Title: Bones of Faerie
Author: Janni Lee Simner
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Why I Read It: It released in 2009, and I was in the mood for something new.

Summary: Liza’s newborn sister is touched by magic, so her father abandons the baby outside of town. Then her mother disappears, and Liza discovers she might be touched by magic as well. What will her father do to her if he finds out?

Review: I enjoyed the mix of magical and real elements in this story. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world, which is right up my alley.

This one’s not for the faint of heart, though. Check out the opening:

I had a sister once. She was a beautiful baby, eyes silver as moonlight off the river at night. From the hour of her birth she was long-limbed and graceful, faerie-pale hair clear as glass from Before, so pale you could almost see through to the soft skin beneath.

My father was a sensible man. He set her out on the hillside that very night, though my mother wept and even old Jayce argued against it. “If the faerie folk want her, let them take her,” Father said. “If not the fault’s theirs for not claiming one of their own.” He left my sister, and he never looked back.

I did. I crept out before dawn to see whether the faeries had really come. They hadn’t, but some wild creature had.

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
Buy: Your local bookstore | Powell’s | Amazon

In November, I wrote a novel for NaNoWriMo. Yay me.

But since then, I haven’t touched the poor little bugger.

My problem is I don’t know where to start. Options I’ve considered include:

• Read it straight through and write any edits that occur to me in 0.001 seconds but don’t get bogged down in the editing. Just mark what I like and don’t like, then fix it later.
• Take one chapter at a time and pore over each paragraph in great detail. Firmly in the bogging down camp.
• Outline the structure of the story and see where that takes me.

I’ve read the NaNoWriMo advice, but I still feel unsure of where to start. Help me?

What works for you? Or, what does your fave author blog have to say on the topic?

Photo by wrestlingentropy.

Title: Geek Charming
Author: Robin Palmer
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 2.5/5
Why I Read It: It released in 2009, and I was in the mood for something new.

Summary: Film geek Josh agrees to rescue the most popular girl Dylan’s purse from a fountain in exchange for her cooperation in the documentary he wants to make about the popular kids at their high school.

Review: This was okay. Truthfully, I probably would have stopped reading it if my 1-year-old daughter hadn’t been asleep in my arms and I didn’t have another book handy to read instead.

It wasn’t bad writing, but I didn’t really care about the characters. Especially Dylan, the popular girl. She was such a caricature of a rich spoiled girl that I was laughing at her, not with her. And that doesn’t make for a good connection right off the bat.

Also, Josh’s voice wasn’t quite distinct enough from Dylan’s as they traded off narrating every other chapter, so sometimes that pulled me out of the story trying to remember who was talking to me.

It was a sweet story. But after a string of doozies, I’m ready for another great read. Submit your ideas in the Pick My Next Book at the right!

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
Buy: Your local bookstore | Powell’s | Amazon

Title: My Life in Pink & Green
Author: Lisa Greenwald
Category: Fiction, Middle Grade
Why I Read It: It released in 2009, and I was in the mood for something new.

Summary: 12-year-old Lucy’s mom inherited the family pharmacy, which is in danger of being foreclosed on.

Stopped on Page: 75
Why I Stopped: The main thing that bugged me is that Lucy is oddly gushing about her mom.

Old Mill Pharmacy doesn’t just carry the usual magazines like People and Glamour and Time. We have those, but we also carry magazines that are hard to find on the average drugstore news rack, like the Nation and the Progressive.

My mom’s a huge reader. She’ll read anything she can get her hands on, and especially stuff about people making a difference or taking a stand on complicated issues. She doesn’t just accept situations as they are—she’s always questioning things, so she likes to read magazines and newspapers that reflect that state of mind.

She’s one of those people who truly believe one person can change the world.

Ugh. Does that make anyone else feel a little green around the gills?

This is also one example from the first 75 pages where I felt like I was getting a moral lesson. Not in my fiction, thankyouverymuch.

Should I have kept going? Or was I right to stop?

Note: As an aspiring author, I respect the extraordinary amount of effort that goes into writing a book. I did not write this review in order to be unfair or negative about the book. My goal is simply to articulate why the book wasn’t for me.

Title: Brothers, Boyfriends & Other Criminal Minds
Author: April Lurie
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Why I Read It: I saw it on the shelf at the library, and it looked interesting.

Summary: In the 1970s, 14-year-old April Lundquist lives in a Brooklyn neighborhood alongside famous mobsters.

Stopped on Page: 94
Why I Stopped: I never really got into this book because it didn’t make me care about the main character. It took about 50 pages before I even got a hint of what the real problem affecting her was.

I also had trouble getting into scenes because they were chopped up by the characters doing things in between every line or by the main character explaining what was going on.

Here, the main character is eavesdropping on a conversation between her older brother Matt and his friend Little Joe. I highlighted the parts that chopped it up—in my opinion—in bold.

“Come on, Matt,” Little Joe said, “I already told you, this is not a good idea. You don’t get it, they treat those girls like nuns. Lock ‘em up and throw away the key.”

Matt stood up. There was a strange expression on his face—a mixture of defiance and desperation. It was the way he looked when his basketball team was down by ten points, with only one minute left in the game. “Listen, Joe,” he said. “I don’t care. I just need to see her.”

Little Joe raised his arms in surrender. “All right, all right. I’m pretty sure she’ll be there, okay? Happy?”

Matt exhaled loudly. “Thanks Joe, I owe you one.”

Little Joe shook his head. “Nah, you don’t owe me nothin’. But I’m telling you, Matt, you better be careful.”

Should I have kept going? Or was I right to stop?

Note: As an aspiring author, I respect the extraordinary amount of effort that goes into writing a book. I did not write this review in order to be unfair or negative about the book. My goal is simply to articulate why the book wasn’t for me.