Kibkabe Araya's Blog, page 37

How to work the LA Times Festival of Books

The magnificent Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is approaching this weekend, and since almost every top author of the moment will be in attendance, aspiring writers and enthusiastic readers could turn the event into a networking mecca.

Every year, the festival is on the University of Southern California campus where parking on-site is $12 with bus and Metro stops nearby. It’s a walking-intensive event, which not only means comfortable footwear is a must but also an undetected corner either inside or outside may translate into a missed opportunity.

Attend specific panels

The festival is free as in the outdoor activities are accessible to everyone, but most of the specific panels, which usually happen inside the campus buildings with well-known authors, have tickets ranging from $2.50 to $30. The $2.50 is the service fee of buying tickets on Eventbrite.

Authors highlighting these panels include Erica Jong, Tayari Jones, Terry Tempest Williams, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Ibi Zoboi, just to name a few, and many have a theme like the genre the authors write in.

Top events such as the discussion with former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett comes with the VIP membership packages at $40 and $125.

Visit selective booths

Outside are the hundreds of booths occupied by bookstores, authors, nonprofits and the likes trying to reach the book-loving audience.

Since it will feel like an endless labyrinth, it will also be beneficial to exercise (physical with the walk and mental with the analysis) by checking out the booths that catch your eye. Though it gets crowded, walking close to the middle and switching sides of the aisle often may work with quick scans. There will be so many local book-related outlets from indie publishers to book clubs that could spark an interest. And buying the books the groups are selling could help them move their missions forward, so you might want to be selective with what you buy because that will leave a larger impression, especially with a smaller group that may recognize your sale if you want to connect later.

Establish connections with like-minded people

While at the booths and in the panels, only a small fraction of participants actually approach the people behind the booths and panelists and get the information they want.

To make an impact, for example, while listening to the panelists, prepare questions for the one or two you would like to meet. Meaningful questions as in ones that were not asked during the panel, so you don’t waste the panelist’s time, or worse, fail to make an impression. You want the panelist to light up at your words and better yet exchange contact information.

At a booth, if truly interested in the mission the organization is promoting, discuss it with the people more with on-the-spot questions. Other event attendees will be stopping by the booth every few seconds or minutes, so the people behind the booth are hurriedly catching up with everyone who stops by. Take their marketing materials to ask more questions later. The average time at a booth that you might have an interest could be 1-2 minutes, and if you’re buying a book, it could be another 2 minutes. Minimize time at each booth mainly because there are way too many booths and a lot of attendees split their time at the indoor panels scheduled at various times, meaning the day could become a harried mess if not careful about managing time.

Luckily, the festival provides a planner you can create ahead of the event as well as a long list of exhibitors to mark whoever commands your attention before struggling with a map on campus.

What’s your strategy?

If it’s your first time attending the festival or umpteenth time, drop your advice on mastering this book festival and others. When you love books, an event like this becomes overwhelming but satisfying.

 

How to work the LA Times Festival of Books

The magnificent Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is approaching this weekend, and since almost every top author of the moment will be in attendance, aspiring writers and enthusiastic readers could turn the event into a networking mecca.

Every year, the festival is on the University of Southern California campus where parking on-site is $12 with bus and Metro stops nearby. It’s a walking-intensive event, which not only means comfortable footwear is a must but also an undetected corner either inside or outside may translate into a missed opportunity.

Attend specific panels

The festival is free as in the outdoor activities are accessible to everyone, but most of the specific panels, which usually happen inside the campus buildings with well-known authors, have tickets ranging from $2.50 to $30. The $2.50 is the service fee of buying tickets on Eventbrite.

Authors highlighting these panels include Erica Jong, Tayari Jones, Terry Tempest Williams, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Ibi Zoboi, just to name a few, and many have a theme like the genre the authors write in.

Top events such as the discussion with former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett comes with the VIP membership packages at $40 and $125.

Visit selective booths

Outside are the hundreds of booths occupied by bookstores, authors, nonprofits and the likes trying to reach the book-loving audience.

Since it will feel like an endless labyrinth, it will also be beneficial to exercise (physical with the walk and mental with the analysis) by checking out the booths that catch your eye. Though it gets crowded, walking close to the middle and switching sides of the aisle often may work with quick scans. There will be so many local book-related outlets from indie publishers to book clubs that could spark an interest. And buying the books the groups are selling could help them move their missions forward, so you might want to be selective with what you buy because that will leave a larger impression, especially with a smaller group that may recognize your sale if you want to connect later.

Establish connections with like-minded people

While at the booths and in the panels, only a small fraction of participants actually approach the people behind the booths and panelists and get the information they want.

To make an impact, for example, while listening to the panelists, prepare questions for the one or two you would like to meet. Meaningful questions as in ones that were not asked during the panel, so you don’t waste the panelist’s time, or worse, fail to make an impression. You want the panelist to light up at your words and better yet exchange contact information.

At a booth, if truly interested in the mission the organization is promoting, discuss it with the people more with on-the-spot questions. Other event attendees will be stopping by the booth every few seconds or minutes, so the people behind the booth are hurriedly catching up with everyone who stops by. Take their marketing materials to ask more questions later. The average time at a booth that you might have an interest could be 1-2 minutes, and if you’re buying a book, it could be another 2 minutes. Minimize time at each booth mainly because there are way too many booths and a lot of attendees split their time at the indoor panels scheduled at various times, meaning the day could become a harried mess if not careful about managing time.

Luckily, the festival provides a planner you can create ahead of the event as well as a long list of exhibitors to mark whoever commands your attention before struggling with a map on campus.

What’s your strategy?

If it’s your first time attending the festival or umpteenth time, drop your advice on mastering this book festival and others. When you love books, an event like this becomes overwhelming but satisfying.

Book Review: “The Favorite Sister” by Jessica Knoll

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The Favorite Sister by Jessica Knoll


My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Received a copy from NetGalley for an honest review

“The Favorite Sister” by Jessica Knoll, who arrived on the scene in 2015 with her debut best-seller “Luckiest Girl Alive,” is an enthralling sophomore novel that doesn’t quite meet the stature of its predecessor but stands on its own.

The story surrounds the “Goal Diggers,” a reality TV show surrounding successful millionaire millennials like Brett, the mastermind behind SPOKE, a bicycle fitness startup, who just brought Kelly, her older single mother sister on board with the show, along with her beloved niece, Layla. But Brett is dead. This is not a spoiler because it’s in the first paragraph, so the story builds up to how Brett died and how the spotlight contributed to it. She’s dealing with the blowback of her twisted relationship with her frenemy, Stephanie, a top memoirist and novelist, and Jen, a vegan food entrepreneur. In the background are the other cast members such as Lauren, an entrepreneur with a forgettable company; Jesse, the 40something executive producer and show creator, and Vince, Stephanie’s brawny yet empty-headed husband.

The premise in itself sounds frivolous since it’s around a reality TV show, but the characters are withering by the moment from their narcissism and the secrets behind the lives they choose to present on camera. At first, the characters and their lives and careers get entangled in each other with the excess descriptions and witty language, but as the story progresses, the characters who emerge from the verbose debris are Brett, Kelly, and Stephanie. They each get more chapters than the other characters who fade as supporters to the story.

I like Stephanie the best. She’s the lone black woman on the show, but she’s hyperaware of her race and gender and how it affects her reputation. For example, she spends a lot of time constantly pointing out the flaws of her castmates and how it’s impossible to support other women because she’s 34 and will term out of the show for her age. The concept, done in a way buried with trendy verbiage referring to every pop culture reference out today, is something to ponder. Along with the issues of domestic violence, body shaming, single mother shaming, vegan shaming, infidelity, race, eating disorders, and others interlaced in the plot. All of these are thought-provoking issues yet the mask of reality TV world may or may not conceal the seriousness of these issues for the reader.

Mentioning Stephanie as the black woman on the show raised by a single white mother and married to a white husband, the book had diverse characters rare to find in a traditional chick lit novel written by a white female author. At the end, Knoll admits her first novel didn’t really show any diversity and seeing it there and in Hollywood made her want to add more unique characters to this book. Other examples include Brett being a lesbian, Layla being biracial, Jen being vegan cancer survivor, Lauren being an alcoholic, the castmates choosing their trip of the season in Morocco for charitable reasons, etc. The characters show depth with realizing what’s at stake because of what makes them different.

When I started this book, I had a difficult time keeping up with the characters. I actually stopped reading it to read other books due to time restraints, and I thought I wouldn’t return to it. But I had to find out what happened to Brett, and I’m glad I picked it back up. With a fresh perspective, I absorbed the story and the characters popped off the pages. So this book is great for someone who loves those women-oriented reality TV shows like the “Real Housewives” franchises and guiltily imagine things going too far. It’s a more elevated beach read because of the setting mixed with the issues successful women face.









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Book Review: “Plum Rains” by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Plum Rains by Andromeda Romano-Lax


My rating: 3 of 5 stars



“Plum Rains” by Andromeda Romano-Lax is an interesting futuristic story about a young Filipina trying to befriend the centenarian she works for in Japan and her robot.

Angelica becomes the caretaker for 100-something Sayoko in 2029 Japan. When Sayoko’s son gives his mother a robot, Angelica, a recent immigrant from the Philippines only in Japan for employment, worries her much-needed job will be diminished. Sayoko’s moodiness makes it hard for she and her nurse to bond, but Angelica notices Sayoko bonding with the robot. Soon enough, Angelica is also bonding with the robot. As the robot brings them together, Japan is experiencing a boom in people reaching over the age of 100 while the birth rate is depressingly low. In a turn of events, Angelica and Sayoko soon see this historical sensation impacting their lives as they increasingly depend on each other.

This book started out really slow with the story not really going anywhere until page 150, but the rest of it is good. I liked the historical fiction aspect with the influence of robots in 2029 because it seemed realistic. The aging population affecting immigration and health care also seemed realistic. Sayoko’s secrets with Angelica’s secrets makes the book easy to digest with several themes, but readers might drop off with the slowness.





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Book Review: “Hole in the Middle” by Kendra Fortmeyer

Hole in the Middle by Kendra Fortmeyer


My rating: 3 of 5 stars



“Hole in the Middle” by Kendra Fortmeyer focuses on a girl with a disability that doesn’t sound anatomically realistic nor does her teenage life come off as realistic, but the message of accepting yourself is a strong presence throughout the story.

Morgan is 16 and has an unexplainable hole in her abdomen. This has made her a famous medical oddity, especially when her mother is a diet-obsessed lifestyle guru. Because of her medical condition, Morgan feels like she stands out but not in a good way. Since her mother travels a lot, she gets an apartment with her best friend, Caro, which is one of the top non-relatable character aspects in this young adult novel. Then Morgan finds herself by slipping into a nightclub and convincing the bartender to give her drinks while she’s underage. At the club, she dances free with her top up, showing her hole. This makes her an overnight sensation. Again, unrealistic. As the news spreads, it turns out a boy about the same age has the opposite – a protrusion that would fit in Morgan’s hole! So Morgan and Howard become a medical experiment together with spending nights at the hospital to see if they could cure each other. While the world tries to figure out how to help Morgan and Howard, they try to figure out how to overcome the fears around their conditions and live life.

The writing style and its message is good, but the medical conditions didn’t make sense. It was hard to picture Morgan’s hole and Howie’s bump fitting into each other with the procedure getting confused. Maybe they’re real conditions, but the depictions of those conditions didn’t work here. Also, I don’t understand how you become famous lifting your shirt up at a nightclub either. And the underage drinking part never took off the way it should have because it’s illegal to be a minor receiving alcohol freely at a club. That was the real news story compared to Morgan’s hole.

YA works better when teens can see themselves in the characters, and this missed the mark a bit. If the author followed a more relatable medical condition like in the popular “Everything, Everything,” the story would’ve worked better including relatable characters (I doubt most teens are living in their own apartments nor their parents are leaving them unsupervised most of the time). Overall, I liked it, but there’s way better YA choices with similar themes.





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Book Review: “The Widows of Malabar Hill” by Sujata Massey

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey


My rating: 4 of 5 stars



“The Widows of Malabar Hill” by Sujata Massey is an interesting historical fiction novel with a murder mystery twist that gets India’s first female lawyer in a host of adventures.

Perveen Mistry again is the only female solicitor in India, working for her father’s law firm in Bombay. Though she’s not allowed to argue in court, she works on contracts. So when a wealthy client’s will comes on her desk with his three widows giving their inheritance to an all-boys school yet to be built, she questions the widows’ decision as well as the man left to be the executor of the will. After talking to the three widows and befriending their children, Perveen gets a bad vibe from executor Faisal Mukri. She’s learned the widows — Sakina, Razia, and Mumtaz — had conflicting assumptions about their inheritances. She leaves the compound on Malabar Hill only to realize her briefcase is missing. Once she turns around to fetch it, she finds Mukri dead from a stab wound.

Shrouded by the murder mystery is Perveen’s past with a troubled marriage. The chapters go back and forth with the past and present, comparing and contrasting Perveen’s situation with her husband to the widows’ situation of living after their husband’s death. Each path unfolds well with the murder being solved and Perveen moving beyond her marriage.

Another interesting aspect is learning about 1920s India. While balancing her career, for example, Perveen is also enjoying her friendship with Alice Hobson-Jones, a British socialite who just moved to India and attended Oxford with Perveen. The British influence is evident with the races of the law enforcement being emphasized because it seems like the British white men held higher positions than the native Indian men. Ethnicity also plays a role with Perveen being Parsi, a Persian Zoroastrian whose family had been in India for generations. The widows are Muslims. Some characters are Hindu. Perveen has to study the different religious laws as well as the country’s general laws.

Overall, it’s a female-empowering historical fiction murder mystery that flows nicely to the end.






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Book Review: “You Are a Badass at Making Money” by Jen Sincero

You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth by Jen Sincero


My rating: 4 of 5 stars



“You Are a Badass at Making Money” by Jen Sincero is another straight-talk self-help book that does make you think about your issues with money and how to overcome those issues to become what you define as financially comfortable.

Like Sincero’s first book in the Badass series, I was fighting with her in my head. In this scenario, I didn’t think I had an issue with money and that it was stopping me from making more money. I audio read it, so her voice kept going on and on about how I might have issues with money. Then I realized I do have issues with money. I grew up in a low-income family where we mastered bargain shopping, which I still practice today though I live in a world-class metropolis with a decent job in a low-paying field like journalism. And I still deprive myself of luxuries I could afford because I’m so focused on keeping money in my bank account. Sincero made me realize I could splurge once in a while and I’ll still be able to pay all my bills.

The downside to this book is the obsession of wealth, the mantra that you’re going to be rich if you believe it. Yes, the word is in the title, but I read it to learn how to move forward in my career to make more money whether the traditional way or the freelance way. This book may not be for that reader who wants more money but not obsessed with it because the way she tells the stories she wants you to be obsessed — or least that’s how it comes off. I’d rather be obsessed with my passions that I hope will bring me money compared to the money itself.

Overall, the book helps you brainstorm ways to make more money with accepting your current relationship with money and improving that relationship to reach your monetary goals.





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Book Review: “Children of Blood and Bone” by Tomi Adeyemi

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi


My rating: 3 of 5 stars



“Children of Blood and Bone” is an overhyped young adult fantasy that follows a stereotypical storyline with substandard writing and dialogue but shows the struggles of an oppressed people trying to fight the oppressor.

Zelie is a teenager who is conveniently training for battle in the beginning of the novel when she gets whisked in the ultimate battle for regaining magic for her people. Zelie comes from a line of maji, a group of people who had extraordinary powers that had been suppressed by the kingdom. Her mother and many other maji had been killed in the Raid years earlier. But when Amari, the crowned princess witnesses the death of her maji servant, she flees the castle with the one thing that could bring it back: a scroll. In her pursuit, she runs into Zelie, who has the maji marking of long white hair, to help her bring back magic for peace. They embark on a long journey with Zelie’s brother, Tzain, while Amari’s brother, Inan, follows their moves with his army to make sure magic never comes back.

First of all, the story doesn’t come off as unique and one of the reasons why is the turning point of the masked princess escaping her castle walls — which she never had done before — to save magic. That’s been in too many stories and films. The characters are undeveloped with Amari, for example, avenging her servant Binta’s death as her only reason to go on the journey. The death is the only memory that comes up, along with Zelie’s memory of her mother’s death. The repetitiveness of these same memories impeded character complexity since it seemed like they didn’t really have any others. Zelie, Amari, and Inan get chapters while Tzain never does because he’s reduced to the supportive brother though he’s on the same journey.

The most interesting character is Inan because he’s conflicted with pleasing his father, the king who lost his previous family to a war with maji, and his realization that he himself is evolving into a maji. He goes back and forth while Zelie and Amari remain boring, especially Zelie who relatively stays the same throughout the story with finding confidence that she’ll save her people then losing that confidence and going back and forth with this. On the other hand, Amari starts weak then becomes stronger, but at the end her strength progress comes too quickly that it doesn’t seem authentic.

With the hype around this book, I wanted to love it. But honestly it was the first book in a long time where I kept falling asleep from boredom at all the battles that just become a blur. The writing is offensively simple with more focus on the story that’s too fast-paced with the characters and settings never really receiving the proper attention they should. The dialogue is atrocious, especially with the cursing. All the characters just keep cursing like they barely have any other words in their vocabulary. It’s pretty bad how many times the reader will come across “skies,” “gods,” and “dammit,” the last one seeming out of place with the setting. Though I’m not a big reader of fantasy YA, I do know when I read a great novel in the genre, and this is not it.





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Book Review: “The Pisces” by Melissa Broder

The Pisces by Melissa Broder


My rating: 4 of 5 stars



“The Pisces” by Melissa Broder is a surprisingly refreshing twist on a character falling in love with a mythical creature and it blowing up in her face.

(Read on audiobook so some names might be spelled incorrectly with comments on the mediocre performance by the author) After a breakup with a longtime boyfriend while floundering on her doctoral project in the Phoenix desert, Lucy switches out her environment to head to sunny beach paradise Venice, California to dog-sit for her older sister. As she sort of bonds with the sickly foxhound Dominic, she nurses her heartbreak with a support group. The group bores her but she finds a friend in Claire, who in her awful accent convinces Lucy to try Tinder since she herself prefers a “harem” of men amid her pending divorce. Lucy decides a harem might be what she needs too, but it turns to uncomfortable situations such as sex on a hotel bathroom floor and sex in a cramped car. But to find solace, Lucy goes to the rocks at the beach and one night the perfect man appears. The lovemaking is amazing, and as they become closer, Lucy finds out Theo, whose voice needed male narration because the author’s voice made him come off even more feminine according to how she described him, is a merman. As Lucy tries to figure out how to fit Theo into her life such as dragging him in a wagon to her house where Dominic senses something funny about the merman, she believes he’s the medicine for her pain until Theo inflicts even more pain.

First of all, there are a lot of bad reviews on this book. I worried about reading it since I couldn’t get into the author’s last best-seller. But the rawness in this book makes it stand out. There will be criticism over the very flawed character Lucy, who at 38, is still lost and acts more like she’s 28. She lost her mother when she was young. She’s taking almost a decade to work on a dissertation on Sappho. She’s looking for a quick fix after her relationship falls apart. She’s not responsible enough to care for a dog. Her journey, though messy most of the time, seems authentic. Also, Claire, who Lucy freely takes advice from, is also battling her own demons with depression.

The book spends a lot of time establishing Lucy’s environment and the characters in it, but many of the characters don’t really last such as the university community or the Tinder dates. So it takes time to get to the merman erotica parts, and the merman needs a bit more believability, but he does come off as a possible figment of Lucy’s imagination as she becomes so enthralled with him that she’s willing to lose it all to be with him, as in she battles the focus of all merman/mermaid tales of if she’s going to live underwater to follow her heart or stay on land. This book has deeper elements to it if you can look beyond the graphic sex scenes and questionable mythical creature description.





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Book Review: “Marriage Vacation” by Pauline Turner Brooks

Marriage Vacation by Pauline Turner Brooks


My rating: 3 of 5 stars



“Marriage Vacation” by the fictional Pauline Turner Brooks is from “Younger” on TV Land, one of my favorite shows surrounding the literary industry, but this book was not what I expected from the Millennial imprint as in it’s not up to par.

Background on the show is it’s about Liza, a 40something woman who’s masquerading as a millennial at a publisher because she had trouble reentering the workforce after raising her daughter and going through a divorce. She works with Kelsey, an actual millennial, on the Millennial imprint that produces books targeted for millennials, but they took a chance on “Marriage Vacation” conveniently by their boss’ ex-wife, Pauline Turner Brooks. And now the novel is a best-seller — on the show.

The book is about a woman similar to Pauline who abandoned her Upper East Side life along with her two daughters and publisher husband to save her sanity and found herself in the jungles of Thailand at a retreat. She spends her days helping a local doctor from Australia with her Doctors Without Borders clinic. She becomes besties with the doctor and the doctor’s younger brother as well as bonds with a refugee mother with two girls who’s looking for her husband in the city. So Pauline goes into the city to find the woman’s husband with the doctor’s brother. One thing leads to another as Pauline still tries to deal with her broken marriage.

The story itself is rather boring with the writing maybe a step up from mediocre but not exactly what I would call good though Pauline is a writer with an MFA from Columbia, which is something she struggles with because she abandoned her writing career for housewifery and motherhood. The premise sounded interesting via the TV, and with how the show promoted it, I expected a better constructed story. I liked the emphasis of a mother becoming overwhelmed with sacrificing her dreams for her family. The book does give insight of the Myanmar refugee crisis in Thailand and other useful information, but I had hoped Pauline experienced a more entertaining adventure.





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