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Katrina L. Burchett

goodreads author profile

url

http://www.goodreads.com/kapribooks

gender

female

place of birth

The United States

website

http://www.kapribooks.com

genre

Young Adult

member since

August 2008

about this author

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Katrina L. Burchett is the third born of her parents six children; the shy, quiet one who always expressed herself better with the written word. As far back as she can remember it felt natural to have a piece of paper and a pen or pencil in hand.

In grade school she wrote a play or two that her classmates acted out for teachers and their students. However, during her middle and high school years creating poems was what she loved most, and a couple of them were printed in the local newspaper.

Burchett is the self-published author of a young adult novel intended for mature readers. Choices is the first of a trilogy. She plans to publish the two remaining novels that will not only dig deeper into the lives of Shauntice, ...more

11 posts
Katrina L. Burchett's Blog

My Novel Is Also For Parents, Not Just Teens

Just the other day I read Kendra by Coe Booth. This book taught me something I didn't know about the choices some young people are making when it comes to sex. As I read this painfully honest story, I was reminded of how my novel doesn't even touch on half of what teenagers are doing today. But mostly I thought about how important it is to make sure novels like mine - those that tackle the issue o...more

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0 comments Published on July 02, 2009 09:40

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combine editions
books by Katrina L. Burchett

avg rating: 4.20 | 5 ratings | 4 reviews | 1 distinct work | 2 fans

Choices
by Katrina L. Burchett (Goodreads author)
avg rating 4.20 — 5 ratings — published 2007

my rating:

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, perform a search.

Katrina's writing

Choices (Literature & Fiction)

2 chapters — updated 09/08/2008 03:21PM

description: Excerpt from my debut novel; a story that tackles an issue today's young people face. Shauntice, Angel, Bridgette, LaKeeta and Hope -Five teenage girls dealing with different circumstances make very different choices about boyfriends and premarital sex.

Katrina is currently reading

	06/30 Katrina is currently reading: Worth a Thousand Words: A Novel (Jubilant Soul) by Stacy Hawkins Adams (Goodreads author) bookshelves: books-i-own, christian-fiction, currently-reading	my rating:
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Katrina's recent updates (rss)

July 02

Katrina L. Burchett wrote a new blog post:

My Novel Is Also For Parents, Not Just Teens

View full post on Katrina L. Burchett's website »

0 comments Published on July 02, 2009 09:40

Katrina Burchett marked as to-read:
Keep Your Enemies Closer (Urban Christian)
by Sharon Oliver

my rating:

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Katrina Burchett marked as to-read:
Deliver Me From My Enemies (Urban Christian)
by Sharon Oliver

my rating:

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Katrina Burchett marked as to-read:
Business Unusual (Paperback)
by Linda F. Beed

my rating:

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Katrina Burchett made a comment on Ellen's review of Choices

Katrina wrote: "Thanks so much for the 5 star rating, Ellen :) "

reply to this comment

Katrina Burchett gave

to:
Kendra (Hardcover)
by Coe Booth (Goodreads author)

my rating:

read in June, 2009

Katrina said: "Kendra Williamson is fourteen years old and she attends North Bronx High School for Arts and Communications. She loves to draw houses and floor plans; a skill that will lead to a promising career in the future. She's not focusing a whole lot on futur...more Kendra Williamson is fourteen years old and she attends North Bronx High School for Arts and Communications. She loves to draw houses and floor plans; a skill that will lead to a promising career in the future. She's not focusing a whole lot on future plans, though. The main thing that's on her mind, what she wants more than anything, is to spend more time with her mother, Renee.
Kendra lives with her Nana, Valerie. Renee, who gave birth to Kendra in ninth grade, missed ten years of her daughter's life while she finished high school, then college and then grad school. Now she's graduating from Princeton with a PhD and Kendra believes she will finally have a "real" mother. A mother who will be around for more than just minutes at a time and will care about the things she cares about. A mother who will want her. But, sadly, once Renee is back in the Bronx the neglect continues so, desperate for attention, Kendra makes a choice that surprises even her. A choice she regrets, but repeats even though she feels so bad about herself after the first time.
I felt so bad for Kendra. The girl goes out there and makes choices she probably wouldn't have made if somebody would have taken the time to talk to her and, most of all, truly love her. Her mother obviously loved herself more than she loved her daughter. Renee was only concerned about what she wanted and didn't give Kendra a second thought. I was so glad Kendra's Nana cared enough about her granddaughter to raise her. Valerie loved Kendra the best way she knew how, but her way was a bit controlling and smothering. And Kendra's dad, Kenny? Well, it seemed he was still trying to find his own way in the world.
The author was not playin' when she penned this novel. Teenagers are way more mature, way more knowledgeable these days and Coe Booth did not hold back when she wrote about the sexual experiences of her young characters. The things fourteen year old Kendra did really shocked me. And Nashawn Webb, the guy she was with, my goodness, this boy knew as much as a grown man! I was saddened by that, but the reality is there are young people who are growing up way too fast.
There is one thing I learned from reading this book that I did not care to know, and there was quite a bit of profanity to overlook, but this was a good story. And, like I mentioned before, Coe Booth was not playin'! So, if you can handle the truth about the choices "some" young people are making when it comes to sex, you might want to read this book. (less) "

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June 30

Katrina Burchett is currently reading:
Worth a Thousand Words: A Novel (Jubilant Soul)
by Stacy Hawkins Adams (Goodreads author)

my rating:

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June 29

Katrina Burchett read and liked Holly's review of Going Down South: A Novel:

"Most reviews I've seen call it "wonderful" and a great book for and about mothers and daughters.

It's meant to be a thought-provoking, coming of age, multi-generational book. A young girl becomes pregnant and her mother takes h...more "

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Katrina Burchett read and liked GUD Magazine's review of Going Down South: A Novel:

"This is a reading-group book. You can tell because it's about mothers and daughters, because it has race- and gender-based complications, and because it has Reading Group Questions at the back. Unfortunately, I don't think I found it as edifying as...more This is a reading-group book. You can tell because it's about mothers and daughters, because it has race- and gender-based complications, and because it has Reading Group Questions at the back. Unfortunately, I don't think I found it as edifying as I was supposed to. Going Down South has a solid sense of time and place and culture, even while jumping around between them, but is weaker in plot and characterization, which make that sense of the settings more difficult to appreciate and learn from.

The first two sections of the book constitute the Going Down South itself. They use a car trip from Brooklyn to small-town Alabama as a frame for a series of flashbacks setting up the story, first from the point of view of Olivia Jean, a teenager whose unplanned pregnancy is the cause of the trip (her parents want to hide her away until the baby is born), and then of Daisy, her mother, who hasn't been back to see her mother in Alabama since she was a teenager herself and left home under unpleasant circumstances. The third section is told from the point of view of Birdie, Daisy's mother and Olivia Jean's grandmother, reflecting back on Daisy's childhood and her own as she waits for her family to arrive. This car-trip flashback structure is an interesting idea, but in practice, I found that it seriously screws up the pacing of both the reference-time story and the backstory, and I got frustrated with it very quickly.

The second half of the book is structured rather differently, with a floating point of view but a much straighter narrative thread. There are still plenty of flashbacks -- the three central characters are all working through their issues with themselves and each other, which requires much delving into the past -- but they are spaced in a more conventional fashion. This improves the pacing, and various other aspects of the storytelling improve as well. The characters -- all of whom come off as rather stock toward the beginning -- seem more nuanced and original, and the humor rings truer. (There is also less of the repetition and narratorial summaryishness that further bog down the first sections.) The ending is satisfying, if predictable, and rounds off the plot arc nicely.

As well as the book-group discussion questions, this edition of Going Down South also includes an interview with the author. Mostly nothing unexpected, but I did find one thing about it interesting: When the interviewer asked Glover to describe her characters and how she wrote them, she immediately pegged Olivia Jean as a gutsy and intelligent girl who just needs guidance, and said she didn't have any difficulty writing her or imagining her life, whereas she found her mother Daisy -- passionate, bitter, and pretentious -- much harder to understand and to write (though in the end she empathized with her more). However, from the reading side, I found Olivia Jean something of a cipher, while Daisy's inner life and motivations come through much better (at least in the second half). There may be a lesson in that, more than in what can be found in the text of the book.(less) "

2 comments

June 26

Katrina Burchett marked as to-read:
Happily Ever After (Paperback)
by Susan May Warren

my rating:

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Katrina's favorite quotes

"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others.
"
— Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ

tags: biblical

1 person liked it

"Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase."
— Martin Luther King Jr.

tags: faith, inspirational

947 people liked it

Katrina's groups (recent posts)

African American Books — 387 members — last activity 3 hours, 26 min ago
To all my self published authors out there. This is a group where you will be 100% supported and cheered on. We welcome published authors too, and we ...more

Christian Readers — 484 members — last activity 2 days ago, 06:31PM
This is an open forum for people to discuss Christ-themed books. Whether you'd like to discuss theology, biographies, church history, novels or anythi...more