I’m still reading, and obviously not updating.  But I’m breaking the silence to mention a program happening at my library tonight: Scott Westerfeld will be there talking about his upcoming book, Leviathan.  And he’ll be showing off Keith Thompson’s gorgeous artwork.  I read the book, from a galley I picked up at BEA, and really enjoyed it.  So at this point what I’m really looking forward to is the Alan Cumming-read audiobook (who’s got a Barnes and Noble appearance tomorrow, so I’m really excited about my week.)

Wicked Lovely (Desert Tales Vol. 1): Sanctuary - Melissa Marr

This is the first part of a story (parallel to the books, not a retelling) about Rika, one of the girls who came before Ash in the long line of humans that Summer King Keenan tried to make his curse-breaking Queen.  After being released from her part in the game by the next in line, Donia, she retreated to the desert to hide from the faerie courts and the cold.  Now she likes to invisibly follow around a handsome human boy.  But he gets tangled up in faerie politics when she makes herself visible to save his life.

I am comfortable with the visual language of most comics, but not so comfortable with manga, and this book (published by Tokyopop) was often visually difficult for me to follow.  Also, and maybe it’s just more of my biases showing, I thought this skewed younger than the series it’s connected to but don’t think it has much appeal other than to readers of Wicked Lovely.  I think one of Marr’s strengths is at constructing secondary characters, but this ultimately feels like more of a cynical marketing ploy than a true story expanding her world.

The Georges and the Jewels – Jane Smiley

This is a very gentle, old fasioned sort of book.  And not to say that’s a bad thing.  It takes place in 1960’s California and focuses on 7th grader Abby, her family and the horses they’re training.  When Smiley was interviewed at Day of Dialog, she talked about writing a book for every year that Abby ages.  I personally don’t care, and I’ve never really pretended to leave personal preference out of my opinions here, but would also happily recommend this to middleschool kids, if I still worked with any.  I’ve never read any of Smiley’s adult books, but every once and awhile try to read something that is exactly the sort of thing I would never read hoping to be pleasantly surprised.  And while this didn’t manage to rekindle any long dormant girl-and-her-horse fantasies I may have had when I was little, I did really enjoy it and felt transported and like I really learned something about the place and time and horses.

Tap and Gown – Diana Peterfreund

Just as promised, Amy finally stopped acting like an idiot about her kidnapping in this book.  But it took her way too long to stop acting like an idiot about her relationship with Jamie.  I did not love-love-love this the way I did the earlier books in the series, but it also didn’t make me angry like those books sometimes did.  I think I’m ready to move on from Amy, but am very happy that as I do, I have a soon-to-be-released YA book of Peterfreund’s to look forward to.  I think, like Fire below, that my passionate crush on this series did this volume in it no favors.

Fragile Eternity – Melissa Marr

I don’t think I ever recorded here the related novel in this series, Ink Exchange, which I really liked.  But I loved this one and Wicked Lovely.  The plot goes to surprising places and I didn’t even mind that the budding romance of the first book was no longer as budding or romantic (which allowed the plot to move forward and the relationship to mature).  If I ever read another modern Fairie story again it’ll just be because I’m chasing after the appeal of this one.

Fire – Kristin Cashore

I know I’m pretty much alone in liking Graceling more, but I keep reminding people that it’s only because of how much of a crush I have on that book and not because this isn’t a stronger book.  I agree that this probably is.  And it tackles the male gaze, which is one of my favorite things ever to think about.  But I love the way that Cashore writes banter and sexual tension and those were missing from this book.  So I’ll just anxiously await whatever bits of Katsa and Po I’m given in her next book.

Once was Lost – Sara Zarr

I don’t personally find faith interesting, but I find Zarr interesting enough to go along for the ride when she explores it.

Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins

I’m sad that the first book in the series lived up to my expectations but this couldn’t handle the pressure.  I didn’t hate it, or even dislike it, I just hate that I only liked it.  The spoilery text of an email I sent to a friend in white text:

But one of my biggest frustrations with Catching Fire was the pacing of her “radicalization.”  That she was intuitive enough to read intention into the timing of the gifts she was receiving in the arena, but not to understand that her pin had become a symbol of the resistance.  And that an organized resistance was clearly forming but that it took her until the end to see it.  And I didn’t buy that the resistance would trust using her without her knowledge to go well, when that clearly didn’t work out for the government the first time around.  I did like the way she adjusted to the arena, that she realized things were going on that she didn’t understand and went with it.  I just felt more manipulated by the plotting of this story than the first one.

Lips Touch: Three Times – Laini Taylor

This book had the great premise of three fairytale love/forbidden desire stories that hinge on a kiss  and ended up being so much better than I expected while not really fulfilling the promise of the hook.  Another instance where David Levithan lied to me (I’m writing this bottom-up, see the review below) but I’m happier this time to have listened to him anway.  And as much as like Jim Di Bartolo’s illustrations, I don’t like the cover design.  Because it’s a much more serious, even grown-up, book than it seems.  And yes, each story in some way revolves around a kiss and the manifestation of physical desire, but I often related more to the other wishes and dreams of the characters.  The third story is an epic love story crammed into 110 pages that improbably has you siding with the evil witch-type by the end.  I’m not entirely sure how that narrative flip was even accomplished, but it was very skillful.  The first two stories have their charms, but the last is the one that really wowed me.  I don’t know if I’ve ever bought myself a real copy of a book after having read the ARC, but in this instance I might just for the illustrations.

Shiver – Maggie Stiefvater

Ultimately, I don’t think I liked this book.  At Day of Dialog, David Levithan swore up and down that this book transcended the otherworldly creatures (werewolves in this case) genre but I don’t think it does.  I think it was just okay with hints of being something wonderful.  Maybe someone else will read this and see what I’m missing.  There’s another story of doomed love that this reminds me of, but I can’t figure out what. *UPDATE.  The Universe just handed this to me on a plate: The Time Traveler’s Wife. It’s got the same “when will he disappear..possibly forever” tension.* It is very moody and atmospheric, but I never became fully invested in it.

Ash – Malinda Lo

Other than the lesbian love story aspect of this, it’s a pretty traditionally told Cinderella story.  The Fairy Godfather is actually a tricky, non-altruistic fairy, and it’s here and with the love story, where Lo carves her own space, that the book is the most successful.

Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby

Technically this book has no business being here, as it has zero teen appeal, but I really enjoyed it.  And will stretch and say that it explores the flip side of the “Nick and Norah” music-obsessed-teen coin.  But it’s all about being a grown up, the disapointments and compromises and joys, and how not even a rock star can escape that.  This is the first Hornby book in years that I’ve enjoyed as much as I wanted to.

Scott Pilgrim vs.the Universe – Brian Lee O’Malley

I didn’t mind that Scott’s life kind of falls apart during this volume, I guess I’m turning into a cold-hearted grown up who didn’t expect his slacker lifestyle to be sustainable.  The cover is also very shiny and pretty.

Gregor the Overlander and Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane – Suzanne Collins

I’d been interested in this series ever since reading Hunger Games, but didn’t want to read a library copy because the paperback is both cheaply printed and very popular.  So I finally bought my own copy and once I’d finished, went out and immediately bought the second, which I read in one sitting.  I think the strength of these is Gregor.  He’s really likeable and resourceful.  And if too many of the books in this roundup feature kids who are destined to save the world, having a character who doesn’t act too stupid about the whole thing helps the over-used conceit go down easier.  I’m a little bit worried, and will have to be careful not to get too spoilery, that Collins may rely to heavily on formula with her plots.  These two books both follow similar arcs and this worry of mine is related to the aspect of Catching Fire that I wasn’t too impressed by.  I really wish these were collected in one volume, something with higher quality paper, so that you could easily read the whole saga in one go.

Blackbringer (Dreamdark) - Laini Taylor

I’m upset because I thought the sequel to this was already out but will instead have to wait until September for it.  So while that’s lame, I really enjoyed the story.  I like the way it maintained internal logic really well, how the strength of the god character was used to trick it, how the evil character was as much an important part of fairy history as anyone, how it feels like a complete story while making you want more, and how it might have the first fairy world I’d actually want to live in.  It would be really easy for me to talk about appreciating this book for all of the pitfalls it avoided, but that’s not very exciting.  This books seems to have initially been marketed as middle grade but then as YA for the paperback edition.  Which is funny, because I think it’s an easy sell to adults as well.

Reviewed the ARC of this earlier in the year, but it was listed as being available today.  Go forth and buy that book I gave a lukewarm review to!

Has anyone else read this yet?  I just finished and really want to talk about it with someone, because I’m not sure what I think.  I enjoyed it, but have reservations.  And contrary to what I’ve seen in other reviews, I liked the first half better than the second.

Had a fun but strange day at BEA yesterday.  Got there a little after ten to go the panel on Alternate Histories with Scott Westerfeld, Cassandra Clare, and Holly Black, and was nicely surprised to see that someone I work with was moderating it.  Then wandered around a bit with Marie, meeting up with a bunch of other YA authors she knows for lunch (where major topics of conversation were DnD alignments, animal sex, and the closing of Donnell).  Continued to get a bunch of exciting galleys, and then very randomly ran into an old friend I haven’t seen in years who is in no way involved with books but had been smuggled in by his high school prom date who he’d just gotten back into contact with.  He was happy to follow me around for the bulk of the afternoon while we caught up.

But the strangest thing about this year’s BEA is that my job is hardly about books and programming these days, but I did the most “networking” of any year I’ve been.  I met and kept running into a publicist who was doing an author program at my branch yesterday, I talked and talked about good kissing scenes (holding up the line for Lips Touch: Three Times to talk to the author and her husband the illustrator about how excited I had become about the book since briefly being introduced to them the day before, it’s all about the tension of not being able to kiss!)  And then there was that strange lunch and a really awesome program that I think will come of it.

But really, I’m just excited about the books.

The day started off strong, meeting up with Marie to wait in line to get a copy of Catching Fire (who introduced me to Possibilities of Sainthood author Donna Freitas and said that she is a master of writing first-kiss scenes, which means that maybe I should scoot my copy of that higher up my pile) and snagging Shiver at the same time.  Budget cutbacks mean that there isn’t so much stuff at BEA, which is probably for the best because I am easily distracted by shiny things that I do not need in my house, not at all.  There are also a lot fewer galleys to go around, but I think the quality of what’s there more than makes up for it.  I was hilariously, dorkily organized, but I think at least Marie appreciated it.

I also accidentally gushed at Melissa Marr a little bit, but I did just finish Fragile Eternity, so maybe my excitement was too close to the surface.  I think I’ve always managed to keep that tendency in check; even while in the thick of my Nick Hornby love I smiled, thanked him, and moved on.

And, while I obviously love fantasy and the speculative fiction side of sci-fi, I don’t think it was entirely that bias that led to this stack of books, I think it’s a lot of what’s really being pushed for the fall.  Though, there are a few adult books and a few realistic fiction books on my list to track down tomorrow.

Is it cheating if I say my favorite part about today was that it was held within walking distance of my house?  I never get to experience the smugness of some of my Manhattan friends who always get to enjoy that pleasure (even though I am pretty full of smug-love for my neighborhood), but I certainly took advantage of it today.  I took a long lunch (after stealing one of the prepared box lunches) back at my apartment and used the time to intricately plot out my next couple of days.  I get better at BEA every time I go, even though every time I go it rains.  But! I was very happy that a few of the ARCs I picked up today were on my big master list, and have been checked off and don’t need to be carted home from the Javits Center.  I even started one, “Once Was Lost” by Sarah Zarr while I got a pedicure this afternoon.  I wish every afternoon was so laid back (not that anything by Sarah Zarr should be characterized as laid back).

Seven books so far, and I was mostly as picky as I think I need to be.  A few I knew I wanted to grab, and a few others whose covers or authors or editors seduced me.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow, and think I share enough interests with enough of the people I know who are going that I’ll have partners in crime for a good chunk of the day.  It’s a shame that I’m really not doing much YA reader’s advisory these days (and I wish I could forget about the Hacidic mother with a picky 16-year-old at home who won’t read anything with romance, or violence, or fantasy in it) so I can’t even pretend this is for anything other than my own personal interest.  Even though now that I’m supervising the Teen Central staff I can still claim a little bit of YA cred for myself.

What have I been reading lately?  Well, some adult non-fiction like Danny Meyer’s Setting the Table and Quiverfull, a book about the Christian Patriarchy and Biblical Womanhood movements.  And some YA fiction, of course.  The real standout of which was Jellicoe Road.  I loved it enough that I don’t even hate it for beating Tender Morsels for the Printz.  I also read, but don’t think I wrote about, Ink Exchange.  And now I’ve just started Fragile Eternity, Mellisa Marr’s third urban faerie book.  I also enjoyed Fire, the follow up to Graceling.  Though I didn’t want to get married and have babies with it as much.  And I just finished Tap and Gown, the last book in the Secret Society Girl Series.  But BEA’s this week, and even though everyone is broke and trotting out backlist titles to promote, I’m still looking forward to it.  Going to the Editor’s Buzz panels is always a mixed bag, but I’ve found a lot of wonderful books that way that I otherwise would have completely missed.  I won’t complain about free books.  And hopefully it will get me fully back into the swing of readerly things.