YA New York

The second book in Alma Alexander’s Worldweavers trilogy is a whole bunch of things: funny, witty, mysterious, other-worldly, strange, and most importantly, awesome.

Alas, Alma did not get particularly lucky when it came to the cover design, but don’t let that turn you off. I mean, it almost turned me off. Because I got her books and was like, “OMG. This must be some seriously goofy genre sci fi/fantasy nonsense.”

But then I read the first book in this trilogy, Gift of the Unmage, and was drawn in by Alma’s tale of Galathea (Thea) Winthrop, a teenager who lives in a world where it seems everyone has magic powers — except for her. Thea is under a lot of pressure, too, because she is the seventh child of two seventh children. This apparently means she’s supposed to be super-powerful, but when we meet her at the beginning of book one, it seems she hasn’t got an iota of magical talent.

First things first: You can not read Spellspam until you’ve read Gift of the Unmage, which is a good book, a fast read, and also very reminiscent of some of Madeleine L’Engle’s lesser known books. (Specifically, it’s kind of like a few of the companion books to A Wrinkle in Time, but I won’t say which ones because I don’t want to spoil anything for you. And because I can never keep those books straight. A Wind in the Planet? A Swiftly Tilting Door?)

Now, as for Spellspam, it’s just unique. Concept: Magical spam. Not the canned meat product, but the unwanted e-mail. You read the e-mail, and next thing you know you’re under a spell. Some of the spells are hilarious, some are horrid, but the whole book is yummy.

I can’t say anything more! I just can’t, or I’ll wind up giving away details of the first book, of which you may not be aware. Indeed, I don’t want to talk about this trilogy at all. I just want you to read it. And then maybe we can talk.

With that, my friends, I must announce that I am taking a one-week vacation and will not be updating YA New York until next Friday. So sorry to tell you at the last minute, but other duties call, and even bloggers must take summer vacations, you know.

So please. Take the next week to read some of the many books recommended here, and I’ll see you soon, yeah?

Much love,
brina

Edit: I’m having so much fun on my blog-cation — having now read every single book in the house, I swear — that I’m extending it until Monday, when I will proudly present an interview with Kimberly Pauley, founder of YA Books Central and author of the soon-to-be-released Sucks to Be Me. I’ll tell you more on Monday. For now, enjoy the weekend, dear readers!

Happy release day! Lauren Mechling’s new book, Dream Girl, is out today, and so we continue with part deux of the Lauren extravaganza.

Before I post part two of my interview with Lauren, though, I have to tell you all about her wonderful book.

Our heroine, Claire Voyante (Get it? Claire? Voyante?), has been having weird visions for a good long time. But just after she turns fifteen, her fabulous grandmother gives her a cameo necklace that changes everything. She starts to have strange dreams in black and white, and she’s not quite sure what to do with them. Meanwhile, she’s started attending a dreary but renowned NYC public school, and she’s having trouble making friends until she meets heiress Becca Shuttleworth and gets embroiled in the Shuttleworth family secrets.

Dream Girl is like Nancy Drew — with which I was obsessed for a good three years, until I turned ten and was told by my school librarian that Nancy Drew was not good reading for a girl my age (!?!) — but better. Lauren, who co-wrote The Rise and Fall of a 10th Grade Social Climber and two other Social Climber books, really shows her chops here. She’s witty, sarcastic in a good way, and her teen heroine couldn’t be more lovable. Besides which, YA has for some reason been suffering from a dearth of mystery books lately, so it’s great that Lauren has come along to fill that void.

Lauren expressed some concerns in part one of our interview about whether readers would be turned off by the lack of “sexytime antics.” Au contraire! There may not be any actual full-frontal, rated R, S-E-X, but there is plenty of sexual tension. And I for one am very, very psyched to see what happens in Claire’s love life in future books.

I’m a hundred percent serious when I say I’ve been waiting for months to review this book and give it all the gold stars I have. (Twenty-seven, to be precise.) Dream Girl is not to be missed. I read the book again for the third time last night, and it’s every bit as good as I remembered it.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled interview. (more…)

Mondays are for guest blogs, right? Well, not this Monday. Today and tomorrow are all about Lauren Mechling, whose new book Dream Girl debuts tomorrow.

Let me just tell you that I’ve been having little weird Freudian time-switcharoos about this book. First I thought it was coming out on June 22, but the publicist let me know that it was July 22. Repeatedly. THEN I thought it was coming out July 11, for some bizarre reason. It was only after a lot of head-poking that I forced myself to remember Dream Girl’s real publication date. Which is tomorrow!

In honor of this great event, I’ll be doing a two-part Twenty Questions with Lauren, rules suspended, and a review tomorrow on the release date. The twenty questions, they start now. (more…)

Today’s New York Times boasts an article by Margo Rabb about being published as a YA author … accidentally. Rabb, author of Cures for Heartbreak, writes, “When my agent called to tell me that my novel, Cures for Heartbreak, had sold to a publisher, she said, ‘I have good news and bad news.’ The good news: an editor at Random House had read it overnight and made an offer at 7:30 a.m. The bad news: the editor worked at Random House Children’s Books.”

Rabb goes on to say that she was shocked, at least at first, that her “literary novel about death and grief,” which she’d worked on for eight years, was YA.

I’m sorry, and I know this is going to sound snarky, but, just a few things:

1. Oh noes! You’re a YA writer! Wherever did you go wrong?
2. Now that the NYT has caught on to this whole “YA Ghetto” thing, maybe we can forget it permanently, right? I mean, I know this wasn’t published in the Style section, but can we treat it that way?
3. No, seriously, though. Margo Rabb is getting some crap for what she’s got to say, but let’s try to be fair. (More inside, including a comment from Margo herself!) (more…)

Today I am extremely pleased to present an interview with Suzanne Supplee, author of Artichoke’s Heart, recently reviewed here. She is also the author of When Irish Guys are Smiling, and she’s currently working on her next YA novel. Suzanne and I talked on the phone, since she lives in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland, though of course I’m hoping to meet up with her in person one day when she comes to New York, YA Mecca of the world that it is. Without further ado, the interview is right after the jump. (more…)

All right. I’m doing things all out of order, but I just finished reading Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr, which came on the tail of Wicked Lovely (I was a MM virgin, it’s true). And only a week or so ago, I read Ironside by Holly Black, and I need to talk to you.

I need to talk to you about faeries. I need to talk to you about my serious lack of education in the land of faery. Because see, Holly and Melissa use all the same lingo. Let’s start with something really simple, which is a thing called “glamour.” Note that it is spelled with a u, as if the word is inherently British or Canadian. Note that both Melissa and Holly are American.

Glamour: n., a kind of false skin that makes faeries visible to mortals, and makes them look mortal, and can even protect them from things they are allergic to, like iron.

Yes, apparently it is also a fact in the faery universe, a commonly known fact, that all faeries are allergic to iron.

But I didn’t know any of these things until I read the first of Holly’s modern faery tales, Tithe. I didn’t know any of them at all! Like, did you know what the effects of a four-leafed clover are on a faery? Yeah, neither did I. (more…)

Dearest darling friends,

This ear infection of mine (I haven’t had one since I was sixteen, by the way) has dragged me down way more than I hoped it would. Which means I’ve read a lot of books, done some kind of shoddy reviews lately, and not posted a billion things I want and need to. Here’s a glimpse at what you’ve got in store:

• An interview with Suzanne Supplee, which I have not yet had the time or energy to edit
• A review of the Worldweaver trilogy by Alma Alexander
• An interview with the uber-fabulous Lauren Mechling, which I will be posting just before her new book, Dream Girl comes out on July 22
• A review of The Opposite of Music by Janet Ruth Young
• Some discussion of the similar universes of Melissa Marr and Holly Black — Faeries in contemporary American teen lit, or something along those lines
• Actually, there’s way more than that coming at you, and I can’t even remember what else I’ve got on the back burner. There are all these books I’ve read and meant to review, but things have gotten lost in the construction dust. (Have I mentioned that I hate contractors and hope I never, ever have to deal with them in my apartment again?) But please be patient. I can’t really hear you very well right now. I mean, I can if I listen with my right ear and you speak reasonably loudly. But my left? No dice.

For now, I suggest you satisfy yourself by reading what Libba Bray and Justine Larbalestier are saying about writing a book and how it is a soul-sucking, terrible process that no one should ever suffer. Well, Justine says it’s demonic, and Libba compares it to a nasty love affair. As for me, with my current book, I think I’m still in the throes of passion. Don’t worry; it’ll fade, I’m sure. And then I’ll get back to that place: “Me? Write a book??? HAH! Hah! As if. It could never, ever happen.” But Libba and Justine have both proven it’s possible, even when you reach that place. Anyway, their blogs are very funny and entertaining, so go read them.

Smoooch!
brina

Okay, this book only arrived in the mail yesterday. I, having an ear infection and being good for absolutely nothing but reading in bed, gobbled it down like it was manna from heaven.

Short synopsis: Chloe, fifteen, gets locked up in a group home for teens when she suddenly starts to see ghosts. The cast of characters at Lyle House, where she ends up, is as strange as she is. No, stranger. They may all have diagnoses — schizophrenia, in Chloe’s case — but they’ve got something else, too. Superpowers? Something like that.

It’s a book about a girl who sees ghosts, so it’s a little creepy. And it gets creepier as time passes. Best of all, it’s told from the perspective of a girl who is obsessed with film and wants to be a director one day. So we get all sorts of, “If this were a movie, X would happen” moments. You’ve got to love that whole told-like-a-movie thing Kelley’s got going on here.

Honestly? Kelley Armstrong totally saved my day yesterday. She made it not worthless. And she made me desperate for the sequel, The Awakening, which is slated for May 2009. Wait. May 2009? You mean I have to wait almost a year to find out what happens next???

Well, I’m not happy, but I suppose I have to admit it’s worth the wait. Anyway, get started, so you can be as totally keyed up in anticipation as I am.

Buy The Summoning from Amazon.com.

Lizabeth Zindel’s second book is every bit as good as her first. It’s like Mean Girls on the printed page, only not quite as obvious in its “… and the moral of the story is!”

Also, we can all take a sigh of relief upon noting that there is no Lindsay Lohan in this book. But of course, we can also sob uncontrollably upon realizing that Tina Fey doesn’t make an appearance, either.

Okay, down to the meat of it: The story goes something like this. Our heroine, Maggie, moves from Jersey to NYC when her parents split. It’s not exactly a happy parting for anyone, either; Maggie’s dad is barely speaking to her when the story opens. But then she starts school at Berkeley Prep, where everyone is super-rich and super-chic. She starts out as a loner (of course), but is soon adopted by the most popular of popular gals (of course).

Everything is going swimmingly until … well. Things start to get messy — really messy. I’ll give you three guesses as to how.

It’s a good read, and it reminds me not only of Mean Girls, but also of a slightly preppier version of The Rise and Fall of a 10th Grade Social Climber by Lauren Mechling and Laura Moser. Since I absolutely adore both Mean Girls and Social Climber, I can’t help but give this tome the thumbs up.

Buy The Secret Rites of Social Butterflies from Amazon.com.

This week’s guest blogger is the fantabulous Melissa Walker, author of Violet on the Runway, Violet By Design, and Violet in Private coming August 5. When I asked Melissa if she’d do a guest blog for YA New York, she totally one-upped me and offered to do a v-log. AND she said it’s the first one she’s ever done. So we are super-lucky today, don’t you agree?

Without further ado, here is Melissa’s v-log:

All material in the embedded v-log is © Melissa Walker 2008 and may not be republished in any form without her permission.