Insult is having to sleep on an air mattress in your living room because you haven't been able to move into your new apartment yet and injury is said air mattress springing a leak. At least the husband and cats are still cute.

I think the theme of this past week has been indecisiveness, and also sticking my head in the sand. I'm in the process of making some career decisions and not sure where I want to go with it, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Yesterday, I had to explain the word "fandom" to a group of Muggles. They are nice, smart, cool Muggles, but Muggles nonetheless. I had about 15 seconds to talk and in the end I ended up saying that fandom is what happens when a group of people enjoy a book/movie/tv show/what have you so much that they form a community around it. I said that fandom goes beyond simple discussions (though that's certainly an important part) and turns into canon-centric events, fanfiction, and other things that give more depth to the author/creator's world. I mentioned book release parties and the lights went on for the Muggles, as they are all quite familiar with those. Overall, I think I did okay.

Reading. I have been reading! The book all the YA lit listservs are talking about is Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott. I know luminousmarble, you were none too enamored of this book, and I have to say I didn't love it until I went back and read it a second time. Upon the second reading, I really admired the minimalism and I "got" what happened at the end. It's an absolutely terrifying, horrifying book, told from the perspective of Alice, a girl who was kidnapped five years before the book begins and lives every day hoping that finally, today, she might die and be rid of her misery. Her kidnapper is a pedophile who's reasonably good at keeping a public profile as that of a normal, upstanding citizen. The reader doesn't see much of the abuse in detail, but we hear enough about it to draw our own conclusions. Scott really gets into the reasons of why Alice never tries to run away and why getting away from an abuser is not as easy as it looks on paper.

Next on the list of books I'm not being paid to read is Skinned by Robin Wasserman. Just the cover art makes me want to read it. The concept also reminds me of The Adoration of Jenna Fox, which is one of my favorites of 2008.

I guess now's the time to make the Big Book Announcement: Next year, there will be no reviews of 2009 YA books in this blog. I may write about books from years past, adult books, maybe some middle grade or picture books, but no YA. I'll be back with a YA vengeance in 2010.

And once again, Rush is snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall of fame. I'm glad to see Metallica and Jeff Beck in the list of nominees, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I wonder what they're thinking. Run-D.M.C. gets a nomination before Alice Cooper? No Bon Jovi?

Time to wake up Mr. Cedar and get pumpkin spice lattes. Forget Chrismukkah; October is the most wonderful time of the year.

Tags: books 2008
780: you carry on like a holy man pushing redemption

adjudicated and pinkfinity are asking about personal theme songs. I don't have mine available for downloading thank you, lauriegilbert! "Extraordinary" by Liz Phair:

I am extraordinary, if you'd ever get to know me
I am extraordinary, I am just your ordinary
Average every day sane psycho
Supergoddess
Average every day sane psycho

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Our home modem died. That was not fun. But I have a new one, yay! Only now I'm behind on email, boo!

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Work has not let up, and on top of all that I have to do on a daily basis I had the Office Plague last week. I will be very happy as of July when one of my biggest time-sucking commitments will come to an end. Normally I'm one of those people who isn't happy unless I'm way too busy, but this is kind of ridiculous.

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fasterthanlight asked me if I was still writing fanfic and the answer is YES! A more detailed answer is, "When I have the time, which is not as often as I'd like for it to be."

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Been following the fap over Orson Scott Card winning the Margaret Edwards Award and I have to say...I agree wholeheartedly with the Edwards committee. Card's personal views should have no bearing on receiving the award. Ender's Game absolutely fits the criteria of the award. Applause to the Edwards committee for doing a great job this year. I know one of the members fairly well and I know how hard she worked and how much serving on that committee meant to her.

Like this, only it's not Amy Winehouse.

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Reading:

Prey by Lurlene McDaniel. I wanted to read this the minute I heard about it. Basic plot: A high-school freshman begins an affair with his thirty-two-year-old history teacher. It's done in three voices: The boy, the teacher and the boy's best friend, who is the one who breaks the secret. It's a great premise and fabulous fodder for discussion written with terrible dialogue, superficial character development, and a predictable ending. Too bad, really. I didn't expect it to be Boy Toy, which was my favorite book of 2007, but I did expect that the teacher wouldn't sound like some professional seductress/evil overlord, and that the best friend would at least be likable (and not in the way where you like a person because you feel sorry for them).

Tyrell by Coe Booth (coebooth). DAMN. This book is STUNNING and I suggest that everyone go out and read it right now. This is easily one of the best first-person novels I've seen in a long time. Normally I like well-done first person because they show how unreliable narration can really drive the story, but in Tyrell's case I liked the first-person narration because it voiced not only Tyrell, but his friends and family and even his physical environment. I love that Booth didn't try to make Tyrell into some kind of Upstanding Teen Novel Hero, whose greatest aspiration was to go to Harvard and Make Something Of Himself. Tyrell wants to be a DJ like his dad and protect all the people he loves. More than anything Tyrell is honest and vigilant, and that makes the reader want to see him succeed at what he sets out to do. The only thing? I wish this were available on audio.

A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama by Laura Amy Schlitz. I should have read this book when it first came out. I avoided it, I confess, because it's historical fiction and really long, and I'm no good at history. Doesn't matter with this book. Schlitz's writing is sublime. She has this incredible gift for writing settings so that the reader gets a clear view of what's going on but never once does said reader get bogged down in adjectives. Basic plot: a girl is adopted to help with the schemes of women who make their living as fraudulent psychics. But it's more than that. There's an overlying theme of morality and moral ambiguity, and cruelty and love. Melodramatic? Sure! But it's supposed to be, and it's amazing.

Airhead by Meg Cabot. Dead people and famous people are all the rage in YA lit, so how long was it going to be before we got a book about a dead famous person? This is a different turn for Meg Cabot. It's got her breezy, fast-paced edge but it's not fun and fluffy. Basic plot: Completely average high school student Emerson Watts takes a blow to the head while saving her sister from a falling plasma TV at the opening of a Stark Megastore. When she wakes up, she can't figure out why she's got a manicure and a craving for wasabi peas, and why everyone is calling her Nikki, as in supermodel Nikki Howard. This is definitely a fun and intriguing read, and I'm curious as to where Cabot will take the rest of the series. She's set us up to know that all is not right in Nikkiland, but we don't know how not-right, or who's behind it.

Next on the pile: He Forgot to Say Goodbye by Benjamin Alire Saenz; The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart...which I've had for seven months and still haven't read because I suck...and also I can't find mine :( ; Debbie Harry Sings in French by Meagan Brothers (good so far, but I'm only on page 10); Skin Deep by E.M. Crane, lots of others.

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and now...back to work

Tags: books 2008, books i'd pay retail for, memes, ya

Random House is reprinting the Sweet Valley High series and they gave out galleys at ALA Midwinter. This alone constitutes its own Galley Post of Squee. ( I can totally has Jess and Liz. )

Problem: I don't think I have a copy of the original printing of Double Love. I have several original SVHs but I think they start with book 2, woe. But OMG HOW COOL IS THIS??

Looking through the galley, I can definitely see where they've made changes. The technology has been updated for 2008, for one. The kids have cell phones and blogs. Lila Fowler name-drops designers we've actually heard of. Jessica and Elizabeth are size 4s, not size 6s. (To be fair, a size 6 in 1983 is much closer to a size 4 of 2008.) Some names have been changed for no apparent reason. Some of the language is updated. But oh, there is still the dramaticals, the ongoing saga of Patman vs. Fowler, and Jessica continually digging herself out of holes by assuming Elizabeth's identity.

If you want to join me in the squee, you'll find me in a booth at the Dairi Burger.

Tags: books 2008
126: nostalgic
780: it comes to wash away the sins of you and I

Orson Scott Card for the Edwards Award. Excellent choice. Not that the Edwards committee does anything bad.

YES YES YES YES Repossessed got a Printz Honor. HAPPY DANCE. One of my favorites of the year, and it was so nice to see something not "highly literary" and completely hilarious honored. But where was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian? Your Own, Sylvia was very rightfully honored. I haven't read Dreamquake and probably won't. (Nothing against it, I'm just not into that sort of thing.) Where was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? The New Policeman? Before I Die? I do love the Printz people but the books were kind of a surprise. Well, not so much The White Darkness, because that appeared on a lot of Mock Printz lists, but it seems like other clear frontrunners were shut out. On the bright side, I haven't broken my streak of never predicting a Printz winner.

Walter Dean Myers will be giving the Arbuthnot Honor Lecture. Wonder where it'll be presented this year.

I TOLD my colleagues that Hugo Cabret could take the Caldecott and NO ONE LISTENED. Hmph.

The Wednesday Wars TOTALLY deserved that Newbery honor.

It seems that American Born Chinese winning the Printz last year opened the doors for a lot of other graphic works to win awards. A graphic novel took the Batchelder Award, which is given to books originally published in a foreign language. There was also a graphic novel on the Alex Awards list. But of course, leave it to the YA librarians to be progressive.

(With a few extra minutes, I can say that THE most exciting thing I've learned at this conference is that Nancy Werlin's next book will be out in the fall. More happy dance. I am DYING DYING DYING to read it...if anyone from Penguin is reading this...)

Tags: books 2008
917: PA Convention Center
126: excited