Search results for: Thirteen

Panem Bedamn’em

Though we’re late to the party, we read at breathtaking speed. Especially Lara, who pretty much camped out—camped out—at a Starbucks to finish. We’re including spoilers, okay? We ask you to read what follows within the Snotty Literati context: Lara’s favorite book is To Kill A Mockingbird; Jennifer’s favorite is Catcher in the Rye. We both went nuts over The Goldfinch. When we started the trilogy (in 2013—we paced ourselves), we did so with a bit of shame (Jennifer) and a desire to get more in touch with popular culture (Lara). Next thing you know, we were wearing Hunger Games t-shirts, and making plans to see the final movie with Jennifer’s mom. So, here we go. We’re giving it all away.

Jennifer: What do you think?

Lara: I’m dog-ass tired, but I am no worse for the journey. We are now part of the mainstream collective that has purchased 65 million copies (to date) of the Hunger Games trilogy. That said… I liked it. And—first spoiler—you know I love that Katniss ended up with Peeta.

Swoony-swoon-swoon-swoon. My love of Peeta and fresh-baked bread would make us the perfect couple.

Jennifer: Whatever. Yeah, Peeta. My thoughts: good for her. No, I thought it was right for the book. I’d argue—it is my job to argue—that it was, in fact, a moral statement. More on that later. Here are some big issues we need to touch on:

• What did you want for the end? Do you have an alternate end (because I kinda do)?
• Haymitch’s drunken finale with geese
• Prim’s untimely/timely death by bombing
• Which is the best book in the trilogy (because I insist that we identify one)?
• What is the appeal of the trilogy?
• The quality of the prose: can Collins write?

I’ll hand it over to you with this: I loved the book. I loved it so much. It’ll be on my list of best-reads this year. It was also my favorite in the trilogy, though I liked the others a lot too. I have, however, returned to my literary fiction ways. There is no Divergent in my future.

Lara: Wow.

Let me just remind everyone that Jennifer was completely against reading The Hunger Games, let alone the entire trilogy. Beneath her. Slum lit. Trash. I believe those are all terms you used. And now Mockingjay is on your Best Books of 2014?

Again, wow.

You’ve grown more than the characters in this series did. And that’s my biggest beef at the end of all this. All of the characters—those who make it out alive, anyway—are exactly the same as they used to be: Katniss is just strong enough, but ultimately insecure in her decisions; Peeta is sweet and in love; Gale is working for the greater good (as he always wanted); and Haymitch is drunk. The geese are new, but he’s a drunk.

So, the trilogy was certainly entertaining, page-turning, and engaging. But at the end of the day, I want character development to propel me through the pages, not just plot.

Jennifer: Oh, I agree! And I’m so proud of you for preaching the Gospel of Literary Fiction! Character development is the most important thing, and plot-driven works fall within the category of genre-fiction. This goes for all art, in which we see the fullness of life versus the exteriors only—the appearances. We’re talking Renoir versus Thomas Kinkade, Jimi Hendrix versus Britney Spears, Huck versus Katniss. And I wholly agree: the characters in this trilogy do not grow in any significant way whatsoever.

For me, the big frustration was Haymitch, my favorite character (though I admit that he may be my favorite because of the movies—I think Woody Harrelson does a fab job). He’s a drunk in the beginning, and he’s a drunk in the end. The potential for a complicated character is so there. He’s forced to get sober in Mockingjay, but he quickly returns to the bottle. Though this isn’t unrealistic—the idea of not being able to stay away from booze—the idea of the endearing, happy drunk is a joke. I was rooting for him, and I was disappointed. My big thought was that Collins might not have any alcoholics in her life, because no one who knows an alcoholic wants a happy drunk around at the end. She did a great job in giving people what they wanted. I didn’t want that for Haymitch, though.

Others don’t like that Prim dies. What did you think? And, on that same note, what are your thoughts on the end? Did you want something else to happen?

Lara: Well, if Katniss isn’t really going to evolve, Haymitch certainly isn’t. Prim being spared, and Haymitch clean and sober would have been too wrapped up for the finale. However, as I am thinking about my frustration with the lack of character growth, the reality is that most of us don’t change all that much, do we? Certainly, we have the ability to evolve—and we do, to a degree—but most of us are who we are. What do you think of that?

Queue mood music, dim lights, and let’s take this convo to a deeper level.

Jennifer: No, I don’t agree at all. I believe people change profoundly all the time. They get better; they get worse. Things inevitably deepen. Certain traits are definitely consistent throughout a given life. For instance, an addict may always be an addict. But he or she may not always be drinking or using.

At any rate (mood music ending, lights back on): Prim. I’m good with her dying.

Because someone had to, so it may as well be her. We don’t want Katniss, Gale, or Peeta to croak, do we? No, we don’t.

Lara: Of course we don’t want them to die. But I think the profound change you are talking about can happen, but it happens over a lifetime, not a few years, and often not at all. Most of us are set in our ways, our beliefs, and our disposition. If change were so easy, why can’t people lose weight, leave bad jobs or marriages, or make different choices after repeatedly experiencing poor outcomes? If people change, it’s often because of something monumental serving as the catalyst.

Jennifer: Yes, monumental like the Hunger Games or having your boyfriend brainwashed by Tracker Jackers or having your home turned into ash—

Lara: The characters in these three books did not change on a fundamental, let alone, small scale. If warring against your government, protecting children from the brutality of fighting one another for sport and spectacle isn’t significant enough for change, I don’t know what is.

Jennifer: You’re right. This is the trilogy’s fundamental flaw.

Lara: And, really, that’s expecting too much from what these books are supposed to be … and that’s book candy.

Jennifer: Assuming that’s what the books are supposed to be … I’m going to assume Collins wanted for them to be more, okay? Let’s talk about the end.

You say it would be too wrapped up if Prim had lived. I think Collins wrapped it up completely with Prim’s death, as she should have (I am a big advocate of resolution); had Prim lived, it would’ve been a bad wrapping job, but still wrapped up. With Prim’s death, Katniss’s battle is elevated from the—bear with me, friend—personal to the universal. At the end, Katniss has won the world, so to speak. She lost her sister, but won freedom for the freakin’ people. Prim’s death is a necessity. We always need some blood.

I do have problems with the end, though. But I want to assert that Collins, book candy-maker indeed, may be going for something important here. I think she’s making some pretty big statements.

Lara: Katniss did win the war, and the greater good is all the better for it. But what I was saying about Prim living is that it would have been a little too wrapped up with a bow on it, like a fairytale-ending, despite all the other carnage and tragedy. It would have been too perfect.

Now, here’s an idea that I think folks can get behind… What if around chapter 20 (there are 27 in the book, plus an epilogue) Collins went all Choose Your Own Adventure^TM-style, and everyone could win and get the ending they wanted? If the reader went one way, Katniss and Gale are together; another way, and she’s with Peeta; another, she’s with neither but adopts Rue who is found not to have died but conveniently hidden away just like Effie was.

Jennifer: I’d die. You’re joking, right?

Lara: I’m not sure. Maybe. So what were your issues with the end?

Jennifer: Again, let me emphasize that I Would Die. That’s, like, anti-art. It messes with my narrative psyche. We can get into that some other time, though.

The end, for me, was a little too sudden. I think it was right around Prim’s death outside of Snow’s mansion that it seemed to accelerate too fast. Suddenly, Katniss is down. From there, it’s pretty much over. Katniss is out. Gale’s whisked away—too conveniently, if you ask me—and Snow is captured. We don’t see it. Katniss emerges from the burn unit when it’s over. I did not like this whole thing at all.

Now, if I were writing this mother, I would’ve done something else. Prim can die. That’s fine. That sacrifice/cost is necessary. I would’ve made Katniss come face-to-face with Snow, ready to shoot the arrow into his heart or eyeball or whatever does the trick. Then, in a surprise move, Katniss—who was never all that super—falters. She was always just brave enough (as you aptly noted), but not really brave brave. She was never all that good. Who was good? Peeta, that’s who. But Peeta has been tracker-jacked-up; he’s a wild card. Whose side is he on? Is he really good? Well, guess what’s going to happen in Jennifer Spiegel’s Mockingjay. That’s right: Peeta is going to step up to the plate, and kill Snow when Katniss can’t. Because that’s Peeta for you.

Then, Katniss is going to rightfully choose Peeta because of his core goodness, rather than that lame situation in which the choice is made for her. Katniss’s big act of maturity and growth is to recognize the virtue of goodness, and to prize it above everything else. Go Team Peeta, even if Gale is hotter. Katniss and Peeta can happily marry and have the implied sex, but Haymitch gets sober. He can still have his geese.

And the mom doesn’t stay away—because, really, would she?

The end.

Lara: It did finish too quickly. Maybe Collins was tired and already consulting on the first movie. Who knows? But if I had $2M, I would buy the rights to your ending and make just one stinking final movie. Brilliant.

Jennifer: Thank you. They pay me the big bucks.

Finally, I do think it’s just wonderful! It fails, but it wins! While the prose is not awful, we don’t seem to feel any need to quote any examples of startling, wondrous writing. But that plot! Girlfriend, she had me from the second sentence! And if my fellow writers out there aren’t wondering what’s up with that, they’re, um, damn fools. I think, no doubt, character is king. But plot is not to be ignored! As Glenn Close famously said in Fatal Attraction, “I’m not gonna be ignored, Dan.” Literary fiction writers are often the Dans ignoring plot. Ignore plot at your own risk, writers!

Lara: Oh wait! I actually highlighted some passages. Let’s throw them in! This is a book review after all.

When Katniss and her posse meet up with former-stylist-turned-cat-woman, Tigris, in the Capitol:

“So this is where stylists go when they’ve outlived their use. To sad theme underwear shops where they wait for death.”

Jennifer: Witty!

Lara: After Katniss overhears Gale and Peeta discussing which one of them she would pick when the war was over:

“At the moment, the choice would be simple. I can survive just fine without either of them.”

Jennifer: Deep!

Lara: And near the end, Katniss reflecting on all that has happened (and perhaps the most topically resonant passage in the entire trilogy when you think about what is happening in other places around the world):

“Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences.”

Jennifer: Bravo! And then I’ll just drop some other crap. I don’t think this is YA. The kids miss most of the good stuff. I asked some of my students about it, and they didn’t have much to say—besides noting that the kids in the actual Hunger Games were about their age, so they could “relate.” This, I think, is actually irrelevant. As is the fact that Tina Fey, Queen Latifah, and P. Diddy are my age.

But: it’s interesting that this is YA and—we’re not even talking about this—it’s apocalyptic, dystopian, and godless (though we might want to mention Peeta and his bread, which could be the symbolic “Bread of Life”). These are three things I shouldn’t be neglecting. Really, what can we make of this pubescent preoccupation with a doomed future without the Divine? Even if the kids have no ability to articulate these themes, they’re drawn (unconsciously) to them.

Note, finally, that there is trepidation in the end. It’s good—thank you, Collins! I mean it. Thank you, Suzanne Collins!—but not necessarily happily-ever-after. Plutarch speaking to Katniss, says,

“Now we’re in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated … But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss.”

“What?” I ask.

“The time it sticks. Maybe we are witnessing the evolution of the human race.”

The end is potentially hopeful, but not necessarily so. It’s also beyond candy-making, if you know what I mean.

I don’t want to drop this, the significance of the apocalyptic, dystopian, and godless narrative. I think this is a whole other thing . . . and I’m going to bring it up when we see the movie in late November. With my mom, who wants to see it too, since we totally got her hooked.

Lara: Considering that I have been reading this book for the last 24 hours, that will definitely have to be a topic for another day. I’m ready for a nap.

Jennifer: By the way, what happened to Caesar Flickerman?

Next Up!

We go to Ann Patchett for some memoir, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Let’s hear it for the literary!

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Can’t get enough of Snotty Literati? Follow us on Facebook!

Want to read more from Jennifer? Check her out at www.jenniferspiegel.com 

Want to see what Lara is up to? Go to www.onelitchick.com 

 

 

Birds Suck, But We Love a Dress with Wingspan

Do we really need to begin with a plot summary? Everyone has either read this book or seen the movie or both. Catching Fire is the second story in the frighteningly popular Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, which is labeled as “Young Adult” fiction (misnomer?). Last year, we stepped out of our Snotty shoes and looked at the first book and watched the movie too. This year, we continued with Catching Fire, AND we saw the movie. Gosh, it is good! And even though everyone has read/seen it by now, we aren’t spilling the ending which is AhhhhSOME!

It looks like there are three pressing questions: What does Suzanne Collins have that literary fiction writers don’t have? Would you let your kid read this? And what happens to Cinna?

Lara: I think we are officially full-on Hunger Games addicts. Not only did we just literally see the movie this morning, but we are also wearing unofficial, non-licensed Hunger Games merchandise. The ticket seller was all, “Let me guess what movie you are here to see…” Yuck, yuck. I think this is what Trekkies, Comic-Connies and the like would refer to as “fan-girls.”

Jennifer: Stop it, Lara. You’re hurting me.

Lara: Is this where we stop referring to each other by our birth-names and go back to our Hunger Games names, Clytemnestra?

Jennifer: Oh, that’s right! Who were you again?

Lara: I was Mistral.

Clytemnestra/Jennifer: Yes, Mistral. Okay, so, the book. Let me get started. We said it last time, I think. This is “book crack.” The book is thoroughly engaging. It’s great. I loved it. But there are two things I understood at the onset. First, this plot-centric—as opposed to character-driven. Second, this kind of reading is good, in the same way potato chips or sit-com TV is good. I think there’s value. I really, truly do. But the moment I finished, I picked up Donna Tartt—which I’ll be reading for the rest of the month—and I breathed in relief. The difference is tangible; it’s aesthetic, rhythmic, and personal. It’s the difference between passive reading and active reading, between a delicious slice of cheesecake and Babette’s Feast, if you know what I mean.

Mistral/Lara: I totally get it, even though I haven’t seen Babette’s Feast. And I think we can get away from this argument. We know it’s Pop Candy; there’s a place for Pop Candy and we are eating it up. So to go back to your question of what Suzanne Collins has that literary fiction writers don’t? She’s a master at plot and she has a way of wrapping up each chapter with a cliffhanger or a tease to keep you turning the pages. There’s an element of thrill in reading these books. Translate that to the screen and you have folks on the edges of their seats. At least, I was.

Clytemnestra/Jennifer: Me too. I really don’t read too much “genre fiction” (more plot-centric stuff), so I don’t have a lot to compare it to. I remember The DaVinci Code, which sucked (Did. Not. Like.), but it also had the cliffhanger/tease thang. I do remember thinking that pacing had a lot to do with the appeal of that book. This book has a super fast-paced, suspenseful plot, combined with some other winning features: a notably chaste romance (no actual sex!) and apocalyptic anxiety. Here I go, Mistral. I was talking to some of my students about why this book appeals to young people, especially. When I look at the books my little girls like, they’re all princess/fairy shit-oriented. When I look at the adult literary fiction audience, the books are all unresolved sorrows of life. But when I look at the teen audience, it’s all apocalyptic. Why are young adults so into the end of civilization as we know it? Basically, Suzanne Collins takes our contemporary attention span and combines it with teen anxiety. She wins. She’s meeting a need. I’m not sure the contemporary literary fiction scene is meeting this need—not that it should. Would you let your thirteen-year-old read this?

Mistral/Lara: Well, my 10-year old son has been begging to read the series and see the movies. Since he’s too young and I will make him read the books before he sees the movie, the answer right now is no. But at 13, I probably will. It is interesting that there is no actual sex, and yet there’s a huge love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale. I actually think it comes to life better in the movie (gasp!) than in the book. If you would read some of the YA I keep asking you to read (When You Reach Me, If Jack’s In Love, Eleanor & Park, etc.) you would see that there is character-driven YA out there that is actually really good and there’s nothing about impending world doom, just normal adolescent anxiety over puberty, love, fitting in and all the things that will probably still terrify you for your girls. Maybe you shouldn’t read any of that and our next foray into YA should be Divergent…

Clytemnestra/Jennifer: Let me be honest, Lara. No desire for more YA. But I’ll do Divergent later in the year—more out of a desire to get a national preoccupation than anything else—if you let me pick a book for a future time. Deal? I really am interested in this philosophical need to worry the apocalypse, but we can leave it at that. I really don’t know where my own kids will be in terms of maturity at thirteen, so I won’t make any calls on it at this point—but I do want to say that Collins has also captured something appealing to young girls. Tell me if I’m wrong. Young, innocent, newly-aware-of-human-sexuality girls really want nothing more—NOTHING MORE—than to be held—HELD—in a warm, cuddly bed by a hot guy. Collins knows this. She knows the young female audience just wants this chaste sensuality. There are, however, big problems with this. Young guys—even the innocent, newly-aware ones—rarely want this chaste arrangement. So Katniss has this good, wholly unrealistic thing going. The perfect fantasy. Katniss doesn’t have to worry about the messiness of sex. She just gets to be held. By a hot guy. Though, in the movie, Gale is hotter. Even Haymitch is hotter. Though not as hot as Lenny, who is hottest.

Mistral/Lara: If you want to read dystopian, we don’t have to read YA. To be honest, I would rather read character-driven, literary YA than all this fantasy stuff. Check out The Dog Stars by Peter Heller (not YA, but post-apoplyptic, easier to manage than Cormac McCarthy–or so I am told). I read it earlier this year and it’s really good. In fact, I need to write a review for it.

Anywhoo, Peeta is the hottest. I love that boy with the bread. And if Suzanne Collins is showing that they can cuddle rather than have sex during and after an uprising, then good for her.

Clytemnestra/Jennifer: Don’t you think it’s fascinating Collins opts out of the sex?

Mistral/Lara: It isn’t fascinating; it’s smart. Collins knows that sexual tension is a much better storyline than actual sex. Add a love triangle in and you have hit pay dirt. She’s pretty brilliant.

Clytemnestra/Jennifer: World, Lara thinks I’m a big prude and I just don’t want anyone to have sex ever. This isn’t true. (One of my favorite books, by the way, is Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being.) Collins knows this: once there’s sex, it’s over. Think of soap operas. Think of “Moonlighting” with Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd. Think of Ross and Rachel. Plus, young girls are often just not ready for the complications of sex, but cuddling with a hot guy works. Smart move. Less is more. Moving on. Cinna. I hope he comes back somehow, and I hope it’s Lenny. Why they refuse to have him in dreads, I do not know. Moving still further. The movie. I guess, as weird as it sounds, I liked the movie better than the book! I felt like it revealed the emotional weight of the characters better. I felt the pain, so to speak. The actors really did justice to the characters. I actually thought that the most interesting character—in the second book, too—was Haymitch, played well by Woody Harrelson. Haymitch is complex. Plus, he resembles Kurt Cobain in this movie, which lends all kinds of nuances to his performance as a rebel and alcoholic and survivor.

Mistral/Lara: I liked the movie better too! We can’t tell our children this or other reluctant readers. Seeing Peeta and Katniss engulfed in flames as they entered the start of the Quarter Quell and then her wedding dress burn away into that glorious Mockingjay creation by Cinna was more stunning on the screen than it could ever be in the book. Birds freak me out and I wanted that damn dress.

Clytemnestra/Jennifer: Birds suck.

Mistral/Lara: Except the cute little chickadee that is the logo for my website. That bird doesn’t suck.

The entire movie was well cast. Obvs, the leads with JLaw, Joshie and Miley’s former fiancé, but allies Sam “Hottie” Claflin as Finnik Odair, Jeffrey Wright as Betee, Jena Malone as Johanna Mason and the always perfect lunatic Amanda Plummer as Wiress were really pitch perfect.

Clytemnestra/Jennifer:  Lara, I don’t know who any of those young people are or what you’re even saying, and that hottie? I don’t find Woody Harrelson attractive in the least bit, but I like him better.

Mistral/Lara: That’s because you like dirty bad boys.

Clytemnestra/Jennifer: True. Plus, there’s this subtle Generation X/Grunge/Nirvana/Angst undercurrent made real with Woody as Haymitch. I do love Amanda Plummer—who you should remember from such classics as Pulp Fiction. And I thought Jennifer Lawrence was fabulous in Winter’s Bone. Jeffrey Wright is always good. Oh, and Stanley Tucci was great. The whole movie was pretty awesome, folks!

Mistral/Lara: I was a heartbroken to see Philip Seymour Hoffman grace the screen. Of course he’s good in it, but nothing like The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Master, Capote, or The Savages (the latter was my favorite).

Clytemnestra/Jennifer: I’m sure his presence added to the power of the film. Really, I felt the film was pretty powerful. If I were to add anything to my take on the film, I’d say the film did something the book didn’t quite do: it painted a fuller, deeper picture of the burdens carried by the characters. The love triangle felt a little too fantastical to me. Haymitch was the draw. Woody! But you alluded to this fact. There’s one more book left in the series, and they’re splitting it into two movies. And, yeah, we’re hooked. So we’ll see you next year.

Mistral/Lara: Wait! You sound like we are signing off for 12 months. Dear readers: We will be back in a year to discuss Mockingjay. Don’t expect the shirts again, though.

Our book column continues in another month with Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, followed by B.J. Novak’s One More Thing. Until then, may the odds be ever in your favor!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Can’t get enough of Snotty Literati? Follow us on Facebook!

Want to read more from Jennifer? Check her out at www.jenniferspiegel.com 

Want to see what Lara is up to? Go to www.onelitchick.com

 

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, which means you are overscheduled, overworked, and stressed to the max—but fear not! Snotty Literati is here to give you a distraction worthy of your time. It might even whet your appetite for book nostalgia and free spaces. So take a deserved break. Grab a cuppa hot cocoa (throw in a splash of Bailey’s or a cinnamon stick) and read about Snotty Literati’s first-ever turn at Book Bingo.

You read that right. It’s Bingo with Books. Here was the card we used:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course we went all nerdy and set up a private Facebook group with six other readers. (Jennifer’s husband to Jennifer: “Dork.” Lara’s BFF to Lara: “But why?”) It allowed us to keep track of one another, encourage each other, and—of course—dish about books!

In order to win, one had to read books from each category—twenty-four books in all—over the course of the year. We didn’t expect prizes. (Jackie Jae Cowsill threw in her band’s CD, though. She also wrote pretty amazing book reviews of each book. So good that she should have her own site… as long as it doesn’t compete with ours, of course).

We only expected gratification: reading for pleasure, accomplishing our own little—slightly OCD-ish—goal of filling in the card. And if the truth is to be told (and, really, it always should be), we were both a little miffed so happy when Book Bingo Player Deejah filled out her entire card by October 7.

We felt it was only fitting that she should get a bit of a feature in our column, being the winner and all. But let’s get real. This is OUR column and OUR Book Bingo experience. So we will keep it short and sweet:

Deejah’s Favorite Book Bingo Read (It’s a tie!):

• Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park (A Young Adult Book)
• Divergent by Veronica Roth (A Book Recommended by Your Local Bookseller)

Deejah’s Least Favorite Book Bingo Read:

• Pigeon in a Crosswalk by Jack Gray (A Book Recommended by a Celebrity)

Good for Deejah! Moving on to us . . .

Now, here’s what we read. (See the links for reviews.) And keep scrolling to get to our discussion! We promise it’s worth the scroll.

Jennifer’s Bingo Card

A book you chose because of the cover: Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith
A book you saw someone reading: My Only Wife by Jac Jemc
A book that will help with your career: A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers
A book you saw on TV: The Tenth of December by George Saunders
A book with an animal on the cover: Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
A book from the library: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
A book outside of your comfort zone: Tampa by Alyssa Nutting
An award-winning book: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
A book recommended by your local bookseller: The Alligators of Abraham by Robert Kloss
A Young Adult novel: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (includes reviews of other YA books we read this year)
A book that’s been on your shelf for more than 5 years: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
A book that someone recommends to you: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
A book with a great first line: Ayiti by Roxane Gay
A book written by a celebrity: When It Happens To You by Molly Ringwald
A book with more than 400 pages: Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth
A book of poetry: Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman
A book you heard about on the radio: The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
A book with pictures: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
A book recommended by your barista: Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
A book recommended by a celebrity: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
A book by a Canadian author: The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel
A book you (should have) read in high school: Moby Dick by Herman Melville
A book you would have picked up as a teenager: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
A book “everyone” but you has read: Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin

Lara’s Bingo Card

A book you chose because of the cover: Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
A book you saw someone reading: Return to Oakpine by Ron Carlson
A book that will help with your career: Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg
A book you saw on TV: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
A book with an animal on the cover: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
A book from the library: The Tenth of December by George Saunders
A book outside of your comfort zone: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
An award-winning book: The Round House by Louise Erdrich
A book recommended by your local bookseller: Still Life by Louise Penney
A Young Adult novel: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
A book that’s been on your shelf for more than 5 years: Blankets by Craig Thompson
A book that someone recommends you: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
A book with a great first line: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
A book written by a celebrity: When it Happens to You by Molly Ringwald
A book with more than 400 pages: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
A book of poetry: A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver
A book you heard about on the radio: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
A book with pictures: A Kiss Before You Go by David Gregory
A book recommended by your barista: Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
A book recommended by a celebrity (Gloria Estefan): A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith
A book by a Canadian author: The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
A book you (should have) read in high school: Moby Dick by Herman Melville
A book you would have picked up as a teenager: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
A book “everyone” but you has read: Wild by Cheryl Strayed

And now we interview ourselves! Ladies, did you read anything else that you absolutely must mention?

Jennifer: I think I read about 30 or 35 books this year, ranging from these to Classics like Crime and Punishment. There was also some Toni Morrison (A Mercy). And Meg Wolitzer (The Interestings) And the new Bridget Jones. Plus, I’d like some credit for the Norman Rush (Subtle Bodies), thank you very much.  Not to mention The Giver by Lois Lowry. I read a lot. Someone has to.

Lara: I read into the thirties too, but of course I am not done yet. I mean, it’s not the end of they year. But a few people/sites/crazies have already posted their lists for the year and you, Jennifer, have gotten all caught up in it. Since you are forcing me to provide answers when I am not even done, I will say that outside of Book Bingo, Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple and The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer were big faves. I should get college credit for Richard Yate’s Revolutionary Road or at least credit for not spiraling into the deepest of depressions.

Jennifer, how is Eggers really going to help you with your career?

Jennifer: Yeah, I’m pushing it a little. My reasoning was this: I’m a writer. Any book I read probably helps a little. And I really wanted to read Eggers.

Lara, weren’t you an English major? How did you not read Moby Dick before this year?

Lara: Let’s get things straight. I WAS an English major UNTIL Moby Dick. That whale harpooned me, I dropped my major to a minor and it’s still really painful to discuss.

Did you guys “cheat” in some way?

Jennifer: Okay, I totally cheated on the barista bit. Deejah’s Starbucks barista recommended Maria Semple, and I really wanted to read Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple (despite the disturbing lack of a question mark)—so I stalked the barista with Deejah and made the barista recommend it to me. Deejah told the Starbucks friend. “Repeat After Me. I Recommend Where’d You Go, Bernadette.” And I dutifully stood by, listening.

For my “local bookseller,” I got a recommendation from Miss Liberty—the celebrated book goddess of Book Riot and New Hampshire. But I don’t really feel guilty about this, because she is like my local bookseller.

And I’d really read James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On The Mountain before, but I was a kid and I had forgotten that IT’S FREAKIN’ BRILLIANT!

Lara: Well, because we are doing this column before the end of the year, I am not done with my card. But I only have two books to go, Sarah’s Key (recommended by a barista) and The Love of a Good Woman by a Canadian author. I did shop around with baristas until I found a book I liked.

Jennifer: Mine only recommended Fifty Shades. And, once, Jodi Picoult. I wasn’t in the mood.

Lara:  Okay. Okay. I never finished Wild. Not only was I supposed to have read it for Book Bingo, but I was also supposed to have read it for my Book Club. I am counting it, though. I read over 80 percent. I had to move on. The Bingo card, my Book Club, and other commitments were calling.

What were your favorites?

Jennifer:  I read a lot of good stuff. James Baldwin stands out, as does Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son. I had heard him interviewed by Diane Rehm on NPR when the book first came out. I immediately wanted to read it, but it looked big and daunting. It was my last bingo read, and it’s amazing. I feel privileged to have read such a beautifully crafted work about a mystery (North Korea).

Lara: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, The Round House by Louise Erdrich, and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt were my favorites and must reads for anyone who considers themselves a reader.

What were your least favorites?

Lara:  Moby Dick by Herman Melville and The Tenth of December by George Saunders. Sorry, Jennifer. Sorry, George. Not Sorry, Herman.

Jennifer: Tampa by Alissa Nutting

Lara: You just hated Tampa because you’re a prude.

Jennifer: True. But you hated George, which is not right.

What book do you think the other one must read in order to be complete?

Jennifer: The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson. You must.

Lara: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I notice neither of us have written reviews of our musts. Hmmm…

And these books out of your comfort zone? Discuss?

Jennifer: Well, I couldn’t bring myself to read Fifty Shades of Grey. I thought about a cheesy romance with a sweaty guy on the cover, but ugh. Some friends gave me their favorite sci-fi book, and I made it to the second page. The Hunger Games was a possibility, but I read it for something else. So, I decided to choose a book about a pedophile (Tampa). The book is not good. I’m sorry if you’ve heard otherwise.

Lara: I don’t know that I heard good or bad, I just heard. It got publicity. My Out-of-Comfort-Zone book was The Hunger Games. I have trouble suspending my disbelief and that dystopian, children-engaging-in-televised-warfare-against-one-another wasn’t my cup of tea. Or so I thought. I ate it up, every juicy page.

Jennifer: I know! This snob loved it. Here’s the thing. I learned a lot from this Bingo Endeavor. I discovered that there’s something to be said for a downright fun read. The snob in me wants to devote myself to the books on the secret A-list, but I broke out this year. I’ll be honest: I loved The Hunger Games. Snotty Literati is doing Catching Fire this year. I do suspect it’ll suck—but I know there’s often something super valuable in the “fun” books. My heart still hankers after the “good” ones (Marilynne Robinson has a new novel coming out!), but I think I won’t be so dismissive of the “fun” stuff. Only a little dismissive. Still not reading Fifty Shades.

Lara: You never have to read Fifty Shades. You do, however, have to read more of what I want to read.

Jennifer: (Ignoring Lara) We are, by the way, putting out a “Best of 2013” list soon, if we can stop arguing about it.

Lara: Yeah, stay tuned for that.

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Want to read more from Jennifer? Check her out at www.jenniferspiegel.com

Want to see what Lara is up to? Go to www.onelitchick.com

 

 

Snotty Literati Does YA: A Roundtable

What’s a roundtable? We’re sitting around a table, albeit a rectangular one. We read a bunch of “Young Adult” books, in order to discuss the chic genre, which seems to be today’s literary darling. Though Lara has read much more of the specifically designated YA catalog, Jennifer put in some hours in the YA section of the library. And we prepped for this column, everyone. We mean, our prepping was totally “sick” (as the YA of today say). Check it out:

What Lara Read

• Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
• If Jack’s In Love by Stephen Wetta
• The Perks of Being Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
• Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
• When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

What Jennifer Read

• Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

What We Both Read

• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
• Old-school, retro YA—The Diary of Anne Frank, Catcher, and everything by Judy Blume (the Mother of YA)

Jennifer: I’ve got tons to say, but we should start by defining YA. What is it?

Lara: I think it’s a lot of things, but what I like about it the most, is that it’s marketing to younger readers and creating a full canon of books—across genres—that kids are actually reading. The wild thing is that there is a lot of great YA out there that adults are gobbling up too.

Jennifer: Okay, I’m hearing the bias in your response. I’ll hold back for but a moment to say that YA literature is literature that may be for an audience between thirteen- and eighteen-years-old? Adolescents? Juveniles? Or it may be about protagonists between those ages? The books may be more plot-driven than your basic adult literary tome? They may be coming-of-age stories? Or the whole thing might be a great big marketing scheme, and each book needs to be judged independently of the contrived category into which it falls. What do you think?

Lara: It’s definitely a marketing strategy and it’s paying off. I also think YA is all the things you said it was. The downside of classifying these books is that there is a lot of great YA that adults are going to miss out on like The Book Thief because it’s shelved in the “Teen Fiction” section at the bookstore and sitting next to a bunch of other books with werewolves, vampires, and girls with electric red eyes on the covers. With any book category—Fiction, Non-Fiction, Memoir, Business, Self-Help, etc.—there’s the great, the good, the mediocre, and the horrible. YA covers all of those subcategories except, perhaps, Business.

I guess I don’t fully understand your disdain for the labeling. Wasn’t Judy Blume’s stuff in a category of “Teen Fiction” when we were growing up? Establishing categories admittedly helps people find books they might be interested in, and then will help to keep them away from others, naturally. I am more concerned that a book like The Book Thief (which I think everyone, every single one of us, should read) is categorized as YA simply because the protagonist is a young girl. The subject matter, of growing up and coming of age in Hitler’s Germany, is very adult.

Jennifer: All right, yes, the YA thing irks me—irrationally? I’m not sure. I do have reasons. But, first, two confessions (one is a bomb). I agree that The Book Thief is a must-read for everyone. I loved it. I’ll try to say more later, if you let me. The bomb: I don’t totally love Judy Blume [she writes, while ducking for cover].

I did love her! It’s in retrospect that I don’t. I know that, personally, I learned a lot from her books. A lot about sex. Questions were answered that I wasn’t asking yet. The stories were great. I ate them up. (Some are, I know, wonderful for kids.) That’s how I learned about Peeping Toms. And I still remember Deenie masturbating in the bathtub. Tastefully written, but I was like, Huh? What’s happening? I know that my own daughter’s reading ability is going to far exceed her maturity level at any moment.

Now, as a mom, I’m queasy about Blume. I do wholeheartedly believe parents are ultimately responsible for their own kids’ cultural consumption—but I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea of there being a YA “Stamp of Approval.” Who gets to speak authoritatively about what it means to be a teenager? That’s maybe my first problem with YA: the books are setting the parameters for what it means to be an adolescent.

Lara: Go back to my idea that there’s good and bad in all kinds of book categories. Judy Blume was good, because she wrote realistically about adolescents, feelings of inadequacy, hormones, periods, wet dreams, etc., and they made you feel like what you were experiencing was normal. And then there was bad, smutty stuff. I have never told my mom, but she bought me a book for Christmas one year when I was fourteen or fifteen called Beginner’s Love it was about first love lust and it was pretty sleazy. I learned what a blow job was from that book. She would have been mortified if she knew. Mom, don’t be mortified. I didn’t become a blow-jobbing hussy after reading it.

My point is, as a parent, yes, we can influence our children’s literary consumption.  You have the ability to steer them in the direction of good YA that helps them identify with others like them or encourages their imagination and creative thinking or exposes them to people not like them. Think about John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars about two smart (precocious, even) teens with cancer who fall in love. When I was a teenager I didn’t know anyone who had cancer, let alone kids my age. Now, it’s an unfortunate reality. What a great thing to have a witty, well-written book that a teenager can read and connect with.

I guess what I am saying is get them reading the stuff you know is good. They will develop a strong reading compass and know the difference. Just like I knew that the BJ in the shower book was not good literature.

Jennifer: You just broke your mom’s heart. And I love how you mention “in the shower” in the latter reference, but not the former. (I will not allow you to edit that out!) Obviously, that made an impression on you.

And you reminded me of something. Wet dreams. I learned about those from Judy too.

Dear Reader: We’re aiming for candor here, so know that our intentions are noble.

Back to YA. Sure, you’re right. There’s good; there’s bad. Parents need to be parents, plain and simple. But consider this: you and I had good moms, and we still were exposed to bad stuff. I’ll be honest with you: I’m not fully monitoring my kids’ Magic Tree House reading habits. I’m not reading everything with them, or everything they do. I simply can’t. I rely a lot on other moms I trust. I’m into their school. I’m moderately knowledgeable about children’s lit. But still . . . .

What if, like many a mom, I relied on cultural definitions for age-appropriate content?

Take, for example, your beloved The Fault in Our Stars, about—pardon the flippancy—cancer-kids in love. Teenagers are in a unique, delicate spot. And, at least, YA folks recognize this. Teenagers are not adults; they’re just not. But they’re not children either. I remember my own teenybopper-hood, and there’s this part of me—a big part of me—that just wants to get through this stage, not revel in it, like these books do.

I was a good teenager. I didn’t do drugs. I didn’t sleep around. I wasn’t mean. I did well in school. I did listen to rock n’ roll. I did have mystifying long-term relationships with ghosts, otherwise known as rock singers or boy bands or Magnum P.I. And, most treacherous of all, I was enamored by the notion of romantic love (see my letter to my teen self, which spells out the absurdity of it all.) I’m still, if you really want to know, picking up the pieces of an immature heart at work in the wilds of romantic love. While body parts and sex positions were pretty much not a part of my mental landscape, hormones mixed with crazy notions of soul-mates, making love, and bowing down before the god of Losing Your Virginity were very much present. Virginity and the First Time? Wow.

Now, I have kids. And they’re girls. I quake in downright fear when I think of them going through the idealization and romanticism that nearly crushed me—and ruins many marriages, too. How can I spare them?

So when I read books like this, I want to, first, not revel in teenage shit and, second, stop Green from exercising his voice of authority. I believe, very much, in the power of Art—so I will absolutely not deny that Green and the other YA voices have authority. For me, it was rock n’ roll. I’m serious.

Green, in seemingly innocuous and gifted prose, provides a lesson on dying and the meaning of life. The two kids also have sex in here—and it’s not at all graphic or base, but it’s incidental. It’s barely mentioned. It’s a side-note, really. Life lessons, really, for the fragile.

Lara:  OMG. You covered way too much in that last turn. LOL. How can I respond to it all? Okay, I will quit talking like a teenybopper.

Jennifer: Yeah, please do. That LOL Business is like calling on Satan or something.

Lara: First, the BJ references were absolutely intentional. I will not remove them in the final edit.

Second, we did have great mothers (I am blessed with a great stepmother, too). I was also a good kid. Probably a goody-goody even.

Jennifer: Yeah, dork-fest in my house.

Lara: There, seventh grade bullies P and C, I admit it. I was a goody-goody. These two girls cornered me after P.E. one day and here’s what went down:

The Bitches: “So, are you a goody-goody?”

Me: “No! Of course not.”

The Bitches: “Oh, so you’re a slut?”

Me: “Uh, no. I am not a slut.”

The Bitches: “Well, then you’re a goody-goody.”

Me: “Why are there only two choices?”

Jennifer:  See, the goody-goody in you had to question their poor reasoning. As if there are only two choices.

Lara: And, of course I didn’t swear back then either, so I didn’t even refer to them as bitches. But that’s what they were. My biggest offense was my smart mouth and dragging my heels with chores. Like you, I came from a family of readers. Good readers who read good stuff. That makes a huge difference.

Coming from a family of readers meant my family was comfortable talking about things, even the uncomfortable things. In sixth grade, I had to address an envelope to myself from school for my mother and I to be invited to an evening showing of Menstruation and You, facilitated by a doctor my mother was sure she knew and who I begged and prayed in my brain that she not acknowledge during the meeting. Turned out he was the brother of the guy who delivered me. Kind of a neat, small world thing now, but potentially mortifying as a twelve-year old girl. And because I had already read Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret and my mom and I had already read, together, Where Did I Come From? and What’s Happening to Me? additional conversations about awkward topics weren’t as awkward.

Jennifer: Oh, Dear Lord, we had Where Did I Come From?! That book scarred me! Now it’s my turn to apologize to my mom. Sorry, mom, but the book you read to me called Where Did I Come From? scarred me. I can still see those sperm swimming, swimming, swimming for dear life. Oh, they were swimming! When the naked people were hugging.

Lara: Ha! I loved Where Did I Come From? I still have both books and plan to read them with my son at the right time. But I can’t read everything my son reads either—and let’s face it, I won’t—but we can still stay ahead of the curve with book reviews, personal recommendations, the help of great librarians, etc. And at the end of the day, I think a book can help open dialogue with a child in a much better way than them hearing about some of these topics through their peers. They are going to learn about life at some point, you know, and I think good books, with good conversation, are a good and safe way to do that.

This has gotten really heavy—and not all YA is about how we should feel and what happens when our bodies change, our hormones are raging, and there’s a cute boy in Trigonometry. There’s fantasy stuff–like Miss Peregrine’s and The Hunger Games, which are great escapism for teens and adults. I liked them both and I recall you did too.

Jennifer: So you’re sick of the Conservative Mom Bit? Is that what you’re saying? Well, I can’t do it. Yeah, there are good and bad books—no argument there. (For the record, I got bored with Peregrine, and, yes, say what you will, Hunger was awesomeness.) But YA is the section; it’s more than the books.

The YA distinction is fairly new. I’m sorta guessing dates. Maybe Harry Potter, which might be for “middle readers,” kicked it off in 1997. Twilight came out in 2005. Hunger Games came out in 2008. YA got monstrously popular surrounding the publication of these books, maybe.

But maybe the truth is that—contrary to what we keep hearing (more kids are reading due to the fact that they can’t put these books down)—kids read more and they read better stuff back in the day.

Having skipped YA, I moved early into adult stuff. Truly, if any one book shaped—or misshaped—my notions of love (I know: I can’t stay away from this topic), it might have been (I’m not joking) Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I read it when I was young, and I read it greedily. You might guess, if you know the book, I was utterly, impossibly, fucked in the head from a very young age. If anyone is looking for some of the roots of my choices, the scope of my doom, look there. I was slain when Brett asked, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

Lara: I haven’t read any Hemingway. Gasp! But I jumped to more adult books early on, too. Probably because of my good foundational start. I remember reading Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar my sixteenth summer. I think I also read Michener’s The Drifters. Both definitely covering more worldly topics and there my love affair with reading really took off.

Jennifer: Please go read Hemingway. So I moved from Choose Your Own Adventure to Huck Finn. Which would probably be considered YA today.

Lara: I haven’t read Huck Finn.

Jennifer: You’re killing me.

Lara: Or I don’t remember reading it. I think I would remember reading it. How did I get through Honors English classes without reading this stuff? I do remember things like Choose Your Own Adventure and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and The Island of the Blue Dolphins—all of which I have purchased for my son in anticipation of him reading them. Not yet, but he’s close.

Jennifer: Why do you think so many adults love YA?

Lara: I think YA books are really accessible. They cover a lot of universal experiences. I mean all adults have gone through puberty, have fallen in love, and have wanted to escape. I think YA allows adult readers to reflect on times that maybe we never thought we would survive but, of course, we did. Adolescence is a distinct period of time when everything is hyperbolically important, a time that no one—especially one’s parents—can understand. It’s a time of extreme egocentrism and yet it’s wholly terrifying for the majority of people, but we can’t really admit it until we have survived it.

I think my answer to your question may be as dramatic as we made all our adolescent issues back in the day. You can tell me to shut up.

Jennifer: No, I’m kinda with you. Okay, so I said I’d try to be systematic in my resistance to the YA phenomenon, and I’m rarely systematic about anything—except for how I make coffee. The YA books are setting the parameters for what it means to be an adolescent. This bugs me. Art is important. YA authors are culturally-transformative, authoritative, offering up life lessons, etceteras, etceteras. Kids are supposedly reading more—and somehow Harry Potter and text-messaging are supposedly responsible (I sound like an old lady!)—but they’re not reading better stuff at all. This bugs me.

Now, you bring up accessibility of universal truths. Good point. But I wonder, too, if we’re not talking accessibility but rather gross oversimplification. I have to admit that, after reading only a sampling of YA titles, I longed—truly, longed—for the messy, ugly complications of the adult world.

Why is that? I suppose I’ve got an answer that makes me look horrible. I think I feel alienated from the women who love YA in the same way I feel alienated from stay-at-home moms. I associated YA-lovin’ adult women with moms who have made their children’s lives their own in a comprehensive and exclusive way. I get kinda weird, wanting them to read books for “grown-ups.” I want to mess with their heads a little. It’s defensive, really. It’s just me getting defensive because I read big books with the f-word in it about horrible people doing horrible things. Those YA people just need to grow up! Mean, isn’t it?

Lara: You are oversimplifying, over-generalizing and over-everything this topic of YA. We read to learn something new, that we are not alone, or to be entertained. As much as we can learn from books, they will not and should not be the only things from which we (or our children) learn.

And I am going to just say it. Who gives a fuck what you read? Good for you that you read big books with big words. Who gives a shit about you watch? Good for you that it’s won an Emmy or an Oscar. Who cares that you listen to indie bands or eat at non-chain restaurants? The point is that this world is so big and the roundtable we sit at, this roundtable of life, is big enough for all of it. Every different single piece and part of it.

Jennifer: Did you just say “roundtable of life”? That’s it! I quit! No, I don’t quit; rather, you’re fired! So much for Snotty Literati!

Lara: I did! And I stand by it or sit by it, whichever is more appropriate. What is your take on the YA you have read? Let’s quickly rate the books we read for this Roundtable. That’s kind of one of the purposes of this column, you know.

Jennifer: Oh, okay. So, allow me to reiterate that I think this is a not-so-hot delineation of books. But I have nothing against the books the

mselves—unless I do.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: A+
He did not, incidentally, write this for a YA audience; rather, it was a marketing decision by booksellers. At first, I admit, I was put off by some of Zusak’s techniques—his captions, his sometimes ambiguously mysterious sentences, “Death” as narrator, etc. But when I stopped thinking of them as YA prompts or techniques, and just as Zusak’s techniques, I was fine with them. I didn’t like the feeling that, perhaps, these stylistic strokes were meant to pander to the reader, or help the reader grasp the complexities of the novel. But then I thought: this is just Zusak’s style! I’m happier thinking Zusak wrote the book he wanted to write, rather than thinking that Zusak wrote the book for young adults.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: C
See my review here: The Fault In Our Stars

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: B+
Read SL’s take on The Hunger Games.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. C
Well-written, but so-so. The premise is very interesting, but you lose me oftentimes with the supernatural.

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli: B
I liked this one a lot, but I didn’t burn through it or anything.

Lara: Maybe you just need to forget about the YA category and just read it and decide if you like it. I think you want to not like it because it’s classified. Am I onto something? Hold that thought. Here are my thoughts:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: A+
We agree! This book is amazing, really. I wasn’t turned onto the whole Death as Narrator either, but it worked. I am amazed by an author who told me everything that was going to happen in the first chapter; yet, when I read the book, I was still shocked, stunned, enamored and tearful. Yes, it made me cry.

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan: B
Boy-meets-girl through a series of secret notes and shared love of books and music all across winter break. Precocious, yes. Sweet, yes. Entertaining, yes.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: B
A goof book on young love in the midst of a cancer diagnosis. Total downer, right? Wrong. A little precocious at times… but it really is a gem amidst all the vampire teen fiction. Plus, John’s a total cutie and major book nerd. SWOON!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: B
I ate this shit up like a plate of greasy plate of French fries and then we talked about it in our review: The Hunger Games.

If Jack’s In Love by Stephen Wetta: A
A boy-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks-meets-girl story told against the backdrop of racism and classism in 1967’s West Virginia. A favorite of mine from 2012, here’s my review.

The Perks of Being Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky: B+
It’s a modern Catcher in the Rye, if you ask me, but I am sure Chbosky would hate that comparison, or maybe be slightly flattered. More modern, darker, but definitely sneaks and peeks of Holden Caulfield in there.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher: B ish
Asher tackles a tough subject matter with teen suicide, and the actions that led up to the devastating end. I am not giving anything away here, you know the end at the beginning and I think it’s an important and timely book.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead: A
This is more of a middle-grade book, a nice gateway to YA. I adored all of it. The premise is a twelve-year-old Miranda helping her mom prepare for a stint on the $25,000 Pyramid, who starts getting mysterious letters right about the time her best friend Sal begins to distance himself. It’s part mystery, part dramedy, and a must if you are a child of the seventies and eighties.

Jennifer: Before I go, check out this link from NPR, of the 100 Best-Ever Teen Novels. No, forget this stuff, get your teen, lock them in a room with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Catcher in the Rye.

Next time, it’s the original YA! A Tree Grows in Brooklyn!

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