Title: Pretty Monsters: Stories
Author: Kelly Link
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 4/5
Summary: A collection of nine short stories covering pressing matters such as Tennessee Fainting Goats, a boy named Onion, and of course, monsters.

Review: This Indie Next pick did not disappoint. I’m not usually a short story reader—they tend to be a little too symbolic for my literal disposition—but this gorgeous cover stopped me in my tracks at the library.

When I flipped the book over, first I saw a quote from Libba Bray, whose books I absolutely adore. And then I saw this:

“…an alchemical mixture of Borges, Raymond Chandler, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” — Laura Miller, Salon

I’m a sucker for a Buffy compare, so I added it to my teetering stack of books to check out. And I am so glad I veered out of my comfort zone because this book frickin’ ROCKS.

Between these two gorgeous covers are stories to make you laugh out loud. Stories to make you wonder. Stories to make you look over your shoulder and swear to never go camping again.

This book is weird, but in a good way. A little taste for you:

But Jake didn’t try to kiss me. Instead he just gave me this really big hug. He put his face in my hair and he sighed. We stood there like that, and then finally I said, “What are you doing?”

“I just wanted to smell your hair,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. That made me feel weird, but in a good way. I put my nose up to his hair, which is brown and curly, and I smelled it. We stood there and smelled each other’s hair, and I felt so good. I felt so happy.

Jake said into my hair, “Do you know that actor John Cusack?”

I said, “Yeah. One of Zofia’s favorite movies is Better Off Dead. We watch it all the time.”

“So he likes to go up to women and smell their armpits.”

“Gross!” I said. “That’s such a lie! What are you doing now? That tickles.”

“I’m smelling your ear,” Jake said.

And then:

Jake’s hair smelled like iced tea with honey in it, after all the ice has melted.

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

I have 137 YA books on my to-read list, which is actually my to-read spreadsheet. (Am I the only YAnnabe with an addiction to Excel?)

Most of these entries came from Book Crush, subtitle For Kids and Teens: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Interest, by librarian extraordinaire Nancy Pearl.

My other major sources of YA book recommendations are:

• Awards—Winners and honorees of ALA awards, the National Book Awards, and so on
• Bookstore picks—Indie Next picks from independent booksellers
• Blog reviews—Reviews on my favorite YA blogs, like The YA YA YAs and Abby (the) Librarian (not to be confused with Abby (my) daughter)

Even with all this vetting, sometimes I indulge a whim or a pretty cover and start a book that’s not so great.

Which just annoys me.

We have so little time to read, when it comes down to it. Even if I read 100 books a year for the next 40 years, that’s only 4,000 books left in my reading life. That’s nothing at all, not really.

I’m trying to force myself to stop reading if a book’s so bad I’m actually rolling my eyes at it. But sometimes, I keep going just because I want to see how the plot plays out. Sometimes it’s the only book I have with me, and reading something is better than reading nothing.

Still, this is a struggle for me. I’d like to avoid starting a crappy book in the first place, but I also don’t want to just stick to award winners and books popular in the blogosphere. It would be fun to one day discover the next Graceling, y’know?

How do you make sure your next read is worth your time?

Tell me your secret! Does it involve checking the Amazon rating, going with Goodreads recommendations, devising a complicated five-pronged algorithm?

Title: Graceling
Author: Kristin Cashore
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 5/5
Summary: Katsa is Graced with the ability to kill, which her uncle the king exploits for his own gain. She has no friends—how could a wild, predatory animal have friends? Then one day, she meets another Graceling who not only challenges her idea of friendship but her idea of herself. And it just so happens he’s pretty darn cute, to boot.

Review: OhmygoshIlovedthisbooksooomuch. I’ll try to stop gushing and write a coherent review, but…sigh. I was sad to let this one go.

Just a few of the things I loved loved loved:

• The world—I always get a little nervous when I start a fantasy book because the author can get so wrapped up in naming things and creating their own little world that it takes away from the story of the characters and their struggles. Not so with this book. The world is there, but you aren’t hit over the head with it. So the result is that it feels real. Within the first few pages, I felt like I was there.
• The strong main character—Actually, the strong female main character. And I’m not talking the ability to kill. Katsa is a girl who knows what she wants and isn’t going to let other people tell her how to live her life.
• The romance—Yum.

I can’t wait for the next in this series!

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

It seems like every writing how-to book I pick up says adverbs need to make like a tree and leave. (We’ll save lame metaphors for another day.)

I’ve been keeping an eye out for adverbs while I read, but I have a feeling that finding them is just the preheat part of the recipe for YA greatness.

It’s time to practice killing these puppies.

Let’s go back to the last book I didn’t finish, ghostgirl. The main character Charlotte is trying to sign up for cheerleader tryouts. Adverbs are in bold.

As she started writing the “C,” she was tapped harshly on the shoulder. Charlotte stopped writing and turned to see who was interrupting her first task of the day—no, of her new life—and then saw a line of girls who had been “camped out” all night waiting to sign up. The gathering resembled less of a tryout than a casting call.

The obnoxious candidate looked her over from head to toe, grabbed the pen, and simultaneously wrote her name in and Charlotte off. She then opened her hand and let the pen mercilessly drop the length of the string.

Charlotte watched the pen sway against the wall like a hanged man.

I don’t think these adverbs add much extra, but do you just get rid of them? Do you rewrite to make sure you don’t lose important meaning?

How would you rewrite this excerpt?

Title: ghostgirl
Author: Tonya Hurley
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Summary: Charlotte Usher feels invisible at school. Then one day, she becomes invisible—or rather, dead. Unfortunately for her, dying doesn’t mean she’s done with high school.

Stopped on Page: 85
Why I Stopped: I found myself skimming just to get the plot points, so I figured I should call it a day with this one. I didn’t really care about the main character, and the style of writing was getting on my nerves a little. I’m having trouble pinpointing exactly why that is, although I have a couple ideas. No better way to learn how to write than to study what you do and don’t like, so here goes…

Here’s an example from when Charlotte is trying to sign up for cheerleader tryouts. Adverbs are in bold.

As she started writing the “C,” she was tapped harshly on the shoulder. Charlotte stopped writing and turned to see who was interrupting her first task of the day—no, of her new life—and then saw a line of girls who had been “camped out” all night waiting to sign up. The gathering resembled less of a tryout than a casting call.

The obnoxious candidate looked her over from head to toe, grabbed the pen, and simultaneously wrote her name in and Charlotte off. She then opened her hand and let the pen mercilessly drop the length of the string.

Charlotte watched the pen sway against the wall like a hanged man.

None of those adverbs are necessary. And since I’m trying to learn how to tighten up my own writing, they screamed at me to notice their total lack of value. (Also, why the quotation marks around “camped out”? Does that mean they didn’t actually camp out? Is this a euphemism for something?)

I think it was also the metaphors and similes throughout that got to me. From the above excerpt, we have: a casting call, a hanged man. The first doesn’t really add anything to the description that we don’t already get from knowing that they camped out. The second seems a bit much, and I don’t actually get it. Why is the pen the doomed one? It seems odd to describe the pen in such detail when we should be hearing about how Charlotte’s feeling. Maybe it was little things like this that made it hard for me to connect to her as a character.

Then here’s an example from later, when the characters are picking science lab partners:

The classmates turned toward each other, pointing to friends across the room, some were screaming and jumping up and down as if they’d “made it through to Hollywood” on American Idol.

Really? This reaction for picking lab partners? (And again with the quotation marks! Ack!)

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.