Phoebe North's Blog, page 16

Review: Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard

Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard

Recommended.

I hate Kirsten Hubbard's books.

I hate them because they're so good it humbles me. I hate them because of their complexity and realistic depth. I hate them because they never, ever fail to make me stay up late. Every single book has seen me awake at 4 a.m., desperately telling myself I can squeeze in just one more chapter before I turn out the light.

I'll admit that, during my reading of the first chapters of Wanderlove, Hubbard's upcoming...

When Authors . . . RESPOND!! (gasp!)

Yesterday, I was lurking around on twitter, as I am often wont to do, and I stumbled across a conversation between an author and a reviewer that was pretty interesting.

The reviewer asked her followers if they thought it appropriate for an author to address questions raised about their books in reviews and online discussions in their own blogs or on their websites. Are FAQ sections appropriate to address issues of confusion for readers? That sort of thing.

The author responded that she thought ...

Review: D.A. by Connie Willis

D.A. by Connie Willis

Perhaps I should have begun D.A. by Connie Willis with a bit more skepticism. I've only ever read one other young adult title from Subterranean Press–Nick and the Glimmung by Philip K. Dick—a novel which felt like it had been republished more because of the oddity of its existence (a kid's book! By Philip K. Dick!) than because it constituted a story that was actually good. Though I enjoyed some of Dick's flashes of creativity, it also felt abundantly clear that he did...

Review: Shut Out by Kody Keplinger

Shut Out by Kody Keplinger

Recommended.

Second books can be tricky. Even when authors produce standalone novels, eschewing the literary world's current hunger for sequels and series, they have a difficult task ahead of them: producing work that's more than just a retread of earlier success. In some ways, I know that comparisons between Kody Keplinger's first novel, The DUFF, and her second, Shut Out, are inevitable. It's not just their bright, girly covers that tie them together but thematics ...

On Reading (and Writing) Jerks

I am pretty much the only person who doesn't hate Tommy Mickens.

I've been thinking a lot about unlikable protagonists lately. Quite a bit of this has been spurred by recent discussions on Mary-Sueness, but the truth is, if you read reviews of YA at all, it's an issue that comes up again and again–whether characters are "annoying" or make terrible choices (How could she sleep with him?!), whether the problems they face are "white people problems" or problems of privilege and so therefore...

Review: The Magician King by Lev Grossman

The Magician King by Lev Grossman

Recommended.

If you're a fan of young adult literature, you've probably seen Sady Doyle's In Praise of Joanne Rowling's Hermione Granger series. Lovingly detailed, this feminist critique cut Harry Potter down to size a little. In Doyle's reimagining, he's nothing more than a privileged jock—though certainly even in our own universe charges of privilege could be leveled against him. Harry is the chosen one, special as much for reasons of birth as effort, while ...

Review: A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle

A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle

Um. Duh. Recommended.

I can't really claim that this will be a "review," not really. Reviews require a certain degree of (admittedly sometimes false) objectivity, and I suspect that I'm physically incapable of being objective in regards to A Swiftly Tilting Planet, the third book in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet and my favorite book ever. I've read it at least a dozen times in the past decade and a half. I own multiple copies (all with the same ...

Update on Writer's House Scam

An update from Victoria Strauss on the Jodi Reamer impersonator.

Aaronni, I'm so, so sorry you went through this. If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know.

So This Happened

I woke up this morning to two things: a heat wave, and an absolutely crazycakes publishing story posted to my goodreads stream.

I'm not going to link directly to the story, for reasons that will hopefully become clear, but I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the reactions, and how it played right into a lot of those of us in publishing's insecurities and fantasies in a really perfect way.

In this story, the author in question alleged that she'd self-published an ebook to amazon and...

Review: Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

I'll come right out and say it: I've been a bit jelly-brained recently. Between revisions of my novel, moving, and a stack of review books several feet tall, I've resorted to doing anything mindless to lighten the pressure on myself. Playing video games, watching Degrassi reruns on TeenNick . . . reading Charlaine Harris's Dead to the World.

If the reviews of my goodreads friends are any indication, it's typical to begin reviews of Harris's works with...