The Mockingbirds

[Note: I wrote this post in December but only got around to finishing/posting it now. Enjoy my dated references!]



In a recent post I mentioned that I've been holding off on buying books because it is the holiday season and I would not want to deprive my family of the pleasure of buying books for me. (Ha, but seriously, I am an excellent gift-opener. I do not hold back with the joyous facial expressions.) But, of course, my resolution was destined for failure. I went into my neighbourhood industrial-size bookstore, convinced once again that my loved ones would probably enjoy books as presents. (This is a mistake I make every year. My family reads, and avidly, but I never escape the common trap of buying books that I'd like to read rather than books I think they would enjoy.) Anyway, I was browsing and pretending any purchases would be for other people when I saw The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney. This book was on the NPR Best YA of 2010 list, and that's pretty much all it took for me to give in and buy it.

This is a powerful book about a difficult subject. I'll let the publisher's synopsis explain for you:

Themis Academy is a quiet boarding school with an exceptional student body that the administration trusts to always behave the honorable way—the Themis Way. So when Alex is date raped during her junior year, she has two options: stay silent and hope someone helps her, or enlist the Mockingbirds—a secret society of students dedicated to righting the wrongs of their fellow peers. In this honest, page-turning account of a teen girl's struggle to stand up for herself, debut author Daisy Whitney reminds readers that if you love something or someone—especially yourself—you fight for it.

To be honest, books about "special" subjects sometimes concern me, because they can often be too after-school special for my liking. But Whitney impressed me by consistently choosing the difficult route. Alex realizes right away that she's been raped, but she comes to that conclusion through evidence rather than memory: she can't remember much of the night before, but waking up naked next to a boy, coupled with seeing two condom wrappers in his trash can, is enough for her to realize she must have had sex. The complicated issue of consent is explored through flashbacks that slowly restore Alex's memory of the night.

This book was, at times, an almost painful reminder of how cruel high school can be. Alex's rapist does not take the accusation lightly. It was also a thoughtful exploration of how consent is misunderstood; many students were against Alex, and all the usual excuses appeared: she was drunk so it was her fault, she was flirtatious so she was asking for it, she was lying to get attention. While I can vehemently disagree with these viewpoints at this time in my life, it is chilling to think about how many girls I knew of in high school who were labeled like this, and to wonder how many of them might have "earned" their reputations in similar ways. I can't remember any actual rape accusations, but that doesn't mean rape didn't happen; it more likely means that because we weren't educated about the nuances of consent we didn't recognize rape when it happened.

This book is the rare example of an issue-centric novel that is an entertaining and engrossing read. Recommend!

Sometimes you buy a Christmas present for yourself

And sometimes that present is The Mockingbirds. See you after I've read it!

Another year over

It is that time of year again. Of course, I am referring to the end-of-year-list time. Have you been losing sleep wondering what your favourite things from 2010 are? No longer. Putting things in lists ranked from best to worst is everyone's favourite Christmas gift to themselves. I can't get too snarky, because reading these lists is always fun, and they are great for drawing your attention to books you didn't know existed. With that, I admit shamefully that I had not heard of any of the books on this list from NPR. They sound great, though, and I am particularly interested in The Things a Brother Knows. Fodder for my next trip to the bookstore? Not that I needed it.

Thinking over the year, I actually read very little. Reading for a living (I am a proofreader) is wonderful, but one negative side effect is that it can be difficult to come home and delve into a book when you've been reading all day. And sometimes when I do read, I find myself mentally adjusting the style of the book to our house style, correcting sentence structure I disagree with, etc. This doesn't happen all the time, and the more books I read outside of work, the better I am with it. But it's deciding to pick up a new book that can be a challenge.

Solution: the book club I mentioned in an earlier post. It starts this January, with the topic Wars of the 20th Century. I am so excited, you guys. Though I have neglected it in recent years, I used to have a bit of a love of history (history award, twelfth grade, *ahem*), and this might turn out to be the best category. As for what book to read, I haven't decided for sure, but I am thinking about Pierre Berton. Some might say I should move my focus from the most famous wars of the 20th century, but to those people I say make your own book club. Canadian history is really impressive, and I miss it. I am not sure which book by Berton I'll choose yet, but I am leaning toward Marching as to War.

The actual details of this book club have been vague so far, except for the picking-categories part, so I am not sure how the discussion is going to go. But I will definitely post my thoughts here, and you all would certainly be welcome to participate in any conversations about them. Starting in January 2011!

A glimpse into my brain

My thoughts on an ereader in the past month:

1) Hmm, ereaders seem to be the big Christmas gift this year. They're cool, I guess, but I love real books.
2) Don't have too many ideas of what to ask for this year for Christmas. Maybe I'll put a Kindle on the list. What the hey. If it's free. But I'm still going to ask for a real book just in case.
3) I want to buy this book. But what if I get a Kindle for Christmas? Better wait.
4) IF I DON'T GET A KINDLE FOR CHRISTMAS MY LIFE IS OVER.

What happened? Ereaders have completely seduced me.

A Tale of Two Nerds

No time to post lately, but I would like to direct your attention to this blog post my friend Chloë wrote about how often we dork out about Harry Potter. Timely!

Have a good weekend, everyone! Gryffindor!

Procrastination Makes It Happen

It is approximately 8 pm on a Friday night. I just woke up from a little thing I like to call a procrastination nap. Tomorrow morning, ridiculously early, I have to be on a train. Before that happens, I have to do about five loads of laundry, pack, take a shower, and attempt to clean up my disgusting home. I am thinking about making some cookies.

So, obviously, it is time to sit down and write a blog post.

This week a long-distance friend of mine [okay, cookies are in the oven. Some cravings just can't be ignored] posted a link to a Salon article suggesting that instead of writing for NaNoWriMo, people make an effort to read more. The idea is that you read 10 books from 10 different categories in the space of 10 months (totalling 100 books—10 from each category). Now, as a person with a full-time job, this is impossible. But we decided that reading 1 book from each of the 10 categories was a respectable challenge. So now we are in the process of choosing the categories. It's looking like popular history and popular science will make it in, as well as short stories and contemporary bestsellers. I'm excited to broaden my reading scope a bit, and I'm looking at this as both an excuse to buy new books and motivation to read some that have been sitting on the shelf for a while. All in all, good reading project. I'll probably blog as I go (somehow using blog as a verb still sounds pretentious, but whatever), if you're interested. And even if you're not.

Have a good weekend, everyone! Procrastination time is probably over. For now.

[cookie update: kind of cakey, since I accidentally added baking powder. dough is always the best part anyway.]

On Exercising

Unsolicited fitness update: I am extremely out of shape.

I say this a lot, but that's because it is usually true. I would like to say my relationship with exercise is complicated, but it's actually very simple: I don't really like it. I like the results, and so sometimes I can fool myself into thinking I like it. When I am in shape I am happier, I know that much. And so exercising is worth it. But I get bored. I get distracted. Most of all, I get sore muscles and want to quit.

October is a particularly bad month. My old roommate from university and I used to call it Fat Month (full disclosure: we still do) because of all the Halloween candy we used to (still) eat. This October was no exception, and now I find myself afraid to get on a scale and more than a bit uncertain about how to stop all of these bad habits. What to do?

Enter Vicki Essex! A soon-to-be-published romance novelist and friend of mine, she has decided that instead of doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year, as she is already a very disciplined writer, she is doing NaNoExMo. (I am still not quite sure what the "No" means, but the "Ex" is exercise.) The gist is that she's vowed to work out for thirty minutes three times a week throughout the month of November. And because it's such a good idea, I've decided I'm going to join her. She didn't ask or anything, but too bad! I'm going to plague her with calories burned and lunges lunged all month long anyway. Hopefully this will create some good habits to replace the bad, and at the end of it all I hope to have more energy and motivation for this blog as well as other projects.

Wish me luck! I promise not to do too many boring exercise posts.

P.S. Regarding the photo: this is a picture of my family's cat, the Hulk. He is adorable but, let's face it, a little on the chubby side. So I figured it was an appropriate picture for this post.

This is Halloween

This week is Halloween. I never think I am a huge fan of Halloween, but then, in the weeks leading up to October 31st I seem to love scary costumes and cutting pumpkins into amusing shapes. Here is where I should probably write about YA horror books, but I am a big fat wimp and really hate that stuff. I don't get a thrill out of horror books/movies, I just feel terribly unsettled for the rest of the night. So instead I will recommend something that is kind of close to horror (but really not at all): paranormal fiction.
Paranormal fiction is scary in the way that it usually involves things like werewolves and vampires, only it's actually not scary because these werewolves and vampires are just like us! But more mysterious. And attractive (sometimes).
Lately paranormal fiction, and especially paranormal YA fiction, has been very popular. This gets largely credited to Stephenie Meyer. I just wrote three sentences concerning that and deleted them all because of unsportsmanlike conduct, so I'll just continue.
I sometimes think I don't like stories with vampires/werewolves/demons etc., but lately I've come to realize that when I think this, I am completely delusional. Because, you guys, I think I love them. There are some really well-written novels out there about werewolves and their (surprisingly) varied brethren.
Specifically, let's talk about an Irish author I like named Sarah Rees Brennan. Sarah published her debut novel, The Demon's Lexicon, in 2009 with Simon & Schuster. Now, as someone in denial about her love for demons et al, I was skeptical about the title, but I read the first chapter on Sarah's blog and was pretty much immediately hooked by her writing style. The Demon's Lexicon universe is compelling and original, but what I think is the real strength of Sarah's writing is the way she presents relationships between people, and specifically familial relationships. Nick and Alan, two of the central characters of the book, will break your heart. In a good way.
This is another one of those books where I can't say too much for fear of spoiling things, should any of you choose to read this book (or the second in the trilogy—did I mention it's a trilogy?—The Demon's Covenant). But I will say that the author is outspoken about featuring strong women in her books, and this is another thing I love about the book: women in it are unapologetically fierce, demanding and, even when thinking romantic thoughts about Nick and/or Alan (listen, you don't understand. It happens. They can't help it), maintain their independence and rational thought. I know some books lead you to believe this is impossible, but it's not! It's actually very refreshing and realistic.
Do you want to read it yet? I hope you do. I kind of want to read it again. Maybe I will.

Sweet Valley Confidential

Have you heard about this? I know I’ve talked about my undying love for Sweet Valley High before. Haven’t I? I talk about it a lot in life, so I assume I’ve mentioned it here. Anyway, for those of us who miss those perfect size six Wakefield twins and their eyes the colour of the Pacific ocean, there is Sweet Valley Confidential, a new book due out in 2010 wherein Francine Pascal (not a ghostwriter! the real thing!) returns to the Sweet Valley universe years later. The twins are now thirty years old, and (gasp!) not speaking to each other. I need to know why. I am very excited for this book to come out. Other important questions: Does Jessica still wear one item of purple clothing per day in order to comply with the rules of the Unicorns, Lila Fowler’s prestigious club? Does Bruce Patman still have 1Bruce1 license plates? Is Todd Wilkins still insufferably boring? What of the beach disco?

In a conversation about SVH recently, my boss told me her favourite book was one in which Bruce Patman is dating one very nice girl whom everyone loves, but then at a party flirts with another girl, prompting his goody-goody girlfriend to snort coke and die. I personally favour one in which a strange girl, Margo, comes to town, where she discovers that she just happens to look eerily like the Wakefield twins. At which point she decides the only logical thing to do is to murder Elizabeth and take over her life. Naturally. What’s your favourite?

Reading is Hard Sometimes

It's book awards season. Otherwise known in my brain as that time when I remember all the good books I'm not reading, panic slightly about how I will ever have time to read them all, remember that I don't have an unlimited book-buying budget, cry, and go home.

Not really, but it does always cause me some anxiety. I love books, but it's overwhelming sometimes how many of them there are. I had a lot of this type of anxiety in university, when it seemed absolutely essential to read every single classic, not to mention all the obscure essays/poems/novels that no one has heard of now but obviously changed forever the landscape of essay/poem/novel writing and because of which nothing will ever be the same. I eventually let this go, because it was either that or invent a time machine, and I'm pants at science. (I obviously got far enough into the British contemporary realm to learn the modern slang usage of the word pants.)

But, as some of you may know, I work in publishing. I'm pretty new at working in publishing, relatively speaking, and while I love my job I would eventually like to move into something different, and to do that I know that I'll need to be more up on the contemporary book scene that I am. So my anxiety about needing to read every book ever hasn't really gone away, it's just changed. Classics don't matter now; contemporary fiction does.

How do people do this? Libraries only go so far, and I never have the patience for them anyway. Plus, though I know award-winning books will probably be good, that doesn't mean they're always going to be my first choice. Do people in the industry just read enough reviews to sound like they know what they're talking about, or do they actually read everything relevant to them? I suspect the former.

Anyway, the point of this post is, I guess, to appeal to some rich book-buying patron. Anyone? Do you guys find yourselves wondering if you should be reading something, even if you don't particularly want to?

The Baby-Sitters Club

With nineties nostalgia in full swing, I feel like every couple of months or so there is a new funny thing online about the favourite ghostwritten children's lit series du jour. Today it is The Baby-Sitters Club, or BSC for those in the know. The Huffington Post has put up this Where Are They Now? satire. Now, this might just be my leftover fondness for the series talking, but I didn't find it terribly funny. It's been done before (a search for it brings up more than one), but I still like being reminded of the series, so I thought it was worth posting.

When I was about 9, my best friend and I used to devour these books. I remember she had a drawer full of absolutely all of them, books I had never even SEEN, as my exposure was pretty limited to the local library, which was very, very tiny. Apparently her aunt worked for a bookstore or a publisher or something, and the result was that she had every BSC book in existence. I was already jealous of her tropical fish tank and how she had her own room when I had to share mine with my older sister, but this made me ridiculously jealous.

Looking back, I recognize how ridiculous these books are. I realized it to some extent even then, because I always skipped chapter two, knowing it contained all the same tired information about how Kristy's parents were divorced and Dawn was from California and Mary Ann was a loser, etc. Still, I loved those books. I really admired their business moxie, I guess.

That's a lie. What I admired was the drama. I was (and still, let's face it, am) a sucker for an overwrought, dramatic story line. My favourite character was Stacey, because she was from New York (glamorous!) and had diabetes (glamorous?). I still remember the book where she ate a candy bar in a flash of pique and went into a diabetic coma, during which the book flashed back to when she discovered she had diabetes. She was on a train to New York to visit her dad (her parents had just gotten divorced! The poor girl!) when she found herself having to pee all the time and also being unreasonably thirsty. I have no idea if these are real symptoms of diabetes, but for years I wondered excitedly every time I was thirsty or had to pee a lot if I had a dramatic, potentially terminal illness. I am not particularly proud of this. But there it is.

Um, you can all feel free to psychoanalyze 9-year-old Stephanie now. Current Stephanie can probably take it.

The Hunger Games

I mentioned in my last post that Patrick Ness had gotten me interested in Dystopian fiction. But after I devoured The Knife of Never Letting Go, I had a few weeks' wait ahead of me before The Ask and the Answer came out in paperback. Luckily, about the time I finished the first book, there was some general internet hubbub about a book called Mockingjay, the third in a series that had been hovering in the back of my mind since I first heard about it on the lovely Sarah Rees Brennan's journal. I decided that since all three books were out, it was about time I read it. The series is called The Hunger Games, after the title of the first book.

The Hunger Games is about a girl named Katniss Everdeen. Katniss lives in District 12, in a country called Panem. Every year, one girl and one boy from each of the twelve districts of Panem are chosen to fight in The Hunger Games, a fight to the death on national television.

Yep. Fight to the death. You see why I was interested.

Again this is a book that is hard to explain without spoiling, but I think it's safe to say that Katniss is a participant. What follows is a story very smoothly written (it's in present tense and I didn't even notice until I was a third of the way through the book, which is extremely impressive) that kept me constantly guessing and never took the easy way out of anything. The critique of reality television is extraordinarily interesting; the games are fought by district children for the entertainment of the people of the capitol, whose lives of extreme leisure juxtapose nicely with the lean, impoverished lifestyle of the districts. Though we watch reality television knowing that the contestants are there voluntarily, there is still a sense that their actions are for our benefit. While they're on television, they essentially exist for our entertainment. When we no longer find them interesting, their television careers die. Taking it a bit further, to a fight to the death, isn't as much a stretch as it seems at first. Rich from fourfour has a more in-depth (and much better) analysis of the reality television theme here.

This book contained many moments when I wanted the characters to do one thing, and then was extremely relieved when they did something else. Because what I want for the characters isn't always (actually, is probably almost never) what is best for the story. Suzanne Collins doesn't shy away from putting her characters in difficult situations, and she certainly has them make a bad decision or two. Katniss is very compelling despite being extremely flawed (the best description I've heard so far called her a "loveable asshole"), and it's interesting to watch her try to make the best decision when there isn't really a right decision available.

I'm afraid to say much more in case any of you decide to read it (which I obviously think you should). So: fast-paced? Yes. Well written? Absolutely. Did I cry? Maybe a little. So you should read it.

p.s. It is worth noting that I cry very easily when bad things happen in books. So take that one with a grain of salt.

Ramble ramble books life ramble

Hello, everyone! Are all three of you here? Good. I have been away awhile. But don't worry, though I haven't been writing, I have certainly been reading. Clearly I like books, so this should be obvious, but I sometimes go through periods of literary apathy. I credit this largely to my job, which includes reading copious amounts of fiction all day (Listen, I'm almost done crying you this river, so just be patient), but I will admit that sometimes I just stop reading and don't really know why. Anyway, I stopped reading for fun sometime in the bustle of buying a home (!) and packing and moving and all this time also working and generally panicking about life. I needed a kick start, and I decided to go on vacation to visit my friend Chloë (visit her wonderful blog, to which I too-seldom contribute) in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Vacations are good for sightseeing but I also wanted to use the downtime, what seemed like my first in weeks, to read. But what book? I was coincidentally, what with the moving and the vacation and all, having some anxiety about money, so I decided to read one of the many books I have sitting on my bookshelf, living the sad lives of unread and unappreciated literary genius. The book I chose was Apologize, Apologize! by Elizabeth Kelly, and I could not recommend it highly enough. It is not for young adults specifically; you would find it in the fiction section of your local bookstore, but I feel it is a book that teenagers would appreciate just as well as "adults." It is also a perfect summer read, and not in that way that people say where they mean you don't have to use your brain at all. This book is a hilarious look at an extremely dysfunctional family, written in beautifully poetic language with incredible insight. (That was my extremely poor attempt at a real book review/blurb, I guess. Needs some work. Too many adjectives?) Needless to say, I liked it. It got me excited about reading again, and I moved on to other books with enthusiasm, including, and here's where this post becomes at least semi-relevant to the blog's subject matter, some YA!

By this point my anxiety about money was gone, which was good because I had already read all the YA books on my shelf and therefore needed to buy more. But which ones? A friend had brought my attention to the twitter account of a wonderful local bookstore, Nicholas Hoare (@NicholasHoareTO). The person running this account (I am still not sure which cute bookstore guy this is, though I have speculated on it every time I've been to the store since; if it's the woman who works there I will be extremely disappointed) was doing an amazing thing. People wrote him with the names of three books they liked, and he would recommend a new book that he thought they would like. So cool, right? I jumped right in, made it in just under the wire with my books. One was The Great Gatsby, one was Apologize, Apologize! and one was Paper Towns by John Green, who is, incidentally, a person I like to think of as my nerd author husband. I should write a whole post on him. It would be no problem for me, let me tell you. TO THE POINT. NicholasHoareTO recommended a book called The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness.

Well. This book is hard to review because it is the kind of book that is very easy to spoil. The Guardian review manages it in much better words than I ever could. But I love it. A lot. Many people who don't read YA fiction dismiss the genre as kid-lit (why this is a derogatory term I don't know, but it is often used as such), assuming that because a book is aimed at a younger audience it is aimed at a dumber audience. I have discussed this before, and it just baffles me that people think this because it is so WRONG. This book, which takes place in a dystopian future, takes on big issues—feminist issues, globalization-related issues, postcolonial issues, climate change issues—while using language in a racing, creative way that makes you almost physically incapable of putting the book down. It's funny when it wants to be funny, serious when it needs to be serious, and extremely heartbreaking when it wants you to cry. Go read it, and when you're done go read the second in the series (called Chaos Walking). But don't tell me about it, because I'm only halfway through as of this writing.

This book was so good it inspired me to continue on the dystopian fiction path with The Hunger Games, a little blockbuster series you may have heard of. More to come on that next time. For now, I'm going to go read some more.

I'm Not Dead

It's just been pretty busy around here. Since I last posted I bought a condo and now I am preparing for a move. I hate moving. Anyway, all my books are packed away in boxes and therefore I am unable to thrill y'all with the prospect of literary adventures. Right now all I can really offer is a quick do and don't of hot weather. Do: drink cucumber-lemon water. Yum. Don't: eat chips and salsa. Self-explanatory.

It's looking like the next book I'll be reading is Anne of Green Gables. I have, shockingly, never read this. But I'm taking a trip to Halifax soon and am hoping to go to P.E.I., and I hear they don't let you in if you haven't read the full works of L.M. Montgomery. So I'll work on it, and keep you posted.

Until then, enjoy the summer!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory post-read

Before we begin, let me just make it clear that I strongly dislike when educated people decide to impose critical interpretations on something that I believe should not be altered. Maybe I just want to remain ignorant in my original readings of a text, but that’s just the way I feel. (A perfect example of this: I once read a poem in which Jughead angstily lamented his unrequited love for Archie. NO. Just no.)

Having said that, I am finding it really difficult not to do a post-colonial reading of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I mean, come on! Willy Wonka “rescuing” the Oompa-Loompas from an “uncivilized” existence of living in trees and eating…well, eating green caterpillars, which they admitted themselves were disgusting. So maybe, in that respect, they’re better off in the chocolate factory. Anyway, the point is that there are a LOT of things in this book that make an adult reader think twice.

That is, of course, the whole point. This book is aimed at a younger audience than any of the others I’ve covered so far. (The inscription in this particular used copy, for example, says “For David Freeman, Happy birthday #8, Love, Aunt Wendy and Uncle Ted.”) It’s not for me now, it was for me when I was eight, or nine, or ten. I remember loving, and probably not thinking twice about, many of the plot points that I got stuck on this time around.

Willy Wonka is delightfully insane, and one of the best recurring gags is the way the children frequently question him, at which point he claims to be unable to hear them or not to have time. This highlights the way kids in children’s literature are often smarter than adults, even in this book, where most of the kids are quite stupid. Dahl walks the fine line between blaming parents for children’s bad behavior and making kids take responsibility for their actions. In the end, Charlie proves himself to be the smartest of all and is rewarded with a chocolate factory for his efforts.

I am sure there is more to say, but it’s been a long day and I’m sleepy. So I’ll leave you with this: this book is almost but not quite as great now as it was when I was younger. Sometimes your reading skills don’t improve with age.

Thursday night link and mini-rant

Justine Larbalestier, author of, among other books, Liar, (an interesting read about which I'll likely post sometime in the future), has started a discussion on her blog about the common argument that anything that gets teens reading is good for their minds.

The discussion largely revolves around the most popular teen series of the moment, Twilight. I have read all four books and have mixed feelings on them--there are so, so many problematic themes going on there it makes my head spin, including the rarely discussed racism, yet I got totally sucked (ha!) in, in the manner of impressionable young women everywhere, much to my embarrassment. But after reading it, I talked about it. Actually, I talk about it a lot, which anyone who's ever mentioned Twilight in my presence will already know. And, yeah, I discuss it as an older person with an English degree, someone who has become used to deconstructing and analyzing books. But do people really think teenagers are reading these books blindly? You don't become obsessed with something to the degree that these Twilight fans are obsessed without thinking about it. A lot. These girls (and boys, but mostly girls, I'm guessing) might be dazzled by the sparkly vampire, but that doesn't make them stupid, and it doesn't give adults (or anyone) the right to tell them what is "good" for them and what isn't.

How you read is important. But reading things that you might later deem as "bad" (see my previously mentioned Sweet Valley High obsession) isn't the end of the world, and it might actually, one day, help you to further develop your reading tastes.

Certain people will always critique your taste in books, whether you love Meyer or Proust. Believe me, I have seen some skeptical looks when I reveal how much I love young adult fiction; I've done a fair share of judging people's tastes myself. But I don't let people deter me from reading what I want to read, and I hope I haven't deterred anyone from reading what they love. If you, as an adult, wouldn't appreciate someone saying that it's okay that you read "trash" because "at least you're reading something," you poor, unfortunate, barely literate soul, then why is it okay to say this to teenagers?

FYI

You can find me over at the Word Blog this week. Check it out!

Interlude: Paper Towns by John Green

I first discovered John Green a few years ago when someone somewhere linked to his brother Hank's video/song about Harry Potter. This led me to the Brotherhood 2.0 project, an amazing YouTube experiment. The Green brothers decided that for one year they would outlaw text messaging and e-mail, communicating through video instead. In addition to being hilarious and bringing me hours of nerdy amusement (if you clicked on that link you know it's a nerd-licious time over there), this project introduced me to John Green the Fabulous YA Author.

Since then, I've read three of his novels: Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns. All have similar themes ("coming-of-age adventures" doesn't do the books justice at all, but it's all I seem to have right now), but Paper Towns is definitely my favourite. To give you a quick synopsis, here is a quick synopsis from the back cover copy:

Who is the real Margo? Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life--dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge--he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues--and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew....
(Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group.)

Sounds good, n'est pas? There are a few things I really love about this book. First of all, reading a realist YA novel in the midst of a market enthralled with vampires (sorry! [I'm not sorry. I love puns.]) and werewolves, et cetera, is extremely refreshing. Although I love paranormal books, in the midst of all these biting and clawing metaphors for the human condition it can be easy to forget how refreshing and moving well-written realism can be. A protagonist doesn't have to be threatened by monsters for me to care about him/her. This book reminded me of that.

One of the main themes of Paper Towns is the way we tend to idealize those we love. Quentin has been obsessed (not in a stalkery way) with Margo for years, and because they are not particularly close as teenagers, his knowledge of her is based on a combination of observation and speculation that is particularly heavy on the speculation. We have all done this at some point(s) in our lives, likely when we were in high school, as Quentin is, but also likely not limited to that time. According to Quentin, Margo is a perfect girl. She is absent for most of the book, essentially existing only through what Quentin thinks about her and the assumptions he makes about her. Absolutely my favourite part of the book is towards the end, when Quentin meets Margo again and she completely debunks all of his theories about her, asserting her status as an individual existing outside of Quentin's perceptions of her. It is impossible for anyone to live up to Q's idea of Margo Roth Spiegelman, and by calling him out, Margo shows Quentin, and us, that a real person, flaws and all, is always better than an imaginary ideal.

I could go on, especially about Green's portrayal of suburbia, but instead you should read the book yourself. If you need further convincing, check out the Brotherhood 2.0 project (start at the beginning or check out the most popular), the vlogbrothers YouTube channel, or John Green's website.

P.S. I didn't mention that all the YouTube action above led to an incredible fanbase calling themselves nerdfighters. They follow John and Hank on twitter, YouTube and the general internet and, as far as I can tell, are amazing. It's a great example of author publicity, but more importantly, a great example of people being awesome and creating communities full of other awesome people.

That's all for now! Read some books!

Sweet Valley High quiz

Though I haven't gotten around to a Sweet Valley High book yet, fret not. I love them. I only scored 7/11 on this quiz, though, bringing shame to my ancestors. Or something.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory pre-read

My memories of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are connected very specifically to one person from my childhood: my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Potter.

I was in Mr. Potter's first class at our school. I remember the gossip about him the summer before fifth grade: none of us had had a male teacher before, and we were all nervous and excited to hear that the new guy used to play football for the Edmonton Oilers. I am from a small town. This was big news. Visions of a huge, scary guy loomed over us all summer. I remember especially that the boys were very excited, speculating that the new teacher would just want to talk football all day, and that we girls were worried that the new teacher would be scary. Gender stereotypes were clearly alive and well.

Mr. Potter turned out to be one of the best teachers I've ever had. He did a lot of great things with our class, and was particularly good at seeing what other teachers, who had known us all for years, had gotten used to and therefore overlooked. For me specifically this included singling me out to model school clothing (something usually reserved for the more popular kids) and nicknaming me Trillium, after the modeling agency, an action that caused me endless embarrassment but in the end was pretty good for my self-esteem. But the most remarkable thing he did that year was read to us from Roald Dahl books.

Every afternoon, about half an hour before the day ended, Mr. Potter would take out a book and read. And when I say read, I mean read. He is probably to this day one of the best readers I have ever heard. He had different voices for every character, and an enthusiasm that drew in even the most anti-book kids in the class. He moved across the room while reading, and most importantly, he didn't hold back. When Matilda's father yelled at her and called her stupid, Mr. Potter yelled louder than I think anyone had dared to yell within the walls of an elementary school before, to the point where once my mother, who volunteered in the school library, ran halfway down the hallway terrified that he had snapped and was shouting at the top of his lungs to some poor student.

Other teachers had read to us, of course, but by the time we got to grade five that had mostly tapered off, probably because of the belief that once kids learn to read on their own there is no longer a need for others to read to them. We were reluctant at first, thinking it was babyish to be read to. But I remember missing it once I got to grade six.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory should be an interesting read because, although I feel I have a good recollection of the plotline, this is almost entirely because I've seen the movie version many times. Dahl's prose style and sense of humour are legendary, and I am really excited to reacquaint myself with this book.

This is going to be fun. See you soon!




P.S. Speaking of reading aloud, here is one of my favourite videos on the subject. Enjoy!

This has nothing to do with literature

Young adult or otherwise. What it does have to do with is enjoying life.

Why I Quit Halfway Through the Very First Book OR Black Beauty, the Post-read

You guys. This was not supposed to happen. My vision for this blog, it was grand. I was going to read beloved classics from my childhood (and some trash; come on, I wasn’t a perfect child), fall in love with them all over again for much more mature, grandiose reasons than the first time, and generally impress everyone with my skills of being awesome.

I didn’t think I wouldn’t like the book. Yes, the entire point is to show how the way I read books has changed, but I hadn’t counted on my reading tastes to have changed.

In retrospect, this was probably stupid. Of course they’ve changed. It would be a bit sad if they hadn’t. And while I found Black Beauty interesting as a concept, and while I certainly enjoyed learning a little more about its history and origins (which I will expand on in a minute), halfway through the book I just couldn’t go on. It doesn’t have the sense of urgency to me as an adult that it did when I was a child. But after a month or so of not knowing what to do about this, and therefore accidentally abandoning this blog (sorry!), a friend helped me to realize that not liking a book would still make for a pretty good blog post. So here I am.

I can’t remember if I knew this when I first read it, but Black Beauty was originally written as an animal-rights tome of sorts. It was first published in 1877 in England, when horses were widely and harshly used. Anna Sewell wrote Black Beauty in order to raise awareness about the cruel methods used to break horses, as well as the completely unnecessary and brutal techniques used to make horses walk and appear fashionable.

Because of this, the book has a somewhat unusual narrative structure, in which the protagonist (Beauty, a horse) goes from colthood (is there a proper term for the childhood of a horse? Probably, but colthood will have to do) to old-horse-hood (see previous parenthetical query), experiencing a wide spectrum of treatment as he goes.

The decision to have a horse narrate is certainly effective, and likely the reason I found the book so emotionally draining as a child. It’s unusual, and it evokes compassion and provokes new considerations. I had likely never thought too much about what animals were thinking (aside from a nagging feeling that maybe my cat was really a person just like in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which was terrifying, by the way), and I had certainly never been exposed to animal cruelty before. Beauty rarely experiences true cruelty in this book: most of his suffering is a result of ignorance on the part of his owners rather than a true desire to harm. But ignorance is presented, rightly, as a poor excuse for mistreating an animal.

One thing I did notice on this re-read that I probably didn’t realize the first time around was the Uncle Tom-ness of Beauty. Aside: I feel I am about to go to literary hell for comparing Black Beauty to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but bear with me, because there are real similarities. One of the most frustrating things about both characters is their submissiveness, their unwillingness to stand up for themselves despite constantly talking about how they are being mistreated. This is a byproduct of the time in which both books were written: the authors were attempting to reach audiences reluctant to change their privileged ways of life, and in order to have an effect on people they needed to make their characters as sympathetic as possible. To a modern reader this can be incredibly stifling, as it is difficult to understand why Tom placidly accepts beatings or why Beauty doesn’t just kick someone in the face already. But I can see that it was necessary. When I first read it, this technique totally worked on me. I felt terrible. Why wouldn’t someone help this poor, defenceless horse? But now that I have more reading experience and have read a few other books that use this technique, it is easy to both see through it and to see the ingenenuity involved. It’s not an accident that Beauty doesn’t lash out at his abusers, and it was extremely clever of Sewell to restrain him like that.

Was this book worth a re-read as an adult? Maybe not. But when I was nine? It rocked. That’s worth a lot.