Something happened last week. And it wasn't just that Dave Grohl broke his leg falling off the stage of a concert and then proceeded to rock for another two hours while getting casted. No, not that.

I read another Stephanie Kuehn book.
And, yes, that's an event.

It hasn't been that long since I finished one of her books--CHARM AND STRANGE. A book that I had ordered for the school library and had always meant to read, but other shiny books got in the way. Being a librarian means you have countless books that feel like a natural extension of your own shelves at home and the lure is strong.

*Ahem*


I was sitting in the car outside my kids' school, waiting for the afternoon pick-up, reading the last chapters of CHARM AND STRANGE and, bloggers, stuff was going down. Like, my eyes were bugging out and my heart was breaking for the characters. Afterward, I had this incredible urge to bury this book on the school bookshelf because what if I messed somebody up by letting them read this? And then I thought, what if I help somebody by encouraging them to read this?

Fear is strong. But book nerds are brave.

This week I finished reading DELICATE MONSTERS and have to say that the title is perfect. The horror is perfect. The badness is indifferent and familiar and heartbreaking and necessary and wasted, wasted, this book made me feel (and question) so many things that I want to bury it I want to show and tell it I want to whisper I want you to read this so that I'm not alone...I kinda want to cry.

It got me thinking about Heroes and Anti-Heroes...certainly the modern trend is to mix the definitions and tweak things to resemble the very society we live in. It's something I respect and have come to expect in my reads. Complex villains that we somewhat sympathise with or villainous protagonists that have a great character arc proving their worth. Heroes that don't inhabit godlike qualities or exhibit their resourcefulness at just the right time. Heroes with more than their fair share of a fatal flaw.

You see, Anti-heroes go further than that decaying label of "unlikeable." Sure, we're not supposed to like Snape, but you're missing out on a great story element if you don't.

Go ahead and dislike Calaena Sardothien (THRONE OF GLASS) or Alice (SIDE EFFECTS MAY VARY) or Valkyrie White (BLACK HELICOPTERS) or Bianca (The DUFF) or Cassie (BEAUTIFUL) or Heathcliffe (WUTHERING HEIGHTS) or Locke Lamora or pretty much all of Courtney Summers' characters...groan along with Greg Huffley (WIMPY KID) or Mr. Collins (PRIDE AND PREJUDICE)...as long as you know there's a NIMONA in all of us.

"We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t 'is this a potential friend for me?' but 'is this character alive?'" ~ Claire Messud

Who are your favourite Anti-Heroes?

When Kristan told me that YA Diversity Book Club had picked SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA for this month, I was excited to have someone to gush with me over the story. You see, Simon inflates my heart. This book made me feel like I was in love. Love in all its awkwardness, agony and impossibility.

So when Kristan asked me if I wanted to post about Simon, I was like...let me think...YES! This is not because I need to add to the hype that surrounds the book. This is certainly something that fatigues our group. i.e. If something's getting loads of attention, it tends to influence our reading, and not normally in a good way.

I wanted to post about Simon because I felt him.

There are things in this book that aren't perfect. *shrugs her shoulders* You'll most likely guess Blue's identity (which is delicious). You'll probably dislike certain characters and then understand them a bit later on (just like real life). You might even forget all the minor characters that pale in comparison to Simon (his name's in the title, yo). And somehow that will all be okay because for the length of a book, you will BE Simon. And you'll nod along to his thoughts because you KNOW him. (Spoiler: I'm not gay). The world around him is quietened when Blue is in it. Things dim and brighten and crash and burn and rise just like a good story. But what everything comes down to is Simon. Clever, beautiful, funny Simon:

"...I'm tired of coming out. All I ever do is come out. I try not to change, but I keep changing, in all these tiny ways. I get a girlfriend. I have a beer. And every freaking time, I have to introduce myself to the universe all over again."

"'It's a Dementor robe over my clothes...'
'What's a Dementor?'
I mean, I can't even. 'Nora, you are no longer my sister.'" 

I think (hope) that you'll love him as much as I do.


For more on SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA, be sure to check out all of our great features:

• Our group discussion at the Teen Lit Rocks
• Q&A with Becky Albertalli at Gone Pecan
• "Simon Says: The Audiobook Agenda" at the Reading Date

Next month we're reading UNDER A PAINTED SKY by Stacey Lee. Please feel free to join us by reading along! You can also visit the full archive of YADBC posts and #YADiversityBookClub tweets.

Three weeks ago, I had a visitor.

no idea what's happening in the back

All of We Heart YA used to live in Cincinnati, you see, and now we live in exotic places like Denver, London and...Norwood ;)

Let's pretend that we moved to these far-flung places just to make our holidays that much more interesting. London, for instance, has never been as magical as it was when exploring with Kristan.

can't get lost with a pink backpack

I had yet to visit Borough Market under the London Bridge and so glad that we did...

modeled by my own DNA

We went to Cambridge and found where DNA was discovered...
We went to my brother-in-law's farm traipsing about in the mud to feed Jack the horse and cuddle fox  hound puppies...

 

I wish I could say that we also did tons of writing and worked on our projects, but living and experiencing was the work we had to hand. And we did it well!

finally some proper English weather!

Have you been on any adventures lately?

Once upon a time, I was a student of English Literature. And in my studies (and even before that) I read and analysed good examples of literary theory and device. The purpose was not to limit the texts that I was exposed to, but to see what has been done in the past and then to relate to what is considered good practice in modern literature. It was a foundation of critique.

Some of these texts were universally hated*, even though they were necessary for study. I don't love ANIMAL FARM, for instance, but it is a good example of allegory. Similarly, I don't know many people who re-read HEART OF DARKNESS for fun, you know? But there's some reason we study it. I can't remember. That's how much that book has impacted my cognitive life. It's created a giant BLANK in my memory.

However, what has fascinated me more than the texts that people hate to read (and study) are those that are universally loved*. Shakespeare, Milton, Atwood, Morrison, King, Tolkien, Dahl, Martin, Rowling...Rowell.

During the breaks in lectures on William Blake (a favourite*), my fellow students would be murmuring about Bridget Jones or gasp Harry Potter. I was serious, back then. I was building a foundation of critique. I wouldn't be caught dead with romance or a children's book. And yet...

Popularity is captivating. Compelling. We wants it.

I read them in secret.

So whether my professors liked it or not, Popular Fiction went into the mortar. I would argue that it made my foundations stronger. Because while we need books that are good examples, that nourish our thinking minds, we need books that elicit emotion (no matter how base), help us escape, show us paths that aren't always apparent. To entertain. To illuminate with flights of fancy within the safety of a construct.

More and more these days, I feel that literature is in need of some "levellers." Forget award winners, bestsellers and classics and give me a book that: speaks to our times, our experience, a book that entertains, is weird, unprecedented, absolutely obvious, makes me think and see the world differently.

I wish this for writers.

Be brave.

Forget the lists. Forget the awards. Forget popularity. Tell us a story. Your best story. And you will be read.



*up for debate, obvs.

It's impossible to read all of the things.

We all know this (to our slight devastation) and perhaps as a result, we choose books that have made the award lists or had starred reviews or are climbing the best seller charts...we don't want to miss something truly great or entertaining. The readers that I admire (and this is most young people that I work with every day) are the ones who choose by cover or by reading the jacket copy. I love discovering their interests as they browse and decide after reading the first few pages.

It's the merit of the words that draw them in.

Similarly (and perhaps for the majority of us), we choose reading materials because of word of mouth. I'm not talking about the juggernaut that is a "blog tour" where everyone is saying basically the same thing over a host of sites. I'm talking about being so moved by a book that you HAVE to tell someone. This is where all of us Book Bloggers started. We had THINGS to say in response to story. It wasn't prescribed for us. We didn't have obligations or commitments. We read our own picks and then talked about it with each other.

I have nothing against marketing from book publishers. They've got a job to do and are just as successful as anyone else at creating buzz for a book (I mean, who knows what's going to be big?!)But I have this crazy, inherent belief that if a book is doing it's story job then someone is going to want to discuss it. Maybe not everyone. Maybe not all at once. There's loads of us still catching up on titles from five years ago.

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO READ ALL OF THE THINGS.

But if you are going to be discerning with that beast of a tbr pile, you can not go wrong with these...

CHARM AND STRANGE by Stephanie Kuehn


I know, I know, what took me so long? It won the Morris last year (I've read nearly all of the nominees and winners since YALSA began shorlisting for this award) and was released in 2013, but I've only just managed to catch up with this one. If you have read JELLICOE ROAD and got past the first 100 pages...If you have read CHIME or WE WERE LIARS and decided to believe the narrator even if you didn't think you should...Then you are prepared for this book.
My advice: Go with the flow. Appreciate the flow, but realise you have no idea where the flow is going. And, by all means, guess along the way, but commit to those guesses like you would a George R. R. Martin character--knowing that they won't make it to the end. This book has carved out a space in my brain, has proceeded to crawl in...and I'm inclined to let it stay.

ROOFTOPPERS by Katherine Rundell


It's been a while since I read a Middle Grade book. And I'll admit this one is a cheat for a site declaring We Heart YA. Well call me Cheater McCheaterson because this book needs to be on your radar, bumping up your pile, in your hands and, might I suggest next to your pillow (a spot previously occupied by GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS and other beloved books I have trouble leaving on the shelf). I've read this book twice already in the space of a week and I'm taking a slower pace this time so that I can enjoy every crumb. It is, in a word, exquisite. It has charm, wit, adventure, perspective, wildness in an urban setting...and never have I wished to eat sausages roasted over a fire, by rooftop and weathervane, paired with homemade tomato soup, until this book. Magic.

So tell me: have you read these? Are you willing to gush with me? If not, what is stopping you?

It's that time of year again...when We Heart YA decides what fictional presents we'd give to some of our favourite fictional characters.

Kristan:

I would like to give Cadence (from WE WERE LIARS by E. Lockhart) the book TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS by Cheryl Strayed. It’s a compilation of personal essays – advice columns, technically – that are all about self-understanding, self-acceptance, and self-forgiveness. It’s one of my all-time favorite reads, and I half-jokingly call it my Bible. Even though there isn’t an essay that directly relates to Cadence’s problems – which are pretty unique – I still think she could find a lot of comfort in reading Strayed’s words and embracing Strayed’s philosophy of “radical empathy.”

Stephanie:

I would give Augustus Waters from THE FAULT IN OUR STARS a transfusion of Cylon blood to cure his cancer.

Sarah:

I'd put on a Christmas dinner and introduce SERAPHINA to FIRE, Elisa, Karou and the CHIME child. Then she'd see sooner that we're all monsters capable of destruction. And better the monster you know.

Last time that I posted, I discussed my new position as a school librarian and how suprised-but-not-surprised I have been at the trickly amounts of books being taken out and read. Starting next week, I have a book club organised with four students. More will come, I know, because they will smell the biscuits (okay, I'm turning British) and stay for the awesome. But there are students who wouldn't dream of turning up...and, fortunately for them, I am a sneaky sneak.

For the Mysterio who reads manga each and every lunchtime--who makes a beeline for the understocked shelf--I give thee ATTACK ON TITAN.


For the Wanderers--who are bored out of their exasperated minds--I bring you AMAZEBALLS...

Cloudy Glasses says: "Is that an American thing?"
Hipster says: "Not really, Amazeballs is everywhere."]







For the Gentleman--who borrows and returns CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS each and every week--okay, you can read it again. If you have to.


And for the Undecided reader--who shakes his head 'nope' as I guide him through the science and nature magazines, the sport books, the Thrillers, Tolkien, newspapers, Guinness records, the new fiction titles, even the display of books that have been turned into movies!--fortunately, for you, there's always The Gaiman.

*shakes his head*
"Wrote an episode of Dr. Who...has some other books out...there's illustrations inside...it's funny."
"Cool."]


Yeah, he is.
Yeah, you are.
Welcome to the Library.

Last week I started a new day job as a secondary school librarian (in England, that typically means ages 11-16). It is just as cool as it sounds working with students, surrounded by literature, having my own office, being the boss of my own bookish domain.

I've tidied and cleaned and made everything just so. I've become acquainted with the stacks and found the best covers to turn out for discovery. I have organised and made signs and posters. I have built something...

...but the readers have not come.

In two weeks, the library has lent out six books.

see Goodreads

As a small, rural school of roughly 240 students, this isn't terribly surprising (technically there are 45 books in the overdues list so closet readers there be). There just isn't the volume of people going into and out of the library for reading material. I have seen the same faces every day, but they're in the library to do their homework or research on the computer. I put out some board games for the vulnerable, who use the library to hide out, or the bored who spend break time wandering the grounds. Even they need coaxing toward the fiction shelves which are only an arm-stretch away.

It baffles me, but there are a lot of people that don't like reading. Like, that is a thing that exists.

see Goodreads

Some people are choosing to wander around aimlessly rather than discover the portals to Eretz or roam the secret passageways to the tomb of Elena. Some people would rather spin a piece of paper on the table than be transported to Paris and fall in love with a boy called Etienne and some would rather sit in a circle with their friends and stare at their thumbs than discuss the heartwrenching loss of Prim.

This is a thing!!

So, I'm doing the only thing a respectable librarian can do. I'm going to bribe them.

From November to March there is an event being organised by the School Library Service called the Essex Book Awards (Essex being the county the school is located). I have to somehow get a group of readers together, read some books, vote on our favourite and write reviews for the SLS blog. I am going to need a lot of bribes (sweets). Good thing Halloween is next week!

Watch this space for how I'm getting on. And if you were choosing from these books, which would you read first? I've only read SHE IS NOT INVISIBLE and thorougly enjoyed it. I think the students would as well if they could just quit their thing of not reading.

Others shortlisted for the award: I Predict a Riot by Catherine Bruton, Never Ending by Martin Bedford and The Middle of Nowhere by Geraldine McCaughrean.

Something is going on in the Middle Grade world...something creepy...something monstrous. Okay, this is not our usual age range of books (*ahem* WeHeartYA), but I thought I'd do a bit of spotlighting some MG reads that look just a bit irresistable.

Have you seen the cover for MONSTROUS by MarcyKate Connolly? I just think it's the best, creepiest thing. Love when a cover tells a story even before the story begins! The thing about MG that YA doesn't always have is that currency to live and breath fairytales. Monsters, goblins, faeries...they all make sense to young readers. Okay, adults old and young can access this too (see brilliant article), but it's a different experience. As an adult, you can (usually) put the monsters away. This book releases next February...come on, already!

THE TWISTROSE KEY by Tone Almhjell. Unusual in premise, and compelling if you've ever had a pet and wondered (wished) where they go after they die in this world. I've been meaning to read this one for ages! Parts Narnia and parts Golden Compass, this book is a classic in the making, and popped onto my radar when Laini Taylor recommended it. Every so often I hear its ping. Get this book!

I had the pleasure of recently reading an e-ARC of EREN by Simon P. Clark, which has just released in the UK and soon to be in the US. Dudes. This book would have claimed my waking hours as a child. It's real, it's abstract, it's creepy, it makes me think, it makes me cringe, it reminds me of all the things I thought and felt about adults and my peers when I was young. "A story must be told to the end." There is a meta-element to it that is interesting from a storyteller's perspective, there is a mythology that made me all goose-pimply, and there is a monster unlike any I've seen in fiction before. Another reason to avoid attics in old houses, in case you needed one! To some, this book might read quite straight forward. But if you let the story in, let Eren in, I think you'll be delighted and horrified by the inevitable conclusion.

You might have heard recently that the legendary mystery of Who was Jack the Ripper? has been claimed to be solved. With the amount of speculation over decades and decades, you would think more people would be buzzing about hard DNA evidence. Except, just maybe, we are smarter than that.

Having recently read Maureen Johnson's THE NAME OF THE STAR, I find the evidence and identity of Jack the Ripper to be quite interesting. I'm not a fan of mysteries (I don't like being in the dark, figuratively speaking) and I'm not a fan of violence (or dead bodies); however, this novel was a fun (and safe) little fantasy. I mean, it starts out about Jack, but ends up with a completely different paranormal twist that I wasn't expecting.

I love that about story.

And maybe the truth at the heart of the Ripper mythology isn't so much about the killer or the victims. It's about the unknown...the paranoia...the thrilling moment at the heart of What If?

Maybe it's the human desire to understand. To find an end. And, when that fails, to make stuff up.

;)

Six Words: ISLA AND THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER!!!!!!!! We loved ANNA and adored LOLA, and now we get to catch the Stephanie Perkins bug all over again with ISLA. We've held back from reading the free sample pages so we can buy this one to complete the trilogy.

Other new releases we're intrigued by include:

GATES OF THREAD AND STONE by Lori M. Lee. With GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS and SHADOW AND BONE trilogies finished, we need some adventure in a vibrant setting and with cool magic. Looking forward to this one.

OF METAL AND WISHES by Sarah Fine certainly seems unique, and we were pretty much had at the description: "there are whispers of a ghost...that grants wishes to those who need them most." Um, we're in.

This month's Diversity Book Club pick I LOVE I HATE I MISS MY SISTER by Amelie Sarn, translated by Y. Maudet looks seriously good. Check back here in a couple of weeks to learn more about it and what the club has been discussing.

GHOSTING by Edith Pattou has been getting some good publicity and is probably more on the literary side considering this description: "Told through multiple points of view in naturalistic free verse and stream of consciousness." Basically it's about a prank gone bad and how the group of teens deal with the aftermath. Sounds smart and an excellent study in character. Will definitely check this one out!

So what have we missed? Which new releases are you anticipating this month?