Tag: reading

Blog Circus 2011: Top 5 Favorite Books (Road Trip Wednesday)

Continuing on our week of lists, today we have my Top 5 Favorite Books of 2011. I read a lot of books this year. And I review all of my favorites for the Bookanistas. Here’s my list.

1. WHERE SHE WENT by Gayle Forman (review)
2. ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS by Stephanie Perkins (review)
3. DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth (review)
4. SOULLESS by Gail Carriger (Technically not YA, but I loved it a lot.)
5. UNDER THE NEVER SKY by Veronica Rossi (review)

Check out what music the others liked in our Best of 2011 Blog Circus!

Caroline Richmond
Erin Bowman
Kaitlin Ward
Kate Hart
Kathleen Peacock
Kirsten Hubbard
Kristen Halbrook
Kristin Otts
Lee Bross
Lindsey Roth Culli
Lynn Colt
Phoebe North
Sarah Enni
Stephanie Keuhn
Sumayyah Doud
Veronica Roth

Read Outside Your Comfort Zone

Like most writers, I LOVE reading. Voraciously. Cereal boxes, notes abandoned on a sidewalk, and book after book after book after…  You get it. Most of us read for pleasure or entertainment, but then there are those books that make us feel or think. Growing up, I wasn’t a fan of the thinking books.  They were too hard. Too irritating to have to peel back the layers of what an author wanted me to understand when I wanted only to get lost in a new world or place. Yes, I read those damned thinking books, but I definitely didn’t enjoy them and I really hated those blowhards who thumbed their nose at genre literature. Yet, even while I hated to have my reading tastes judged, once-upon-a-time I felt ashamed to say I was reading a romance novel or an adventure story instead of Charles Dickens or Faust.

It took a master’s in English for me to discover that different types of literature spark different things in me—and that’s a good thing. It’s a very good thing to read a variety of literature. Especially if you are a writer. If you are a young adult writer, you should challenge yourself to read outside young adult literature. There is comfort in reading the same books as our friends and supporting our fellow authors. What an amazing thing it is to find a group of people – finally – who care about the same things we do. Man, I love getting together with other young adult writers and talking shop. I always find myself thinking, “These people get me.”

The danger comes when we are reading and discussing the same things. Groupthink is a very real thing, and the water of our little young adult pond can become stagnant if a new stream is never introduced. Often, the really exciting books and ideas come from outside the group. People who have been off in the wild blue yonder experimenting and trying new things, while we may be writing to please the people in our group.

Whenever I am struggling with my story – when I think I’m saying something that’s been said a thousand times before…and better – that’s when it’s time for me to take a break. Time for me to find a new author to love, or a new book unlike anything I’ve read before. Time for me to read a book that makes me think so maybe I can expand my horizons. That spark may come from a young adult novel, a non-fiction account of the war in Afghanistan, or a bawdy vampire bodice ripper. No judgments here.  The key is to find something different and new. Something that pushes you out of your comfort zone.

And when you come back to your work, you may find you have something new to say.

Bookanista Review: Divergent

This week I am so lucky to review a book written by a friend, fellow Bookanista, and former SCBWI roomie. I’m so excited to tell you that Veronica Roth’s DIVERGENT is going to knock your ugly Uggs off.  Also, she snores.*

Here’s the official blurb from the publisher:

In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris, and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together, they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes-fascinating, sometimes-exasperating boy fits into the life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret: one she’s kept hidden from everyone, because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly-perfect society, she also learns that her secret might be what helps her save those she loves… or it might be what destroys her.

This book is 496 pages of awesome. Tris is not a perfect heroine who falls for a perfect brooding hero who saves her in the nick of time because she’s too silly to possibly think for herself. She has faults, often acts impulsively, and doesn’t always trust the right people. Her actions get her into trouble, from which she must frequently save herself. Smart and funny, she has the ability to think on her feet, and she is constantly thinking and wondering about her place in society.

And her society is not as simple as its founders and leaders would have everyone believe. The factions laud five virtuous traits, but they fail to take into account our baser human motivations of greed and ambition. Watching Tris navigate this imperfect landscape becomes a fascinating journey as you draw parallels with our own society. As she questioned the imperfections of the Erudite or the Abnegation, I found myself questioning manifestations of those groups in our world, like Scientists or particular religions.

This novel is smart. It has layers of complexity that will leave you thinking about it for days. As if that’s not enough, it also has brilliant action and a hot romance. Pick this up. Read it. Veronica Roth is going to wow you and leave you breathless for a sequel.

*I lied about the snoring thing. That was Deb.**

**Okay, I lied again. I’m pretty sure it was me.

Check out the links below to see what the other Bookanistas are talking about!

LiLa Roecker hosts a sunny tour stop for POSSUM SUMMER

Christine Fonseca shares her Guestanista Post: The Lost Hero

Shannon Messenger spotlights the cover of SO SILVER BRIGHT

Scott Tracey is inspired by ANGELFIRE

Michelle Hodkin toasts DEMONGLASS

Beth Revis finds amazing MAGIC UNDER GLASS

Carolina Valdez Miller uncovers WORDS IN THE DUST

Megan Miranda leaps and shouts for THE LIAR SOCIETY

Bethany Wiggins glows for RUBY RED

Shana Silver gets psyched about WITHER

Jen Hayley raves about RAISED BY WOLVES

Gretchen McNeil gushes over BLOOD AND FLOWERS

Rosemary Clement-Moore revisits HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE

Sarah Frances Hardy is nuts for THE NINTH WARD

Stasia Ward Kehoe celebrates THE LIAR SOCIETY

Binge Reading: An addiction

I have a theory. Books are like candy. Or drugs. Or drugs that look like candy. Think of the similarities.

1. You begin to neglect your responsibilities. How many times have you skipped out on cleaning the litter box (you know cats are evil, right?), taking out the garbage, or doing equally repulsive things you’re supposed to do in order to sink into the delightful nirvana of a book? Are your dishes piling up? This may be a sign.
2. You use books under dangerous conditions. Are you one of those people who listens to books while on a treadmill? Or in a car? Or *gasp* reads at stoplights? You could be a danger to yourself or those around you.
3. Your book use is causing problems in your relationships. Do you disappear on your lunch break to sneak in a chapter, leaving your office in disarray? Is your significant other feeling neglected by your reading habit, or your Team Sam/Team Edward/Team Gale obsession? Those bitter fights you are having can be traced to a single source – book nirvana.
4. You’ve built up a book tolerance. Does it take more than one book to feed your addiction? Are you needing to read more and more in order to get that plot high? Those black ink marks on your fingers could be an indicator of a real problem.
5. You read books to avoid or relieve withdrawal symptoms. When you go too long without reading, do you struggle with character withdrawal? Do you fantasize about novels even when you don’t have access to a book? Dear friend, wake up and see the signs.
6. You’ve lost control over your book use. Do you find yourself staying up all night to finish a book, and paying for it with bags under your eyes and a grouchy disposition? Is your first thought on payday, “now I can buy more books.” Do your guests have to put their martini glass on the floor because the books have taken over every surface in your home? If you can’t walk out of a bookstore without a book in your bag, you may have a problem.
7. Your life revolves around book use. Do you spend a lot of time thinking about books, figuring out how to get them, and then recovering from an all-night binge? Have you calculated the distance to every library and bookstore in a ten-block radius? There is a life outside fiction.
8. You’ve abandoned activities you used to enjoy. Like sunlight. And friends who aren’t on the web. If you look around, and all your friends are book pushers, you may have fallen into the wrong crowd.

Beware! A book addiction can easily lead to a writing addiction. Seek help now!

Hi, my name is Cory, and I’m a book addict….

Wanderlust

I am moving to San Francisco in late August. Packing up three bookcases of books and other various possessions to haul them across the state. Again. At least this time I managed to stay put for six years in Orange County. Prior to that, I moved about once every other year. As a singleton, I don’t feel tied to a particular place, though Southern California is where I grew up and where my family lives. While I’ll miss them (and will break my brother’s back by asking him to help me move 30 boxes of aforementioned books), I know I’m doing the right thing by venturing back to the city.

Aside from the fact that I’ll most likely be paying a fortune to live in a shoebox, have nowhere to park my car, and have to walk two blocks to a Laundromat, there’s something about living in a large city that invigorates me. I love the energy, the way everything is open late, how people populate the streets with their bikes, dogs, and parade-of-the-day. I love how people form small groups to combat the anonymity of the city.

This may sound completely prejudiced, but it also seems literature is more alive and present in the cities. In New York City, you get on the subway, and people are reading. They’re in the cafes and at the parks reading. There is a newsstand on every corner, in every underground station, and the bookstores… Eighteen miles of shelves in one building.  I swear, if I’d stayed in New York they would’ve found my dead body rotting on the bottom floor of the Strand bookstore amongst the shelves of reviewer’s copies. I read Jasper Fforde’s LOST IN A GOOD BOOK long before it was released, spelling errors and all. Be still my heart!

When I lived in New York, there were also more free readings and interesting panels on an on-going basis. I started a book club with no shortage of attendees, but in California, I can’t find enough people who’d be willing to drive fifteen minutes to take part. Perhaps it’s the nature of Southern California that everything is sprawling and far away that makes it difficult. Still, I can’t wait to be in the hub of things!