The Sly Subversiveness of Molly O'Keefe's Wild Child
It's no secret that Molly O'Keefe's novels are my favorites in the very crowded contemporary romance genre. Her books, which on their surface follow the norms of romance novels (since that's what they are), are brilliantly subversive. All of the novels I've read by this author riff on romance archetypes and conventions in a deliciously satisfying manner. Molly's latest, Wild Child, is no different.
Wild Child focuses on Monica Appleby, famous reality television teen wild child, who wrote a bestselling tell-all memoir of her raucous and destructive formative years. She's alone, her closest friend having recently died and not having a relationship with her mother, and has returned to the town of Bishop, Arkansas to write her follow-up book, this time chronicling the events of her parents' tumultuous relationship and her father's subsequent death. Monica is all hard edges and walls, unwilling to make even casual connections with anyone.
Monica ignored Jackson as he slid into the booth across from her. First the Cracker dude and now Jackson. Good Lord, weren’t the headphones a giveaway? Did she need to make a Do Not Disturb sign? This was why she so rarely went to coffee shops to work, preferring her own company and her own music.
The mayor of Bishop is Jackson Davies, who dropped out of law school and returned to his hard-luck hometown to raise his younger sister, Gwen, after their parents were killed in a car accident. Jackson never wanted to make Bishop his home; the town is dying, with an empty factory gathering dust and many of the town's residents struggling in the blighted economy. His father was mayor of Bishop as well, and his goal at the town's leader is the turn the economy around, make sure his sister is safely away at college and then get out of town.
Podcast 14: What's Love Got to Do with It? YA & Romance with Author Robin Benway
In this episode of our podcast, we dig into the topic of romance and fiction for teens with author Robin Benway. This is an interesting topic, as there are, well, complicated.
Robin is the author of Audrey, Wait!, The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June, and Also Known As, which was released in February 2013. The sequel to Also Known As, Going Rogue, will be out in early 2014. She lives in Los Angeles with her shih tzu, Hudson.
You can learn more about Robin by visiting her website or by following her onFacebook or Twitter.
As always, you can listen to the podcast by streaming on this page, downloading the MP3 below or by subscribing in iTunes. If you're an iTuner, we very much appreciate your rating the podcast, as it helps us to show up in iTunes searches. We're also now on Stitcher Radio, so if you prefer that app, you can subscribe here.
12 Tiny Reviews
I have a ton of posts and reviews in various stages of completion, but my real-life (paying) work just keeps getting in the way of my actually finishing anything. So, I thought I'd post a bunch of rapid-fire tiny reviews. Items with an asterisk (*) are currently planned for a longer post.
Unraveling & Unbreakable by Elizabeth Norris (Audiobooks)
This series was a wonderful surprise, full of action and an authentic teenage voice. I loved that despite that it's a very plot-heavy story, lots of different types of relationships are explored as well.
A Fresh Shapeshifter Story: Skulk by Rosie Best
Skulk’s anything but a typical paranormal teen fiction. Shapeshifters in Rosie Best’s novel consist of foxes, ravens, rats, butterflies and spiders—no wolves need apply to this world. And, Skulk is urban fantasy in the truest sense of the term, with a rich city-focused setting of London, complete with graffiti and urban wildlife that’s not what it appears.
At the center of this story is sixteen year old Meg Banks, a teen girl who appears to have it all. Her mother’s a highly-respected member of Parliament and her father’s a genius with money. Meg attends an exclusive school that churns out students headed for only the best universities and the brightest futures.
Except…
Meg’s perfect parents, perfect school, perfect life is nothing more than a tarnished cage locking in an unconquerable spirit who struggles to find self expression, individuality and ultimately freedom from her cruel and demanding mother and her aloof father.
Podcast #13: Technology, Introversion & "Nostalgia Lit"
We were interested in the fervor of excitement around comedian Louis C.K.'s comments about the negative impact of technology--specifically smartphone technology--on modern life. (You can watch a video here.) It was actually a subject we delved into in our book club meeting back in September.
Believe it or not, there's an intersection between the ideas of technology, introversion and how it all meshes up with our experiences as readers--and if you stick around for the entire podcast, we'll get there.
Plus, you get to hear the Sarah-Laura Twitter friendship origin story, including Laura's peer-pressuring me to start a blog!
As always, you can listen to the podcast by streaming on this page, downloading the MP3 below or by subscribing in iTunes. If you're an iTuner, we very much appreciate your rating the podcast, as it helps us to show up in iTunes searches. We're also now on Stitcher Radio, so if you prefer that app, you can subscribe here.
Romantic, Yet Unsatisfying: Time After Time by Tamara Ireland Stone
Despite that the time travel elements were entirely undeveloped, I enjoyed Tamara Ireland Stone's debut novel, Time Between Us. I was swept up in Bennett and Anna's sweet, yet challenged, romance spanning decades, quite literally.
Sure, Bennett's ability to travel from his timeline in 2012 to Anna's in 1995 was effectively unexamined and consequences related to the ripple effect of time travel were only considered when it aided the plot. But it was a solid romance--and I'm a shameless sucker.
As I mentioned in my review of Time Between Us, I hoped that the intricacies and consequences of traveling through and altering time would be explored further. Because this is more of a romance, I didn't expect it reach All Our Yesterdays level, but I'd hoped for more--and I effectively got nothing in that regard.
Guest Post: Small Things Become Big in Markus Zusak's I Am the Messenger
Note: This is a guest post from CEFS reader Anushree Nande, who blogs at Lost in Translation, and wrote this stellar tribute to Friday Night Lights aka The Greatest Television Show of All Time for Sabotage Times.
Interested in writing a guest post for Clear Eyes, Full Shelves? Drop Sarah a line!
My love for Markus Zusak is a very well documented fact (you can read my reviews for his other books here and here), so you can imagine my delight at receiving a reply to my tweet about his I Am The Messenger (simply The Messenger for the Australian editions).
This is a book I’ve been meaning to read for a few years now but couldn’t get around to before. In the mean time, I had managed to read Zusak’s The Book Thief, Fighting Ruben Wolfe and Getting The Girl and fall in love with his prose. Hence it was with a lot of (perhaps unfair) expectations that I started this book, and it says a lot about the quality that I didn’t feel let down. There were a few disappointing bits but we’ll get to that later.
Romance, Post-High School Paths & Sexism in Stir Me Up by Sabrina Elkins
Sabrina Elkins' debut novel, Stir Me Up, has a lot going for it: a charming romance, a positive undertone regarding female sexuality and a great portrayal of how the college track right after high school isn't the best thing for everyone (more of this, please). Unfortunately, just as many frustrating, unnecessary and un-nuanced plot and character issues kept Stir Me Up from being that satisfying read I hoped it would be.
High school senior Camille (Cami) grew up in her father's French restaurant in Vermont, and dreams of a career much like her father's. Becoming a chef is truly her passion, and over the years, she's slowly earned her father's trust as she's worked her way up from prepping vegetables to making the restaurant's soup du jour once a week. While her father wants her to attend University of Vermont so she can keep her future options open, Cami knows what she wants: a future in the kitchen of a top restaurant.
Her world is disrupted, though, when her stepmother Estella's nephew (whom she raised), Julian, moves into Cami's house. Julian is a 20-year old Marine who was severely injured in an IED explosion in Afghanistan. He's lost part of one of his legs and sustained numerous other injuries. Understandably, he's angry and hostile.
Links + Things: Terrifying Roosters, Beautiful Book Covers & Gendered Television Criticism
Hi y'all! Happy Friday and welcome to another installment of Links & Things!
Let's get down to business...
Required Reading
“Just as films labeled as romcoms become marginalized under the sexist label of “chick flicks,” primetime dramas labeled as “soaps” become “women’s shows.” And, unfortunately, once it’s limited to that label, the show loses its credibility.Just look at “Scandal.” The Shonda Rhimes-helmed ABC series is one of — if not the — most intelligent series on network TV. With its emotional intensity and complex, always-twisting plot, “Scandal” embraces its identity as a full-out soap. Sure, its storylines are often implausible and sometimes straight-up unbelievable, but since when is plausibility essential to great television? While “Scandal” often isn’t taken seriously for its more outlandish moments, other shows like “Breaking Bad” are given free pass after free pass. We let “Breaking Bad” get away with improbable feats, because the things that truly matter — emotions, characters — are believable.
The same is true for “Scandal,” which may get wacky with its plot points, but is bitingly real when it comes to its characters’ emotions and the complex issues that inform the story: power, race, sex, morality. And yet, people pigeonhole “Scandal” into the category of “guilty pleasure” TV, while more male-centric series that stay clean of the gendered “soap” label are held up as beacons of today’s golden age of television.”
— Kayla Upadhyaya: The glass ceiling of TV’s golden age - The Michigan Daily
Teaching the Classics: The Scarlet Letter
Note: This is the first in an ongoing series from Sandra, retired high school English teacher and current substitute teacher in the same subject area, discussing the classic novels she taught, their relevance to today's teens and pairings with contemporary fiction.
I taught high school literature for twenty-six years, many of the same books year after year. You’d think they would become ho-hum with a huge yawn after a few years.
No so.
There’s always something new and fresh that first-time readers bring to a text so it stands the test of time—meaning they relate to the characters and situations regardless of era or setting. Some books are simply universal. The Scarlet Letter, which I've written about previously, stands out for the fresh perspectives my students would bring to them each time I taught these books.
It’s all about making connections and drawing parallels.
I recall one student gingerly holding a copy of The Scarlet Letter between her thumb and index finger. The expression on her face was somewhere between horror and admiration as I shared that I had taught, and therefore read, this book every single year.
“What? You’ve actually read this at least twenty times? That’s that’s—I don’t know what is is,” my student said.
When Bad Marketing Happens to Good Books: Just One Year by Gayle Forman
Sometimes the wind blows you places you weren't expecting: sometimes it blows you away from those places, too.
When I found an early copy of Just One Year on the shelf at University Bookstore in Seattle last week, I could not have been more thrilled. The sequel to Just One Day (which I loved) was hands-down one of my my anticipated novels of the season. I couldn't wait to see where Allyson and Willem's story went, since Just One Year promised to "pick up where Just One Day ended."
Except that's a lie. Just One Year doesn't pick up where Just One Day, the book, ended. Instead, it begins as just one day, the day Allyson and Willem spent together, ends. If you've read Just One Day, you know that it spans the year following that day, so Just One Year effectively hits rewind on the timeline for the thing that happens on the final page of Just One Day.
It's important to understand that how the Just One Year has been marketed and the actual story between the covers are two entirely different things.
Photo Essay: Seattle Field Trip (Maggie Stiefvater at University Bookstore Edition)
On Friday, we all piled into the car for a day trip to Seattle for Maggie Stiefvater's event at University Bookstore.
Sure, Maggie was going to be in Portland the next day, but it was an appearance at Wordstock, and the organizers of that even couldn't be bothered to announce their schedule in a timely manner (and were not very friendly when asked for details about the schedule back in September), so we drove three hours instead.
It's all good, though, because a trip to Seattle always means fun things like Backstreet Boys singalongs and the chance to kidnap the lovely Mindi Scott for some adventures.
Since I don't write recaps as a matter of principle (said principle being that I try not to do things that bore me), I thought I'd share some snapshots from our day.
List-O-Rama: Embracing the Weird
I have a soft spot for bizarro stories. You know what I mean, the weird, but captivating, tale that you never fully understand but like nonetheless. Here are a few of our recommendations for the next time you want to embrace the weird.
Coaltown Jesus by Ron Koertge (Candlewick, Oct. 8, 2013)
“‘Oh dear,’ said Jesus.Walker was able to ask ‘What?’ They’d stopped in front of a Balk’s Hardware. A sign in the window said,
ALL KINDS OF NAILS
Jesus stared at his hands. ‘I mean nails are a miracle and God is in them, but they still give me the shivers.’”
Ron Koertge specializes in strange stories and he's an author whose books reliably work for me. Koertge's known for his verse novels, but this is more of a fractured prose (my term) style that works for this odd little story of a boy who seeks, and receives, divine intervention in coping with his brother's death. This is an irreverent little story with one of the more unusual doses of magical realism I've read. It's a short book at 128 pages, so if you're looking for something completely outside your normal wheelhouse that'll make you laugh, check out Coaltown Jesus.
I also recommended Koertge's Lies, Knives and Girls in Red Dresses, a collection of fairytales retold in poetry, if you're looking for more Koertge weirdness.
One of the Year's Best: Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller
“I can’t do this. I can’t sit here and pretend I’m a normal girl when my whole life has been so fucked up. Greg and Phoebe haven’t slept in the backseat of their car, or eaten all their meals from a vending machine because their mothers forgot to buy groceries. And the only monsters Tucker and Joe will ever have to contend with are the imaginary kind that are banished in the light. These people are so clean and I feel so—tainted.”
My copy of Trish Doller’s second novel, Where the Stars Still Shine, arrived last week and as I’m looking at it’s pretty, oh-so-shiny cover sitting on my desk, I’m still stuck when trying to talk about why it’s such a special book.
When I read Trish’s debut novel, Something Like Normal, I had to plug my Kindle in to finish the last ten percent or so because my battery was dead and it was 2:00 a.m. and I just couldn't fathom stopping.
The exact same thing—right down to the dead Kindle battery—happened when I read her second novel, Where the Stars Still Shine.
Like Something Like Normal, and perhaps even more so, Where the Stars Still Shine captures authentic emotion in a character-driven novel in a way that’s simply real.
Links & Things: September 20th
Hi y'all! How was your week? Mine was... exhausting. I really don't understand why life doesn't stop so I can curl up with a good book and drink a cup of tea. That doesn't seem unreasonable, does it?
Here's some interestingness--an abbreviated version, that is--I spotted on the web this week that you may have missed.
Recommended Reading
- CEFS favorite Lisa Schroeder has a new novel for teens coming out next summer. It's called The Bridge from Me to You and is half verse, half proseand sounds like it has a Friday Night Lights vibe:
The Bridge from Me to You is a YA novel that is part verse, part prose. It is told alternately by a 17-year-old girl who is new to a small town with a family secret, and the star football player she meets who is having a tough year and has big dreams beyond the field. Publication is planned for summer 2014.
- If you read Jenn Bennett's fantastic Arcadia Bell series, you're going to have to wait an extra month to get your hands on it--it won't be released until May 2014.
- VQR has a great discussion of the problematic nature of Jonathan Franzen's latest rant.
- Goodreads has yet another policy change.