The Lost Summer by Kathryn Williams

The Lost Summer by Kathryn Williams (Hyperion) chronicles Helena's first summer as counselor, while her best friend, Katie Bell, remains a camper. No, not that Katie Bell. From the moment she arrives at camp (texting while driving) to the late-night sneaking out to meet not-so-great boys to taking up smoking, seventeen-year-old Helena seems to be making a string of mistakes, and her relationships with alpha girl counselor Winn and best friend forever Katie Bell suffer too. When it seems like things just can't get any worse, Helena's in a boating accident that puts her into a coma--and mostly things are fine when she wakes up, and those that aren't, well, they're no particular challenge.

Unfortunately, the easy-out ending means that we don't really get to explore the resolutions in the friendships, and the explanation of what happens next is crammed into an overview that lasts a few pages. Neither do we get a true sense of the physical challenges that come from having been in a coma; instead, one can read the end as both punishment and salvation from iffy, but not world-ending, choices.

If you are looking for summer camp nostalgia, you might find it in the first two-thirds of the book, but it's still from the perspective of a counselor who spends a lot of time away from camp. The best parts are Helena's interactions with her campers, and more of that would have balanced the story between her strengths and weaknesses as a character.

Banned Books Week

I thought about this. And thought about it some more. I thought about sharing stories. Of feeling pressure to redact what you offer to or in front of children, of feeling pressure to offer the best quality reading and experiences for kids. Of being in charge of my development as a reader once I was able to read on my own. Of how laughable the reasons for banning books, and as often as not, how disappointed I have been to read a naughty book and to find it insufferably dull. Of how empowering it can be to decide for oneself what to read (and what to reject), especially when you're a kid who has little control over anything in your life.

But for today, all I have to say about book banning is: don't.

http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/

Hopping and I Now Pronounce You Someone Else by Erin McCahan

If you're stopping by from the Hop, say hello so I can be sure to find your blog! This week's question comes from Elizabeth who blogs at Silver's Reviews.

When you write reviews, do you write them as you are reading or wait until you have read the entire book?

I nearly always write them after I've read the entire book. Sometimes even a few days later, but I like to do the review within 24 hours, even if I can't publish it for a while. On occasion, for the sort of book that gets a midnight release party, I'll take notes as I read (though I usually just immerse and worry about analyzing later); on occasion, I'll take notes if I'm not enjoying what I'm reading because that sometimes helps me figure out if there's a pattern, a hidden reason for my lack of enjoyment.

Earlier this month, I wondered if YA romance was really romance, because romances in YA are usually accompanied with a self-growth story that's as important as, if not more important than, the romance. I'm not trying to say that characters in adult-marketed romances don't experience character growth, just that character growth is so very vital in YA stories that I usually see that as the focus, with romance secondary, or because I don't usually see the self-growth serving the romance in such a focused way as an obstacle, as an adult romance might use it.

Between then and now, I read I Now Pronounce You Someone Else by Erin McCahan  (Scholastic - Arthur A. Levine), and it's probably one of the closest-to-romance-as-in-adult-marketed-romances I've read. Bronwen Oliver wishes she'd find out that she's Phoebe Lilywhite, switched and birth and someday to be reunited with her real family. At least she'll be getting away soon to go to college. But the summer before senior year, she starts dating college senior Jared Sondervan, and they're engaged before she goes back to school. It's perfect: his family is perfect for her, and Jared is--mostly--a loving and lovable boyfriend. Bronwen's senior year goes by in a blur, and she is focused like a laser on her love and her wedding plans, even to the detriment of her friendships.

This plan, to live in wedded bliss near Grand Rapids, Michigan, works for her. (I understand that this captures the people and area pretty well.) When Jared changes the game, will Bronwen play by the new rules, or will she have to leave true love behind to follow her dreams? Yes, there is a part of this story that focuses less on romance and lots on Bronwen finding out who she is as a person who exists as part of and separate from her family, but it's bookended with romance. And I'm not going to spoil the ending! I thought this worked as a romance, definitely.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Cybils Awards Coming Up!

I was so busy trying not to tell anyone until the announcement was made that I didn't prepare a post! I'm going to be a first-round judge on the science fiction and fantasy panel for the Cybils, book awards given by the children's and young adult blogging community. After nominations from the public for easy readers/short chapter books, fantasy and science fiction, fiction picture books, graphic novels, middle grade fiction, nonfiction picture books, MG/YA nonfiction books, poetry, and young adult fiction, the first round judges read--or attempt to read, if they can get a copy--all of the books in their categories. A second round picks a winner from the first round's shortlist.

I am the biggest geek you know right now--I love science fiction and fantasy, and spending the rest of the year devouring books as fast as I can sounds like the best thing ever! I'll post when nominations are open, and please do nominate interesting, exciting, diverse, thoughtful books. In reality, every reader out there is part of the first round.

From the Cybils website:

The 2010 Science Fiction and Fantasy Panel

If you don't have any idea how many amazing sci-fi and fantasy books are published each year for children and young adults, let the number of people on our SFF panels give you a clue. It's a LOT. An abundance of riches. That's why we've got two separate sets of judges for elementary/middle grade and young adult books. Our enthusiastic bloggers will soon be on the job selecting the best of the fantastical best.

Panel Organizer: Sheila Ruth, Wands and Worlds
Panelists (Round I Judges), MG/Elementary:
Anamaria Anderson, Books Together
Gwenda Bond, Shaken & Stirred
Cindy Hannikman, Fantasy Book Critic
Aaron Maurer, Coffee for the Brain
Nicole Signoretta, Booked Up
Charlotte Taylor, Charlotte's Library
Karen Yingling, Ms. Yingling Reads

Panelists (Round I Judges), Teen/YA:
Steve Berman, Guys Lit Wire
Tanita Davis, Finding Wonderland
Leila Roy, Bookshelves of Doom
Sheila Ruth (see panel organizer)
Angie Thompson, Angieville
Hallie Tibbetts, Undusty New Books
Heather Zundel, Secret Adventures of WriterGirl

Round II Judges:
Elementary/Middle
Melissa Baldwin, One Librarian's Book Reviews
Kate Coombs, Book Aunt
Emily Mitchell, emilyreads
Nancy Tsai, Kidsmomo
Tanya Zavestoski Turek, Books 4 Your Kids

Teen/YA
Emma Carbone, Miss Print
Anne Levy, Cybils
Sam Musher, Parenthetical
Sarah Stevenson, Finding Wonderland
Steph Su, Steph Su Reads

A(n Informal) Poll!

There are a lot of book blogging memes. A lot! I've participated in a couple--a book giveaway, two rounds of the Friday Hop. I've been having a thought about maybe creating one, and I'd like some feedback.

Inspired by the interesting dates coming up, like 10/10/10, what if people posted exactly 100 words on the 1st of the month? One book--and just 100 words to tell all about it? It would only come around once a month, of course, so it's pretty low pressure; I'd still probably recommend that as with other memes, you visit a couple of other blogs to see their review of the day. Interesting? Terrible idea?

Room by Emma Donoghue

I don't typically review books marketed for adults on this blog unless I think they have a lot of crossover appeal--I skip those in favor of catching on on new and old reads that I want to talk about! Room by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown) might not have that appeal, but I'm starting to wonder if it's going to be so well-known that it gets reads even by teens who are full-time YA devotees. It's a story that's been happening to teens, at any rate, and a book I would have read myself when I was a teenager.

Room was inspired by real events, and disturbing ones; I'm sure you've heard several stories of teenage girls kept in confinement by older men, and who have then had children while imprisoned. Donoghue's tale, told by one such child, is simultaneously softened and made more gruesome through her choice of narrator.

Jack is a five-year-old boy who's lived in Room with Ma--all of his life. They wake up in the morning and have breakfast and a bath, and then they have Phys Ed, which is trampoline on the bed or laps around the table. There are games to play, a giant toilet-tube fortress, clothes to wash, and (in order not to rot brains) just an hour or two of TV a day, where things that are not real flash by on the screen. Only Room is real, and Old Nick who comes to Room in the night when Jack's hidden away in the wardrobe, and then Jack stays quiet and counts the squeaks of the bedspring. And then, one day, Ma tells Jack something that will very much change his world: there is an Outside. It is real. Real for real.

The really fascinating thing about this book is the point of view; what if all you'd ever known was a single room? What happens when you've never been in a moving vehicle, or seen something more than twenty feet away from your nose? What if you've never had to be private, or had to understand something as yours or not-yours? It's a painful, excruciating read, and one that will certainly cause readers to question some plotting (why that, now, why not this, why then), but if you can stomach the idea, the rest is incredibly intriguing. The novel has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

You can read a bit of the book on the Hachette website here and there's an interactive version of Room here. The trailer:

Upping the Game on Reviews?

I'm not a writer--at least, I'm not an aspiring author. Do I write things? Yeah, but I don't have a book idea I'm shopping around, and that's not on my radar for the future. To brush up on my editing skills, though, I attended a writers conference this weekend. About half of the presentations I attended were publishing industry-related, and the other half were on things like structuring the middle of one's book  and creating an elevator pitch. It's the last one that I thought might apply to book blogging the most, and a lot of you that I'm following have been talking lately about wishing for more tools in the blogging toolbox.

I'm going to change what I heard in the presentation and combine it with other elevator pitch rules to fit with what is toughest in reviewing books, especially complicated ones, and maybe help push away the writer's block about explaining things. (I do reserve the right to continue to ramble in my own reviews, though! I often go for a steam-of-consciousness review and then try to right it into something readable. I will be trying this with some of the older reviews that I'm bringing to this blog.)

In a pitch, you might say:

• Who's the main character, and what defines her?
• What does she want?
• What does she have to do to get it?

The idea is that you give all of this in one sentence, too. It's hard, though, when a story has a lot of complexity, or it's about self-growth, because that doesn't sound all that exciting when it's boiled down to a sentence. Here are a couple that I made up, for made-up books and real ones:

Headstrong attorney Ann must pass as a cleaning lady to infiltrate the offices of Big Corporation and find out who killed her mentor with a velociraptor.

Harry Potter, a young wizard attending a secret magical school, has to find and destroy the Philosopher's Stone before the evil Lord Voldemort uses it to gain power over wizards everywhere.

Peter Rabbit must dodge Farmer MacGregor if Peter wants to eat anything from MacGregor's garden.

Kinda like that. 

And then, as when a real elevator pitch's recipient shows interest, one might go on--a book reviewer might go on for a paragraph or a few--to flesh out the story. I think it's always helpful to give some personal thoughts on the book's strengths and weaknesses, your reactions as an individual reader, and even whether or not you like or would recommend the book: I'm friends with people who have completely different tastes in reading from mine, and when one of us likes a book, the other generally won't, so sometimes, a negative can sell a book, and a positive won't.

What do you think? How do you approach reviewing, especially if you read a lot of books? I'm thinking this approach works best for plot-based stories, and ones where even if there are a lot of threads, there's still a well-defined central conflict.