Title: The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile
Author: Noah Lukeman
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 3/5
Why I Read It: I read a similar book in January and loved it, and Amazon said I might like this one too.

Summary: A literary agent and former editor shares tips on how to make your first 5 pages shine.

Review: I would recommend Self-Editing for Fiction Writers over this book. However, if you’re looking for another slightly different list of issues to look for in your writing, go ahead and read this book.

The advice in this one was solid, but other elements of it weren’t:

• Silly, obvious examples—Showing examples of what you’re talking about: Awesome. Showing examples that were obviously constructed just for the purpose of this book and were so ridiculous that only a complete idiot could have written them: Not so awesome. The examples didn’t really help me at all.
• Exercises for the sake of exercises—A few times, the writing exercises at the end of each chapter seemed arbitrary, like someone just thought them up and stuck them in the book without stopping to test whether they were actually helpful. I’d rather have a couple tried-and-true exercises than a bucket of this-seems-like-it-might-work exercises.

This book took me a couple months to read, whereas I devoured Self-Editing for Fiction Writers in about a week.

Do you typically take a while to get through a writing how-to book? Or does it depend on how good it is?

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Title: Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris
Author: R.L. LaFevers
Category: Fiction, Middle Grade
Why I Read It: I read the first in this series, Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Summary: 11-year-old Theodosia Throckmorton spends most of her time in an antiquities museum where her parents work. While they’re busy, she keeps herself entertained by saving the world.

Stopped on Page: 178
Why I Stopped: As much as I loved the first Theodosia book, I just never got into this story. A couple trivial things got to me, but I’m having a hard time pinpointing the bigger issues that made me stop. In general, the book didn’t feel lean and mean like the first one. Could it be that it was rushed to market without as much time spent in the editing phase?

So here are the trivial things I am able to articulate:

• Exclamations galore!—Honestly! It felt like they were on nearly every page. I mean, really!
• Too much internal monologue—Should I do this? Or should I do that? And if I do that, what will happen? So I’ve decided I’ll do this instead.

A quick example of the latter issue:

I would have to get word to Wigmere at once. And I needed to figure out what exactly it was that I’d discovered. Something that had power over the dead, that was clear. But what? And why? And how much power?

And what was I to do with the wretched staff in the meantime? If I took it with me, would the mummies follow me up the stairs?

I took three steps forward to test it. Sure enough, every single mummy shuffled along behind me.

I nearly burst into tears. What did it all mean? Had their ba, or souls, returned to their bodies? Were they merely reanimated, such as the zombies of western Africa? The enormity of what I didn’t know was staggering.

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: Marcelo in the Real World
Author: Francisco Stork
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: 17-year-old Marcelo has a condition similar to autism—he hears music in his mind that no one else can hear. Marcelo loves his school, but in order to keep going there, first he has to prove to his father that he can make it in “the real world.”

Review: I found this book a little difficult to get into at first because the main character is so guarded with his emotions, but I appreciated and completely understood the realism. And I ended up thoroughly enjoying this story. I got especially wrapped up in the plot around a decision Marcelo has to make in “the real world.”

One trivial thing bugged me an eensy weensy bit. A lot of times, the characters didn’t use common contractions when speaking, like always saying “it is” and “you are.” While I bought that Marcelo would talk that way, it made the other characters’ speech sound stilted.

This is a sweet story, and I actually found myself missing Marcelo as I typed up this review.

Side note: A lot of people have compared this book to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, although some disagree.

Would you consider these books similar? Leave a comment to share your thoughts!

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Title: The Fetch
Author: Laura Whitcomb
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Why I Read It: It released in 2009, and I was in the mood for something new.

Summary: Calder is a death escort who breaks his sacred vows to enter the body of a dying man.

Stopped on Page: 159
Why I Stopped: The subtitle on the cover is A Supernatural Romance. On page 159, I was still waiting for the romance to pick up in earnest, so I stopped.

Maybe if that subtitle hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have stopped. I generally don’t like to read more than a sentence or two about a book’s plot before I read the book myself. But in this case, I think reading a more thorough plot summary might have helped set my expectations.

Regardless of missed expectations, though, the book was a tad morbid for my taste.

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: School for Dangerous Girls
Author: Eliot Schrefer
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 2/5
Why I Read It: It released in 2009, and I was in the mood for something new.

Summary: When Angela’s rebellion crosses the line, her parents ship her off to Hidden Oak boarding school, where she’s lumped in with all the other dangerous girls whose families have given up on them.

Review: The premise of this book and its first few pages pulled me in, but the rest of the book was predictable. I never connected with the main character, but I’m not sure why that is.

I do know that I wanted Angela to question herself more than she did. For a character with supposedly low self-esteem, she was all bluster and outrage most of the time. In a setting where the faculty and doctors were playing mind games with the girls, I expected Angela to wonder if she was off her rocker or at least have a serious moment of self-doubt.

If you’ve read this one, can you help me pinpoint why it was hard to connect with Angela? Or did you enjoy it more than I did? Leave a comment either way!

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