Sarah Jamila Stevenson's Blog: Blog - Sarah Jamila Stevenson, page 27

Apply to Be a Cybils Judge!

The call for 2017 Cybils Awards judges is open! Bloggers, vloggers, Goodreads reviewers--any or all of those are welcome, as long as you have a love of kidlit, a passion for reading, and a discerning eye for the best of the best.

Judges for Audiobooks and Easy Reader/Early Chapter Books are especially wanted at the moment, so if you have experience with either of those, please apply. The contest relies on as many as 100+ volunteers every year, and can't exist without us. I've already thrown my hat into the ring for judging, and I'll be co-blog-editor again this year--and as perennial participants, Tanita and I can both vouch for the fact that it is one of the most fun ways to take part in the kidlit community and draw attention to the many worthy books out there.

Also, don't forget to register for KidLitCon in November! The program (and registration information) is available here. There are some amazing authors in the lineup, and a wide range of sessions on topics including STEM, Historical Fiction, reading development, activist books, and much more.

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Just For Fun: An Eclipse Reading List

Solar corona of 1893 eclipse from Popular Science Vol. 60Honestly, there really is no running theme to these books other than they feature astronomical bodies in the titles, but is there ever a bad time for a book list? I don't think so. They also happen to be books Tanita and/or I enjoyed and reviewed here on the blog. If you're looking for some eclipse-worthy reading, put on your special dork, I mean dark, glasses and check these out! Meanwhile, I'll be in a car, probably stuck in traffic, driving up through Oregon hoping to witness the real deal...

In no particular order:

Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass (MG fiction; this one is actually about a solar eclipse!)
Black Hole Sun, Invisible Sun, and Shadow on the Sun by David Macinnis Gill (action-packed sci-fi)
I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson (nothing whatsoever to do with eclipses that I remember)
The Midnighters trilogy by Scott Westerfeld (a good, scary read)
Horizon by Patti Larsen (more sci-fi)
Sunbolt by Intisar Khanani (wonderful indie fantasy)
The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells (cool YA shapeshifting fantasy)
Jumping Off the Planet by David Gerrold (wicked cool overlooked sci-fi)
Under the Dusty Moon by Suzanne Sutherland (girl's mom in a band)
The Shade of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer (4th book of Life As We Knew It )
Shadows on the Moon by Zoe Marriott (Asian-American themed fantasy)
Under a Blood Red Moon by Lu Sylvan (pirate apprentices novella)
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool (MG historical fiction)
The White Road of the Moon by Rachel Neumeier (fantasy and friendship)
Tiger Moon by Antonia Michaelis (South Asian fairytale themes)
The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White (modern-day Egyptian gods)
Mirror in the Sky by Aditi Khorana (a message from space!)
Airborn by Kenneth Oppel (airships)

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

In Tandem Reads: THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY edited by PETER S. BEAGLE & JACOB WEISMAN

SFF is ...changing. Long the bastion of men, especially white men, the genre's stories and boundaries are at last making room for a greater variety of voices and points of view. 2017 has been a particular great year for that in our corner of the woods with FIYAH Lit Magazine, showcasing African American SFF; Comic Con this summer celebrated more diverse characters in comic books and films, including a superb Muslim crimefighter; the Star Trek TV series franchise is being resurrected with black and Asian female crew members, as well as the usual undefined aliens; and of course, everyone is still vibrating over the Star Wars beloved General Leia and the new strong female leads in that world. All of this means that when we had the opportunity to read the New Voices in Fantasy Anthology, we both jumped at the chance.

New Voices is not a YA anthology, although there are contributors who write for YA and MG lit included, but we wanted to look it over anyway, because we strongly support diverse voices in science fiction and fantasy. So, without further ado:

Welcome to another edition of In Tandem, the read-and-review blog series where both A.F. and I give on-the-spot commentary as we read and blog a book together. (Feel free to guess which of us is the yellow owl and which of us is purple ...who's driving this bike??)
We are...
Two writers,
     & Two readers,
            Exploring one book...
In Tandem.

What would you do if a tornado wanted you to be its Valentine? Or if a haunted spacesuit banged on your door? When is the ideal time to turn into a tiger? Would you post a supernatural portal on Craigslist? In these nineteen stories, the enfants terribles of fantasy have entered the building—in this case, a love-starved, ambulatory skyscraper. The New Voices of Fantasy tethers some of the fastest-rising talents of the last five years, including Sofia Samatar, Maria Dahvana Headley, Max Gladstone, Alyssa Wong, Usman T. Malik, Brooke Bolander, E. Lily Yu, Ben Loory, Ursula Vernon, and more. Their tales were hand-picked by the legendary Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn) and genre expert Jacob Weisman (The Treasury of the Fantastic). So go ahead, join the Communist revolution of the honeybees. The new kids got your back.

“This anthology represents some of the most exciting and interesting work in the fantasy field today, and anyone interested in the genre should read it immediately.” —Booklist ♦ “...a valuable snapshot of SF/F’s newest generation of writers.” —Publishers Weekly ♦ “A stellar anthology that proves not only that fantasy is alive and well, but that it will be for years to come.” —Kirkus

We received copies of this book courtesy of the publishing company, via NetGalley. You can find THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY edited by Peter S. Beagle & Jacob Weisman at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!
 


tanita: I don't know why, but I love, love, love anthologies. Maybe it's the little snippets of someone's work, which gives me a jumping-off point to getting to know them as a writer. Maybe it's the reality that sometimes, I don't have mental bandwidth for a long novel, but there's always time for a story. Maybe it's just that I have attention deficits. I enjoy how some stories turn out to be favorites, and others, not so much, which is always my experience - which makes even reading something I'm not sure I like A Good Thing. You were remarking the other day how hard it is to read them sometimes, though. I agree... this was both fun, and really hard!

sarah: I guess any "new voices" type of thing is going to be highly varied. It's hard for me to do more than a few stories a day... Is it weird that I find short stories require more stamina in a way than novels?
tanita: No, no - not at all. I had to put this down and come back to it repeatedly. For me, the issue with anthologies, where there are rich, fully realized stories is that I can't change lanes that fast. The finned Chevy of my imagination is hurtling down the dark freeway, weird sights blurring as I fly by... and then the story ...ends. I have to find where the car went and turn it around before I can start something new.

The stories featured in this collection were were fully realized, fully populated little worlds we spent time in. Which one was your favorite? Or, which two, probably, that you're having a hard time picking between?
sarah: I have to admit, I'm kind of a sucker for selkie stories--for anything based on myth, really--and so I think my favorite of the bunch is Sofia Samatar's "Selkie Stories Are for Losers." It also is a YA-friendly story, and was nominated for several awards. It does such an amazing job of doing what myths do best--they teach us something about ourselves, show us what already exists in our all-too-human hearts that has existed through history and across time. In the same way, the selkie has both a literal and a metaphorical role in Samatar's story.
tanita: Funny - for the selfsame reason, I kind of hate selkie stories; I find them tragically sad, which is why I loved the Samatar's story -- because her character, too, came from a place of where the story of selkies and sentient sea creatures IS traditionally tragic, and so she decided to reject those stories, in a show of bravado, despite that story being HER story. Similar in themes of loss of wildness and freedom was the story of the anarchist bees - and well done to that person for being able to portray a hivemind in a story - and of course, the Jackalope Wives... I am SO here for any Vernon story, anytime. While I had read this particular story before (which kind of detracts from the "new" voices in the title), I'm glad to see her non-kid work find a larger audience.
sarah: I also liked Ursula Vernon's "Jackalope Wives"--not surprisingly. I'm already a fan of her work for young readers (e.g. the Dragonbreath graphic novels). 

Other stories I enjoyed were "Tornado's Siren" by Brooke Bolander for sheer uniqueness of concept; "Left the Century to Sit Unmoved" by Sarah Pinsker for being YA-friendly, very literary, and leaving the reader with intriguing questions; and "Here Be Dragons" by Chris Tarry for having an interesting new take on dragons and dragonslayers.
tanita: There were echoes, in "The One They Took Before," by Kelly Sandoval, of Seanan McGuire's EVERY HEART A DOORWAY trilogy that was really haunting, in combination with the weirdness of Craigslist. But, my favorite of the new-to-me pieces was Max Gladstone's "A Kiss With Teeth," which started off with me feeling pretty unsure of things... In a novel filled with pieces which will appeal to adults and teens alike, this is definitely an adult story. Parents looking back at their lives before becoming part of the Upright Citizens Brigade and remembering when once they were vampire and vampire hunter, when the night was filled with menace and promise and dangerous, obsessive romance... I adored it. I love that story because it's about maturing - and maturity is something you just don't read a whole lot about in speculative fiction, despite the thousand-year-lived vampires and the like that you get in urban fantasy. More often, you get the angst and drama of what happens when people live nearly forever and don't mature, but just... roll into later adulthood, still acting a fool. It was partly side-eyeing those types of stories, and partially celebrating settled, selfless, mature relationships. Which is super rare. Having read that, I'm very much open to finding Gladstone's other work for adults, in a way I wasn't prior to now (although, not going to lie - I have been struck by the wonderful representation on the covers of his books. I mean, look at this!).


sarah: Yes, I enjoyed the "but what happens AFTER?" approach of Gladstone's story--that was something I liked about "Here Be Dragons," too. There are so many tropes in fantasy, and that's not inherently bad, but fantastical creatures like dragons and vampires and werebeasts and whatnot have been done in the same way so many times (hence the trope, I suppose). Bringing a new approach to existing tropes is something that was well done in this anthology as a whole.

tanita: What else stood out to you about this collection in terms of theme or stylistic choices, or anything, really?
sarah: I wanted to just mention how much I enjoyed the variety and risk-taking in terms of form and storytelling approach--there were surprises at every turn, from unusual characters like bees, buildings, and ducks, to unique conceits of form like the how-to guide, Craigslist ad, and anthropological study. I really enjoyed "The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn" by Usman T. Malik for its sweeping, epic, multigenerational look at jinn mythology--great to see something that's not from the well-used Western mold. I'm already a fan of Rushdie, who similarly draws on the history and myth of the Indian Subcontinent, and I'm glad to see more writing in that vein.
tanita: Oh, yes! My main interest in choosing this anthology is that it is aimed at "new voices;" the overarching meaning, in this particular, is not solely stories I haven't yet read from "new" to the field authors, but additionally, nonwhite voices in fantasy, which brings that new vibe to the entire genre. Usman T. Malik allowed us to glimpse both old Lahore, new, busy Lahore, and the mental and physical and spiritual space in between, bridged by the character's life in the West. It was enchanting, in part because the story was about family stories, and how they stretch the truth and what we understand of truth through time. Wouldn't it be lovely, if an aging relative could remember themselves in another time, in their dementia -- and it would all be real? That... in a way would redeem old age and remakes it into something beautiful.

And, in a way, that's what the whole anthology does. Familiar bits of ephemera from our imaginations, from our urban myths and legends, from our cultures and our worlds have been transmuted into something both less familiar and more knowable, both more off-puttingly gross and horrible (and there are some prime bits of horror in this collection - eek), and more charmingly disturbing. This collection runs a good gamut. It's meaty stuff, and could easily be taken along to ease the pain of airports and train rides. It's absorbing and invites the reader to a feast of a thousand different senses. It's not our usual fare here at the Treehouse, but I'm glad we read it.

sarah: Me, too! It definitely fulfills our goal to read widely and diversely, something that we both try to do as much as possible--just not usually at the same time...  In this case, though, a tandem review seemed like a good way to survey the gamut of stories in the anthology--we each responded to different ones, and as a result, hopefully, we were able to do it justice as a collection...and tempt you into picking it up, perhaps.

Thanks for joining us on our latest tandem review journey!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Welcome to the 2017 Cybils Awards!

A new Cybils year is already ramping up and getting ready to launch! And with a new year comes a new (well, refreshed) logo with nifty new color scheme. This year I decided to go with a sort of dark-magenta-and-orange, fall-ish look. I'll be helping out again as co-blogger with Melissa Fox of Book Nut, and both Tanita and I will most likely be applying to be judges again as well. It's a lot of work, but it's fun to be able to read a wide variety of worthy titles and try to bring some attention to them via our little corner of the blogiverse.

Stay tuned for the call for judges, and if you want to download the new logo, check this Cybils blog post for various shapes and sizes!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Toon Thursday Blast from the Past! Social Media Edition

Social media continues to find new ways of invading our time and brain space and making our lives more complicated and annoying, so I thought I'd bring this old chestnut out of the archives. This really IS never gonna happen!

Have a happy and hopefully productive writing week, everyone!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Thursday Review: THE SPECIAL ONES by Em Bailey

Synopsis : A few years ago I read Em Bailey's earlier novel, Shift (reviewed here), and found it to be a suspenseful page-turning thriller, so I was interested to check out her newest novel: The Special Ones. This one's also a psychological thriller, with a lot of intriguing surprises and plot twists as well as a scary, unhinged villain.

When the story starts, we are immediately plunged into the rather unusual life of narrator Esther. Esther lives in a farmhouse with a younger girl, Felicity, and a slightly older boy, Harry, where their self-sufficient lifestyle has earned them the admiration and, dare I say, worship, of countless internet followers. They are the Special Ones. The only problem is, they can't leave. They can't even do anything outside of their prescribed roles, because he will punish them if they stray. I won't say much more, in order to avoid spoiling the suspense, but as the story unfolds, we find out the answers to critical questions like why are they there? How did they arrive? And, of course, who is he?

Observations : The Special Ones provides an interesting twist on the stuck-in-a-cult type of story; in fact, it is so much more than simply a cult, but I can't give you any more information than that. The suspense is well crafted here: As the author slowly reveals more and more details about the situation Esther is in, the ominous feeling continues to grow until we find out the true danger that she and her companions are in, and it is just as horrible as our imaginations feared it would be. AND THEN IT GETS WORSE! Of course it does.

There was a disorienting narrator switch well into the book that momentarily had me think, no! I don't want to leave Esther's POV now! But rather than being a book of two halves/two narrators, the switch was to introduce alternating viewpoints between Esther and another character, so ultimately the change of perspective wasn't too much of a jolt.

Conclusion : Overall, this book is a very gripping thriller with lots of psychological tension in the first half that translates into action toward the end of the story. It's also got well-rounded, interesting characters who are developed enough to make us care about what happens to them—a trait that is sometimes missing in more plot-driven suspense stories. The characters add a lot of dimension to this one, which is important in a story that asks WHY people make certain choices, and why they do the inexplicable and sometimes terrifying things that they do.

I received my copy of this book courtesy of my library's ebook collection. You can find THE SPECIAL ONES by Em Bailey at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Monday Review: ONCE AND FOR ALL by Sarah Dessen

Synopsis : Sarah Dessen writes books that make wonderful summer reads, and by that, I don't mean they're "beach books" or chick lit. Rather, they have a dreamlike and immersive quality, delving deeply into relationships and emotions that might otherwise remain fleeting and obscure. They bring us, the readers, out of ourselves, and into someone else's life—into some perhaps relatively brief but still critical defining moment. They are in some ways "quiet" stories, but thought about another way, a moment that defines us is never really quiet. It takes up psychic space and causes internal noise.

In Dessen's latest novel, Once and for All, narrator Louna is in her last summer before starting college, and she's trying to stay busy enough to keep her internal noise at bay. She works for her mother's wedding planner business, along with her mother's best friend William. William serves as a father figure for Louna, since Louna's own father died when she was too young to remember him. Being exposed to the nitty-gritty behind-the-scenes chaos of weddings week after week has given Louna a cynical outlook on love and romance. What's more, her own first love the preceding fall came to a shocking and devastating end, and she's not ready to try again.

Still, life sometimes presents us with opportunities when we least expect them—and in ways we might not immediately recognize. When handsome but incredibly cheeky and annoying Ambrose begins working for her mother over the summer, she sees him as a disruption to her routine. But his laid-back, seemingly careless outlook on life is intriguing, and she realizes that taking a few chances might be just what she needs to move on from her past.

Observations : I always end up reading Sarah Dessen books with no small amount of wistfulness. Her characters seem to have a lot more freedom than I had as a teenager, even an older teenager—an adult sort of freedom that allows them to roam with few consequences, to take part in the working world, to have experiences that I didn't have until I was in college and living on my own.

And yet, what seems like freedom from my perspective is often just a different type of entrapment to her characters. We might envy Louna's ability to party until all hours with her best friend and date with impunity (and certainly, she seems to be 18 and technically an adult, so it isn't out of the realm of believability), but at the same time, sometimes freedom just leads to us making our own traps for ourselves. Like Louna, we can voluntarily put on blinders, making it hard to realize that what we think we are searching for is not what we really need.

Conclusion : Fans of Sarah Dessen will eat up this latest novel, and anyone who is a fan of realistic romance fiction and/or family and coming-of-age stories will want to check this one out, too. It would also make a good crossover or new adult book, due to the age of the protagonist.

I received my copy of this book courtesy of my library's ebook collection. You can find Once and for All by Sarah Dessen at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Monday Review: DREAMER'S POOL by Juliet Marillier

Synopsis : The Blackthorn & Grim trilogy by Juliet Marillier, which starts with the novel Dreamer's Pool, is not technically a YA trilogy, but readers who already enjoy her books that were specifically written for young adults (such as the Shadowfell trilogy, reviewed here) will definitely enjoy this one. It's got slightly more mature moments, but it makes a great crossover series. Set in a version of medieval Ireland, it's got hints of Celtic mythology and a dash of the fey—but, as always, it's the author's ability to weave a fascinating plot around compelling characters that makes these books truly shine.

When Dreamer's Pool starts, we are plunged into a rather gritty scene as we are introduced to the primary narrator: a young woman who has been imprisoned for the past year in the lockup of sadistic chieftain Mathuin of Laois. At first, we know her only as Lady—the nickname given to her by her fellow prisoner, Grim, who resides in the cell across from hers. And then something miraculous happens: the prison is destroyed, the roof partly collapsed, and she and Grim find themselves…free.

Sort of. The newly released Blackthorn—the new name she gives herself for a new life—is subject to a bargain. A mysterious fey named Conmael has decided to give her another chance, but only on the condition that she defer her desire for murderous revenge on Mathuin for at least seven years. Why, she doesn't know—and Conmael has also forbidden her to go anywhere near Mathuin. Instead, he bids her go to the settlement of Winterfalls and set herself up as a wise woman there, healing the residents, and never refusing to help anyone who asks. The first needy person who shows up in her life happens to be Grim, and so the two become somewhat reluctant companions…and soon, partners in solving the mystery of a bizarre occurrence at an uncanny spot called Dreamer's Pool.

Observations : Throughout the trilogy, we not only see the story through Blackthorn's eyes, we also get the perspective of quiet, stoic Grim, who has a traumatic past of his own. In fact, both Blackthorn and Grim are broken, recovering—something that the author not only gives due attention to but has also researched in terms of PTSD and recovery from trauma. This invests both characters with a wrenching, believable realism, and it makes the whole trilogy stand out from the "fantasy Ireland" genre.

There is also something of the detective duo about Blackthorn and Grim—in each novel, there is a mystery of sorts to be solved, one which our two narrators are uniquely able to address. And, of course, one of my favorite things about having read this trilogy in one big gulp (all three books are currently out and available!) was the ability to follow the character development of both Blackthorn and Grim throughout the three books, which reach a very satisfying conclusion in the final volume, Den of Wolves.

Conclusion : Highly recommended for fans of historical fantasy and stories about British lore—these have some violence and trauma but should be fine for more mature YA readers. Fun fact: the author is an actual member of a Druidic Order! How cool is that?

I received my copy of this book courtesy of my library's ebook collection (book 1) and Amazon.com (books 2 and 3). You can find DREAMER'S POOL , TOWER OF THORNS , and DEN OF WOLVES by Juliet Marillier at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Monday Review: THE RELUCTANT QUEEN by Sarah Beth Durst

Synopsis : Book 2 in Sarah Beth Durst's Queens of Renthia series is out--The Reluctant Queen--and it's a wonderfully bingeworthy summer read and a highly enjoyable sequel to the first book, The Queen of Blood (reviewed here). If you haven't read that yet, note that this review contains some minor spoilers…also, if you're a fantasy fan, do yourself a favor and go read it!

Okay, then. The Reluctant Queen picks up the story of Daleina after she has become queen of Aratay. Now she is the one tasked with keep the land's bloodthirsty elemental spirits under control. But there's a complication: Queen Daleina is deathly ill, and must find a successor to take her place or the spirits will go on a deadly rampage and destroy her people.

Queen Daleina sends her trusted champions out to find a likely candidate to be her heir, and after a long search they find someone powerful enough to be worthy of training. The problem is, Naelin is married, has two young children, and has NO interest in being anybody's heir or even in using her power at all…

Observations : This is a somewhat unusual and refreshing approach to a fantasy heroine: not someone who is young and untested, ready and willing to prove herself, but instead someone who is older, ornery, and has neither the need nor desire to go off questing. She has to be goaded, coerced, tricked, and even forced into taking on the role, and even when she decides to go for it, she has misgivings. I liked that about this book—it was surprising from the beginning, and there were new surprises at every turn. All of it, of course, takes place in a wondrous setting full of magic and danger of the sort that Durst is so good at.

Conclusion : I am really getting back into my fantasy reading these days, but gravitating toward books with strong, prickly heroines who know their own minds—and this is an excellent example. Highly recommended for older YA and adult readers alike.

I received my copy of this book courtesy of the author/publisher (Thank you!!!). You can find THE RELUCTANT QUEEN by Sarah Beth Durst at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Call for Presenters: KidLitCon 2017, Hershey, PA

Just popping my head up from my imminent deadline to remind you that the Kidlitosphere Conference has released its official Call for Presenters!

You don't have to put together anything too formal (unless you want to), and any topics related to children's/YA literature, and/or blogging about said literature, are welcome. From the official post:

Repeat visits to past topics are welcome alongside new ideas. A few thoughts—we’ve never talked specifically about historical fiction (is there such a thing as “getting it right?”) or religion (books written for a specific audience, books specifically addressing social and cultural topics related to religion). There’s always room for conversations about class, race, disability, sex. gender, politics, and pictures!

Contact the organizers by August 1 with your ideas, and check out this post for more details. 

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.