Archive for February, 2010

NYC Teen Author Festival

Friday, February 26th, 2010

nycteenauthorfestival Get out your calendars, my friends, for the NYC Teen Author Festival is upon us. It starts Monday, March 15, and just about every author you can think of will be there.

Libba Bray, Natalie Standiford, Barnabas Miller and Dan Ehrenraft will serenade us as their band, Tiger Beat, performs on March 18.

There will be workshops, and signings, and lots of YA wackiness. David Levithan, author and editor extraordinaire, has outdone himself. I scanned the list of events and almost passed out from the unbelievable awesomeness.

Everyone will be there. In addition to David and the members of Tiger Beat, you can expect to see John Green, E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, Barry Lyga, Diana Peterfreund, Melissa Walker, Sarah Dessen … and many, many others. More than I can list.

Suffice it to say, this will be the best YA week of the year. So book your flights and your hotel rooms, and check out the NYC Teen Author Festival Facebook page for detailed info on the who, what, when and where.

Hope to see you there!

Much love,
brina

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Preview: Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto by Eric Luper

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

sethbaumgartner This book isn’t set to come out until June, but by then I will have forgotten how absolutely, completely wonderful it is. I have just finished reading my review copy, and I’ve decided I cannot wait a single minute to tell you all about Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto.

Eric Luper is like the Nick Hornby of teen authors, I’ve decided. Are you familiar with Nick Hornby? Because if you’re not, you should be. He wrote High Fidelity, which was made into a movie with John Cusack. The movie is okay, but the novel is a vivid peek inside the mind (and heart) of a man who is suffering from some serious post-breakup insanity.

Why, you ask, am I bringing up some lad lit author named Nick Hornby when I’m supposed to be telling you about a book by Eric Luper? Well, it’s because I consider High Fidelity to be the gold standard of books about guys who are unhappy in love. And Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto is, without a doubt, the gold standard of books about teen guys who are unhappy in love. (more…)

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Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

scarlettfever Today is Maureen Johnson’s birthday. Happy birthday, MoJo! Your most recent book lifted me right out of Brooklyn and plopped me down in Oz. Or, more accurately, into the fairy tale version of New York where Scarlett Martin and her wacky family live.

Here is what you folks who may be reading this here blog should know about Scarlett Fever: It is the second installment of a series of novels about a 15-year-old girl (named Scarlett, natch) whose family owns a rundown NYC hotel. In the first book (Suite Scarlett), our heroine got a job working for a crazy lady (crazy awesome, that is) named Amy Amberson. Mrs. Amberson is very wealthy, very eccentric, and — I almost hate to admit this — very cool. She’s also a former actress who has just started her own talent agency, and in this second novel she has Scarlett running around town trying to keep the talent happy. (more…)

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The Best Of, Part the Third

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

If it takes me until May of next year, I will compile the most complete list on the Internet of the best YA books of the 2000s, so help me God.

Anyway, my next pick for Best of the 2000s is obvious, so brace yourselves: It’s the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling.

Some of you are moaning. Others are cheering. Others are tired and want to take a nap.

I was one of those people who refused to read Harry Potter because it was popular. Indeed, up until about 2003 I had a pretty negative attitude towards teen fiction in general, in spite of the fact that I was already a Meg Cabot fan.

Then one day I realized that I should probably just get on with it. And I did. I gulped the first two books down in one sitting, and then went to the grocery store in the middle of the night to buy the next three. By the time I was done with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix a week later, I was well on my way to being Queen of Harry Potter Predictions. (more…)

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The Vinyl Princess by Yvonne Prinz

Monday, February 1st, 2010

vinylprincessMy first thought reading this awesome tome in August of last year: No one in the world could possibly have such an encyclopedic knowledge of music. No one, that is, except for the cofounder of Amoeba Music, Yvonne Prinz. If you’ve ever been to the Bay Area, and you care even a little bit about music, you’ve been to Amoeba.

It’s a freakin’ oasis. And a place not unlike Amoeba — on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley — is where we meet The Vinyl Princess. Her real name is Allie. Actually, her real name is Alberta. But that’s a long story.

Okay, so here’s the story: Allie loves vinyl. She loves records. She detests MP3s. And so, in the break between her junior and senior years of high school, she starts her very own blog, The Vinyl Princess.

The book itself is a love story, of sorts. There are guys in bands, hot guys who drop by the record store, guys Allie’s mom dates, guys Allies’ best friend dates … it’s just a big ol’ barrel of boys, this book.

Some of them, of course, are jerks. I’ll leave you to figure that part out on your own.

What’s really outstanding about Prinz’s novel, though, is the music. You need to be a music lover to enjoy The Vinyl Princess, but don’t even try to be as knowledgeable as our heroine. She knows it all, and Prinz’s entire book could serve as a sort of top 10,000 list.

I’ve been meaning to post this review for ages, ever since I had the honor of meeting Yvonne in August. I also have a (partial) interview with her that I intend to post ASAP (i.e. before the world ends). For now, please go read and enjoy Yvonne’s latest, and I’ll be back with more … eventually.

Much love,
brina

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