules for winning this ARC.
1. Leave a comment on today’s post sometime before Friday, February 25th.
2. Follow this blog.
3. After you win and read this ARC, you have to tell at least five other people how fabulous it is so they’ll go by it on April 5th.

In case you are wondering what this awesome book is about, here is the goodreads description.

It's been three years since the devastating accident ... three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.

Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Julliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future - and each other.

Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.

Now here is my description.

This book is the sequel to If I Stay. If you haven’t read If I Stay yet, you should because it’s beyond good too, but Where She Went can stand alone pretty easily. If I Stay is told from Mia’s point of view. Mia is a seventeen year old girl whose family is in a faital car accident. Her parents and little brother all die in the accident and she spends a week in a coma. The entire book takes place while Mai is in her coma, trying to decide if she should wake up to the life of an orphan or let herself die along with her family. Yeah, I told you it was amazing. Spoiler alert – she wakes up.

The person who convinces Mia she has something to live for is Adam, her boyfriend. Even though she’s lost her entire family, she wakes up knowing somebody still loves her. Where She Went takes place three years later and is told from Adam’s POV. Adam didn’t just love Mai, he also loved her family. Their death was really hard on him. And he would do anything to protect Mia, including smother her.

Six months after the accident, Mia breaks up with Adam and relocates to New York. Adam spirals into a deep depression. He was in an indie rock band that played small gigs at local clubs before Mia’s families accident. In the midst of his sorrow and depression, he starts writing music. Dark melodious hard core rock music filled with angst and pain, music that goes viral and pushes his no name band to the top of the billboard charts.

Now Adam isn’t just depressed and lonely, he’s dressed and lonely and super famous. While on tour in New York, he runs into Mia. They spend the night wondering the streets of the city hunting for hidden places to recapture the life they’ve both lost. They talk about the accident. They talk about why Mia left. They talk about who Adam became after Mia left. They talk about music.

Very few stories about sad angry celebrities seem honest to me. Where She Went is definitely the exception. Adam’s voice is so real. His emotions' so raw. This book doesn’t have the dreamy frame of a story told from inside a coma, but it’s still beautiful and powerful.

I seriously loved reading this book. And I can’t recommend it enough. If you haven’t read If I Stay yet, you should totally go out and buy it this week. Then on April 5th, you should go out and buy Where She Went. Or you could just leave a comment. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get to read this amazing book before April 5th.

I’d Like to Thank the Academy…

You like me, you really really like me, or at least Pam and Marquita like me, ‘cause they just awarded me with the Stylish Blogger award. Normally I hate getting chain letters, but winning this award totally brightened my morning. So I’m going to share the love and pass it on like I’m supposed to.

Here are the award rules.

Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award, list 7 things about yourself and pass the award along to ten other awesomtastic, Stylish Bloggers, and finally contact said bloggers.

So let’s get going. Thank you Pam and Marquita! If you haven’t checked out their blog YA? Cus we Write, you totally should. It’s very stylish.

Now, seven things about me:

1 – I’m in the middle of reading an ARC for “Where I Went” by Gayle Forman. It’s totally awesome, but you can’t read it until it comes out next month. Are you jealous of my awesomeness yet?

2 – For my day job I’m an environmental engineer. Saving the world of evil pollution sounds exciting but really I just plug numbers into spread sheets 40 hours per week.

3 – I own a fork lift. Well really it’s my husbands, but I’m married to a guy that owns a fork lift. The only thing I’ve ever used it for is building a 15’ tall snowman. My husband uses it for much more productive things.

4 – I going camping this weekend. It’s supposed to snow. I better pack a warm sleeping bag.

5 – When I was seven, my imaginary friends moved to Palm Springs ‘cause that’s where people move when they get old and everyone was telling me I was too old for imaginary friends. About a week after they moved I received my first letter from them telling me all about their new lives in Palm Springs. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a writer – it’s just a socially acceptable way to play with my imaginary friends.

6 – I’m allergic to nuts but love chocolate. So if you want to shower me with virtual gifts make sure there aren’t any nuts in the fudge.

7 – It’s girls scout cookie season which always makes me smile. There are no nuts in Thin Mints, only yum.

Now for the chain letter part, picking ten more stylish blogs to pass the love onto.

Tina Laurel Lee over at Watch Me Practice
Jonathon Arntson over at Jon’s Life. Or Other Odd People Doing Odd Things
Marisa Hopkins at Living the Creative Life
Claire Dawn at Points of Claire-ification
Kelly Polark at Kelly Polark
MC Howe at Pensive Sarcasm
Alicia Gregorie at Slice of the Blog Pie
KO: The Insect Collector at The Insect Collector
Medeia Sharif at Medeia Sharif

Heather Kelly at Edited to Within an Inch of my Life

Trouble with Titles

For this week’s Road Trip Wednesday, the good people over at YA Highway are asking the question

How do you choose your titles?

The most simple answer is, I don’t. I totally suck at titles. I usually make up something totally lame to call my book while I’m working on it. Then one of my beta readers, or a friend that I’m talking to about my WIP will simply say “You should call it X” and X becomes the book title.

My current WIP is called SAMANTHA. That is the main character’s first name. Yeah, obviously that title isn’t going to last.

The WIP that I was working on up until I quit to write SAMANTHA, because her voice was screaming in my head way louder than the voice of my old MC was called BROKEN. That book is about a girl recovering from a serious injury. I like the title and will probably keep it. But she doesn’t actually break any bones. She has nerve damage and loses control of her legs. So maybe BROKEN isn’t the best title. But clearly, it’s a big step up from SAMANTHA.

Since I obviously need tons of help when it comes to titling my books, please share your brilliance with me. How do you choose your titles?

What to do with Old Books?

I really like books. I don’t just like reading them, I also like having them. When I was younger, I used to dream about having a library in my home. I don’t actually have a room solely dedicated to books yet, but there are floor to ceiling bookcases on every wall of my dining room, so that room now serves the duel roll of eating space and library.

Some of the books in my house are valuable. Rare first additions. Books signed by now diseased authors. But I also have a lot of books that are just books. And a part of me wonders why I need to fill every wall of my house with them. I’m never going to re-read The DiVinci Code. And I have a hard time imagining Dan Brown as a future collector’s item. Do I really his work it in my dining room?

I do like owning copies of many of my favorite books, not because I re-read them, but because I can then lend them to friends. There is something exciting bout not simply telling someone about a great book, but actually giving them the book and saying “You have to read this.” But I don’t have that many friends, and I have a lot of books.

So lately I’ve been thinking I should give some away. That was the motivation behind the contest I had about a month ago. But not all that many bloggers want my now forgotten copies of books that came out five years ago. I could sell them to a used bookstore. I buy plenty of books from Powell’s, getting store credit there would be awesome. But I’ve never sold a book back to a bookstore, ever, and the idea just makes me feel sad.

I could donate them to my public library. I check more than enough books out of the library. Giving a few back would be good. Nobel almost. But lately, I’ve been thinking about who else I could give my used books too. There are non-profits aimed at getting books into the hands of children all over the world. There are a lot of really great programs set up for giving books to at risk youth and underprivileged children right here in my own neighborhood. I could definitely give my used copy of Holes to one of those programs. But would they want The Time Travelers Wife?

I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with all my used books yet. But I feel like I should rid myself of about 100 books. And I don’t want to sell them to Powell’s. What do you think I should do? What do you do with your books after you’ve read them and lent them to your five closest friends?

Twenty Boy Summer

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I decided to review a book that has a heart on the cover. My choice, TWENTY BOY SUMMER by Sarah Ockler.

Based solely on the title, I was expecting an extremely trashy YA Romance Novel. I was therefore, very pleasantly surprised to find this book actually has a plot, and interesting characters. Who would have thunk? But don’t worry, there is still plenty of good fashioned teen smut in there too.

The title, TWENTY BOY SUMMER is a bit of a misnomer. I thought I’d read about a long string of boys in one wild summer of teenage fun. Really, this book only has two boys, and one of them is dead.

Anna fell in love with Matt back in the sandbox, they grew up next door to each other and transformed from best friends to more than friends on Anna’s fifteenth birthday. Then Matt died of an unrecognized heart condition a month later. I KNOW, not the smutty opening I was expecting either. I actually cried, while reading a book called TWENTY BOY SUMMER, but don’t worry the filth comes later.

The main story takes place one year after Matt’s death. Anna is sixteen and in hopes of finally moving on and getting over Matt, she makes a bet with her best friend that she can meet twenty boys while on summer vacation. She meets one, Sam. Sam and Anna have a cute love story that is continually haunted by memories of Matt.

This book was fun to read. It had all the emotion and romance that you’d want from a “romance novel”. There were girls in bikini’s and cute surfer boys hanging out at the beach. There was also a healthy mixture of teen angst and the heartbreaking memory of what will never be.

So if you want to read a book with a heart on the cover this Valentine’s Day. I recommend TWENTY BOY SUMMER by Sarah Ockler.

What Character’s Read

It is probably safe to assume most if not all the readers of a novel actually like to read. So they’re likely to relate to characters that also like to read. But what book should you shove into the hands of your bookworm main character?

Lennie Walker carries around a well loved copy of Wuthering Heights like a security blanket in The Sky Is Everywhere. Bella Swan reads Jane Austen while missing Edward in New Moon. And Bianca and Wesley’s relationship starts while writing a paper about The Scarlet Letter in The Duff.

This representation of books within books would lead one to believe teenagers never read anything written after the invention of electricity. Most teens have read a few classics, since their assigned in English class, but the modern YA author hopes teens are reading stuff written by them, not the Bronte sisters.

There is the whole literary rights issue to consider. Tossing a line from a book currently in the public domain into dialog isn’t going to raise any legal problems. But it does impact the development of the characters. What kind of teenagers quote the classics in their daily conversations?

With that said, I need to go re-read Macbeth now. Since the next scene I plan to write will definitely be referencing the bard.

Do you have any well read characters in your current projects? If so, what are they reading, and why?

Couples Worth Loving

Just yesterday, I admitted how cynical I am about romance. And now today, the good people over at YA Highway are asking for my favorite literary couple.

That’s right. Today’s road trip Wednesday question is

Who are your favorite literary couples?

I don’t know. The ones that are messy and complicated.

I generally don’t like super sappy romances. But I do like books that deal with relationship tension. Just looking back on my recent reads, here are a few literary couples that I like:

Bianca Piper and Wesley Rush in THE DUFF by Kody Keplinger. Bianca is super cynical and adamantly not in love with Wesley for the entire book. She’s attracted to him, and she comes to care quite deeply for him, but they’re not lovey-dovey. They aren’t even close.

D.J. Schwenk and Brain Nelson in DAIRY QUEEN by Catherine Gilbert Murdock. Spoiler alert, D.J. and Brain maybe get together at the end of the story. But really the book just ends with the possibility of a relationship up in the air. Mainly this is a book about friendship. Sure there is some attraction and general hormonal teenager behavior thrown into the mix. But D.J. and Brain are both more focused on dealing with there own personal issues than hooking up. Their friendship is natural and the book leaves you wanting to believe their eventual relationship will be meaningful.

Quentin Jacobsen and Margo Roth Spiegelman in PAPER TOWNS by John Green. Q and Margo never get together. Margo runs away from home early in the story and Q spends most of the book searching for her. But the emotions are honest. Q had a crush on Margo at the beginning of the book, but as he uncovers clues trying to find her and bring her back he begins to understand her better. Another spoiler alert, this book doesn’t have a happily ever after. Q and Margo don’t get together. Margo didn’t want to be found. But it’s still a love story, in its own way. And I liked it.

What about you? Who are your favorite literary couples?

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

I’ll admit it. I’m not much of a “romantic”—at all. My husband has a standing order to never buy me anything for Valentines Day, ‘cause I think it’s a stupid holiday invented by Hallmark. And YA books about soul mates (especially paranormal YA where the supernatural guy has been long for the human chick for centuries) kind of piss me off. Not kind of, they do piss me off. I know that a normal high school crush isn’t true love, and I don’t like telling people that it is. It’s an over hyped lie, that’s even more annoying than Valentines Day.

The funny thing is that I totally believe in love. I didn’t fall in love the first time I laid eyes on my husband (even though he’s supper cute). I fell in love with him late into our third conversation, once I actually felt like I knew him. Or at least started to maybe know him, and knew for sure that I wanted to know more. I actually told one of my friends, two weeks after meeting my now husband, that I’d planned on marrying him. I just knew, he was the one.

My dad proposed to my mom three weeks after meeting her. She said “no” that time, but came around and said “yes” several months later, after a more normal length courtship. My parents have been married for almost 40 years, and they’re still totally in love. And I KNOW that I’m never going to fall out of love with my husband, it won’t happen.

So why am I so cynical? Why do I hate Valentines Day so much? Why do I intentionally build flaws and misunderstandings and obvious natural endings to every relationship I weave into my writing? I really couldn’t tell you. I just know that I had crushes on boys as a tween and that they weren’t love. When I was young and stupid I intentionally went out with guys I didn’t really like all that much, because I didn’t want anything serious and new it would be way easier to break up with a guy if I didn’t like him from the beginning. I’ve always been cynical.

Since Valentines Day is less than a week away, I’m going to try to reform. If my husband dares to buy me flowers, I’ll totally scoff at him. But maybe we can have something fancier than leftovers for dinner that night. And I’m going to make an effort to read some sappy romances this week, and not get overly pissed at the cheesy love at first sight, soul mate crap. Love does exist. I know it does. I’ve felt it. So maybe, this February I’ll allow a couple of fictional characters to feel it too.

To Stupid To Live

I’m currently about halfway through the fourth novel in a YA Paranormal series that’s name and author I’m not going to reveal (I don’t like giving negative reviews). I honestly, don’t even know why I’m reading it. I started hating this series in the second book. I’m only reading more out of a morbid curiosity for how much worse things can get.

The main problem is that the series’ narrator is WAY TO STUPID TO LIVE. Seriously, every time a good character offers her help she pushes them away, not wanting to admit she’s in trouble. And every time an evil character who she knows she can’t trust offers her help, she takes it. Why is she so stupid? Why is she still making these idiotic choices four books into the series? Why am I still reading?

I can’t answer that last one. I just keep hoping she’ll wise up. I’ll catch a glimpse of a possible new thread that could save this story from its spiral of destruction, but it never pans out. I should stop reading now. I definitely shouldn’t read book five. But I can’t help myself. I’m curious how far this author is going to push it. Secretly, I’m totally hoping she just dies. She should die. She’s made enough dumb choices.

My parting words for this post are pretty simple. Don’t write characters that are to stupid to live. Just please, don’t do it. Conflict is good—when it’s caused by uncontrollable outside forces. But when things could be happily ever after, except that your MC messes everything up over and over and over again. Well that just makes me hope she dies soon.

Dairy Queen

Since the Superbowl is this weekend, I figured I post a review about a football book. The cover of DAIRY QUEEN by Catherine Gilbert Murdock might not lead one to believe this book is all about football, but it is--sort of.

Goodreads describes the book:

When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Harsh words indeed, from Brian Nelson of all people. But, D.J. can't help admitting, maybe he's right. When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Stuff like why her best friend, Amber, isn't so friendly anymore. Or why her little brother, Curtis, never opens his mouth. Why her mom has two jobs and a big secret. Why her college-football-star brothers won't even call home. Why her dad would go ballistic if she tried out for the high school football team herself. And why Brian is so, so out of her league. When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Welcome to the summer that fifteen-year-old D.J. Schwenk of Red Bend, Wisconsin, learns to talk, and ends up having an awful lot of stuff to say.

My assessment:

D.J. Schwenk has been running her families dairy farm pretty much single handedly since her older brothers left for college and her father got hurt. It isn’t too bad, she likes cows. But what D.J. loves is football. She’s good too, almost as good as her older brothers who are both All American. When quarterback Brian Nelson starts helping out on the farm, D.J. agrees to train him. Through a summer of football and farming, D.J. learns to express herself. She also learns that there is nothing she wants more than to try out for the boy’s high-school football team that fall.

DAIRY QUEEN is a great book. D.J.’s voice is so authentic, it’s almost unnatural. And the characters are all complex and well developed. I grew up in suburbia, not a dairy farm. I barely even know the rules to football, and would have never dreamed of trying out for the boys football team as a fifteen-year-old girl. At age fifteen my favorite t-shirt said “Help I’m Talking and I Can’t Shut Up!” so yeah, living in perpetual silence has never been my biggest problem. But I TOTALLY related to D.J. I would definitely recommend it to readers of all ages. Even if you aren’t a huge football fan.

January Review

It’s February 3rd, so I’m a little late on my January rap up, please try to forgive me.

I had a really good January! A lot of things in my personal and professional (day job) life fell into place. After about six months of crazy, I finally feel like myself again. It’s a good feeling.

In January, I started a new project. I’m now about 2/3rds of the way done with the first draft. I expect to finish drafting in the next week or two and then dive into the oh-so-fun world of revising. The story is definitely rough, so I’ve got my work cut out for me, but I feel good about it. I’m totally LOVING writing again. Like I said, January was good to me.

I also did quite a bit of reading in January. I read fourteen books. Here is a quick blub on each.

PARANORMALCY by Kiersten White – YA/Urban Fantasy – Finally a paranormal adventure for girls, that is funny and exciting. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book. If you haven’t read it yet, do.

BLAMELESS by Gail Carriger – Steam Punk – If you liked the first two books in the Parasol Protectorate series, book three won’t disappoint. Carriger’s wit continues to ring true in this 19th century adventure of vampires, werewolves, and zeppelins.

PERFECT CHEMISTRY by Simone Elkeles – YA/Romance – Good girl meets bad boy, this story has been told before and it will be told again, but Elkeles did a good job of spinning it with honest and believable characters.

ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS by Stephanie Perkins – YA/Romance – Young love at a boarding school in Paris, need I say more.

DAIRY QUEEN by Catherine Gilbert Murdock – YA/Romance – I don’t live on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, and I don’t like football let alone play it, but I totally related to this book about a farm girl that goes out for her high schools football team. This is a great contemporary YA read.

HEX HALL by Rachel Hawkins – YA/Paranormal – Many of the characters at this reform school for misbehaving witches were interesting, but it wasn’t as fun to read as PARANORMALCY.

I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME by Lisa Schroder – YA/Lyrical – This is a very touching ghost story told in verse. It’s a quick read that is beautiful and captivating.

ANANSI BOYS by Neil Gaiman – Hard to classify/sort of Paranormal? – This book was weird. I didn’t really get it, and I usually love Neil Gaiman. Maybe I’m just not familiar enough with African mythology.

EARLY TO DEATH, EARLY TO RISE by Kim Harrison – YA/Urban Fantasy – The second book in the Madison Avery series is just as fun and spunky as the first. I can’t wait to see where things go in the third book.

THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE by Jandy Nelson – YA/Romance – This book is beyond good. The characters are honest, the emotions are raw and real, and the whole thing is just perfect. Probably the best book I read this month.

THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX by Mary E. Pearson – YA/Sci-Fi – This book is a book about a girl recovering from a brain transplant (or body transplant) and all the crazy medical ethics that go with it. I enjoyed reading this book, more for the questions it raised in my mind afterward than for love of the characters and story.

HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE by Dana Reinhart – YA/Romance – This is a fun read that ties questions of unconditional love in the middle of a messy divorce into a light teen romance. It’s done well and will likely resonate with many young readers.

BRAS & BROOMSTICKS by Sarah Mlynowski – MG/Paranormal – I love MG boy books (Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, etc) but MG girl books can be kind of annoying. I found the characters in this book really shallow and dishonest. I know tween girls act that way, I just don’t want to read about it.

PLEDGED: THE SECRET LIFE OF SORORITIES by Alexandra Robbins – Non-Fiction – This book didn’t reveal any great hidden mysteries, and I doubt a non-greek would get much out of it. But I was in a sorority in college, so this book was an entertaining trip down memory lane.

Play It Again

In honor of groundhogs day, the good people over at YA Highway are asking, if you had to read the same story over and over and over again, which story would it be.

My gut response is none. I didn’t like the movie groundhogs day. And even though it got fabulous reviews from everyone else who ever read it, I really didn’t like BEFORE I FALL very much either. It was the same story over and over and over again, all in the same book. Don’t get me wrong, Lauren Oliver is a really good writer and I’m still planning to read DELIRIUM sometime in the near future. I just want something new.

It is very rare for me to reread a book after I’ve already read it. Like in my entire life I’ve probably only read a dozen books for a second time. And a dozen might be an overly generous estimation. There are so many great books in this world, why would I want to keep on reliving the same one? I just don’t get it.

So, there, my answer is none. Definitely none for the over and over and over forever. But that’s sort of a cop-out answer, so I’ll go with THE DUFF by Kody Keplinger instead.

I read THE DUFF last November. It’s awesome! Lots of YA books deal with “edgy” topics. Pretty much all YA books deal with edgy topics. But in many books only the “bad kids” are allowed to make mistakes. The characters in THE DUFF are all “good kids”. They are nice people that the reader can easily relate to without feeling like a juvenile delinquent. But they’re people, who therefore make mistakes. THE DUFF is one of the “edgiest” books on the YA market right now. Not because it dares to claim that teens sometimes do stuff there parents wouldn’t approve of. But because it dares to claim that “good kids” have complicated lives.

Like I said, I read THE DUFF last November. I got it from the library. I read 150+ books a year and never reread any of them. So the library is just so much more continent. But lately I’ve sort of been thinking I should go out and buy a copy of The DUFF. I doubt I’d sit down and reread the whole thing cover to cover, I already know the story. But I’d probably look at parts of it again. And who knows, maybe I would reread it. I really liked it.

So yay, Kody. If I had to reread the same book over and over, I would be really really sad. But I’d want to live with Bianca and Wesley.

E-Books Have Taken Over the World

There is a reason all the books I decided to give away in my contest were published a few years ago. I’ve had my kindle for a year and a half and rarely buy paper books. I really like having an e-reader. I keep it in my purse all the time, so I always have something to read. If I finish a book and want to start something new right away, I can. It’s so convenient.

I read enough that even frequenting the library and embracing the e-book, I still have more books in my house than fit on the shelves. Hence the giveaway. And today’s winner is Kelly. Congratulations Kelly! You won a free copy of EIGHTH GRADE BITES by Heather Brewer. Tomorrow I’ll be giving away a copy of DRAMARAMA by E. Lockhart. If you haven’t entered my contest yet, just be a follower and leave a comment saying you want to be included and I’ll add you to tomorrows drawing.

Now that that’s out of the way, lets get back to discussing e-books.

I commute to work via train. For about six months I was doing field work and commuting in my car, so I had to settle for audio books. But now that I’m taking the train to work again, I’m back to loving my kindle. I’ve seen other people reading e-books on the train in the past. Six months ago, I’d say probably one out of ever 20 commuters had an e-reader in hand. But Santa must have given out a LOT of e-readers last Christmas, because now they are everywhere. I probably see four people reading e-books on the train for every one person I see reading paper.

As e-books continue to grow in popularity, the publishing world will change dramatically. Borders impending bankruptcy is only the beginning. I still think this is a good thing though. E-publishing has the potential to get more books to more readers, and as a wannabe writer, I like seeing people reading.

What about you? Have you embraced the e-book yet? And if you have, do you like it?