Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: Outwitting Writer’s Block: And Other Problems of the Pen
Author: Jenna Glatzer
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 3/5
Why I Read It: I bought this book before my book buying ban went into effect, and I’m trying to make progress on the small physical TBR list that is my bookshelf. (In sharp contrast to my virtual TBR list, which is just plain overwhelming.)

Summary: Advice from a screenwriter and playwright on what to do when you find yourself staring at the dreaded blank page.

Review: This book is a good collection of practical ideas for when your writing life seems to be stuck in park. A lot of the tips you’ve probably heard before, but it’s nice to have them handy in one place.

I appreciated how the author included lots of quotes and advice from other authors on how they cope with a blank page. It’s also chock full of writing prompts, which always help to get your fingers out of the no-fly zone. For example:

Write about a secret you accidentally didn’t keep.

The humor was a little on the goofy side, which I didn’t exactly love. Sometimes it felt like the lines were delivered with a wink and a nudge. Still, a few lines got a chuckle out of me.

I’ll leave you with one of the tips I liked. It’s from the section about how to carve out writing time when you have a family who can’t seem to live without you for more than 5 minutes at a time:

If you have an office in your home, find something to hang from the doorknob, such as a red scrunchie or a do-not-disturb doorknob hanger, to signify that you are inside and working.

Your Turn: What do you do when you can’t seem to get the words out of your head and onto the page?

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

Did You Like This Book? Try:

• No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days—My rating: 3.5/5
• Writing Down the Bones
• On Writing Well
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

Update: Less than 24 hours since this post went live, we have 47 Unsung YA Heroes lists. Wow.

We’re extending the time to post your own list through Sunday. So read on, make your list, and come back here to link it up!

After the kid lit award announcements on Monday, I daydreamed about how those authors’ lives will never be the same. Their winning books will forever more sport a shiny badge, reserving them a spot on crowded bookstore shelves. And other books the authors write? “By Newbery Medal winner Rebecca Stead” certainly won’t hurt sales.

But the flip side of all this is that many wonderful books get published every year without registering a ripple, let alone a splash. And in the YA world specifically, the vast majority of great books don’t approach anywhere NEAR the fervor of Twil—er, The-Series-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. The Cybils help spread the love a little. As does the Nerds Heart YA tourney.

Even so, this is the fate of most great YA books:

1. Get published.
2. Get read by a few people that year, maybe a few more the next.
3. Get dumped on the bargain rack at the bookstore and start the descent into obsolescence.

It’s a damn shame, and we’re here to fix it.

Nobody Expects the Unsung YA Heroes Blog Blitz!

I teamed up with about 40 other bloggers to pick our favorite unsung YA heroes. These are YA books we love and think deserve more attention from the world of YA readers.

But how are we achieving this?

• Today and tomorrow through Sunday, you’ll find our picks on our blogs. Check out our lists! We bet you’ll find a few new-to-you titles you’re interested in reading. But we’re also secretly hoping you’ll think about your own unsung YA heroes and put together your own list. Because we’d really like to see it so we can read your favorites too. You’ll find links to all the lists and instructions for making your own at the end of this post.
• Tomorrow Monday, check back on my blog for a round-up uber-list of the titles that were most common across all our Unsung YA Heroes picks.
• If you’re on Twitter, you can follow all the Unsung YA Heroes scuttlebutt by watching the #unsungYA tag.

My Top 7 Unsung YA Heroes

7. The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson
I know what you’re thinking. My first pick is by a super-popular author like MJ? Before you run off to tweet about what a sham Unsung YA Heroes is, give me a sec.

This is the least-known of her 6 published titles, but it happens to be my favorite of hers. And I fear that most of her fans turn their noses up at this one when they find out it takes place after the main characters’ father has a heart attack. Who wants to read a downer like that? But MJ’s humor is the perfect counterbalance to the heavy topic, and you come away feeling like you ate a hearty spinach lasagna, rather than a bag of Skittles.

6. Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers
This debut novel connected with me on a deep level because I could see myself in the perfectionist main character. Parker has just made a mistake—a big one—and she’s not coping well. I’ve heard some people say they didn’t like her hard edges, but Parker made complete sense to me. Because us perfectionist people, we don’t so much like to make mistakes. It means we’re not perfect. And if you make us realize we’re not perfect, we will be mean. Just ask my husband.

5. How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier
In the city of New Avalon, most people have a fairy that helps them with something, like finding loose change or great clothes at bargain prices. Now, don’t you want to read it solely to get ideas for what kind of fairy you’d like to have? Cutesy fairy stories aren’t usually my thing, but this book has substance to back up the cuteness. And as a word geek, I loved the fresh use of language. If your brain hurt after Liar, this title will make it sigh out of pure delight.

4. Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
Marchetta won the Printz last year for Jellicoe Road. I loved it, but I know that it didn’t connect with some readers. My advice? Try this earlier novel by Marchetta. It’s more accessible but still has all the charm and wit that makes me want to read this woman’s writing every day of my life.

3. Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link
I am a little bit weird. I like to dip fries in ice cream. I twirl my hair while I’m thinking, then set the twirled strand between my lips while I type. I never know which side to put my head when hugging a friend/acquaintance, so more than once it has ended up looking like I’m going for their lips.

Okay, I will grant you that I’m a lot weird. But this collection of short stories is just the right amount of weird. These stories come in many flavors—funny, thought-provoking, creepy—and sometimes all three at once. The best part about a short story collection is that if you try one story and realize my weird barometer is out of whack, you can always stop and move onto the next book.

2. Jack Tumor by Anthony McGowan
Speaking of weird, how about a talking brain tumor? I know. I almost didn’t read this one when I got it home from the library and realized the premise, and we just established that I have a high tolerance for weird. Turns out this book is hi-freakin’-larious. I don’t often laugh out loud while reading. Jaded, I guess. I’m more of a smirker. But Hector and his talking tumor tickled some actual laughs out of me. Quite a few. This book will grow on you, trust me. And it could sure use the attention. Out of all of my picks, it’s the least well-known.

1. Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine
This is the kind of book I want to write. Not that I think it’s possible for me to do that or even that it’s close to my personal brand of style that I like to call “melodious crap,” but that’s a topic for another day. I think about this book at least once a week. If I’m at home when it happens, I wander over to the bookshelf and crack it open to reread whatever part I was remembering.

Rowan is a girl dealing with grief and a depressed mother when a mysterious boy comes into her life. But she isn’t huddled in a corner, sobbing til dehydration sets in. She’s getting on with her life. And it makes for a damn good read.

Check Out the Other Lists

I’ll update this list throughout the day and tweet when I add new ones, so follow me or watch the #unsungYA tag.

Use this form to submit your list URL to be included here.

Make Your Own List!

If You’re on LibraryThing

1. Visit your LibraryThing catalog.
2. Click the Rating column to sort by that column, which will put the 5 stars first.
3. Click the Edit sort order button, which is in the toolbar that’s right under the tabs at the top—the toolbar with the A, B, C,… buttons. The Edit sort order button is the one with two blue arrows.
4. Under Subsort by, select total members and click the Up button next to it.
5. Click the Sort button.
6. If you want, use the Search your library box in the upper right corner to narrow your search, such as to a YA tag you use.
7. In your catalog, start at the top with your 5 stars and look for any titles that have less than 500 members. To see number of members, look in the rightmost column and check the number next to the little person icon.
8. Record any titles with less than 500 members, and keep going til you’re happy with your list!

If You’re Not
If you use Goodreads or some other book-tracking site, they probably have an export feature. So use that, then create a free account on LibraryThing, import your information, and follow the instructions above.

If you’re not in the book-tracking habit, haven’t you realized by now all the fun that can be had by joining a site like LibraryThing? I’m sure you will discover an awesome feature or two that you can exploit in your book-related endeavors.

But if you’re really not in the mood to join, you’ll have to search titles one-by-one:

1. Visit the LibraryThing Search page.
2. In Works, enter a title you think might be lesser known.
3. Click the Search button. Don’t stop when you get the search results! That will show you only how many actual copies members have claimed, not everyone who’s added the title to their catalog (such as to a wish list or a to-be-read list).
4. Click the appropriate search result. If there are multiple results for the title, just click one. They’ll all get you to the same place.
5. On the work page, look for the table right under the title and author’s name. The first column is titled Members. Look at the number in that table cell. If it’s below 500, the book isn’t well known, so add it to your list.
6. Rinse, repeat, lather.

For the Geekiest of Us

This post is already approaching the realm of novella, but I know you might be wondering a few things.

Why LibraryThing? Why not Goodreads, Shelfari, etc?
LibraryThing makes it easy to see the “other members” stat right from your catalog. Goodreads has a “num ratings” stat, but it shows just the number of ratings for a specific edition of a title. The LibraryThing member count includes every edition of the title. I’m not familiar with Shelfari or any other sites, and in the interest of time I went with what I know.

Why 500 or less members?
Completely arbitrary, but we needed some sort of cutoff to use as a guideline. Some of us even included titles with a few more members, so it really was just a guideline. For comparison, the first book of the Twilight series has 25,974 members and The Hunger Games has 3,929 members.

Enough from Me!

Go check out those other lists. Demonstrate your YA studliness by pointing out how many of the titles you’ve already read. Laugh right in your TBR list’s face as you throw a slew of new titles at it. Disagree with our picks.

Better yet, make picks of your own!

I posted my first review to this site. I had been spamming all my friends and family with one to two YA reviews a week on our family blog. The poor things subscribed to see cute pictures of my baby girl, and I was inundating them with talk of books. Teen books, no less.

In the past year, I’ve learned a lot from you, from other book bloggers, from the books I’ve read, and just from the process of articulating my thoughts on all things YA. But mostly I’ve just learned how much I have yet to learn.

Ultimately, I started this blog to improve my writing, and to share what I learned with others. In a year, I can tell you I’ve definitely come a long way in my own writing.

But you’ll have to tell me whether I hit the mark on the other front. What have you learned from what I’ve written? (Please don’t say you’ve learned that I’m a no-nothing hack with crap taste in books.) What ideas have you gotten from this blog—books to read, ways to write, or anything else?

You are why I do this. Even if all I’ve ever given you is one good book recommendation, I’ll be happy.

No fancy first-birthday hoopla today. But just you wait til Thursday. Just you wait.

Photo by happy via.

I’m working on a special blog project for Thursday, January 21, and I’d like to include as many YA book bloggers as possible.

But first I need more information from you lovely bloggers! So here’s a little quiz for you.

Do you…

1. Have a blog where you post book reviews?
2. Read young adult fiction?
3. Have a LibraryThing account where you rate the books you read?

If you answered “yes” to all 3 questions, please leave a comment with your LibraryThing member name.

Then I’ll contact you soon to share all the super-special-secret details!

Photo by bookgrl.

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Author: Mary E. Pearson
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 5/5
Why I Read It: My Goodreads buddy Lenore liked this book AND it’s a dystopia, so it was only a matter of time, really.

Summary: 17-year-old Jenna has been in a coma for over a year. Now she’s awake, but her parents have moved her to the other side of the country, her body doesn’t feel quite right, and her grandmother hates her.

Review: This book was one of my top 10 favorites of 2009. Why?

• Unnerving story revealed a little at a time? Check.
• Forbidden romantic interest? Check.
• Hints at the direction our society could be heading without coming out and making a “speech”? Yes!

This is an early scene from the book, with Jenna, her mom, and her grandmother Lily:

I push my empty glass away and announce, “I’m going to school today.”

Mother drops her pencil and stares at me. Lily stops beating her eggs.

“I assume I didn’t graduate during the year I was in a coma, so I still need to finish, right?”

Mother hasn’t spoken. Her mouth is open and her head shakes slightly, like my words are ricocheting around inside. Somehow, I find it amusing.

“There’s two village charters within walking distance—I checked the directory on the Net—and the Central Academy is just a short drive.”

“You can’t drive!” The words shoot out of Mother, and then she says more calmly, “School is out of the question. You’re still recovering—”

“I’m fine—”

Mother stands. “I said school is out of the question. Period.”

I hesitate, but then stand, too. “And I say it isn’t.”

Mother is shocked into a marble stance. Neither of us speaks. Finally she looks away. She sits back down. She picks up her pencil. She is calm, smooth, practiced, the mother who seems to know where we are going before I do. “Go to your room, Jenna. You need to rest. Go. Now.”

I am seething. Outraged. Incensed. The words. They’re finally bubbling up in torrents just when I need them.

But the will. It is waning. Mother says I should go to my room. Go to your room, Jenna. Go to your room.

I do.

This is the first book by Pearson I’ve read, and you can bet I’ll be reading more. Have you read any others by her?

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

Did You Like This Book? Try:

• Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks—My rating: 5/5
• Sweethearts—My rating: 3.5/5
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing