Christmas Countdown - Books in Review

It's Christmas Eve and I'm sure a lot of you are ticking down the last minutes till the end of the workday or some may have started their holidays already! Perhaps you're traveling to see loved ones or staying put and welcoming guests into your home. Or better yet, perhaps you've got time off to snuggle under cozy blankets and catch up on some great reads.

If the latter is in your near future, here are a few books that made the top of my list this year. Not all YA but sure to knock your socks off. 

ROOM by Emily Donoghue

I watched the movie, then quickly ordered the book. Word of advice if you happen to watch and read in that order: if you are a sleep deprived mother at one of those schmancy theatres where they let you drink win at your seat, WARNING! Your eyes will become overflowing reservoirs of salty liquid for TWO HOURS!

EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU by Celeste Ng

Reading Ng's debut is like listening to Adele for the first time. I know, that's a mighty comparison but you don't make it to the top of Amazon's list of 100 Best Books in 2014 because you're average. Ng's story is about characters that love and live and make you want to hug your child. 

I think I'm noticing a trend here?

THE NIGHTINGALE by Kristin Hannah

A story of two sisters during WWII who couldn't be more different. The author makes writing strong female characters seem easy - but that's because she does it so well. If you're looking for a study in conflict, this is the book. 

Two non fiction books also made my list.

YEAR OF YES by Shonda Rhimes

Shonda, Shonda, Shonda. As blogmate Lauren mentioned, I recommend audio booking this one because Rhimes' voice is like butter and she invites you to drink wine with her. A glass of wine in one hand and Rhimes' voice dancing in your ear and singing words of wisdom (or drink more wine). It's a fabulous treat. 

Apparently wine is another trend in my life.

JUST MERCY by Bryan Stevenson

Real, intense. We take a journey with the author as he battles the broken system that is death row. Hooked by the first page.

PAPER TOWNS by John Green

An oldie but a goodie.  My YA pick for the year. It's young, it's fun and if you finish the book, you can pick up the movie and compare.

What were your picks of the year?

Happy Holidays!

YA Series That Make Great Holiday Gifts

Piggybacking off Lauren's Book Lovers' Holiday Shopping List post, here's a holiday ideas list with a narrower focus: young adult series. For a young (or not so young) bibliophile, there's nothing better than having a complete series to devour, book after book. Best of all, each of the series on this list comes in a handy box set, perfect for easy gifting.

1. The Hunger Games

It's a perfect time to give Suzanne Collins's trilogy to new readers, since the last movie in the series just came out and those who haven't read the book yet are probably wondering what all the buzz is about.

2. Legend

I gushed about Legend in the first ever YA Book Pick here on this blog, and the rest of the series definitely held up. If your giftee likes dystopian, high-stakes books, this is an excellent choice.

3. John Green

Okay, this one is cheating, because they aren't technically a series, but most teen readers would love to get a set of books from the master of the YA contemporary genre.

4. A Wrinkle in Time

Do you have someone on your list who's into sci-fi and fantasy? Introduce them to one of the most influential and groundbreaking series ever with this quintet of books. It's also a perfect trip down memory lane for adults who grew up reading the adventures of Meg Murry and her family over and over again.

5. Percy Jackson and the Olympians

For a reluctant upper MG/young YA reader, it doesn't get much better than Percy Jackson. These books are quick reads, and Percy is relatable and funny. Your giftee will get through all five books before he or she knows it.

6. Harry Potter

Last, but certainly not least, it would be an unthinkable omission if I didn't mention possibly the most giftable series ever. Depending on your budget and the versions the person owns already, you can choose from a hard or softcover set and different covers. (There are even fully illustrated editions coming out, although only the first one is released to date, so you'll have to wait a while for a box set of those...)

Do you have any young adult series on your wishlist this year?

To Fiction or Non-To Fiction

Truth be told, I've spent a lot of time these past few weeks reading adult non-fiction and it's been intense and eye opening.  From JUST MERCY by Bryan Stevenson to UNBROKEN by Laura Hillenbrand (which coincidentally also has a young adult adaptation) to my most recent read BEING MORTAL: MEDICINE AND WHAT MATTERS IN THE END by Atul Gawande. BEING MORTAL speaks to how we deal with the end of our long lives - talk about an issue that's at the totally opposite spectrum of what our youth are thinking about today. 

We've discussed many young adult fiction novels here at Thinking to Inking, but there are many great non-fiction titles that evoke stories of strength against adversity, unbelievable circumstances and take you to a place you've never been before. 

The winner and finalists of the 2015 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) do all of the above.  LAUGHING AT MY NIGHTMARE by Shane Burcaw details with humour how he deals with the trials and tribulations of living with spinal muscular atrophy.  INDA M. TARBELL: THE WOMAN WHO CHALLENGED BIG BUSINESS - AND WON! by Emily Arnold McCully is especially poignant given how far we've come from the 1800's and yet in some cases, how easy it is to slip back (Bratz toys anyone?). This story is sure to inspire any young girls and her pursuits.  

A biography was just recently published by Eric Braun about everyone's favourite YA author John Green.  That's at the top of my reading list. 

So what non-fiction YA books are you reading right now?  I'd love to know!

What's in a List

Can't believe how time flies and it's almost four months since I gave birth to the wee one.  Now I'm counting down the days till I go back to work which does unfortunately consist of some commute time. 

So, while I'm sad to leave the baby a few days a week (although in the perfectly capable hands of his grandma), I'm looking forward to the quiet time I'll have in the car and the many books on tape I'll devour. 

So the big dilemma now is..what to read? If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave it in the comments section.  In the meantime, here are a few lists of "favourite books" that I found interesting.  

While they're not focused on YA, I think they do offer a window into how a few great minds think - and enjoy their spare time. 

Steve Jobs, Apple, Founder - Reading List (in no particular order)

1. King Lear by William Shakespeare

2. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

3. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas by Dylan Thomas

4. Be Here Now by Ram Dass

5. Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe

6. Muculess Diet Healing System by Arnold Ehret

7. Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

8. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

9. The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen

Elon Musk, Tesla & SpaceX, Founder - Reading List (in no particular order)

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

3. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson

4. Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

5. Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down by J.E. Gordon

6. Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John D. Clark

7. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom

8. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel

9. Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele

Finally, we have to have some YA influence - here's a list of books recommended by John Green (again in no particular order).  

1. The Uglies Series by Scott Westerfeld

2. Matched Trilogy by Ally Condie

3. Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth

4. The Book Thief by Markuz Zusak

5. If I Stay by Gayle Forman

6. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by A. Conan Doyle

For the complete list from John Green, click here. 

Industry Month In Review: Oh What A Year!

As we close in on another year, I can't help but reflect on some of the great successes and sad losses. From the release of highly anticipated YA movies like The Hunger Games: Catching Fire end Ender's Game  and novels like Jacqueline Garlick's Lumiere to the recent passing of acclaimed author Ned Vizzini. 2013 was definitely a year of change. 

Here are some of the highlights, check it out!

New Blogs:

Here are two new blogs that are sure to tickle your YA fancy!

Write On Sisters

This blog features a perfect mix of perspectives.  From a television writer to a historian to a teacher and an agent/editor, you're sure to get just the right dose of insightful learnings and entertaining tidbits.  

YA Series Insiders

What's more exciting than having released your first book in 2013?  Releasing the first in a series in 2014! This new blog features authors who all have lead YA series starting in 2014.  Want to be in the know or win fabulous prize packs? This blog has it all. 

New Books:

Speaking of new books, there are simply way too many coming out in 2014 (see YA Series Insiders to name just a few!).  

Epic Reads had done the dirty work for us and highlighted 15 of the most anticipated YA Books to be published in January 2014 alone!

I for one can't wait for Veronica Rossi's Into the Still Blue or Ransom Rigg's Hollow City.

Upcoming New Movies:

2013 has seen its fair share of YA adaptations and 2014 looks to be no different.  Here are four that I know will be on your "Must See Movie" list.  

Divergent, Veronica Roth

The Fault in Our Stars, John Green (which has already garnered some criticism from it's poster tagline).

The Maze Runner, James Dashner's

If I Stay, Gayle Forman

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Body Parts: They Shouldn't Tell Your Story For You

I'm drafting for the first time in a while, so my mind is on effective writing techniques.

I read this great post by Nicole Steinhaus at YA Stands last year: Action Speaks Louder Than Body Parts. Nicole was working as a literary intern and noticed writers using an awful lot of physical reactions to indicate how a character was feeling or reacting to events in the story. Examples: someone's heart pounding, knees going weak, palms, sweating, or brows furrowing.

In the article linked above, the author makes some good points (with examples from John Green's truly excellent Looking for Alaska) about why action that shows a character's response is often much better.

This is a particular weak point in my writing, so I'm going to pay more attention to it in the future. At the very least, I'm going to make sure to avoid cliché physical reactions like hearts slamming against chests and (a personal favorite) letting out breaths the characters didn't know they'd been holding.

That's not to say that there's no place for telling the reader what physical reactions the character is experiencing--after all, it is showing rather than telling (although this post makes the point that it's just a different kind of telling, and I sort of agree). But the writing can often be more effective if the body part action is kept to a minimum.

In case you're still on the fence, I leave you with this post from former lit agent Mary Kole: Physical Clichés.

Villain of the Month: Cancer in The Fault in Our Stars

The Dictator’s Handbook (a non-fiction work in which two economists study trends in “successful”dictatorships throughout history), was released only four months before John Green’s latest masterpiece. TDH begins and ends with the quotation from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in us”, which oddly also happens to also be the inspiration for the title of John Green’s absolutely brilliant most recent novel, The Fault in our Stars.

While The Dictator’s Handbook studies the way a few deeply flawed villainous men can ruin a society (the great problem is in their flaws, not the situation), Green’s novel depicts the situational villain I’ll be taking on this month.

Cancer.

Cancer is definitely a villain, as anyone who has seen the devastation it leaves in its wake, and it is inside a person, but the characters don’t do anything to deserve this villain, and no person is at fault. Nobody. Nobody to blame. No one to psychoanalyze. No one to sue. Nothing. 

 And so, while most great classic villains have layers, depth, etc. to explore -- How did they get that way? What are their quirks? etc. making them fascinating to read about and to write -- disease, as a villain, does not. And that provides Green with certain opportunities.

In Green’s work, all of the central characters are teenagers with cancer. He adeptly milks the opening scene to introduce us to our characters via the carnage of the villain’s dark power. Great for showing us who’s boss right up front (mental note: introducing all new characters via a similar characterizing point can work wonders for an intro.)

He sharply juxtaposes this horror with the most ordinary of settings, a rec room at an ordinary midwestern church. The teenagers’ initial characterization tags spill out in a support group: ball-less-ness, a missing leg, lungs that require assistance to breathe, a boy preparing to have his last eye removed; looking around, our protagonist even runs numbers on the odds of dying. There is more than enough real danger present to up the stakes. But here is the beauty of Green’s balance. They’re broken, but they’re also in a place of support.

And this scene is hilarious.

And that, too, is the power of disease as a villain. Since it’s a villain that never leaves its victims, the characters may embody the best of gallows humor. Mankind has a tendency to laugh at awkward times.

With so much heaviness in which we will be unrelentingly trapped throughout the novel, we can’t help but crave a laugh to lighten. Green’s jokes are spot-on throughout, almost brutally so, but it’s not only his facility with language that makes us laugh out loud in that first scene, it’s also that we’re primed to need relief.

Under Green’s masterful hand, the villain becomes the indifferently malicious reminder to all of us that our bodies will fail us. That our most intimate asset, that which has sustained us since birth will eventually just stop working.

But by experiencing the hazy humorous terror through Hazel’s half-adult/ half-child’s insightful eye, it allows the reader license to laugh at his own inevitable mortality and to see each moment as a gift.

By making even the worst of the characters, a remote author, "good" on some level, Green removes the "fault" from man. And that allows for a kind of hopefulness in humanity. Maybe, we could, in fact, live in a place where the villains are not our own kind. Unlike in The Dictator's Handbook (also an excellent work and one I highly recommend for those looking to write an external villain,) Green’s optimism for humankind shines throughout.

Green takes us on a journey through a nightmare and gives us humor and hope and bravery as deeply as he gives us terror and sadness, and we thank him for it. NYT Bestseller thank him for it.

To see a real (no longer living) dictator looking at things go to: http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/ 

John Green Speaks at the L.A. Times Festival of Books

     The L.A. Times Festival of Books is the largest annual book festival in the United States and thoroughly dominated the campus at USC April 21-22 so, of course, the four of us had to be there.

     While I was disappointed to have to miss DJ MacHale and the like at the YA stage with Jen, I did get to hear one of my heroes, John Green. Having just finished reading The Fault in Our Stars (I will be blogging about its villain tomorrow for my first installment of The Villain of the Month series), I was excited to hear him talk about a book I believe to be his best and a work that can hold its own against any modern classic. In any genre.

     For anyone who missed the absolute delight of hearing John Green in conversation with the charming Lev Grossman—and most of you did since the guy working the door told me that tickets to see him were near impossible to get—here are my favorite tidbits from the interview. Enjoy!!!

11 Highlights from THE John Green

11. He used to work at Mental Floss and would spend 14 hrs. a day researching trivia.

10. When he was a student Chaplin at a children's hospital he played a lot of video games with terminal patients.

9. He sends (what he claims to be) bad first drafts daily to his editor. His wife and editor are his first readers.

8. He was obsessed with David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest in high school inspiring the idea of Hazel's obsession with An Imperial Affliction. He also liked the idea of a book so perfect it is impossible to write....like the books in his head before he tries to actually write them and they are ruined  by becoming real. 

7. He loves that high culture and low culture are more easily blended for teens.

6. His advice for readers? Read a lot. Broadly.

5. Why the name of "Gus" in TFIOS? It's a name that could be the name of an Emperor at first "Augustus" and then the name of a boy by the end "Gus". Hazel? Hazel was an in-between name. It's the name of someone who is in between dying and not, illness and wellness, kid and adult.

4. He's not interested in writing "adult" literature. He likes how kind and supportive everyone is in the young adult world, and doesn't find the genre limiting as a writer at all.

3. The original title of TFIOS was The Hectic Glow. He kept "The Hectic Glow" as name of a band. It is a reference to Thoreau's description of the hectic glow of consumption. He agreed when his editor suggested he change it to The Fault in Our Stars.

2. He tried to write TFIOS many times, and kept coming back to it, but couldn't find the right story until he met an inspiring young adult named Esther at Leaky Con.

1. My favorite thing he said: "true stories are hopeful" and "hope is not easily achieved or won."

(Another bonus of the festival: the authors are just walking around like normal people at a place where they are likely to have their picture taken by not-so-sneaky camera phones like any other L.A.  celeb. The guy in the blue button-down is John Green. )