Insta(gram)-Love

The Olympics are winding down, and I know I’ve had equal fun both watching the athletes and snarking on NBC for their piss-poor coverage here in the States.

As promised, here are some recommended books about sports—and yes, I know, some of these sports aren’t in the Olympics.

Little Girls in Pretty Boxes by Joan Ryan

It’s been a long time since I read this book, and I understand it’s been updated to include more about the current realities of elite gymnasts and figure skaters, but Little Girls in Pretty Boxes is a very eye-opening book about what it takes to be a top-level athlete at a young age. I’ve been told that on the same subject, Dominic Moceanu’s memoir, Off Balance, is also a fascinating look at elite gymnastics.

{Amazon | Goodreads}

The Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam

This is a remarkable piece of writing about my first sports love, the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team. David Halberstam followed the team for a year in 1979 and recorded the highs and lows of professional sports at that time. It’s one of those works of non-fiction that reads like a novel because it’s so fast-paced and engaging. Another book I love about the same time period is the classic, Heaven is a Playground, which is about youth streetballers.

Aug 11

Aug 11 Quick Housekeeping Notes

Announcements

I’ve got a few announcements today. I’ve spent the last week or so doing some cleanup and maintenance on the blog, with a few changes you may notice.

Reading Lists

Due to the popularity of our List-O-Rama posts, I’ve started compiling some “best-of” type reading lists that you can find in the navigation bar. I have several more I’m going to put together, and I’m happy to consider your requests. My pet project is the “Sex Positive YA” list, which is way too small for my liking.

Review Policy

I continue to tweak the CEFS review policy, as we are getting more and more requests for reviews these days. I am considering requiring that requesters fill out a form in order for their request to be considered. I’d love to hear if any of you have had success with that type of requirement.

Aug 10

Aug 10 On Niceties and Negativity

In the News, Opinion

Who doesn’t love random cute dog photos? This is one of my dogs, Ruairi (Rory) Boy.

One of the most inexplicable things I read last week (and there were a lot of them) was Jacob Silverman’s critique of readers and writers in Slate, in which he claims that both groups are far too nice online, and makes a rather bizarre argument against enthusiasm.

Whereas critics once performed one role in print and another in life—Rebecca West could savage someone’s book in the morning and dine with him in the evening—social media has collapsed these barriers. Moreover, social media’s centrifugal forces of approbation—retweets, likes, favorites, and the self-consciousness that accompanies each public utterance—make any critique stick out sorely.

Is this Silverman’s backdoor method of slamming amateur reviews such as myself who enthusiastically evangelize about books we believe in? Is it just another example of the literary establishment being threatened by regular ol’ readers’ influence? Perhaps it’s push-back against a publishing climate which requires that authors self-promote and engage (gasp!) directly with readers? Does he have a problem with the success of so many female authors via social media?

I won’t speculate as to the motivation behind this anti-enthusiasm manifesto, but for me as a reader, all of those messages ring loud and clear as the real root of Silverman’s piece. But mostly, I am very bothered by the following premises of his argument:

That readers and reviewers online are expected to only be cheerleaders of books and authors; and
That we need more negativity.

I am also extremely troubled by two other points in Silverman’s piece that aren’t as overt:

That this culture of niceness is women’s fault; and
That negative opinions are somehow more “true” than positive ones.

There’s something to be said for being nice.

Aug 9

Aug 9 Book Matchmaker: Sarah (not our Sarah) Seeks Good Coming of Age Stories

Book Matchmaker

Sarah (not our Sarah) is looking for some novels that tell a good coming of age tale.

This is one of our favorite themes, though we were a bit stumped on finding some that are also ’50s, ’60s or ’70s period novels. But it sure was hard to choose just a few to recommend! Sarah filled out our extremely scientific Book Matchmaker Questionnaire and here are her responses:

YA or Adult: Surprise Me
Genres: Contemporary, Historical, Romance
POV/Narrative Style: First Person, Third Person, Multiple POV, Present Tense, Past Tense, Male POV, Main Character or Narrator, Female POV, Main Character or Narrator
Turn-ons/Likes: Easy by Tammara Webber, Summer Sisters by Judy Blume, The Romantics by Galt Nierderhoffer.
Coming of Age is a favorite theme. Also period novels set in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s.”
Turnoffs/Dislikes: None that I can think of…
Swoon Factor: 5
Gross Out Factor: 2
Smut Factor: 5
Fluff Factor: 3

The Results

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

My brain is like a water faucet that I can turn on or off. Only now there is no off and the water of thoughts just flows.

Rebeca aka Renegade suggests Francisco X. Stork’s (what a cool name!) YA novel about a 17-year old boy with a mild Autism-like condition who spends his first summer in the “real world” outside his specialized school. There’s a strong theme of self-discovery and the point-of-view is distinctive.

{Amazon | Goodreads}

Aug 7

Aug 7 Review: Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker

Sandra

Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker I have recently been reading through a number of young adult novels recommended to me by Sarah dealing with challenging, contemporary issues.

Among these have been Sara Zarr’s incredible Story of a Girl, Siobhan Vivian’s brilliant The List and Small Town Sinners, Melissa Walker’s difficult, yet sensitive 2011 release about a small town evangelical community.

Each of these has been quite moving in very different ways, and each has been equally memorable, addressing issues and making me think without being “problem novels.” I love seeing this level of innovation of depth from today’s YA writers.

I grew up in a small town, taught in a small town and currently live in one. There are many wonderful aspects of this experience and just as many not-so-great ones. Small towns are sometimes tempting to stereotype but also defy classification. Melissa Walker skillfully captures the complexity of a small town, walking a line in which she peels back the layers of small town life and the influence of strong Evangelical fervor.

Small Town Sinners is told from the point-of-view of Lacey Anne Byer, the daughter of the children’s pastor for the House of Enlightenment, her town’s evangelical church, who says,

I’m just trying to figure out what truth really is for me.

Aug 6

Aug 6 True Blood Snark-Cap - Episode 5.9: Everyone Wants to Rule the World

Television

BREAKING: This week’s True Blood didn’t suck (ha!) as much as the last few weeks’ episodes at least.

We finally got resolution to the smoke monster WTFery, we said goodbye to Noel and it looks like maybe the hate group story is winding down. We’ve finally got some good ol’ fashioned True Blood double-crossery happening and the vampire war with humans is heating up.

However, there are only a few episodes left and we’ve spent all season waiting for something—anything—to happen.

Obviously, the following “analysis” contains spoilers for Sunday’s episode of True Blood. If you haven’t seen it and want to remain free from spoilage, please don’t continue reading. Instead, I suggest checking out Rebeca’s review of Sarah Mayberry’s latest novel, which sounds really wonderful.

Thoughts & Reaction

Why do I subscribe to HBO again?

Gratuitous Eric profile screencap.

Oh… right… Hi, Eric.

Aug 5

Aug 5 {List-O-Rama} Five Fantastic Books About Ireland

Cobh, Ireland; Photo by Flickr user asoltani, Creative Commons licensed.

I (like many of you, I’m sure) was saddened by the news of Irish author Maeve Binchy’s death last week.

I read all of her books that my public library had after the movie based on her book Circle of Friends came out in 1995. The month I spent glomming on her books is probably one of the reasons that two years later I spent half a year living in Cork, Ireland and then returned to Ireland for my graduate degree in Dublin (I still love Cork more than Dublin, for the record). In grad school, much of my focus was on Irish women’s literature (though I was always in trouble for studying the “wrong” people and considering some male writers as as important in terms of the depiction women in the literature of modern Ireland… *sigh*) and Irish lit is an interest of mine.

So, instead of list of non-fiction sports books I was planning on recommending today, I thought I’d share some of my favorite books about Ireland—no worries, Angela’s Ashes is not among them.

Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy

Though I think some of her other books are “better,” this was the one that led to my reading all of her books, so it has a special place in my heart. If you’ve only seen the movie (why isn’t this streaming anywhere?), you’re missing a whole lot of this story, because the book starts well before the main characters start university in 1950s Dublin. I will say that looking back, one of the things that’s striking to me is that this novel is set in the 50s, and I first went to Dublin in the mid-90s and it wasn’t all that different from what’s described in this book. Now, it’s a very modern, very European city—it’s remarkable how quickly that city transformed.

Aug 2

Aug 2 Early Review: Within Reach by Sarah Mayberry

Rebeca aka Renegade

What happens when the center of your universe dies?

Scientists determine the location of black holes by watching the behavior of the matter that surround them. They’re impossible to see on their own as they suck down all light or any probes that might trace their perimeters.

Billy is at the center of Sarah Mayberry’s Within Reach, her death the black hole. She is the impetus for the plot, the invisible force that sets events in motion, but the book isn’t about her. Instead, Within Reach chronicles the lives of those most affected by her absence: her husband Michael, her children Eva and Charlie, and her best friend Angie.

Prior to Billy’s death Angie and Michael were never particularly close. They related to each other through Billy rather than any special personal connection. In the wake of her death they pull together, sharing the devastation of losing the most important person in either of their worlds.

That’s why when Michael needs a kickstart, Angie is the one to give it to him.

You think this half life is doing any of you any good? When was the last time you left the house to do anything other than drop Eva at school or go to the supermarket? When was the last time you did something because you wanted to rather than because you had to?

Jul 31

Jul 31 Review: Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

I was terrified to move, breathe, exist in this moment. On TV, teenagers were portrayed as happy, carefree. Echo and I would never know such a life. My parents died. I got screwed by a system supposedly in place to protect me. Echo…Echo was betrayed by the person who should have laid down her life to protect her.

Well… at least the cover depicts an actual scene from the book and no one’s decapitated.

Every once in awhile, I read a book for which I’m simply not the right audience. Katie McGarry’s debut, Pushing the Limits, is one of those books.

If I were an Actual Teen, I probably would have adored this book. If I were an avid adult romance reader, I would probably love this as a fresh young adult take on a traditional contemporary romance. But, I’m neither of those, so Pushing the Limits sits solidly in the same place as Simone Elkeles’ Perfect Chemistry series—that is, equal parts engaging and frustrating.

Echo Emerson doesn’t know what happened to her the night she almost died at the hand of her mother, but it changed her life forever. The physical scars and psychological trauma transformed her from popular cheerleader to social outlast. She meets another outcast, Noah, thanks to their shared therapist at school (the therapist assigns Echo as Noah’s tutor). Noah has a reputation as a bad boy/troublemaker type. He’s in the foster care system because both of his parent died in a fire—and he’s separated from his beloved younger brothers because he protected another foster child from an abuser and is labeled as dangerous as a result. Naturally, opposites attract and sparks fly, which we see from both Noah and Echo’s first person points-of-view.

Jul 30

Jul 30 True Blood Snark-Cap - Episode 5.8: Somebody I Used to Know

Television

The premise of this week’s True Blood episode was basically this: High on ancient vampire blood, the vampires decide to go for complete and total world domination. Apparently, that is our big payoff for this torturously dull season. A vampire war on humans. *yawn*

Uh, okay…

Anyway, I had a very hard time even mustering the energy to snark-cap this episode—I kept spacing out while watching and having to rewind. Oh, and one of my dogs decided that he hates the show and demonstrated his displeasure by growling at the television. I am not even joking.

Obviously, the following “analysis” contains spoilers for Sunday’s episode of True Blood. If you haven’t seen it and want to remain free from spoilage, please don’t continue reading. Instead, I suggest checking out this list of sports-themed novels to get you in the Olympic spirit or Rebeca’s memorable reads from the first half of this year for some great reading recommendations.

Yeah, we’re confused too, Sam.

Thoughts & Reaction

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a “sexual content” warning! Is this the first one of the season?

Jul 29

Jul 29 {List-O-Rama} 7 Sports-Themed YA Novels

In case you’ve been living under a rock, the XXX Summer Olympics (yes, this is how it’s displayed in my satellite company’s directory, which amuses me to no end) started this weekend. In celebration of this two weeks of sports (I love sports, y’all), I thought I’d round up some recommended young adult reads with sports themes.

Hopefully, there’s a little something for everyone on this list, so whatever your taste, you can find a satisfying sports-themed read. (I’m thinking I’ll do a non-fiction roundup soon, too, since I love quality sports non-fiction.)

Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach

Okay, okay… I know American football isn’t an Olympic sport, but stay with me. This is one of Laura’s favorites, and it’s honest and funny and unique. It’s also a great sports book for people who avoid sports, because it’s about more than just sports. (Fun fact: When I asked Laura if she was planning on reading the sequel, Nothing Special, she refused on the grounds that Stupid Fast was so perfect, she didn’t want it ruined by a sequel.)

{Review | Amazon | Goodreads}

Jul 26

Jul 26 {Review} Can't Buy Me Love by Molly O'Keefe

… she realized she wanted more. Not a husband or a bunch of kids burping on her clothes … but a life. A real one. A chance to figure out who she was…

When I read that Molly O’Keefe’s main character in Can’t Buy Me Love was inspired by Tyra Collette from Friday Night Lights (“Tyra times 10” is how she referred to her), I immediately set aside my deeply-held philosophical objection to images of creepy waxed man chests* to check out her take on one of my favorite fictional characters.

What I found in Can’t Buy Me Love was surprising.

You know I’m not a voracious romance reader, nor an expert on the subject like Rebeca is, so I probably have a lot of preconceived notions about what a Big R Romance is. Most of those notions went straight out the window with Can’t Buy Me Love.

Tara Jean Sweet is a prototypical woman from the wrong side of the tracks. She’s spent much of her life scrapping and fighting for every little thing she has. When she’s offered a stake in a Texas rancher’s leather business (she already designs items for the company) in exchange for a pretending to be his fiance in hopes of luring the rancher’s estranged children back to the ranch, she jumps at the chance. This is her opportunity to have something that’s hers, that’s legit—even if the means to that end are sketchy.

That rancher’s son is Luc, aging professional hockey player who’s literally suffered too many blows to the head as his team’s enforcer, and is facing a potentially career-threatening, if not life-threatening, brain injury if he doesn’t stop playing. His father soon dies after Luc and his sister (who’s a main character in O’Keefe’s novel, Can’t Hurry Love) descend on the ranch, leaving him obligated to fulfill a series of conditions of his father’s will—and making him Tara Jean’s boss.

More than anything, I was stuck by the character development of both Luc and Tara Jean.

Jul 25

Jul 25 {List-O-Rama} Memorable Reads: 1st Half of 2012, Take 2

Rebeca aka Renegade

Well, CEFS contributors may not be known for their “blind acquiescence” but I’ve finally managed to scrape up a list of my favorite books so far in 2012.

Note: we just happened to randomly remember a few of the same books. Please disregard any repeats, as they have absolutely nothing to do with Sarah’s excellent taste. Her head is big enough already.

YA Novels

Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols - I finished this book last night or, more accurately, early this morning. When a book is better than sleep you know you’ve found a keeper. Echols does an excellent job portraying some wounded, imperfect characters you can’t help but love. {Review | Amazon | Goodreads}

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - If Nicholas Sparks drives you nuts, this is the book for you. It’s an incredibly moving, honest, cliche free exploration of illness and mortality. And it still managed to make me laugh (sometimes through the tears.) Though I generally prefer less serious subject matter, this book is special, and worth the red eyes. {Review | Amazon | Goodreads}

Urban Fantasy

Fair Game by Patricia Briggs - In an attempt to save up for my trip to Europe, I decided not to buy the insanely expensive ebook (Sarah complained about this too) and instead got on the endless waiting list at the library. I lasted several days before I online stalked the non-holdable library copy, and raced in to snatch it up like the desperate reader I am. This is devotion. As the third novel in Briggs’ Alpha and Omega series, this book explores some of the ramifications of earlier plot developments. And yes, it was worth the trouble. {Amazon | Goodreads}

Jul 24

Jul 24 Winner, Winner: Unsecure Connection by Alanna Blackett

Announcements

Jul 24

Jul 24 Are you reading YA?

In the News, Opinion, Greatest Hits

An Easy Guide to YA Book Identification

Around the ol’ interwebs, there seems to be some confusion about what “YA” is and what books fit into this category.

To clarify quickly, it does not stand for “Young Age” nor does it stand for “Yeah, Anything.” It stands for “Young Adult,” meaning—loosely—“teen.”

It is a book category (not a genre, which is another one of my linguistic bugaboos) with an teenage audience in mind. It is not a reading level.

These mis-categorizations never cease to annoy me. I think it has to do with that it symbolizes some adults’ insistence on invalidating the entire teenage experience. Instead of pointing to legitimately young adult/teen titles, they look at nostalgically on books they loved as children, or point to books written for adults that see teens through the lens of the adult experience.

The teen years are very important in the path to becoming an adult, and by disregarding books that depict that experience, adults are saying something, aren’t they?

Here are my quick tips for identifying if a book is a young adult title.

NOT YA. The title should’ve been the tell. Or possibly the mention of life as a third grader.

Is the book shelved as a “chapter book”? Then, no, you are not reading YA.

Most bookstores and libraries have sections labeled “Chapter Books” or “Juvenile Fiction.” If you are in this section, you are not reading YA. And yet, this continues to confuse many, many people. The Atlantic’s book coverage is so absurd that I’ve largely stopped paying attention to it, but everytime that outlet mentions YA, the amount of wrongness invariably makes me laugh out loud. But they are one of the worst offenders of this. They included Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (age 8, people—that should’ve been the first clue), Harriet the Spy (WTF, just WTF) and Little House on the Prairie as book featuring their favorite girl characters from from YA literature. No, just no.

Like I said, YA stands for “Young Adult,” not “Young Age.”

Was it on your third grade reading list? Nope, you’re not reading YA.

Yes, Flavorwire, I’m talking about you. Good grief.

Jul 23

Jul 23 True Blood Snark-Cap - Episode 5.6: In the Beginning

Television

I have some things to say about this season of True Blood.

Many, many things.

There is absolutely no reason for my inclusion of this image in this post. But that sort of makes sense given the inexplicable WTFery of this season.

First off, why oh why have they completely removed both Bill and Eric from Sookie’s world by enveloping them in the Authority world? The whole appeal of the show was the various entanglements of these three and now it’s just Bill and Eric wrapped up with this political stuff and Sookie angsting. It’s like they’re trying to actually be a mystery/adventure type show rather than the soapiness that it did really, really well. Where’s the drama? Where’s the smut? Come on…

*YAWN*

On a related note, it’s becoming more and more apparent that Sookie’s character is not strong enough to stand on her own without the Bill-Eric drama. We see her occasionally going to work, stressing about how to get rid of her fairy powers, conversing with her brother about their parents, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera… And none of it matters because her character was essentially undeveloped for four seasons because it was all about her getting some hot vampire booty. Or whatever.

No, Sookie, we really don’t care. At all.I used to really enjoy Lafayette’s character. He had a dash of humanity that many of the other characters lack—you could almost imagine knowing Lafayette. And now he’s brooding and possessed by demons or whatever and it has done absolutely nothing to develop his character. He’s just there. It’s pointless and frustrating.

There are so many random, unexplained subplots introduced this season that it’s actually really hard to follow the show at this point—and True Blood is not at all complex. It’s just that each scene is so short that there’s not a lot to go on in terms of understanding how it all knits together. It seems like there’s less crossover between the characters, like they’re all in little plot bubbles. We’re seven episodes in and we still don’t see how everything that’s going on relates.

Jul 23

Jul 23 {Review} My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick

Think about how it looks, Samantha. Not just how it feels. Make smart choices. Always consider consequences.

Huntley Fitzpatrick’s debut novel, My Life Next Door, has been reviewed quite a bit, so I wasn’t planning on contributing my thoughts on this novel.

However, while this wasn’t a perfect read for me, there were elements that stuck out to me as “doing it right” where a lot of other contemporary young adult fiction falters.

Samantha’s mother is an up-and-coming state senator in Connecticut. She’s got a bit of a Sarah Palin thing going on, with high fashion, a youthful appearance, marketable rhetoric and daughters that fit her political image perfectly. Her mother is very concerned about appearances, and maintains a perfect house, which stands in stark contrast to the chaotic family of ten next door, the Garretts.

Samantha spends years fascinated by the Garrett family, with their roudy warmth that’s so different from her own family. Naturally, like all boy next door novels, Samantha meets one of the neighbor boys, Jase. (They don’t go to school together as the Garrett children attend public school and Samantha attends a private school.) And, since her mother’s busy campaigning, Samantha’s able to spend time with Jase without her mother knowing. The two sit on Samantha’s roof (yes, I am a sucker for roof-sitting, which is probably the biggest downside of owning a ranch house—roof sitting is really difficult), hang with Jase’s siblings and develop a relatively quick connection.

“You have to kiss me,” I find myself saying.
“Yeah.” He leans closer. “I do.”

This is where I really began to enjoy My Life Next Door: I didn’t have to wait all novel long for the main characters to get together.

Jul 22

Jul 22 {List-O-Rama} My Sucker List

I know everyone’s got them—those elements of books that you just can’t say no to. For instance, Laura just can’t say no to body switching plots. I call this my “Sucker List.”

Sometimes my Sucker List works out and leads me to beloved reads, a lot of the time… not so much. Here are five elements guaranteed to seduce me every single time, for better or worse.

#1 Capers

I love caper flicks. Love. Them. (I own the DVD of The Italian Job.) And, I keep hoping I can find books that translate the awesomeness of my beloved caper movies into the pages of a fantastic novel. I am yet to find this between the pages of a book. But, I keep on trying and I keep getting disappointing. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks is just about the only one that’s worked for me. (Related: Wouldn’t Frankie make a kick-ass movie?)

Jul 20

Jul 20 {Book Matchmaker} Unah Wants a Dash of Magic, Adventure and Romance