Kelly Jensen's Blog, page 73

STACKED’s Top 10 of 2015 & A Break Until 2016

It’s been another great and rewarding year in blogging. Kimberly and I have really loved sort of changing up our style this year, as it’s let us read more and think more about the things we’re reading.

We’re going to have our annual blogging break through the holidays. We’ll be back on January 4, 2016, for our seventh year of blogging about books and reading. In the mean time, we thank you once again for spending time with us and our thoughts and hope you have a wonderful holiday (if you celebrate) and a fabulous New Year.

To sign off on another year of STACKED, here’s a look at the top ten posts this year. These are in no particular order (and some are attributed to Kelly even though Kimberly wrote them — we’re still working out the kinks of our redesign!). Thank you for supporting us for another year of writing.

Black Girls Matter: A YA Reading List

 

Getting Things Done with Bullet Journaling

 

Get Genrefied: YA Memoirs

 

Interracial Romance In and On YA Books: A Guest Post from Libertad Araceli Thomas

 

Maintaining Privacy and Safety Online: Tips & Tools To Use

 

Double Take

 

Ancient Historical YA

 

Cover Talk: Swords

 

Fuzzy Mud by Louis Sacher (review)

 

Cybils Spider


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This Week at Book Riot

 

I had a small vacation last week, so not too much to share from Book Riot:

 

This week’s 3 On A YA Theme is three books written by women in 2015 that didn’t quite get the love that they deserve.


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A Few Cybils Reads – Part VI (2015)

Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers

I picked this up a long, long time ago and finally had the impetus to read it thanks to its status as a Cybils nominee. Why I waited so long, I don’t know. It’s a fantastic ending to the trilogy and an absorbing read throughout. This third and final volume focuses on Annith, who has been told by the abbess that she is to be the next seeress, a position that requires her to remain in the convent always. What she really wants to do is go out on missions like Ismae and Sybella have before her. She knows she has no latent talent for seeing, and when the abbess sends a younger and under-trained girl out before her, she knows something is up. So she leaves to figure it out. On her adventures, the secrets the abbess has been hiding come to light, and Annith discovers something surprising about herself in the process. Mortal Heart ties up all loose ends, but in a way that feels satisfying rather than pat. We learn more about Mortain and the other gods of the Nine, a fascinating mythology sprung from LaFevers’ brain but based in history. The political problems between France and Brittany also come to a head.

These books are so well-written, long but not dense, with some of the best world-building and long-term plotting I’ve encountered. I’m also impressed by characterization. Ismae, Sybella, and Annith are each wholly distinct, their own people, with their own voices in each book. Readers looking for a swoony romance like they found in the first two won’t be disappointed; in fact, the romance was one of the aspects I found most compelling, in part because it’s a bit more unique than Ismae’s and Sybella’s. This whole series is a winner, and Mortal Heart is a worthy conclusion.

Stone in the Sky by Cecil Castellucci

Unlike Mortal Heart, this was a sequel I found a bit disappointing. It picks up a few months after Tin Star, when Tula has established herself on the Yertina Feray with a sweets, salts, and water shop, selling the three things all aliens want and need. But then Brother Blue returns, and so does Reza, and circumstances that arise as a result of their arrivals cause Tula to abandon the space station for the wider universe beyond. The world-building is interesting and the presence of the Imperium ratchets the stakes up several notches, but the writing felt a bit sloppy and disconnected. As a result, I didn’t get sucked into the story and I found myself not much caring about any of Tula’s Human friends, though I still did care about Tula. At one point Tula reunites with a character she assumed was long dead, and it was so awkward and anticlimactic that I felt nothing. The friendship between Tula and Tournour developed mostly off-page between the two books, which is a shame since it was one of the most interesting aspects of the first book. Stone in the Sky is a worthwhile read for fans of Tin Star, but I think many readers will ultimately be let down.

 

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All Things Debut YA: Morris Awards & November/December Releases

Did you catch the latest round of Morris Nominees? These are the top debut YA novels as selected by librarians, and when the ALA awards happen in mid-January, one of the five books from this list will be named the winner. Out of the five books on the short list, I’ve read three of the titles: The Weight of Feathers, Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda, and The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly — the last one perhaps being one of my favorite reads of 2015 and the one I’d love to see walk away with the ultimate win.

What I love about the Morris every year is how it’s such a nice mix of titles. These are books that have teen appeal, and these are also books that are imperfect. Unlike the Printz, which rewards the greatest of literary achievement in a book in a given year, the Morris is about potential. What authors are we eager to see more from in the future, based on the potential they show in their first book?

This year’s slate of five short list authors is all female. What’s fascinating is that they’re not all girls’ stories though. In fact, of the five books, only one is told entirely through a female point of view; that would be Minnow Bly. Every other story is entirely from a male point of view or, as is the case with The Weight of Feathers, split points of view.

It’s not a criticism of the committee nor their work — this list is really thoughtful, diverse, and features so many interesting stories — but it’s another example of what I mean by how some stories are privileged over others, even if it’s not in any way intentional. The bias is so deep that we are unable to see it until we step back and see it happening again and again and again.

I’m excited to see what title walks away with the gold sticker next month.

**

Because November and December tend to be lighter when it comes to new book releases, they also tend to be slower months for debut YA novels. I’m including both last month and this month’s titles in this round up.

Like always, this round-up includes debut novels, where “debut” is in its purest definition. These are first-time books by first-time authors. I’m not including books by authors who are using or have used a pseudonym in the past or those who have written in other categories (adult, middle grade, etc.) in the past.

All descriptions are from WorldCat, unless otherwise noted. If I’m missing any debuts out in these last two months of 2015 from traditional publishers — and indie presses are okay — let me know in the comments. As always, not all noted titles included here are necessarily endorsements for those titles.

 

 

 

All the Major Constellations by Pratima Cranse: After Andrew’s best friend is hit by a drunk driver and ends up in a coma, his enigmatic crush invites him to find comfort with her fundamentalist Christian group.

 

For the Record by Charlotte Huang: Gaining instant celebrity after being discovered on a TV talent show, rock singer Chelsea endures the disdain of her bandmates and ambivalently pursues a relationship with a teen heartthrob during a summer tour that could make or break her career.

 

Forget Tomorrow by Pintip Dunn: On Callie’s seventeenth birthday, she receives her vision of the future–a memory sent back in time to sculpt each citizen into the person they’re meant to be. But Callie’s vision shows her murdering her younger sister, and she is arrested and sent to a prison for those destined to break the law. Callie escapes and, on the run from the government and from her future, hoping to change her fate and protect her sister.

 

How to Be Brave by E. Katherine Kottaras: Georgia has always lived life on the sidelines: uncomfortable with her weight, awkward, never been kissed, terrified of failing. Then her mom dies and her world is turned upside down. But instead of getting lost in her pain, she decides to enjoy life while she still can by truly living for the first time. She makes a list of ways to be brave–all the things she’s always wanted to do but has been too afraid to try: learn to draw, try out for cheerleading, cut class, ask him out, kiss him, see what happens from there. 

 

Rules for 50/50 Chances by Kate McGovern: Seventeen-year-old Rose Levenson must decide whether or not she wants to take the test to find out if she has Huntington’s disease, the degenerative disease that is slowly killing her mother.

 

The Sister Pact by Stacie Ramey: Allie is devastated when her sister Leah commits suicide–and not just because she misses her. The two teens made a suicide pact so that they’d always be together, and Allie can’t understand why she was left behind.

 

 

 

 

All We Left Behind by Ingrid Sundberg: Marion is hiding a secret from her past and Kurt is trying to figure out how to recover from his mother’s death as they both find solace in each other.

 

Did I Mention I Love You? by Estelle Maskame: Eden Munro spends the summer with her father and his new family in Santa Monica and quickly finds herself thrust into a world full of new experiences and the more time she spends breaking the rules with them, the more she finds herself falling for the one person she should not–her stepbrother, Tyler.

 

Gateway to Fourline by Pam Brondos: Strapped for cash, college student Natalie Barns agrees to take a job at a costume shop. Sure, Estos—her classmate who works in the shop—is a little odd, but Nat needs the money for her tuition.

Then she stumbles through the mysterious door behind the shop—and her entire universe transforms.

Discovering there’s far more to Estos than she ever imagined, Nat gets swept up in an adventure to save his homeland, an incredible world filled with decaying magic, deadly creatures, and a noble resistance of exiled warriors battling dark forces. As she struggles with her role in an epic conflict and wrestles with her growing affection for a young rebel, Soris, Nat quickly learns that nothing may go as planned…and her biggest challenge may be surviving long enough to make it home. (Description via Goodreads).

 

 

Inherit the Stars by Tessa Elwood: Three royal houses ruling three interplanetary systems are on the brink of collapse, and they must either ally together or tear each other apart in order for their people to survive.

Asa is the youngest daughter of the house of Fane, which has been fighting a devastating food and energy crisis for far too long. She thinks she can save her family’s livelihood by posing as her oldest sister in an arranged marriage with Eagle, the heir to the throne of the house of Westlet. The appearance of her mother, a traitor who defected to the house of Galton, adds fuel to the fire, while Asa also tries to save her sister Wren’s life . . . possibly from the hands of their own father.

But as Asa and Eagle forge a genuine bond, will secrets from the past and the urgent needs of their people in the present keep them divided? (Descriptions via Goodreads).

 

Not If I See You First by Eric Lindstrom: Blind sixteen-year-old Parker Grant navigates friendships and romantic relationships, including a run-in with a boy who previously broke her heart, while coping with her father’s recent death.

 

This Raging Light by Estelle Laure: Seventeen-year-old Lucille is struggling to get through each day, paying bills and looking after her little sister, Wren, while her father is institutionalized after a breakdown and her mother is “on vacation,” but nothing else seems to matter when she is with Digby Jones, her best friend’s twin brother.

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This Week at Book Riot (and Around The Web!)

We’ve been busy around different places this last week! First up, Kimberly and I shared our 2015 favorites in books, movies, television, and more as part of this year’s Smugglivus event at The Book Smugglers.

 

 

Over on Book Riot this week…

DIY these awesome $5 book ends in 5 minutes

 

A round-up of memoirs by women of color. I’ve been trying to read more of them over the last couple of years, so I thought it’d be worth highlighting some that I’ve read and some I’m hoping to get to soon.

 

If you’re in the market for a flask and want it to be of a literary variety, I’ve got some suggestions.

 

This week’s “3 on a YA Theme” continues with the #ReadWomen suggestions, offering up three more books by women written in 2015 that flew a little under the radar.

 

I’m also honored to be this week’s featured “Badass Lady You Should Know” as part of Kate Hart’s amazing project that spotlights great women. I’m sharing some personal victories and challenges. And there are some great pictures from back in the day.

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A Few Cybils Reads – Part V (2015)

Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older

Sierra Santiago is a shadowshaper, meaning she can control spirits through art, including murals and music. Once she discovers this, she quickly learns that shadowshaping has been passed down through her family. It’s an ability others who don’t inherit would kill for (and that’s not a metaphor). Sierra’s abuelo tells her to team up with Robbie, another shadowshaper, and together they try and puzzle out just who is targeting shadowshapers and why. There’s a lot wrapped up in this story. Through the idea of shadowshaping and its misuse by the primary antagonist who wants it for his own, Older tackles heritage, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as more standard themes like romance, friendship, and family. Older also asks his readers to consider the field of cultural anthropology, particularly who gets studied and who does the studying. The setting feels alive, not the least because the murals on the building really do come alive thanks to Sierra’s abilities. It’s also incredibly diverse. I don’t think there’s a single white person (gasp!), and two of Sierra’s friends are lesbians. Sierra herself is proud of her heritage – she’s proud to be a shadowshaper and proud to be Puerto Rican, which is demonstrated in one particularly moving scene. I was especially impressed by the dialogue, which feels authentically teen – Sierra and her friends use current slang and rib each other good-naturedly in conversations that go from serious to silly and back to serious again. This is a mega appealing book with lots of twists and a smart, strong protagonist.

The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

This is a nearly perfect book, and that is no exaggeration. I normally avoid prison stories because they’re just so depressing, but I know I can rely on Nova Ren Suma to write a beautiful book. This one is both beautiful and terrifying, a sort of horror story without any gore or sudden frights, a psychological thriller that makes your heart race and your brain light up. It’s not fast-paced, per se, but it is intense and completely absorbing. It’s told from two different perspectives: Amber, locked up in Aurora Hills juvenile detention center for a crime she insists she didn’t commit; and Violet, an aspiring ballerina whose best friend was sent to Aurora Hills for a violent crime a few years ago. This friend of Violet’s is Orianna, and while she doesn’t ever narrate, she is the key to the story. For a few months, she was Amber’s cellmate – until all the girls at Aurora Hills mysteriously died of…food poisoning, perhaps. There are multiple threads that Suma teases out: what happened to the 42 girls at Aurora Hills? What did Orianna do to end up there, and how does Violet fit into it? Just who is guilty of what, and will the guilty parties ever be made to atone? It’s a book that tackles what it means to be guilty and what it means to be innocent, how justice is meted out and who can escape it. It’s a ghost story that gets creepier as it goes on, with an unsettling yet perfect ending. The characters live and breathe. Suma’s writing is haunting and gorgeous. The plot of this story should make it an easy sell to teens and the writing is deserving of its many critical accolades.

Atlantis Rising by Gloria Craw

When I was a teen, I was a sucker for all things Atlantis (one of my many fledgling stories I wrote took place there). I’m always interested to see how the myth is reshaped by writers today. Alison is a “dewing,” a member of the Atlantean race and a descendant of the people who used to live on the island before it sank. The dewings have been at war with each other, one side wanting to use their powers to subjugate humanity and the other side fighting against this idea. Alison was raised by humans, thinking she was one of them, though she always knew that her ability to impress thoughts upon other people and make them believe these thoughts were their own was not something normal people could do. Once she discovers her true heritage, she becomes caught up in the war between the two groups – and she is especially prized by both sides for her abilities as a thoughmaker. Craw has created a rich mythology surrounding the Atlanteans/dewings and an interesting, fast-paced story. Readers who can’t get enough of contemporary paranormal fantasy will enjoy this a lot, though it does drop a couple of story threads, which seems unintentional as there’s no real setup for a sequel. Refreshingly, despite the fact that dewings live to be 300 and look youthful for most of those years, Alison’s romance is with another 17 year old dewing.

 

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Falling: An Emerging Cover Trend

The last few years, I’ve done a huge look at cover trends that will be hitting shelves in the new year. I’m going to mix it up a little this go around, though. Rather than a couple of huge posts with all of the trends, I’m going to highlight them in individual posts throughout the next few months. Consider it more pow, as well as an opportunity for me to see more of the fall covers as they’re released and fit the various trends. All book descriptions provided will be from Goodreads.

Up first is a really curious one to me — it’s the trend of people falling on covers. I’ve talked before about the covers where a shadowy figure is running away from the reader on the cover, and we’ve all seen the deluge of covers featuring girls who are drowning or lying dead in a body of water.

But falling from the sky? This is a new one for me. And it’s not hitting shelves lightly come 2016. First, here’s a 2015 cover that might have inspired this trend:

 

 

The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle

It’s the accident season, the same time every year. Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom.

The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara’s life for as long as she can remember. Towards the end of October, foreshadowed by the deaths of many relatives before them, Cara’s family becomes inexplicably accident-prone. They banish knives to locked drawers, cover sharp table edges with padding, switch off electrical items – but injuries follow wherever they go, and the accident season becomes an ever-growing obsession and fear.

But why are they so cursed? And how can they break free?

 

It’s an eye-catching cover, for sure. I think the color scheme behind the falling girl is what does it, though, not her. And both that color infused backdrop and a falling teen pepper the trend as it grows in 2016.

 

 

Ascending the Boneyard by C. G. Watson (Simon Pulse, February 16)

Everything’s a battle.

Sometimes life gets too real, and Caleb Tosh has taken one hit too many. First, there was the accident that changed everything for Tosh’s younger brother. Now his mom has left. All the pain, the grief and loss, have finally pushed Tosh over the edge.

If only he could have a do-over. Wipe his reality. Start fresh. Maybe he could fix all of his mistakes and everything would be different. Tosh immerses himself in the complex missions from the game he obsessively plays, The Boneyard. The game bleeds into the dark nature of his everyday life, folding reality into surreality until it’s impossible to separate one from the other. Tosh is desperate to Ascend, to reach the next level, to become Worthy.

Readers are brought on a one-of-a-kind, absorbing journey where no one can say what is real and what isn’t—right up until the shocking, yet deeply powerful conclusion.

 

 

 

The Blood Between Us by Zac Brewer (HarperTeen, May 3)

Growing up, Adrien and his sister, Grace, competed viciously for everything. It wasn’t easy being the adopted sibling, but Adrien tried to get along; it was Grace who didn’t want anything to do with him. When their scientist parents died in a terrible lab fire, there was nothing left to hold them together.

Now, after years apart, Adrien and Grace are forced to reunite at the elite boarding school where their parents were teachers. Being back around everyone he used to know makes Adrien question the person he’s become, while being back around Grace makes him feel like someone he doesn’t want to be.

For as much as Adrien wants to move on, someone seems determined to reopen old wounds. And when Adrien starts to suspect that Grace knows more about their parents’ deaths than she let on, he realizes there are some wounds no amount of time can heal. If Adrien isn’t careful, they may even kill him.

 

 

 

Heir to the Sky by Amanda Sun (Harlequin Teen, April 26)

As heir to a kingdom of floating continents, Kali has spent her life bound by limits—by her duties as a member of the royal family; by a forced betrothal to the son of a nobleman; and by the edge of the only world she’s ever known—a small island hovering above a monster-ridden earth, long since uninhabited by humans. She is the Eternal Flame of Hope for what’s left of mankind, the wick and the wax burning in service for her people, and for their revered Phoenix, whose magic keeps them aloft.

When Kali falls off the edge of her kingdom and miraculously survives, she is shocked to discover there are still humans on the earth. Determined to get home, Kali entrusts a rugged monster-hunter named Griffin to guide her across a world overrun by chimera, storm dragons, basilisks, and other terrifying beasts. But the more time she spends on earth, the more dark truths she begins to uncover about her home in the sky, and the more resolute she is to start burning for herself.

 

 

The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry (Razorbill, January 26)

Natalie Cleary must risk her future and leap blindly into a vast unknown for the chance to build a new world with the boy she loves.

Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start… until she starts seeing the “wrong things.” They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.

That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.

Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.

 

 

 

Places No One Knows by Brenna Yovanoff (Delacorte, May 17)

Waverly Camdenmar doesn’t have friends, she has social assets. She doesn’t get sucked into drama, she makes tactical decisions. Her life is dominated by achievement, competition, and functioning as the power behind the throne in her school’s little kingdom of popularity. But even the most resilient mercenary has weaknesses. Perfection is exhausting, and her longstanding alliance with queen-bee Maribeth rests on a foundation of resentment, anxiety, and a nagging feeling that there must be something beyond student council. Waverly’s name might be at the top of every leader board, but she hasn’t slept in days.

In a last-ditch attempt at relaxation, she finds herself at the center of an inexplicable phenomenon when a harmless counting exercise ends with Waverly materializing in front of one of the school’s most dedicated burn-outs. Marshall is not someone Waverly would ever consider … well, she would just never consider him. His nights are spent indulging in the kind of self-destructive pastimes she can only roll her eyes at. But despite herself, her curiosity is piqued. He sees her—really sees her —and his earnestness and his empathy are strangely affecting.

In these ghostly dreams, Waverly can do what she wants and say what she thinks, without risk or repercussion. Without it meaning anything. As nights pass, however, she begins to understand the nature of relationships, and to question her own daytime machinations. Her encounters with Marshall are growing steadily more intimate. Every new interaction forces her to ask herself how close is too close, and her days are becoming restless, complicated by her silent anger at Maribeth, and her budding friendship with a raucous, enigmatic girl who was never supposed to be anything but Waverly’s latest pygmalion project.

The truth is, it’s hard to be cavalier about hurting people when you know them. When you love them. As her edges begin to fray, Waverly must confront the very real danger of losing Marshall to the rigid image she’s spent so long cultivating, and accept that the only way to keep the people who matter to her is to embrace what it means to be vulnerable.

 

 

 

Have you seen other YA novels hitting shelves in 2016 featuring falling bodies? I’d love to know about ’em and more, I’d love to know what you make of this particular trend. I guess the only thing I have to really say about it is that I appreciate it’s not all girls who are falling (and thus falling apart or breaking), as clearly there are also boys who are in the same positions.

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This Week at Book Riot & SLJ…

 

Over on Book Riot this week…

Through the end of 2015, I’m highlighting 3 YA novels that came out this year and flew a bit below the radar. They’re all going to be written by women, too, to coincide with this month’s #ReadWomen project. Here is the first round-up.

 

I took control of this week’s “Buy, Borrow, Bypass” feature, reviewing three YA novels that were compared to Gillian Flynn/Gone Girl this year. I was really excited by a couple of these as solid read alikes for a YA set.

 

And here’s a look at the world of YA news from November, including recent film deals and more.

 

I also had a piece hit School Library Journal late last week. I’m talking about whether or not we honor girls’ stories and when we do, if it’s because there’s a double standard for them in YA.

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A Few Cybils Reads – Part IV (2015)

The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle

The premise of Fowley-Doyle’s debut novel is intriguing. Each October, Cara’s family becomes accident-prone: “Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom.” A couple of her relatives have died during previous accident seasons, and it’s become a natural part of their lives to be wary around that time. But no matter how many precautions they take – covering up the hardwood floors with rugs, for example – the accidents always happen. Cara’s first-person narration takes us through this accident season and delves into her family’s past, bringing at least two explosive secrets to light, one of which might explain why the accidents happen each year – or if they’re accidents at all. Magical realism is really hit and miss with me, and this book was a bit of both. The writing is lovely, literary without sacrificing Cara’s teen voice. But the plot meandered and the pace was overly slow. Not perfect, but a good pick for fans of magical realism and literary YA.

 

Burning Nation by Trent Reedy

This is the sequel to a book I read for the Cybils last year, Divided We Fall. The audio production on that one was so good, I opted for the audio for its sequel as well, and I was not disappointed. Burning Nation picks up where its predecessor left off, with the United States growing more and more fractured and Danny caught in the middle of it all. Initially Danny is very pro-Idaho, burning for revenge for his mother’s murder by “the Fed.” As more states follow Idaho’s example, officially seceding from the rest of the country due to the mandatory federal ID law, Danny becomes their emblem – somewhat willingly, somewhat not. This one is more violent than the first, with a prolonged scene of torture by an agent of “the Fed” that may be hard to take for some readers, but is essential to the story.

Reedy does an excellent job painting both sides of the conflict in shades of grey: he brings up the likelihood of racist and other extremist groups supporting the secession (something missing from the first book) and ends the novel with a disturbing scene that demonstrates no one may be truly in the right. The effect of violence – both as victim and perpetrator – on one of Danny’s friends is particularly well-done. Reedy also does a good job portraying more conservative Americans (including teens like Danny and his friends) as not all being raging racists, a stereotype I sometimes find in YA fiction. The focus is on current events (invasion of privacy by the federal government is cited as the reason for the conflict) and the book feels unsettlingly prescient as a result. Like the first book, this audio version includes fully-voiced snippets of radio broadcasts, social media, and blog posts with lifelike sound effects that make the story come alive. Listen to it in your car for a really authentic experience

 

Illusionarium by Heather Dixon

The concept of Dixon’s second YA novel (after the acclaimed Entwined) is fascinating. It’s set in an alternate 19th century England where London has been renamed Arthurise and airships dot the skies, giving it a bit of a steampunk feel. The venen, a terrible disease, has just infected the queen, and the king comes calling on Jonathan’s father, a great scientist, to cure it. As his apprentice, Jonathan feels he can help, especially with a new substance called fantillium that Lady Florel, another scientist working on the cure, has just introduced to him. Fantillium causes group hallucinations that allows Jonathan and his father to try out various cures and speed up time without actually harming anyone. But Jonathan’s father feels that something isn’t right about it, or about Lady Florel, and refuses to use it, even to save his own wife and daughter who have come down with the illness. Jonathan decides otherwise, and it takes him on an adventure to another alternate world where fantillium is a way of life.

Dixon’s novel is heavy-handed with the message – the consequences of fantillium use are horrific and Jonathan’s father’s metaphor of a compass as a way to tell him what is morally correct is woven throughout. It feels a tad preachy as a result, but the ideas are interesting, particularly how fantillium works and what these two alternate worlds look like (and how they got that way). Ideas aren’t good enough for a great story, though, and Illusionarium never completely comes together writing-wise. It’s choppy and feels a little juvenile for its intended age range, with exaggerated dialogue and unsubtle characterizations. Still, fans of parallel worlds and fast-paced adventure stories should find a lot to like here.

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Changes at Stacked

Over the last several years, Kimberly and I have changed a lot in our lives, and over the last several years, blogging itself has changed significantly.

So, we’re taking the opportunity to work with our life changes, as well as the changing tides of blogging, to announce we’re shifting a little bit of our work here at Stacked.

We’ll still be writing as normal, covering the same topics and interests we normally do, but we’ll be cutting back a bit to a guaranteed posting three times a week. I’ll be writing on Mondays, Kimberly on Wednesdays, and then our regular round-up of our work in other spaces on Fridays.

This is for several reasons.

First, both Kim and I have found that traffic patterns and readership here, while still growing, has definitely changed. This is largely in part due to how people interact with blogs now. Without Google Reader, discovery is different and the work involved in daily social promotion on our end takes away from reading and writing. We’re finding that the bulk of our traffic now comes through search — people are looking for reviews of a specific book or a book list and they’re finding us that way. They aren’t clicking through to posts via Twitter, and they click through via places like Tumblr when it’s a book list and often, that comes when the desire for reading comes, rather than immediately (in other words, bookmarking). This is an awesome thing to learn, since it helps us think through what we can write about that’s useful to readers.

Likewise, both Kimberly and I are working hard on projects outside of Stacked relating to books, reading, and writing. We want to be able to give the best of ourselves here, without sacrificing on those other ventures, and to do so, we’d rather cut back a little here, rather than try to create a lot of filler (we’ve seen those blogs and what happens to them — not our thing).

Another small change you may see on my end is a cessation of long form reviews. I’m finding them to not only be tedious to write, but the rewards aren’t particularly high and those posts tend to see the least amount of traffic and roughly zero interaction. I’m sure as soon as I post this, I’ll read the book that begs me to write a lengthy review of, but it’s a thing I plan on stepping back from, with the hopes of doing more thematic round-ups on titles with shorter, more to-the-point reviews.

If you’re curious about peeking behind the curtain a bit, here it is: Kimberly has been working on building a side venture in critiquing. It might be the perfect time to talk with her if you’ve got a manuscript you’re looking for solid, critical feedback on.

As of right now, I’m not taking on new clients for my own critiquing. I will when the new year rolls around. My big projects right now include continued work on Feminism for the Real World, as well as (dun dun DUN) finally working on this novel that’s been in my head and in various forms of notes for a few years now.

We’re still here and we’re still going to be here. It’ll just be a little more substantive and a little less frequently — though really, three times a week is still more regular than many book blogs today. We’ll be taking our normal end-of-year two-week vacation, too, so we’ll have a few more weeks of posts coming in 2015 before another short break and we’re back in high action in 2016. . . which will be heading into our 8th year of blogging here. That is roughly 5.3 times longer than the years I spent in graduate school and twice as long as I spent in college, which is weird to think about.

Thanks as always for being readers. Remember, too, we’re always happy to hear your ideas or interests in features or book lists. Just leave a comment or shoot us an email at stacked.books [[at]] gmail.

For anyone wondering: the winner of the massive feminist YA giveaway has been notified and I’ll be building your amazing book recommendation list soon! There were over 300 entries, so there are a lot of great titles to make sure I get on the list.