Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: Girlfriend Material
Author: Melissa Kantor
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Why I Read It: An impulse pick at the library.

Summary: Kate’s parents are fighting again. This time, her mom decides to leave town to get some perspective. The only problem is, she’s dragging Kate along, shattering all of Kate’s summer plans.

Stopped on Page: 74
Why I Stopped: Part of it was I still felt a little bitter from getting stuck with my last book and finishing it when I should have stopped. But I also had trouble connecting to the main character in this book.

The entire first chapter is about how mad Kate is at her mom for dragging her away from home. But on the second to last page of that chapter, you find out Kate’s actually been excited about the trip all along.

After she’d worked me up into an empathetic state of outrage that her mom was forcing her to tag along and leave all her own summer plans behind, I felt a wee bit hoodwinked. So at that point, I found myself not really caring about Kate’s troubles. And I stopped reading.

Your Turn: Should I have kept going? Or was I right to stop?

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: It’s Not You, It’s Me
Author: Kerry Cohen Hoffmann
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 1/5
Why I Read It: I saw it on the shelf at the library, and the cuteness of the cover lured me into checking it out.

Summary: After 6 months of happiness, Zoe’s boyfriend Henry dumps her so he can focus on his band. But Zoe thinks—no, knows—he’s made a huge mistake, and she sets out to win him back.

Review: Jack Tumor was an impulse pick from the library that paid off. This impulse pick, not so much.

From the very start of the book, the main character was over-the-top psycho, with a capital CRAZY. She just could not function on even the most basic level.

How about an example, lest you think I’m being unfair? In the first chapter, Zoe calls her boyfriend Henry at their normal time of 9 pm. He doesn’t answer. So she calls one of her friends, then another, to discuss what might be going on. Here’s a snippet of her second conversation, with her friend Shannon:

“I know you,” Shannon continues. “You’ve already turned this into Something Meaningful. Nothing’s happened. He didn’t answer his phone, that’s it.”

“But in six months?” Zoe can hear the whine in her voice. “In six months we haven’t missed a nine p.m. phone call.”

“Zoe.” Shannon only uses Zoe’s full name when she means business. “I’m not saying things look good, but you have no proof that things are bad either.”

“Maybe I can get proof,” Zoe says in a measured voice.

“Zoe.”

“I could go over there, just happen to be walking by.”

“Zoe!”

“Or I could quickly peek in the windows. I’d only have to see Henry to know what he’s feeling.”

This is on page 4. Her obsession only ramps up from there. Later, she does “just happen to” walk by. And worse.

We’ve all experienced a touch of the crazy in our dating lives. But this is extreme. And the way that it’s presented, I often had the feeling I was supposed to be laughing at Zoe’s ridiculousness. That didn’t exactly help me empathize and connect with her. Zoe is a caricature, not a character.

The mechanics of the writing were fine. I just didn’t care about the main character. The only reason I finished reading it is because I got caught holding a napping toddler without another book to switch to.

Your Turn: Have you ever been burned by an impulse pick?

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

Did You Like This Book? Try:

• Tempo Change
• Likely Story: Red Carpet Riot
• Riding the Universe
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: Looking for Alibrandi
Author: Melina Marchetta
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3/5
Why I Read It: Melina Marchetta is the bomb.

Summary: 17-year-old Josephine Alibrandi is forever in trouble with the nuns at her Catholic school, her grandmother, and her mother. So maybe it’s a good thing her biological father has never wanted to meet her.

Review: I thought it might be good to start with a note I wrote to this book:

Dear Book by One of My Favorite Authors,

I wanted to love you. I wanted to sing your praises like I have for your sisters. But I’m not sure we’re a good fit.

Don’t get me wrong—I enjoyed our time together. It’s just that I probably won’t be calling you again.

Can we still be friends? Best,
Kelly

I loved parts of this book, but I didn’t fall in love with it on the whole. In this book as in Marchetta’s others, you can’t beat the romance story lines and the wit.

In general, though, I felt like this book lacked the subtlety that made my heart go pitter-patter while reading Marchetta’s two later novels. A lot of chapters seemed to end with a “moral,” and that wore on me. In addition, some of the dialogue came across as forced. At one point, Josephine apologizes to her mom, and I just couldn’t picture it.

Still, if you are a Marchetta fan—and I wholeheartedly am—you should read this, her first novel. It may not live up to the bar set by her other two novels, but it’s a good read nonetheless. Here, Josephine is sitting on stage at an inter-school event, preparing to deliver a speech:

Seated on my other side was Jacob Coote from Cook High.

Cook High is a public school in the city area. Because it’s the closest school to us, we don’t get on well with them. We think they’re better than them. They think we’re the biggest dags in the world.

When we were young, they would throw things out of their bus windows at us, and in Year 10, on the last day of school, Jacob Coote and about ten of his friends, male and female, blocked both entrances of a lane we cut through to get to our bus stop. Twelve of us were bombarded with eggs and rotten fruit and vegetables. Everyone said that one day we would look back on the occasion and laugh.

Very unlikely.

“What are you going to talk about?” he whispered in my ear.

I moved away, hoping nobody had seen him speaking to me. My friends think he’s gorgeous. His hair is brown, shoulder length, not cut into any particular style, and his eyes are green and they always seem to be laughing at you.

He grinned, and by the way his lips were twitching he looked like he was trying to control a laugh. I knew he recognized me from the lane.

“Didn’t I once squash two eggs against your glasses?” he asked.

“I’m flattered you remember. I tripped over a rubbish can, you know, and cut my hand on some broken glass.”

“Oh, come on. We were suspended for that. We didn’t go to school for six weeks.”

“Very funny. We had six weeks’ holiday after that.”

Your Turn: Have you ever read a book from one of your most favorite authors and not loved it?

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

Did You Like This Book? Try:

• Saving Francesca—My rating: 4/5
• Tomorrow, When The War Began
• Queen Kat, Carmel & St Jude Get A Life
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

On my kitchen counter, I have a stack of 14 books I’ve read but not yet written reviews for. They’re stacked in the order I read them because I always write reviews in the order I’ve read the books. But with 99% of my books coming from the library, that means I come up against library due dates.

Tomorrow, two of my unreviewed 14 are due back to the library. Those two happen to be my most recent reads. My brain is not happy right now.

I pulled the two books out from the bottom of the stack tonight. In the process, the book on the top launched itself right off the pile and onto the floor. I think the poor thing succumbed to the depression of being passed up for the latest hot young number.

Every time I pick up one of those two books with the intention of starting a review, I set it right back down again. And instead of writing the reviews so I can return the books due tomorrow, here I am pontificating about the odd habits of my brain.

Must. Write. Reviews. Now.

I think I’ll just pay the fine.

Your Turn

What does your brain insist you do in order? Or are you the type to jump around? And in your professional opinion, am I neurotic?

p.s. Would you change your answer if I told you that in the photo above, the fact that the bottom plate is pushed further in than the top plate bugs me to no end? And the utensils on the bottom plate aren’t exactly straight. And only one apple has its stem. And…

Photo by pinelife.

My original plan was to post my own personal Unsung YA Heroes list to celebrate my 1-year blogiversary. But just one post to celebrate an entire year of reading and blogging? No, that wouldn’t do. So I fired off an email to a few YA bloggers to see if they would join me in a coordinated blog blitz. The goal of the project would be to highlight YA books we love and think deserve more attention from the world of readers.

About 0.06 seconds after clicking “Send” on that first email, I hunted down my husband and found him in the kitchen blending pesto for dinner. I bounced on my heels and waited for the blender to stop.

“So I bet I can get 5 other people to post with me. 5 would be pretty cool.”

Whee, the blender went.

“But if I’m lucky, I could get 10. 10 would be really cool. Do you think I could get 10?”

Whee.

“Because double digits are like the universal measuring stick for whether you’re doing something good. If you don’t hit double digits, you’re just a weirdo.”

Whee!

“I hope people don’t think I’m a weirdo.”

Whee-uhh.

“Sweetie? Do you think I’ll get 10?”

And then you went and BLEW MY MIND.

As of last night, 73 bloggers had posted their own Unsung YA Heroes lists. Not to mention all the tweeters and authors and English teachers chiming in.

Congratulations to all the titles and authors featured in the last few days. May our blog blitz bring you new readers and happiness! And to all the TBR lists bursting at the seams, I am sorry. I didn’t foresee what this would mean for you. But maybe you could “misplace” a few of those bestselling titles that aren’t quite as awesome as these Unsung titles? Go ahead, I won’t tell anyone.

Now, onto the awesomeness that only spreadsheets can bring…

Top 10 Unsung YA Heroes

Out of the 494 unique titles picked, here’s a round-up of the most commonly picked titles across all the lists. When there was a tie in the number of times a title was picked, the more obscure title—that is, the one with the fewer number of LibraryThing members—won out.

10. How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford

Picked By: Brooklyn Arden, Melissa Walker, A Patchwork of Books
LT Members: 99

9. Nothing but Ghosts by Beth Kephart

Picked By: Book Nut, The Hate-Mongering Tart, Melissa Walker
LT Members: 67

8. Destroy All Cars by Blake Nelson

Picked By: Brooklyn Arden, Melissa Walker, Reading in Bellevue
LT Members: 48

7. Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger

Picked By: Abby (the) Librarian, Dreaming Out Loud, Leafing Through Life, Lucy Was Robbed
LT Members: 495

6. Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta

Picked By: Not Enough Bookshelves, Steph Su Reads, YAnnabe, Youth Services Corner
LT Members: 446

5. Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway

Picked By: MELIScellaneous, Reading and Rooibos, Steph Su Reads, Youth Services Corner
LT Members: 318

4. Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman

Picked By: One Librarian’s Book Reviews, Ticket to Anywhere, Write Meg!, YA Librarian Tales
LT Members: 238

3. Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers

Picked By: Melissa Walker, Not Enough Bookshelves, Sarah’s Random Musings, YAnnabe
LT Members: 182

2. The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King

Picked By: Annie, I Think, Lucy Was Robbed, Presenting Lenore, Sarah’s Random Musings
LT Members: 105

1. Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins

Picked By: Book Nut, LL Word, Semicolon, Worducopia
LT Members: 48

Top 1012 Most Obscure Picks

Out of those 494 titles, which books were the most unsung? Bonus: You get 12 picks instead of 10 because the 10th spot had a 3-way tie.

10. Border Crossing by Jessica Lee Anderson

Picked By: The Hate-Mongering Tart
LT Members: 12

10. Not a Swan by Michelle Magorian

Picked By: Archimedes Forgets
LT Members: 12

10. The Death-Defying Pepper Roux by Geraldine McCaughrean

Picked By: Gaskella
LT Members: 12

9. Trudy by Jessica Lee Anderson

Picked By: The Hate-Mongering Tart
LT Members: 11

8. Gamma Glamma by Kim Flores

Picked By: Archimedes Forgets, Biblio File
LT Members: 10

6. Holy Moly by Leah Hayes

Picked By: Pop Culture Junkie
LT Members: 8

6. The Puzzle Ring by Kate Forsyth

Picked By: Beyond Books
LT Members: 8

5. The Thirteen Curses by Michelle Harrison

Picked By: Beyond Books
LT Members: 6

4. Year of the Horse by Justin Allen

Picked By: Arch Thinking
LT Members: 5

3. A Is For Angst by Barbara Haworth-Attard (also published as My Life from Air-Bras to Zits)

Picked By: Erin Explores YA
LT Members: 4

1. The Secrets of the Cheese Syndicate by Donna St. Cyr

Picked By: The Hate-Mongering Tart
LT Members: 3

1. Unsigned Hype by Booker T. Mattison

Picked By: Semicolon
LT Members: 3

Most Obscure List

Pop Culture Junkie
Alea’s picks averaged 44 LibraryThing members per title.

Longest List

The Hate-Mongering Tart
You might say Emily got into this project. Like, REALLY got into it. She picked 43 titles.

Most Unsung Author

We could take this in a couple directions: Which author had the highest number of unique titles crop up on our lists? Or, which author was picked by the most people? So to be fair, we have two winners in this category:

Elizabeth Scott
5 of her titles made the lists.

Melina Marchetta
Her titles were picked by approximately 10% of the bloggers who posted lists.

The Full List of Unsung Titles

…is here.

Your Turn!

Do you want to keep the Unsung fun alive?

• Did this project inspire you to add a title (or two or fifty) to your TBR list? How many did you add? And which ones? Hmm, I smell a topic ripe for a blog post! Or maybe a comment? (Thanks to Anastasia for this idea.)
• If you’re on LibraryThing, tag the titles you picked with the tag “unsung”. Then we’ll be able to use the unsung tag page to see all this fabulousness. (Thank you to Emily and Nicki for this suggestion!)

Do It Again! Do It Again!

Well…okay!

How does this sound? We’ll pick one week a year to be The Week of the Unsung. Each day, we will focus on a different genre—YA, middle-grade, picture book, graphic novel, even (gasp!) adult fiction. You can sign up for whichever genres you’d like, then post your Unsung lists on the appropriate days.

Thoughts? Ideas? More stats you want to see? Leave a comment to chime in!